USA Politics

[milk]

     The Lt. Governor of Texas is on record advocating people who are not him risk death for the common good. He wanted a Repub convention to take place he wisely chose not to attend, so he's serious. He doesn't jest about important life or death decisions. If it isn't necessary for him to die, why should he? He has people for that.

    Oh no, the answer is clearly yes. I was gagging at the notion of following scientific method as though it derived from a doctrine. If I may refer to philosophy of science, my position is that propositions are judged by the consequences of their acceptance, which comes down to predictive power. Usually you'll draw on a familiar set of investigative tools, but there is no a priori judgment about being restricted to those. I can't imagine anyone working with knowledge being unaware that they use the same toolkit as science workers do, no matter how their own discipline is defined.

This is a huge question that I doubt can be answered in any simple way. One thing you can do, is try to prove a methodology wrong, for example, "This plane will fly safely with human beings on board." I guess you have to prove a lot of things wrong leading up to that, and a high confidence can be generated?
Try to prove critical theory or intersectionality wrong. Where to start? Where to end? I'm beginning to believe some very basic and even crucial questions may not be allowed (at least as as much) by those in the humanities. Does demonizing and pulling back the police lead to more or less loss of life? It's an empirical question to be sure. But there maybe a deeper critical theory which calls into question the nefarious systems that would lead to someone asking this question. In that case, the question should be abandoned in favor of something else? 

[Karl Henning]

https://www.youtube.com/v/gzHE_SY334o

[Karl Henning]

https://www.youtube.com/v/ekkN6YCblYg

[milk]

https://www.youtube.com/v/gzHE_SY334o

https://www.youtube.com/v/gzHE_SY334o

A powerful ad. Imagine if/when another trump comes along. This time he/she is competent, effective and focused. Scary thought. In a way, but for Tump's incompetence, things could have been worse.
Will democrats deliver something meaningful to everyone? Something that includes everyone? This ad, for example, comes from a group of people who certainly love big wars and big money.
I guess I'm already thinking of trump gone. I simply can't conceive of more of him.
Anyway, here's a hilarious interview with Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson. Hilarious!

Rick Wilson squirms talking anti-Trump Super-PAC, The Lincoln Project
https://www.youtube.com/v/tNvuYPpX0C0&t=13s

[drogulus]

This is a huge question that I doubt can be answered in any simple way. One thing you can do, is try to prove a methodology wrong, for example, "This plane will fly safely with human beings on board." I guess you have to prove a lot of things wrong leading up to that, and a high confidence can be generated?
Try to prove critical theory or intersectionality wrong. Where to start? Where to end? I'm beginning to believe some very basic and even crucial questions may not be allowed (at least as as much) by those in the humanities. Does demonizing and pulling back the police lead to more or less loss of life? It's an empirical question to be sure. But there maybe a deeper critical theory which calls into question the nefarious systems that would lead to someone asking this question. In that case, the question should be abandoned in favor of something else? 

     I don't consider what's allowed as a criterion. The humanities are full of people who take doctrinaire position of different kinds I would find unhelpful as part of a quest for knowledge, or teaching what such a quest consists in. Great teachers should help you learn how to think more than what to think. That's what makes them great. You should take comfort in the fact that students are not ideological clones of teachers of any kind. I would imagine a smart teacher would want to produce students smart enough to think the prof is kind of fucked up.

     

     

[SimonNZ]

There's no "coversation" because you're speaking from a place of manifest ignorance.

I assume your "camel pee" coment comes from this Brietbart article?:

Iranian 'Prophetic Medicine' Leader: Camel Urine Cures Coronavirus

Did you read beyond the title? (Does reading make you sleepy?) Because in the second paragraph there's this:

"It was quickly ridiculed by Iranians, many of whom warned about the dangers of such treatment."

And that's in a Dowder-approved source.

If this were the later 19th century you'd be saying you have no problem with Catholics as long as they stay in their own country.

[Herman]

This is about double standards.

The 9/11 killers, in the mind of many Americans the ur-muslim terrorists, weren't Quran quoting pious muslims either.

They drank alcohol, went to night clubs and basically didn't give a fuck.

They were called muslims as an ethnic indication (which obviously doesn't make sense, but then none of this does).

So by that analogy it's perfectly rational to call Dylan Roof ('s that what he's called? the kid who shot a bunch a black folks in a church) a white christian terrorist.

[milk]

This is about double standards.

The 9/11 killers, in the mind of many Americans the ur-muslim terrorists, weren't Quran quoting pious muslims either.

They drank alcohol, went to night clubs and basically didn't give a fuck.

They were called muslims as an ethnic indication (which obviously doesn't make sense, but then none of this does).

So by that analogy it's perfectly rational to call Dylan Roof ('s that what he's called? the kid who shot a bunch a black folks in a church) a white christian terrorist.

what kind of baloney is this? You can say they don't represent true Islam, or whatever, but you can't get away with this nonsense. Ever heard of osama bin laden?

[Herman]

It's the kind of baloney of somebody not thinking your identical thoughts.

So either you should get angry or (cue usual suspects) sarcastic.

[steve ridgway]

I'm trying to think what would make someone perform a suicide operation like 9/11 without the belief they'd go to martyr's heaven.

[Jo498]

There were plenty of quasi-suicidal anarchist, nationalist or socialist operations in the late 19th and early 20th century. E.g. the shooting of Franz Ferdinand and his wife 106 years ago. There were also many school shootings or similarly suicidal amok killings in the US and Europe in the last decades.

[arpeggio]

Who exactly? Did they use the Bible or Church teachings to kill?

There is no point to responding to any of your questions.  You rarely provide any documentation to support most of your pronouncements.

[Herman]

I'm trying to think what would make someone perform a suicide operation like 9/11 without the belief they'd go to martyr's heaven.

There is a lot of evidence mass shooters want to be part of a line of famous / notorious killers. It's on their youtubes and computer files.

You're just making things up to suit the "muslims kill people, white christians don't" story  -  against overwhelming evidence.

[MusicTurner]

Some ~Christianity-influenced examples here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_terrorism

[Todd]

Radical Islamic Terrorism is old news.  China is the new bad guy.  Well, along with Russia.  Once again, GMG is behind the times.

[milk]

It's the kind of baloney of somebody not thinking your identical thoughts.

So either you should get angry or (cue usual suspects) sarcastic.

No, it's just baloney.
It's bizarre to have to spell out what everybody knows and what is still a pretty recent event in my mind. I guess you will say that these terrorists don't mean what they say they mean because you somehow got into their minds and separated out what they said from what they did.   
"Although bin Laden initially denied any involvement, in 2004 he claimed responsibility for the attacks..."
"In 1996, bin Laden issued his first fatwā, calling for American soldiers to leave Saudi Arabia.[13]

"In a second fatwā in 1998, bin Laden outlined his objections to American foreign policy with respect to Israel...Bin Laden used Islamic texts to exhort Muslims to attack Americans until the stated grievances were reversed. Muslim legal scholars "have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the jihad is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries", according to bin Laden."
"Bin Laden orchestrated the attacks...In November 2001, U.S. forces recovered a videotape...In the video, bin Laden is seen talking to Khaled al-Harbi and admits foreknowledge of the attacks."
"The Hamburg cell in Germany included radical Islamists who eventually came to be key operatives in the 9/11 attacks..."
"Osama bin Laden's declaration of a holy war against the United States..."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks

You'd better get on that wikipedia page.

[Todd]

It's bizarre to have to spell out what everybody knows and what is still a pretty recent event in my mind.

The event has been transmogrified and fictionalized to suit many purposes. 

[Todd]

Thousands expected to walk off the job Monday to protest racial inequality

Organized protests are growing.  Oh noes! 

Dock 'em a day's pay, or fire 'em.  It will just exacerbate inequality.   

Wait, sorry, this is a game changer.

[drogulus]

     

If Christians weren't willing to play nice those "secular" democracies wouldn't have existed to begin with.

     How did they learn to play nice after killing each other by the millions in the wars of religion and million of others in religious conquests.

     We grant you [Kings of Spain and Portugal] by these present documents, with our Apostolic Authority, full and free permission to invade, search out, capture, and subjugate the Saracens and pagans and any other unbelievers and enemies of Christ wherever they may be, as well as their kingdoms, duchies, counties, principalities, and other property [...] and to reduce their persons into perpetual servitude. -A Pope playing nice.

     So, when did niceness arrive, and how? For sure, churches now oppose slavery and extermination in a "We've always been at war with Eastasia" way.

     One thing I'm fairly sure of is Christians didn't just stop killing each other and anyone else that was vulnerable out of a previously untapped reservoir of kindness.

[greg]

https://conservativeus.com/hate-hoax-a-federal-courthouse-violently-targeted-by-antifa-blm-for-a-basketball-poster-that-was-mistaken-for-white-supremacist-symbol/









Sharing for Todd. He'll find the stupidity amusing.


BTW this is what it looks like when you have anger issues from a lack of meaning in your life and want to take it out on bad guys, but there aren't enough bad guys.

Eerily similar to some cops (apart from the availability of bad guys since that differs greatly from place to place).