tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7342454496014200176.post4370819978608424989..comments2023-05-05T06:38:34.592-04:00Comments on IMHO: Conservapedia and the Conservative BrainNiceguy Eddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03896896323840121445noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7342454496014200176.post-31912472239731577522009-11-06T18:54:56.055-05:002009-11-06T18:54:56.055-05:00Agreed in principal, and I know about The Family (...Agreed in principal, and I know about The Family (though I haven't read it yet) but I'll still keep my optimism. Over long periods of time, every generation becomes less religious than the last. There are fluctations, of course, but the trend is inevitbale. (Think: Global-Warming-like.) Young people today are less religious, than their parents, and than the young people a generation ago. Atheism is becoming the new black and all of the fastest growing and youngest voting segments lean both Democratic and Liberal. I don't think anything like the civil wat is coming. I believe that change in America will be stable, gradual and inevitable - as it has been SINCE the civil war. Depite the best efforts of the magical thinkers, haters, bigots, whack-jobs, funny-mentalists, terrorists and social conservtives... PROGRESS KEEPS MARCHING ON. <br /><br />I'm inclined to believe that what we are seeing now is as likely the DEATH THROWS of Religion as a social and political force. If there IS any violence it will come from the RIGHT, and both the LAW, the Political Moderates and every other force that ever made this country what is was will finally be united against them. <br /><br />It's one of the paradoxes of political progress: As soon as you start to accomplish what you want, the rest of America instinctively pulls back. <br /><br />So I still believe that If things are gettign worse now, that it's a short term trend. The long term trend is always better, for EVERYONE execpt for those who would resist the inevitable change and progress.Niceguy Eddiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03896896323840121445noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7342454496014200176.post-67152979120508313462009-11-06T13:36:36.635-05:002009-11-06T13:36:36.635-05:00He also never held a steady job, and he and his tw...He also never held a steady job, and he and his twelve guys shared everything, had no private property that we know of, crashed at freinds' places, and lived on hand-outs. Oh, and they had long hair. Sounds like Commie, pinko, subversive, hippie panhandlers to me.<br /><br />Eddie,<br /><br />You wrote elsewhere that you're optimistic. I am less so, and I'll tell you why. The last time the fault lines in the body politic were so deep, with people on either side of the divide holding conflicting core values and demonizing each other, was in the years leading up to the Civil War. I think that we on the left believe that, when we're accused of being "un-American", it is just hyperbolic pol-speak. It's not. It is a systematic, Orwellian way of dehumanizing us. As the country becomes more militaristic, we are more at risk. During the Civil War, the Progressive side, you might say, was better armed. That isn't the case now, as it's the right that equates guns with god and murder with morality.<br /><br />I've recommended "THE FAMILY; The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of Americn Power," by Jeff Sharlet, a number of times. I'd like to quote a couple of paragraphs, if you don't mind, from toward the end. If this is tedious or takes up too much space, feel free to delete it.<br /><br />Sharlet writes:<br /><br />"Most of us outside the influence of fundamentalism ask, when confronted with its burgeoning power, "What do these people want? What are they going to do?" But the more relevant question is, "What have they already done?" Consider the accomplishments of the movement, its populist and its elite branches combined: foreign policy on a near-constant footing of Manichean urgency for the last hundred years; "free markets" imprinted on the American mind s some sort of natural law; a manic-depressive sexuality that puzzles both prudes and libertines throughout the rest of the world; and a schizophrenic sense of democracy as founded on individual rights and yet indebted to a higher authority that trumps personal liberties.<br /> This, then, is what American fundamentalism understands democracy to mean, this is what it understands as "freedom of religion": the freedom to conform, to submit, to become one with the "biblical worldview," the "theocentric" parable, the story that swallows all others like a black hole. Within it time loops around, past becomes present, and the future is nothing but a matter of return. Not to the Garden but to the Mayflower, the Constitution, or Stonewall Jackson's last battle, moments of American purity, glimpses of the Camelot that haunts every nationalist imagination, fundamentalist or secular. History IS God's love, its meanings revealed to his key men, presidents and generals, preachers and a schlemiel with a shofar. As for the rest of us, were are simply not part of the dream. Fundamentalism is writing us out of history."<br /><br />We laugh at or underestimate these "superstitious jerks" at our peril, as Dr. Tellar learned.Conchobharhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12615429492457158341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7342454496014200176.post-20107303026377286092009-11-05T22:34:53.348-05:002009-11-05T22:34:53.348-05:00Well... he fed the poor AND gave them free health ...Well... he fed the poor AND gave them free health care! At least according to the bible, he was also the first to preach to men and women, together, equally. He was also far more forgiving of the prostitutes than he was of the money-men and religious hypocrties.<br /><br />Sounds like a FLAMING liberal to me!<br /><br />(These religious / social conservative are sofe king stupid!)Niceguy Eddiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03896896323840121445noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7342454496014200176.post-4548356429262536752009-11-05T20:37:02.157-05:002009-11-05T20:37:02.157-05:00When considering biblical standards, do they mean ...When considering biblical standards, do they mean we can stone people? Or how about treating people unkindly in exchange for the free market system. <br /><br />I could have sworn I had read an article or something that basically showed the remarkable comparisons between Jesus and socialist institutions...Kevinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13492761988793782893noreply@blogger.com