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I was raised religious and taught the Gospels and all that, and the thing is that as a kid I really deeply believed it. When I was little we had a Vacation Bible School thing where they set up a "market" of activities in the fellowship hall for a week and gave us spraypainted pebbles to "spend" on the various activities. At one end of the hall was somebody who say at the floor, dressed in what was I'm sure the most accurate Biblical-era clothing $10 could provide, begging for alms. Apparently on the first day I gave the beggar all my spraypainted pebbles rather than doing activities, because Jesus pretty plainly says to give everything you have to the poor, and it had to be explained to me that we don't actually do that, much to my confusion. At the same time in school we were getting the story Americans like to tell ourselves about the nation, like equality and openness and justice. Anyway, as I got older I started spotting the inevitable split between what was preached and what was practiced in both religion and politics (they've all moved a bit left over the years but my family straight-up loved Reagan at the time), and I realized that there were a lot of contradictions between the values I'd had inculcated into me and the beliefs I was being asked to accept as following from and complementing those beliefs, and it's the values that survived.
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Feb 4, 2016 16:32
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They remind me of the John Boy and Billy Show that originates out of Charlotte NC.
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Feb 4, 2016 16:35
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What really got me away from the conservative movements was the war against intellectualism. It's cool to not read books, it's cool to not enjoy or appreciate art, it's cool to hate drugs that alter your consciousness, it's cool to hate professors, it's cool to love the military unquestionably, it's cool to be part of the group and you wouldn't want to not be cool!
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Feb 4, 2016 17:50
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Fried Watermelon posted:What really got me away from the conservative movements was the war against intellectualism. One of these things is not like the other.
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Feb 4, 2016 17:52
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Thump! posted:I trust you'll consider our Lord and Savior, Saint Bernard "loving" Sanders I certainly am, but only because Trotsky is too dead to win.
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Feb 4, 2016 17:54
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computer parts posted:One of these things is not like the other. I disagree.
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Feb 4, 2016 18:32
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UFOTofuTacoCat posted:They remind me of the John Boy and Billy Show that originates out of Charlotte NC. This show used to be my favorite when I was growing up until I realized how loving retarded they are when they bring politics into the show.
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Feb 4, 2016 18:43
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Bast Relief posted:I disagree. You're actually right. I was originally thinking drugs but half of that stuff is "tolerance" rather than "intellectualism" specifically.
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Feb 4, 2016 19:30
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Bush poisoned the conservative well for me after 9/11. (I was 14 at the time) In high school I listened to Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh on the radio, and found what they said to be nice and easy to digest without too much thought. But when 9/11 peaked my interest in why anyone would want to hurt the good ol' USA it opened the door to a lot of inconvenient truths. As it dawned on everyone that Cheney, Rumsfeld and all the other jackasses from the Reagan era were basically manipulating the country for war profiteering I swung hard left. Then the housing bubble burst and my father lost his job, so I began reading Taibbi books and saw the same profiteering at the expense of others in wall street. After that I went down to Zuccotti park during Occupy Wall Street and realized there were way more people feeling the same way.
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Feb 4, 2016 19:49
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Tatum Girlparts posted:Oh and they call themselves "The Gawds" and look like this what a couple of DILFs
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Feb 4, 2016 20:17
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Fried Watermelon posted:What really got me away from the conservative movements was the war against intellectualism. The worst part of that is "be as uneducated and ignorant as possible." The open hostility toward college education is just baffling.
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Feb 4, 2016 20:20
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Keeshhound posted:Also, studies show that the kids know that participation trophies don't mean poo poo. I imagine they're more to pacify the psycho parents actually. Not that it'll stop idiots from beating/shaming their kids for 'failing', but it's the easiest step to de-escalate the situation. Think about what is the bigger issue for tournament organizers: a few kids possibly having their feelings hurt, or over-competitive parents harassing everyone standing in the way of their precious little Johnny revealing his true greatness? Typical right-wing twisting a story to suit their narrative.
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Feb 4, 2016 20:55
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computer parts posted:You're actually right. I was originally thinking drugs but half of that stuff is "tolerance" rather than "intellectualism" specifically. DRUGS BAD without any consideration for medicinal implications or even use of drugs to explore alternative forms of consciousness is pretty anti intellectual, actually. I think drug use is both an indirect and direct route to questioning of authority as well, which authoritarianism is extremely anti intellectual. It'll never stop being funny how hard people fight for the right to own murder tools but when it comes to me wanting to put naturally occurring organisms into my body they are either meh about me possibly being punished by the state or extremely in favor of it. It's like they don't even have any concept of what freedom or liberty are. E: Like even researchers couldn't get hallucinogens reliably for decades which has only just loosened up somewhat and there are a lot of potential mental health applications being found like treating depression and PTSD and there's a compound in hallucinogenic mushrooms that is really effective for treating cluster headaches. We could have probably discovered these things decades ago if we didn't treat psychedelic drugs as some sort of unequivocally negative Pandora's box for so long and that is undeniably anti intellectual. mr. mephistopheles fucked around with this message at 21:08 on Feb 4, 2016 |
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Feb 4, 2016 20:56
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Moktaro posted:I imagine they're more to pacify the psycho parents actually. Not that it'll stop idiots from beating/shaming their kids for 'failing', but it's the easiest step to de-escalate the situation. Think about what is the bigger issue for tournament organizers: a few kids possibly having their feelings hurt, or over-competitive parents harassing everyone standing in the way of their precious little Johnny revealing his true greatness? Typical right-wing twisting a story to suit their narrative. A lot of it just plain comes from social pressure to be the best parent ever by creating the best child ever. That or people that have decided they deserve to raise the next Einstein or whatever. America has this weird idea that being just an average, normal working stiff of average ability and average intelligence that does an average job for an average paycheck is actually a very, very bad thing. It isn't OK if Junior grows up to do anything other than a high prestige, high pay job. Ignoring of course that we need things other than doctors to make society function. If the kid wants to pursue medicine fine then good for him but too many parents are forcing their children to pursue things they don't have interest in. I remember growing up being pushed into going for medicine or business or whatever; basically stuff that gave parents bragging rights. I was interested in artsy things and technology which was Not Acceptable. Granted the irony of that situation is that computer science is The Big Thing right now.
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Feb 4, 2016 21:01
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That happened to a friend of mine. He was pushed into engineering by his parents and had a meltdown halfway through his undergrad. He switched to a local community college and changed to an art degree and then mastered in dance. He seems a gently caress ton happier now.
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Feb 4, 2016 21:05
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Radish posted:That happened to a friend of mine. He was pushed into engineering by his parents and had a meltdown halfway through his undergrad. He switched to a local community college and changed to an art degree and then mastered in dance. He seems a gently caress ton happier now. I was and still pretty much am a complete failure to my parents since I didn't go to college. Of course I was apparently ADD the whole time, so that could have been nipped in the bud back in 3rd grade. Of course my worked for Best Buy for 10 years before finally moving out of my parents house at 30, he's the favorite one and can do no wrong because he went to college.
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Feb 4, 2016 21:10
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mr. mephistopheles posted:DRUGS BAD without any consideration for medicinal implications or even use of drugs to explore alternative forms of consciousness is pretty anti intellectual, actually. I think drug use is both an indirect and direct route to questioning of authority as well, which authoritarianism is extremely anti intellectual. To be fair, there's definitely a social cost to widespread drug usage. Addicts need treatment, and you ideally don't want people to spiral into debt due to addiction. Some drugs, like alcohol, also incur other costs like increased rates of vehicle accidents. It's a tricky subject that only gets trickier when you consider the ethics of selling drugs to an addict that will serve to destroy the addict's life, or the ethics of selling drugs that can actively harm people. I do agree that we need to do more research with drugs, but even that gets into ethical issues with human testing and trials.
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Feb 4, 2016 21:16
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Dirk the Average posted:To be fair, there's definitely a social cost to widespread drug usage. Addicts need treatment, and you ideally don't want people to spiral into debt due to addiction. Some drugs, like alcohol, also incur other costs like increased rates of vehicle accidents. The issue is that over 90% of drug users never become addicts. A huge majority of people that use drugs don't cause problems because of it and are functional people. A few of the nastier drugs are guaranteed to ruin you but most people that use drugs don't touch that stuff. The  REEFER MADNESS! DEVIL'S WEED! type propaganda makes it sound like if you so much as look at a drug your job vanishes, you wake up under a bridge the next day, and just chase drugs the rest of your short life. Which...is not how it works.It also turns out that addiction has a major lack of support or mental illness cause, which are things the right also doesn't want to address. This hypermasculine, rely on nobody, I am a total individual that needs nobody else nonsense is causing Americans to be lonely. Compound with the fact that the right, thanks to being beholden to corporate interests and Protestant work ethic, considers work and money the singular most important thing in life. Friends are useless; do whatever pays the most and work 70 hours a week or you suck. Loneliness causes mental illness and addiction. Plus people with mental illnesses tend to turn to drugs and addictions to cope; treat mental illness better, increase funding for mental illness support, and you directly reduce drug abuse. The issue is that the right wants to treat the symptom rather than the disease but with an axe rather than medicine.
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Feb 4, 2016 21:23
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Pope Guilty posted:I was raised religious and taught the Gospels and all that, and the thing is that as a kid I really deeply believed it. When I was little we had a Vacation Bible School thing where they set up a "market" of activities in the fellowship hall for a week and gave us spraypainted pebbles to "spend" on the various activities. At one end of the hall was somebody who say at the floor, dressed in what was I'm sure the most accurate Biblical-era clothing $10 could provide, begging for alms. Apparently on the first day I gave the beggar all my spraypainted pebbles rather than doing activities, because Jesus pretty plainly says to give everything you have to the poor, and it had to be explained to me that we don't actually do that, much to my confusion. At the same time in school we were getting the story Americans like to tell ourselves about the nation, like equality and openness and justice. Wait, so the beggar was a trap? I was expecting a heartwarming story about how you were the only kid who "did unto the least of them" and all that.
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Feb 4, 2016 21:40
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Leofish posted:Wait, so the beggar was a trap? I was expecting a heartwarming story about how you were the only kid who "did unto the least of them" and all that. American evangelicalism ignores what Jesus actually taught and instead wanks all over the Protestant work ethic and prosperity gospel nonstop. They seriously teach that if you want to be wealthy you need to be righteous and God will provide. If He isn't then you aren't righteous enough so get hosed, you heathen. It meshes with right wing politics disturbingly well because of that. They believe that the way to help people isn't by charity but by forcing people to believe what they do and letting the ones that refuse starve to death. Granted they also believe that literally everybody that believes something different is being influenced by Satan to oppose and fight them. Why should we help followers of the devil?
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Feb 4, 2016 21:46
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Which leads to things like Paul Broun being elected and giving us all the opportunity to hear him say things like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXR96_uFYwY It's not new or anything but holy poo poo.
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Feb 4, 2016 21:52
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ToxicSlurpee posted:The issue is that over 90% of drug users never become addicts. A huge majority of people that use drugs don't cause problems because of it and are functional people. A few of the nastier drugs are guaranteed to ruin you but most people that use drugs don't touch that stuff. The We're in agreement. There are still some ethical sticking points with regards to recreational drug testing. They are surmountable, but they exist nonetheless. My point was to point out that there is a social cost involved, and while you and I might be fine with it, not everyone is.
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Feb 4, 2016 21:55
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Dirk the Average posted:We're in agreement. There are still some ethical sticking points with regards to recreational drug testing. They are surmountable, but they exist nonetheless. My point was to point out that there is a social cost involved, and while you and I might be fine with it, not everyone is. Even for the people who aren't fine with it, the current policy of treating users like they're serious criminals doesn't really make any sense. If your goal is to get drug users to stop using and turn away from crime, prison time and/or a criminal record isn't going to help with that. If the anti-drug people were really only concerned about societal harms and weren't authoritarians wanting to punish Bad People who do things they disapprove of, they'd push for drug use to be treated as a medical problem not a criminal one.
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Feb 4, 2016 22:02
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MaxxBot posted:Even for the people who aren't fine with it, the current policy of treating users like they're serious criminals doesn't really make any sense. If your goal is to get drug users to stop using and turn away from crime, prison time and/or a criminal record isn't going to help with that. That's actually kind of the point I was making; banning drugs and punishing their use has done gently caress all to curb addiction rates. Society also very heavily associates drug addiction with those people so it's even harder to get people to support legalizing drugs and treating addiction like a disease. Plus then you hear about drug-related gang violence, armed, violent gangs smuggling drugs, and all the drug war madness going on in South America and it's like...if you legalized and regulated drugs while offering better support for the treatment of mental illness and addiction those problems would go away. Throwing more laws and police at it will just put more people in prison. Which is, of course, viewed as a net gain by many people as it's often those people going to jail. That and we now have a for-profit prison system that wants as many people in it as possible.
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Feb 4, 2016 22:12
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Dirk the Average posted:We're in agreement. There are still some ethical sticking points with regards to recreational drug testing. They are surmountable, but they exist nonetheless. My point was to point out that there is a social cost involved, and while you and I might be fine with it, not everyone is. Those social costs exist independent of the criminality of drugs, it is not the state's job to mandate personal morality, and I'm not really clear what you mean by the ethical issues of voluntary human trials. Also if something is being clinically tested then it's not a "recreational drug."
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Feb 4, 2016 22:14
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What I meant by hating drugs that alter consciousness I meant the drugs like marijuanna, LSD, mushrooms, DMT, MDMA, etc. Most of these drugs cause people to think differently, whether by easing people into different lines of thought or just loving with their perceptions immediately. Joe Bob might figure out that he's been getting the short end of the stick since forever by the very same party he votes for! Better make sure he gets his 12-pack of Bud-lite every day so he dulls his cognitive functions! Alcohol is good and right! It is even in the bible.
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Feb 4, 2016 22:41
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Leofish posted:Wait, so the beggar was a trap? I was expecting a heartwarming story about how you were the only kid who "did unto the least of them" and all that. Obviously, the proper response was to flip all the other tables over for selling poo poo in the temple, THEN give your pebbles to the beggar. 
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Feb 4, 2016 23:00
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Fried Watermelon posted:What I meant by hating drugs that alter consciousness I meant the drugs like marijuanna, LSD, mushrooms, DMT, MDMA, etc. Most of these drugs cause people to think differently, whether by easing people into different lines of thought or just loving with their perceptions immediately. From personal experience, marijuana and alcohol produce very similar cognitive feelings so it's strange to be holier-than-thou about that particular matchup.
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Feb 4, 2016 23:21
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computer parts posted:From personal experience, marijuana and alcohol produce very similar cognitive feelings so it's strange to be holier-than-thou about that particular matchup. The intended recreational experience is roughly the same, although the brain chemistry behind the two is pretty different. Weed is much safer; ironically, especially in ways the right is pre-occupied with. Weed makes some people horny and impairs judgement to a degree, but not to nearly the degree that alcohol does.
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Feb 4, 2016 23:33
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I'll have what he's drinking
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Feb 4, 2016 23:33
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I liked Walton and Johnson when I was a child and didn't quite grasp that the play acting voices were idiot caricatures. One of the last things I heard them argue before leaving for college was that $4.00/gallon gas was no big deal, it wasn't any more expensive than milk, and that anyone complaining was a liberal whiner that wanted to blame everything on Bush. When I came back they were complaining about how high gas had gotten under Obama, and had and daily "Taser Report" segment about "humorous" uses of a taser by LEOs that usually ended in someone seriously hurt. They deserved it, you see, so it was funny. I haven't listened to them since in embarrassment.
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Feb 5, 2016 00:02
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ToxicSlurpee posted:American evangelicalism ignores what Jesus actually taught and instead wanks all over the Protestant work ethic and prosperity gospel nonstop. They seriously teach that if you want to be wealthy you need to be righteous and God will provide. If He isn't then you aren't righteous enough so get hosed, you heathen. It meshes with right wing politics disturbingly well because of that. That is what pisses me off so much. People go on and on about what great Christians they are, then spew the most hate-filled nonsense and demand we wage bloody warfare at the drop of a hat. I know I paid some attention in Sunday School and the concepts of "mercy", "forgiveness" , and "judge not, lest you be judged" came up from time to time. Instead, we get parades of bigots, warmongers, and "moral crusaders" raging over the airwaves without a hint of self-awareness. The worst thing for Christianity in this country are the supposed Christians using their religion as a bludgeon rather than trying to live as what we're supposed to be taught to be. Not only are they pushing the worst sorts of callous and destructive policies, but they drive people away by being such raging hypocritical jackasses that they make us all look just as terrible as them. It and the blatant anti-intellectualism are the biggest reasons I hate the right wing media just so much. Geostomp fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Feb 5, 2016 |
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Feb 5, 2016 00:03
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Geostomp posted:The worst thing for Christianity in this country are the supposed Christians using their religion as a bludgeon rather than trying to live as what we're supposed to be taught to be. Not only are they pushing the worst sorts of callous and destructive policies, but they drive people away by being such raging hypocritical jackasses that they make us all look just as terrible as them. It and the blatant anti-intellectualism are the biggest reasons I hate the right wing media just so much. I don't think I've heard a story of a Christian business owner going to a Hillary town hall and bemoaning the fact that they found out an employee is gay and now they can't fire them because of non-discrimination statutes. Because frankly that sounds loving stupid and crazy as balls to most people.
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Feb 5, 2016 00:38
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Jeb!'s anti trump ad is pretty good till Jeb! shows up in it. Even with their carefully chosen shots and clips they can't get away from him stuttering and looking like a man who wants to die. I've time stamped it for when you start off seeing him smiling widely then his face quickly falls into a look of utter existential despair https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smOptl93_3U&t=1m32s
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Feb 5, 2016 00:46
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swampland posted:Jeb!'s anti trump ad is pretty good till Jeb! shows up in it. Even with their carefully chosen shots and clips they can't get away from him stuttering and looking like a man who wants to die. I've time stamped it for when you start off seeing him smiling widely then his face quickly falls into a look of utter existential despair I like the repeated Trump clip.
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Feb 5, 2016 00:53
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Rick_Hunter posted:Every now and then you hear a story like the guy who had a brother that finally got health insurance through the PPACA only to find out he had Stage IV cancer and when a conservative is confronted with this horror story they always change the subject or resort to buzzwords. Sometimes they or the crowd cheers for their eventual death but most of time people sit in stunned silence. http://trofire.com/2016/02/01/ted-cruz-answers-an-awkward-question/ An example. It was pretty incredible how he weaseled out of answering the guys question. He did just like what you said. He didn't offer any sort of solution to the problem and gave a non-answer.
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Feb 5, 2016 01:08
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Radbot posted:NPR loving sucks, APM/PRI are acceptable, except for This American Life which I will never listen to again after their disability hit piece. Marketplace and Planet Money are so right wing it hurts. So is Pacifica centrist for you? Are you seriously saying that Marketplace and Planet Money are anywhere close to every other money show on the cable networks? Planet Money has done some seriously good work over the years and I've heard just about every episode. And with Marketplace, you had stuff like this which was literally the first time I heard a reporter actually call Rumsfeld out on his bullshit. And how are y'all forgetting stuff like On The Media, one of the best (and leftist as gently caress) shows on the radio hands down? Rhesus Pieces posted:Listen to Democracy Now! if you're ok with wanting to hang yourself before your morning coffee. And the left wondered why Air America failed. Being all super leftist and complaining about how hosed up capitalism and imperialism are is debilitating, people don't want to hear about poo poo they can't fix day in and day out. Mel Mudkiper posted:hating on NPR is legit the most tedious part of leftist bullshit I swear This was super common at KPFT, I did a show there for the better part of a decade and it was always "National Petroleum Radio was pushing right with this or Republican that" day after day. They were so obsessed with ideological purity that they ended up with no more volunteers and a ever shrinking donor base. edit, more words. Sir Tonk fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Feb 5, 2016 |
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Feb 5, 2016 01:58
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Dirk the Average posted:
I'm on the case.
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Feb 5, 2016 02:08
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FuzzySkinner posted:http://trofire.com/2016/02/01/ted-cruz-answers-an-awkward-question/ That's pretty much the entire Republican strategy. "We're going to increase freedom by increasing freedom! This freedom will lead to prosperity because HEY LOOK A MUSLIM!"
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Feb 5, 2016 02:14
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So how do the prosperity gospel folks deal with things like Matthew 19:24 (Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God). Do they just ignore it?
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