twodot posted:

This is my point. Building elaborate motives for Ted Cruz where he perceived that Authoritarians exist and that he could trigger an RNCE and come out on top is way over complicated.

twodot posted:

Intentionally triggering an RNCE when you can just wait a news cycle and publicly fight meaningless fights without rapid changes in hierarchy seems like really bad strategy.

Politico posted:

Ted Cruz faced a barrage of hostile questions Wednesday from angry GOP senators, who lashed the Texas tea party freshman for helping prompt a government shutdown crisis without a strategy to end it.
At a closed-door lunch meeting in the Senate’s Mansfield Room, Republican after Republican pressed Cruz to explain how he would propose to end the bitter budget impasse with Democrats, according to senators who attended the meeting. A defensive Cruz had no clear plan to force an end to the shutdown — or explain how he would defund Obamacare, as he has demanded all along, sources said.

...

“It was very evident to everyone in the room that Cruz doesn’t have a strategy – he never had a strategy, and could never answer a question about what the end-game was,” said one senator who attended the meeting. “I just wish the 35 House members that have bought the snake oil that was sold could witness what was witnessed today at lunch.”

...

Over the August recess, Cruz made the rounds with conservative media and held rallies to call on his GOP colleagues to oppose any bill to keep the government running that would also continue funding Obamacare. As he won support on the right and among several dozen House conservatives, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) agreed to include the Obamacare defunding provision in a bill to keep the government running past Tuesday.

...

“He kept trying to change the subject because he never could answer the question,” the senator said. “It’s pretty evident it’s never been about a strategy – it’s been about him. That’s unfortunate. I think he’s done our country a major disservice. I think he’s done Republicans a major disservice.”
In the run-up to the Tuesday deadline to fund the government, Cruz continued to press the anti-Obamcare fight, lobbying House conservatives to stiffen Boehner’s spine despite the prospects of a government shutdown. The speaker responded with bill after bill taking aim at pieces of the health care law. But Senate Democrats rejected each one up until the final hours of Monday night, prompting the first government shutdown since 1996.

Many Senate Republicans publicly and privately scoffed at the Cruz tactics, arguing that he was making a false and politically damaging promise that he could use the funding bill to gut Obamacare — since the law moved forward anyway on Tuesday despite the government shutdown. They argued President Barack Obama would never agree to gut his signature law. And they took great exception by Cruz and his allies in outside groups like the Senate Conservatives Fund to portray them as weak on Obamcare even though the party has furiously battled the law since the beginning of the president’s term in office.
“The entire effort has been totally disingenuous,” the senator said.
A spokesman for SCF rejected the criticism.
“If these senators had pledged to oppose funding for Obamacare, we wouldn’t have had to run ads against them,” said Executive Director Matt Hoskins. “They only have themselves to blame.”

twodot posted:

In what sense is this true? Do you think that Ted Cruz needs to trigger RNCEs or his base would turn on him? Also if Authoritarians are his base, then it seems like their influence is not disproportionate.

Mukip posted:

This was a very interesting read. The discussion of inner and grand narratives reminded me of a BBC article I read about Russian nationalists recently (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30518054), where I was surprised at the really out-there goals that the Russian fighters had in mind (more clearly described in this article: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/us-against-them-russias-frightening-new-cult/517830.html). That last article suggests that the Russian state has concocted a cult ideology, but PJ's description of the psychology of Authoritarians who seem to need this sort of "grand narrative" and construct it themslelves might be a better or complimentary explanation. I wonder who's really behind the steering wheel of Russian nationalism, since you have Putin saying that Crimea was a "holy war" which sounded really odd at the time, but makes much more sense if he's appealing to the grand narrative of Russian nationalists.

Prester John posted:

Ted Cruz never cared about the outcome of the battle, he was just raising his on visibility/authoritarian Street Cred. He never had a plan to win, that was not what this was about.

quote:

He was hailed as a literal hero by the Authoritarian right for his actions.

Cerebral Bore posted:

I think that Ted Cruz has to act like a reactionary shitlord (which includes grandstanding and whipping his base into a frenzy of hate and fear) or he would immediately be labeled a RINO and a sellout by his supporters and almost certainly lose his seat next time he's up for a primary. This holds whether he is an Authoritarian or a self-interested rear end in a top hat.

quote:

As for your second claim, you're deliberately misunderstanding things here. Ted Cruz and his ilk have a disproportionate influence because they're not willing to compromise and would rather sink the ship instead. This means that the so-called moderates of the GOP have to give them concessions, because they sure as hell are self-interested assholes and want to stay in power at all costs. Throwing assholes like Cruz a bone is the price they have to pay for keeping the GOP together.

quote:

The Republican Party right now most closely resembles a Weatherman gathering from about 1969, with various factions debating the feasibility of immediate communist revolution versus building a working-class movement as a prelude to smashing the state. As such, distinguishing the various gradients of ideological fanaticism has become an increasingly abstruse task.

The agenda has largely been driven by the “Defund Obamacare” faction, led by Ted Cruz, which proposes to shut down the federal government until such time as President Obama agrees to abolish his health-care plan, which would of course be never. That faction has failed in the Senate, which voted today to keep the government open without demanding the defunding of Obamacare. (Twenty-three Republican senators joined all of the Democrats.)

The question becomes, what will the House do? The House Republican leadership, which is more pragmatic, has tried to dissuade its members from shutting down the government by promising instead to wage a struggle to the death over the debt ceiling. As is sometimes the case in factional battles among extremist sects, the “moderate” faction has wound up endorsing the more radical position. In this case, a debt-ceiling fight could potentially wreak massive worldwide economic havoc, as opposed to the containable disruption of a government shutdown. The leadership dutifully proposed a plan that would tie a debt-ceiling hike in return for President Obama killing his health-care bill and implementing the entire GOP economic agenda.

But a cadre of radical House Republicans voted that plan down. Robert Costa reports that they were inspired to do so by none other than Cruz himself:

According to one House member, the bicameral bloc talked deep into the night about the CR and how to pressure Boehner. At the top of the agenda: making a one-year delay of Obamacare a requirement for government funding, and to accept nothing less, should the defunding effort continue to unravel. There is fear the Boehner is resistant to making that demand as part of a CR, and conservatives discussed ways to force his hand.
Now, the Cruz House bloc can’t exactly force Boehner’s hand here. They can simply force him to pass a bill to keep the government open with Democratic votes. That, of course, would be another win for Cruz — conservatives would be furious at Boehner’s betrayal and looking to potentially depose him:

Either way, Boehner's fate will rest in the hands of a freshman senator from Texas. He must love that.

Keep in mind that all of this would happen before the House has to vote to lift the debt ceiling. President Obama again reiterated his determination not to negotiate over the debt limit, and if he holds to that, Boehner will be forced either to trigger a global economic meltdown or to marginalize his Cruz wing yet again. So, two dramas will concurrently unfold while Boehner is struggling to maintain some semblance of control in the House and fighting to stave off the Cruz wing from mounting an outright coup.

twodot posted:

This is my point. Building elaborate motives for Ted Cruz where he perceived that Authoritarians exist and that he could trigger an RNCE and come out on top is way over complicated.

twodot posted:

I agree that he wasn't trying to win, but why would he think he would be one of the factions that comes out on top. Your explanation of an RNCE explicitly include multiple stages where Street Cred is shuffled apparently at random. If I thought Authoritarians were worth courting, I can think of much less dangerous ways to do it.

AVeryLargeRadish posted:

All Ted Cruz had to do was perceive that the faction of his base that he is trying to appeal to was spoiling for a fight, any fight at all, and try to push things in that direction and get lucky. Anyone who read the freep thread back then could have told you that the extremest arm of the republican party was spoiling for a fight and that they would not really care all that much if they lost. Seeing that is not some amazing feat, it's pretty drat easy.

Prester John posted:

There are a few others I would like to add to the list but I am finding it hard to explain them just yet, but I think this might help narrow things down a bit. Tell me what you guys think.

twodot posted:

Correct, Ted Cruz does not have to perceive that Authoritarians exist and that RNCE is a thing, and that Authoritarians will be motivated by creating an RNCE. There is a much simpler and better explanation for his actions than that. I would wager it appealed to much greater than the <10% of population Authoritarians supposedly are.

twodot posted:

Ok, Ted Cruz has disproportionate control of the GOP, that's tenable, but unless we establish Ted Cruz is an Authoritarian this seems to create problems with the "Authoritarians have disproportionate control" thing.

Cerebral Bore posted:

Not really, since Ted Cruz is in turn controlled by his base. As you agreed to, he has to act the way he does.

This means that if his base is made up of Authoritarians and they in turn send people like Cruz to Congress and people like Cruz drag the moderates towards the positions that they have to champion, the Authoritarians do wield disproportionate power. This actually holds up really well if we accept the premises of PJ:s argument.

Prester John posted:

I am arguing here that Ted Cruz understands how to manipulate Authoritarians and is relying on them for his own political ambitions. He has never cared what anyone but the Authoritarians thought because he knows how to whip them into a frothing rage that will drag the rest of the GOP along, and the 2013 shutdown is clear evidence of this.

twodot posted:

To get to here, we need to decide that his base is made up of Authoritarians, when we've explicitly said that Authoritarians are uncommon. This rhetoric is making it really obvious that "Authoritarian" is a stand in for "Republican".

Cerebral Bore posted:

Now you're arguing a different point altogether. We were discussing whether the behaviour of Cruz is consistent with PJ:s theory or not. Whether Cruz's base is properly categorized as Authoritarians or not is a different question altogether.

Also everybody here has been saying that Cruz et al have been dragging the more moderate Republicans towards their positions, which is kinda impossible to do if the terms "Authoritarian" and "Republican" are interchangeable. So if you would stop making dumb poo poo up it'd be nice.

Prester John posted:

"Vote for me and I will give you the chance to hurt those people you hate".

twodot posted:

Fair point, I guess it's more of a stand in for "Worse Than Average Republican".

Ton Perkins posted:

I think. . . your point about Christians rising up, I think we are getting close to that in this country as we see increasingly this growing hostility at the hands of our own government toward Christianity and I think especially if the court imposes upon the nation a redefinition of marriage.

I don’t think the nation is going to accept it, I absolutely don’t, and the conflict that is going to come as a result of it.

reignonyourparade posted:

While I agree with a lot of posters that I think you're formulating something useful here, I also think you're slipping back into some of the very behavior you're describing and if you're currently seeing a psychologist/psychiatrist/therapist you might want to consider showing them this thread.

reignonyourparade posted:

While I agree with a lot of posters that I think you're formulating something useful here, I also think you're slipping back into some of the very behavior you're describing and if you're currently seeing a psychologist/psychiatrist/therapist you might want to consider showing them this thread.

quote:

"Sin is so appealing because it's easy and because it's fun," the law student warned.

Regent University School of Law, founded by televangelist Pat Robertson to provide "Christian leadership to change the world," has worked hard in its two-decade history to upgrade its reputation, fighting past years when a majority of its graduates couldn't pass the bar exam and leading up to recent victories over Ivy League teams in national law student competitions.

But even in its darker days, Regent has had no better friend than the Bush administration. Graduates of the law school have been among the most influential of the more than 150 Regent University alumni hired to federal government positions since President Bush took office in 2001, according to a university website.

One of those graduates is Monica Goodling , the former top aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales who is at the center of the storm over the firing of US attorneys. Goodling, who resigned on Friday, has become the face of Regent overnight -- and drawn a harsh spotlight to the administration's hiring of officials educated at smaller, conservative schools with sometimes marginal academic reputations.

...

And across the political blogosphere, critics have held up Goodling, who declined to be interviewed, as a prime example of the Bush administration subordinating ability to politics in hiring decisions.

"It used to be that high-level DOJ jobs were generally reserved for the best of the legal profession," wrote a contributor to The New Republic website . ". . . That a recent graduate of one of the very worst (and sketchiest) law schools with virtually no relevant experience could ascend to this position is a sure sign that there is something seriously wrong at the DOJ."

The Regent law school was founded in 1986, when Oral Roberts University shut down its ailing law school and sent its library to Robertson's Bible-based college in Virginia. It was initially called "CBN University School of Law" after the televangelist's Christian Broadcasting Network, whose studios share the campus and which provided much of the funding for the law school. (The Coors Foundation is also a donor to the university.) The American Bar Association accredited Regent 's law school in 1996.

Not long ago, it was rare for Regent graduates to join the federal government. But in 2001, the Bush administration picked the dean of Regent's government school, Kay Coles James , to be the director of the Office of Personnel Management -- essentially the head of human resources for the executive branch. The doors of opportunity for government jobs were thrown open to Regent alumni.

Prester John posted:

Edit: I have the first 4 posts of this thread now converted over to my blog, which you can check out here. Thank you all for your interest in this topic and the desire to spread my ideas around, you all know how to flatter a girl.

Series DD Funding posted:

I watched Century of the Self and couldn't take it seriously. He talked about psychoanalysis as if there was any science behind it at all.

twodot posted:

quote:

NEW BEGINNINGS IS EMBLEMATIC of an unknown number of "troubled teen" homes catering to the Independent Fundamental Baptist community—a web of thousands of autonomous churches linked by doctrine, overlapping leadership, and affiliations with Bible colleges like Bob Jones University. IFB churches emphasize strict obedience and consider teen rebellion an invention of worldly society, so it's little surprise that families faced with teenage drinking, smoking, or truancy might turn to programs promising a tough-love fix. Fear of government intrusion—particularly on account of the community's "spare the rod, spoil the child" worldview—is so pervasive that IFB congregations are primed to dismiss regulatory actions against abusive facilities as religious persecution.

TKTKTK
The entrance to New Bethany's Louisiana compound. [MORE: See photos of life at New Bethany.]
New Beginnings and numerous other Christian reform schools trace their lineages to Texas radio evangelist Lester Roloff, who founded the Rebekah Home for Girls in Corpus Christi back in 1967, employing disciplinary tactics that were adopted by dozens of imitators. He also pioneered girls' singing groups as a way to promote Rebekah Home—the "Honeybee Quartet" was featured in his daily revivalist radio broadcasts. But back at the hive, Roloff's wards were often subjected to days in locked isolation rooms where his sermons played in an endless loop. They also endured exhaustive corporal punishment. "Better a pink bottom than a black soul," Roloff famously declared at a 1973 court hearing after he was prosecuted by the state of Texas on behalf of 16 Rebekah girls. (The attorney general responded that he was more concerned with bottoms "that were blue, black, and bloody.") Later that year, a former student testified that a whipping at Rebekah Home left inch-high welts on her body.

quote:

AT THE HEART OF LESTER ROLOFF’S BATTLE with the state of texas were his homes for troubled teenagers: reformatories where “parent-hating, Satan-worshiping, dope-taking immoral boys and girls,” as Roloff described his charges, were turned into “faithful servants of the Lord.” Roloff’s method of Bible discipline, which he said was rooted in Scripture, meant kneeling for hours on hardwood floors, licks meted out with a pine paddle or a leather strap, and the dreaded “lockup,” an isolation room where Roloff’s sermons were played for days on end. The state spent much of the seventies and early eighties fighting Roloff in court, insisting that he obtain a license for his youth homes and submit to state oversight. The preacher countered that he answered to a higher power and that his homes were licensed by God. Not until 1985 did the state prevail, forcing the Rebekah Home to shut its doors. At the time, no one anticipated that the political capital of faith-based social programs would rise dramatically in the next decade, or that Roloff’s beliefs, which were far afield of the religious mainstream, would gain a new foothold. But in 1997 then-governor George W. Bush put forth a legislative package that included precisely what Roloff had long fought for: allowing church-run child-care institutions to opt out of state licensing. By 1999 the Rebekah Home was back in business—and the stories of DeAnne Dawsey’s troubled adolescence, Lester Roloff’s crusade, and George W. Bush’s political career would converge.

crazypenguin posted:

Finally, so far what I've described as my interpretation is quite consistent with tumblr-idiots (I refuse to use the S-acronym.) But... one distinguishing characteristic I can think of between these two groups (tumblrites and right-wing reactionary types) is how they react to authority figures. Tumblr is quick to demonize Anita Sarkeesian because she used the word prostitute once and therefore hates sex workers UGH. Right-wingers will tell you it's a historical FACT that SAINT REAGAN never raised taxes, that's a dumbocrat lie!

Morroque posted:

If the kind of authoritarianism we are describing is fundamentally a personality complex, then it cannot actually apply to everyone within the current authoritarian system. So what happens to those God decrees to not have the particular gears in their brains?

A Beautiful Young Woman posted:

If you are reading this, it means that I have committed suicide and obviously failed to delete this post from my queue.

Please don’t be sad, it’s for the better. The life I would’ve lived isn’t worth living in … because I’m transgender. I could go into detail explaining why I feel that way, but this note is probably going to be lengthy enough as it is. To put it simply, I feel like a girl trapped in a boy’s body, and I’ve felt that way ever since I was 4. I never knew there was a word for that feeling, nor was it possible for a boy to become a girl, so I never told anyone and I just continued to do traditionally “boyish” things to try to fit in.

When I was 14, I learned what transgender meant and cried of happiness. After 10 years of confusion I finally understood who I was. I immediately told my mom, and she reacted extremely negatively, telling me that it was a phase, that I would never truly be a girl, that God doesn’t make mistakes, that I am wrong. If you are reading this, parents, please don’t tell this to your kids. Even if you are Christian or are against transgender people don’t ever say that to someone, especially your kid. That won’t do anything but make them hate them self. That’s exactly what it did to me.

My mom started taking me to a therapist, but would only take me to Christian therapists, (who were all very biased) so I never actually got the therapy I needed to cure me of my depression. I only got more Christians telling me that I was selfish and wrong and that I should look to God for help.

When I was 16 I realized that my parents would never come around, and that I would have to wait until I was 18 to start any sort of transitioning treatment, which absolutely broke my heart. The longer you wait, the harder it is to transition. I felt hopeless, that I was just going to look like a man in drag for the rest of my life. On my 16th birthday, when I didn’t receive consent from my parents to start transitioning, I cried myself to sleep.

I formed a sort of a “gently caress you” attitude towards my parents and came out as gay at school, thinking that maybe if I eased into coming out as trans it would be less of a shock. Although the reaction from my friends was positive, my parents were pissed. They felt like I was attacking their image, and that I was an embarrassment to them. They wanted me to be their perfect little straight Christian boy, and that’s obviously not what I wanted.

So they took me out of public school, took away my laptop and phone, and forbid me of getting on any sort of social media, completely isolating me from my friends. This was probably the part of my life when I was the most depressed, and I’m surprised I didn’t kill myself. I was completely alone for 5 months. No friends, no support, no love. Just my parent’s disappointment and the cruelty of loneliness.

At the end of the school year, my parents finally came around and gave me my phone and let me back on social media. I was excited, I finally had my friends back. They were extremely excited to see me and talk to me, but only at first. Eventually they realized they didn’t actually give a poo poo about me, and I felt even lonelier than I did before. The only friends I thought I had only liked me because they saw me five times a week.

After a summer of having almost no friends plus the weight of having to think about college, save money for moving out, keep my grades up, go to church each week and feel like poo poo because everyone there is against everything I live for, I have decided I’ve had enough. I’m never going to transition successfully, even when I move out. I’m never going to be happy with the way I look or sound. I’m never going to have enough friends to satisfy me. I’m never going to have enough love to satisfy me. I’m never going to find a man who loves me. I’m never going to be happy. Either I live the rest of my life as a lonely man who wishes he were a woman or I live my life as a lonelier woman who hates herself. There’s no winning. There’s no way out. I’m sad enough already, I don’t need my life to get any worse. People say “it gets better” but that isn’t true in my case. It gets worse. Each day I get worse.

That’s the gist of it, that’s why I feel like killing myself. Sorry if that’s not a good enough reason for you, it’s good enough for me. As for my will, I want 100% of the things that I legally own to be sold and the money (plus my money in the bank) to be given to trans civil rights movements and support groups, I don’t give a poo poo which one. The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren’t treated the way I was, they’re treated like humans, with valid feelings and human rights. Gender needs to be taught about in schools, the earlier the better. My death needs to mean something. My death needs to be counted in the number of transgender people who commit suicide this year. I want someone to look at that number and say “that’s hosed up” and fix it. Fix society. Please.

Goodbye,
(Leelah) Josh Alcorn

Effectronica posted:

Personally, just for saying "formal theory in the testing stage", I feel that you should be locked into a room with twodot and the two of you jaw each other to death.

Exclamation Marx posted:

Why the eff is so much of this thread arguing about the use of a single word and not engaging with the content?

Prester John posted:

The two primary attributes of an RNCE is 1.) Authoritarian groups that are nominally opposed or distrustful of each other agreeing on a plan of action for perceived mutual defense, and 2.) a clear way to have a dramatic showdown over the issue. In the case of Cliven Bundy there was a literal hill to die upon. In the case of the 2013 shutdown the hill was metaphorical, but there was a way to force a dramatic standoff, and they took it. With Gay Marraige Fundies would loving lvoe to have an RNCE over this, but there is no clear cut way to grind the SCOTUS to a halt short of blowing up the building, (and they are not that extreme at the moment) so there can be no RNCE.

Big Dramatic standoffs with clearly defined sides and a Good vs Evil Narrative are how Authoritarians want every fight. An RNCE occurs only when there is a way to get their big dramatic fight. Absent that, regular Narrative Convergence continues apace until a "hill to die upon" appears.

Exclamation Marx posted:

Why the eff is so much of this thread arguing about the use of a single word and not engaging with the content?

reignonyourparade posted:

While I agree with a lot of posters that I think you're formulating something useful here, I also think you're slipping back into some of the very behavior you're describing and if you're currently seeing a psychologist/psychiatrist/therapist you might want to consider showing them this thread.

ashgromnies posted:

I really think you should have attempted a definition of the term "authoritarian" in terms of philosophy of liberty and freedom before attempting to discuss why authoritarians think specific ways.

I'm confused when you suggest that anti-vaxxers and homeopaths are authoritarian, as, to my knowledge, they don't suggest that their ways should be the law of the land. In fact, their views seem to trend towards the more libertarian and the mainstream view (that not-vaccinating should be illegal for the sake of public health) trends towards the more authoritarian.

It seems like you latched onto the term "authoritarian" as a catch-all for "people whose politics I disagree with" rather than attempting to identify what an authoritarian is, specifically.

Nevvy Z posted:

Again and forever. "Authoritarian" as PJ is using it != authoritarian

ashgromnies posted:

Yeah, he never defined how he's using it.

Nevvy Z posted:

Read the loving thread. wow.

Edit- Oh, just a dumbass gbs troll.