Religion, politics, sex .. and other taboo subjects

[starlight1]

Basically the Trump administration is chaos in all directions. It's like the world's nuttiest soap opera.

It was so jarring to see Trump standing side by side with the divine hottie and progressive icon Justin Trudeau yesterday! God, Canada is so lucky.

Yeah englands news take on this was ikvanas flirting with The Canadian PM... Still can't get legit news even about something interesting. My only thought was...why was ikvana there in the first place? Made no sense. She's not on any counsel.

 

[starlight1]

I've always assumed that's what online petitions were for since they have zero chance of actually accomplishing anything.

America ones might be having hacking issues but the 38 degrees is legit. I've been involved in it for years and the petitions actually make pm/constituionaries/and local governments back down.

Also anyone's opinion on Frexit? We're moving backlash of global community. And i'm sad.

 

[Ravenscroft]

Where are the trump voters in this thread? Where?? Silent. But I'd bet you some have read our words, and decided that this space would be hostile to them.

Well... really only accurate if "hostile" is defined as "expecting cogent fact-based statements presented in a calm, sane, rational manner."

The gulf has been reframed Rightward so many times since 1986 that even discussing a need for discussion is difficult.

I've already tried to have IRL discussions with Trumpanistas. Know what got me called unpatriotic in an angry shout? I'd calmly said, "I'm reluctant to support ANY office-holder."

If you have the temerity to say that some specific Trump action concerns you, it'll take mere seconds for focus to be shifted to "Hillary woulda been worse!!" or "like Obama would've done any better!!" or any number of "man behind the curtain" tactics.

I'm trying to reduce my snark-words in commenting on Trump & his inner circle & his self-proclaimed grassroots supporters & anything GOP or even Libertarian or Independent. Really, the hypnotized will walk off the cliff just as Thulsa Doom beckons, & those less self-blinded are much less vulnerable to direct ridicule than to calm factual statement of the syphilitic farce.

 

[vinsanity0]

I would welcome a coherent discussion with a Trump supporter. Or at least some honesty.

Actually, I did get one honest answer on election night. The guy said he voted for Trump because he thought it would be hilarious to have him be president.

 

[Magdlyn]

Yeah. England's news take on this was, ikvana's flirting with The Canadian PM... Still can't get legit news even about something interesting. My only thought was...why was ivanka there in the first place? Made no sense. She's not on any counsel.

She was supposedly there because the topic discussed by Trump and Trudeau was "empowering women entrepreneurs." And she is one. She is an un-elected, "unpaid" adviser to her father. He said she keeps him from doing wrong things. Ha. She was also at the Boeing factory with him on Friday. She doesn't have any clearance to sit in on classified meetings, yet, there she is! Daddy's little shadow.

Well, if her clothing company continues to tank, it gives her something to do, I guess.

 

[FallenAngelina]

Ivanka Trump is the unofficial first lady . Melania is excused because Baron "needs" to stay in school in NYC. Nothing spells this out more clearly than Ivanka's makeover of the White House East Wing.

 

[Ravenscroft]

And now the scientists are into the mix.

Okay -- MAKE AMERICA SMART AGAIN. Totally loving it.

 

[Spork]

I read a thing on Facebook today that saddened me. The fact that many people I know will say that this is human nature, the way things are, inevitable, and wishing it otherwise is a naive hippie pipe dream...a foolish woman's foolish whimsy perhaps...saddens me only further.

The thing was a man trying to sell his book, but his premise was that the most important thing for humans to pay attention to, is that governments force people to do things with the threat of violence. That law is only valid if enforceable with consequence, and if there is no threat of violence, no guns backing the laws, then no one will obey them. It is the only means to keep order. And so the governments, of any type or shape or size, use the threat of violence to enforce the laws, and they have a monopoly on it, as non-government civilian folk are only to use violence in the most extreme of circumstances.

Therefore it is paramount that we all study political philosophy and no matter which candidates we vote for, ask ourselves if we are comfortable with their ideas being enforced at gunpoint upon us and our neighbors.

So perhaps this is basically true, and that is fine, but is it wrong that it makes me sad? Is it wrong that I wish we as humans could be better or more than this?

My ex used to behave as though "the real world" is something in between a cheeseball 80's movie where the hero walks into a city alley, with a bandanna tied around his head, and some gang of "punks" comes up and one of them "likes his jacket" and then they have a big fight where the bad guys come at him one by one and get kicked or punched into next week...and of course the hero gets the girl and she's got really big hair and really big boobs. Somewhere between that, and Mad Max, is where my ex wants to exist. In a world where real men are gritty and ugly, and might makes right.

Kill or dominate the other males, and get the woman, be heap big man. Yes.

That's his idea of a perfect world. The world of jobs and paychecks, car insurance and mortgages, and "consent" especially (what?? I beat up your boyfriend, you HAVE to go with me!) really makes him very unhappy. Simple enforcement of one's wishes with violence, is simple, and it's best.

As a 5'3", 120lb female, his world does not appeal to me. It renders me nothing but breeding property. Not possible to have equal status because I am not a skilled and deadly combatant. This entire philosophy states that if you lack the ability to enforce your will by violence, then your will has no value at all.

And I know a lot of men who would agree that this is the "way things are." And therefore in order to have my will respected, I must find a man who can bring a threat of violence to others, who will work on my behalf. My ex likes that idea. I don't.

Personally, I don't live my life obeying rules because of a threat of violence. I don't go around assessing whether everyone I meet is someone I should be afraid of. I know people who do, and they're not very socially adept, for the most part. They tend to live in a high state of stress, too, because everyone around them is a potential threat. But they are the minority. Most of the people I know follow most rules because they can (if sometimes grudgingly) realize in the background of their programming, that those rules are needful for us to function together as a society. You don't want people to break into your home and steal from you, so you obey that code of conduct yourself. You don't want car wrecks to constantly be happening, so you do your part by stopping at the red light, and letting others have right of way according to rules we all know and basically agree upon and follow. We kind of all GET that we thrive best if we have some structure and expectations on our behavior and that of our fellow humans.

I don't NOT murder, rape, or steal, because I am afraid of being punished. I refrain from victimizing others because it is wrong, and I don't want to wrong people, and I appreciate not being wronged by others. I think a cooperative society is just...better.

Is that stupid silly girl logic? I mean, everyone is like "yeah, but you can't expect that kind of thing from THOSE PEOPLE, those OTHER people, OUT THERE...they're stupid, we're surrounded by idiots..." Really? Are we? I mean, if you look at yourself, and you don't need constantly to be threatened with violence to follow sensible rules to coexist with others, why do we assume that "most" people do need that? Is it really inevitable? Is it truly the way things are? Is there any hope that we'll evolve as a species, to care more about the common good than we do cringing from threat of punishments? Is it even kind of insulting to assume that this is the way things MUST be?

 

[Ravenscroft]

Is that stupid silly girl logic?

No.

Or, maybe, "yes, but that doesn't mean it's WRONG."

Maybe a minority opinion, & definitely one I share.

I don't know what my own deep-seated motives are, but part of it is certainly that I feel like a "nice person" for doing it. No need for praise from others, because I can do that myself, right?

Sometimes the impulse is labeled like "doing well by doing good" or, as I prefer, enlightened self-interest. I got into it as a yogic discipline, & part of my zen learning.

While I would like to see myself as some sort of "enlightened altruist" or something, the fact is that I like being helpful, fixing stuff, organizing, & so on. And the pain & suffering & stupidity in the world does NOT make my life any better, so if I can even shave a teensy little bit of that crud out of existence, then QED have I improved my own life -- selfish bastard that I am.

I'm the guy who goes out to shovel, & spends a few minutes working on my neighbors' front walks as well. Not because I have to, or that they're incapable (snowblowers & more), but because I can.

The space between my house &the next is a bit narrow to safely navigate his riding mower. He might make a pass down the middle, but it takes me maybe two minutes to go foundation-to-foundation with my pusher, even though half of that patch ain't even my land.

At work, everyone steps around (or over) trash drifting across the floor. Last week, someone asked why I stop to pick stuff up. "Because some clumsy dumbass might slip on it, & that'd probably be me." I might even take a minute to polish the brightwork in the bathroom or put in a new roll of paper towels or something, where most other people say "eh -- not my job."

Go find a copy of David Seabury's The Art of Selfishness (NOT that nasty thing by Ayn Rand!), any edition (first published 1937). Read it at your own pace -- probably fast if it resonates with you at all. Wait a couple of weeks, then read it again, slowly, bit by bit, over a week or more. And read it again at least once a year. Truly a tonic!

(Seabury's wife was a member of Heterodoxy, which might be interesting to anyone who knows feminist history.)

 

[Ravenscroft]

"Keep an open mind! Give him a chance!"

Have I pointed out that the phrase (or "give him ANOTHER chance," which we'll hear soon enough) is more Romantic crap?
________________

And we're off...

White House expects Justice crackdown on legalized marijuana

Still waiting to hear from non-Reds who "just couldn't bring myself to trust Hillary!"

Whole long list of stuff, like ending same-sex marriage, deregulating pharmaceutical pricing, shutting down the EPA, privatizing air-traffic controllers (lowest bidder, woohoo!!), deregulating investment, & getting government out of health & physical safety matters entirely, instead turning focus to morality & other matters of MORAL safety.

I may have to start a book of odds. May just an overall deadpool, which seems apt.

On the upside, CIA & NSA & other intel agencies are apparently "filtering" what they tell Trump, to reduce odds anything ELSE will end up blattedall over Twitter at 3 a.m. (I think they did this with GWB but informed Cheney. They certainly filtered Reaganin his last couple of years as he had a habit of babbling without someone nearby to shape the conversation.)

 

[Spork]

I'm a non-red and I didn't trust Hillary, but I still voted for her.

I mean, my choices seemed to be on the one hand a politician who has probably done some shady stuff along the lines that most establishment politicians do...more of the same shit that has been going on in DC my entire life, which while sometimes disgusting, has not killed me yet...

OR

A fucking lunatic who says all the wrong things to all the wrong people at all the wrong times, tries to sell everyone on a warped reality, throws tantrums if he doesn't get his way, is only rich because Daddy helped him be rich, is as far as I can tell, a toxic narcissist, a serious threat to our global standing and national security, not qualified to keep our secrets, nor to act in our best interests, an absolute poster child for wealth inequality and Big Greed, a man who regularly fucks over other people for his own personal gain and only helps others who suck his ego satisfactorily...

OF COURSE there will be a federal crackdown on legal pot, he isn't profiting from it, is he? "This administration cares about states' rights..." WHAT?? This administration cares about being the Bigly BigMan and nothing else!

He'll use nukes, he'll destroy our land, our homes, he'll screw over every citizen in this nation if it makes his dick (or wallet, or hair) look bigger. How anyone thought otherwise I cannot even understand. My ex actually figured that since he's done seemingly well for himself, you put Mr. Success in charge, he'll lead the whole country to prosperity and wealth.

That's not how this works.
That's not how any of this works.

That's like saying that if you put a serial rapist in charge, we'll all get laid.

I am dipping my toe back into the seriousness for a second here, but to be perfectly frank, the only way I've been coping with this madness for the last month is to focus on the humor when I can, and hope that SOMEONE of the many various subversive groups and organizations, manages to somehow find a way to fix all this shit.

I heard yesterday, that there is a docket on the books to be considered March 17, where some group is trying to make the case that due to Russian interference in the election, the election should be declared null and void and rolled back to the primaries, a mulligan, if you will.

I do not dare hope.

In other news, NASA apparently discovered 7 planets that could harbor life, possibly even the homes of intelligent alien species for all we know.

Ya'll know what this means, right?

Dumbfuck is gonna want to build ANOTHER goddamn wall...

 

[Ravenscroft]

Yah; to me, the election was totally highschool, a choice between

• the arrogant "bad boy" jock who laughingly intimidated everyone (including teachers) with not-so-subtle threats & never seemed to find a situation (rape allegations, beatings, vandalism, breaking-&-entering) that Daddy's money couldn't quash, or
• the scary straight-A goth chick with few friends who rarely spoke but always seemed to be spot-on in her rare statements.

Do I "trust" her? Well, no, not really -- no basis but what little I've seen.

But that doesn't mean I have ANY basis to trust the alternative... except that he's unlikely to be LESS of a useless jerkoff when handed more power.

I accept that elections are often highfalutin' popularity contests, but when I'm given a "form or function" choice, & one candidate fails BOTH counts, I needs must question the intelligence & likely sanity of anyone who supports the ass-hat.

When I talk to someone about my 401(k), I'd rather get input from someone with a great return record than one who belongs to the best golf club in town.

As with her husband, I'm not a Clinton Fanclub member, but I knew I'd be MUCH more likely to see positive results.

 

[Spork]

Positive results?

I would have settled for "no results" or "business as usual." Or at least the kind of backroom shenanigans you can pretend don't really exist even when you kinda know they do, and get on with your life and go to work every day...

As opposed to THIS. It's the guy who creeps around behind you saying it might be funny if he slipped you a roofie and got in your pants and when you say, "DUDE, WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM" he's like Heyyyyyy...I was just JOKING. Can't you take a JOKE??

You know what everybody? It's not a joke when it's not funny! There is NOTHING FUNNY ABOUT ANY OF THIS. There comes a time, when being accused of being thin skinned, is not gonna cut it to shut me up, and I'm going to point at all the trolls and the people who think you can be absolute arseholes to others and get away with it under the aegis of "It's just a joke!" and say "NO, actually, you can go fuck yourself." Either start being funny so I can stop worrying about whether you actually want to rape and kill people, or shut the fuck up and stop it. Because civilized human beings haven't got any business acting this way. They're turning America into a damn schoolyard, and I thought we were adults here.

But yanno, that's just kind of the mood I'm in today. I'd like to put trump over my knee, and not in a fun sexy way. That boy needs a paddlin'.

Grr.

 

[vinsanity0]

A paddling? Give me five minutes alone with him and he will confess to being a Russian agent.

 

[Spork]

A paddling? Give me five minutes alone with him and he will confess to being a Russian agent.

Well RIGHT but I was alluding to the sheer immaturity of it all.

 

[Ravenscroft]

hey, everyone: you've already BEEN brainwashed (part 1)

I kinda agree with the sentiment that there's nothing amusing about our nation's too-general shift to belligerent nationalism

...yet I feel that, faced with ludicrous absurdity, what is there to do but laugh?

Yes, I watched Trump's first Congressional address.

All through it, I speculated how different it would be if one of the audience, just ONE, would have sat back & viewed The Donald as the made-up buffoonish character he is -- a Pee-Wee Herman, with elements of Sam Kinison & Bob Goldthwait (a.k.a. Bobcat, or Jack Cheese, both manufactured personae). (Heck, last autumn I heard a Fresh Air interview where Bruce Springsteen said basically "That guy you see onstage? That's not me.")

Those forced "spontaneous" standing ovations seemed necessary to cover gasps of indignation from the peanut gallery.

By the halfway point, even Trump was starting to look a bit irritated at the constant interruptions. By then, I'd already said aloud, "well, hell, I wouldn't stand either -- he didn't say anything worth clapping, much less getting up."

Think how much better it would've been to hear a derisive Frankenesque snort, or a barked guffaw from the balcony, every time another lame catch-phrase was trotted out with such absurd gravity. Other voices join in, & Trump's surefire barn-burners like "RADICAL... ISLAMIC... TERRORISM!!" cause a wave of delighted laughter much as did Kinison's signature "AH-AHHH!!" bellow.

I'll continue the thought later, & hope to get opinion whether supportive or countervailing...

 

[Ravenscroft]

Epistle to the Brainwashed (part 2)

A pause for clear definition of concepts.

For 30+ years, the initiative of Rove & Gingrich have been brainwashing us all, most radically the Far Right. I clearly recall what the Neo-Conservatives of the 1980s were like, & I tell you that those goofballs would've been drummed out of the 2017 GOP as being Liberal RINOs.

Here's a 2004 capsule summary of Neocon:

• A belief deriving from religious conviction that the human condition is defined as a choice between good and evil and that the true measure of political character is to be found in the willingness by the former (themselves) to confront the latter.
• An assertion that the fundamental determinant of the relationship between states rests on military power and the willingness to use it.
• A primary focus on the Middle East and global Islam as the principal theater for American overseas interests.

In putting these themes into practice, neo-conservatives:

• Analyze international issues in black-and-white, absolute moral categories. They are fortified by a conviction that they alone hold the moral high ground and argue that disagreement is tantamount to defeatism.
• Focus on the "unipolar" power of the United States, seeing the use of military force as the first, not the last, option of foreign policy. ...
• Disdain conventional diplomatic agencies such as the State Department and conventional country-specific, realist, and pragmatic analysis. They are hostile toward nonmilitary multilateral institutions and instinctively antagonistic toward international treaties and agreements. "Global unilateralism" is their watchword. They are fortified by international criticism, believing that it confirms American virtue.
• Look to the Reagan administration as the exemplar of all these virtues and seek to establish their version of Reagan's legacy as the Republican and national orthodoxy.

That almost seems quaint nowadays, but does clarify my assertion that the Right Wingnuts have actually won the ideological battle, which will take decades to undo -- there's an alternative scenario, but it's quite dark & I'm not yet ready to discuss it.
________________

Add onto that massive reframinganother bit that's usually ignored, but very significant.

You've heard the harmless-sounding term "faith-based" hundreds of times if not thousands.

Here's the problem:

FAITH is the opposite of REALITY.

FAITH is the opposite of FACT.

FAITH is the opposite of LOGIC.​

That is most asuredly NOT my observation -- that is how the "faith based" use the words.

Per Wikipedia (actually, Ron Suskind) --

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality."

"That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.

"And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out.

"We're history's actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

No big surprise to me that he later attributed that comment to Karl Rove.

 

[Ravenscroft]

epistle to the brainwashed (part 2)

((dammit -- forgot to change the title to reflect part 3))
________________

Every time someone hearkens back to the sacred shade of Saint Ronnie Reagan, permanently drop at least one IQ point from your running estimate of their reasoning ability.

The self-anointed Silver Shirts who think they're riding Trump's coattails are -- so far as I can determine, anyway -- pretty much beyond rational adult discussion. As in, if you calmly disagree with some "fact" they toss out, you might provoke an actual threat of physical harm. If you pull out your phone & give them ACTUAL, VERIFIABLE FACT, they would feel entirely justified in beating you down.

Why? C'mon -- because you are thus denying the absolute rightness of their Faith.

And therefore you are attacking them.

There are NO gray areas -- there's RIGHT, & there's ENEMY, & theyhold absolute control over RIGHTness.

Anyone who doesn't kowtow to the orthodoxy, anyone who doesn't instantly accept, is an immediatethreat to the Orthodoxy, & thus to the Orthodox.

To bring in Orwell, we've reached the point where duckspeak -- mindless requacking of someone else's meme -- is considered to be Meaningful Communication.

(How lovely that it's taken 80 years to progress all the way from quacking to tweeting...)

To bring in Claude Shannon, I'll point out that "information" is a subset of "data" & in fact a very small set (as anyone who's read Borges' "The Library of Babel" will certainly know).

By extension, "communication" might be defined as "transfer of data" ONLY in an absurdly grandiose sense (as the Library's mostly random books can be said to contain "knowledge").

While socalled "human beatboxing" could in one sense be argued as valid communication, try using it to describe a calculus problem or a medical diagnosis, or even a short grocery list.

If "communication" via Social Media is accepted as communication -- which premise I argue against -- then polyamory in such an environment is a failure. Well, maybe not a failure, but it ceases to have any distinction from generalized nonmonogamy.

If you're okay with that rapid slide into entropy, then that's cool, & anyway you're bored now & your head hurts from thinking too much without playing Candy Crush, & you are excused.

Anyone who sees some sort of practical utility for polyamory might want to hang on.

 

[Ravenscroft]

on to today's Laughable Absurdity

In an actual reality, the following would demonstrate why Trump needs to be impeached on grounds of mental instability.

Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!
5:35 AM - 4 Mar 2017

Is it legal for a sitting President to be "wire tapping" a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!
5:49 AM - 4 Mar 2017

I'd bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!
5:52 AM - 4 Mar 2017

How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!
6:02 AM - 4 Mar 2017

The problem is, there's now a few million people in this nation who believe it's true.

By extension, this declaration will embolden Trump & his minions to engage in wiretapping in fine Nixonian fashion "because Obama was doing it!"

And Congress will back him up.

And SCOTUS will sway in his favor.

And the "mandate" voters will run around & bully anyone who dares to raise the "wtf?" flag.

Therefore, the most common voices inthe Social Media echo chamber will be the no-neck idiots requacking this falsehood, & "what I tell you three times is true" as Goebbels so well knew.

What else can you do but ridicule?

 

[vinsanity0]

In an actual reality, the following would demonstrate why Trump needs to be impeached on grounds of mental instability.




The problem is, there's now a few million people in this nation who believe it's true.

By extension, this declaration will embolden Trump & his minions to engage in wiretapping in fine Nixonian fashion "because Obama was doing it!"

And Congress will back him up.

And SCOTUS will sway in his favor.

And the "mandate" voters will run around & bully anyone who dares to raise the "wtf?" flag.

Therefore, the most common voices inthe Social Media echo chamber will be the no-neck idiots requacking this falsehood, & "what I tell you three times is true" as Goebbels so well knew.

What else can you do but ridicule?

This was certainly a bizarre morning.

You see, I want to laugh at the absurdity. I really do. If he was still just a funny aside I would be. The problem is I find it horrifying. Not him so much as the gullible portion of the public who are eating this up. I am trying to wrap my head around it and I can't. I can't tell if they really believe in him or are just tickled that the rest of us do find it horrifying.

Actually, I guess I do find it horrifying that the president is getting his "facts" from right wing opinion radio. That is where he got this from. A radio guy opined that Obama probably tapped his phones or whatever. Then Breitbart published it as fact. Then Trump tweeted it.

This is just another lie. Same as the millions of illegal votes for which the proof never materialized. Same as when Trump claimed he had proof Obama was born in Kenya. It's so hard to keep up with them all.

How did this get so out of control? How can it be reigned in? This is what I struggle with as I don't see any non-violent solution.