"Conservative" Republican Fascists & Christo-Fascisism

[Sparko]

Move over JFK Jr., there's another crazy person who'd like some attention:

(At least it's not a cult.)

https://twitter.com/VABVOX/status/16701 ... wsrc%5Etfw

Terrorist threats. That is not protected speech. Allowing it to go on endangers us all. The DoJ must become more aggressive policing these guys.

[Shirley]

Can there be any doubt this is what the people of Colorado sent her to DC to do?

https://twitter.com/btrekman1/status/16 ... wsrc%5Etfw

[Sparko]

Boebert should be sued for slander there. They pop off constantly lying and defaming people.

[twocoach]

Move over JFK Jr., there's another crazy person who'd like some attention:

(At least it's not a cult.)

https://twitter.com/VABVOX/status/16701 ... wsrc%5Etfw

Terrorist threats. That is not protected speech. Allowing it to go on endangers us all. The DoJ must become more aggressive policing these guys.

"Well, not me PERSONALLY as I just want to talk, talk, talk and keep making money off all these stupid lemmings. What we need is for some poor, uneducated, gun owner to hear us and go do it for us so that we can then talk, talk, talk about it some more and keep in the news cycle making our money..."

Curt Shilling is a prick and a fake tough guy.

[twocoach]

Boebert should be sued for slander there. They pop off constantly lying and defaming people.

Boebert should be voted out and go back to running a bar as that is probably the pinnacle of her actual abilities.

[Shirley]

https://twitter.com/SundaeDivine/status ... wsrc%5Etfw

[Shirley]

https://twitter.com/Dixie202021/status/ ... wsrc%5Etfw

[Shirley]

https://twitter.com/KathiInCali/status/ ... wsrc%5Etfw

[Mjl]

Boebert should be sued for slander there. They pop off constantly lying and defaming people.

Boebert should be voted out and go back to running a bar as that is probably the pinnacle of her actual abilities.

Would you be saying that if she was a man?

It's the house of representatives. It's not supposed to be the elite. I'm glad people like her are in it. Idiots deserve representation too.

[twocoach]

Boebert should be sued for slander there. They pop off constantly lying and defaming people.

Boebert should be voted out and go back to running a bar as that is probably the pinnacle of her actual abilities.

Would you be saying that if she was a man?

It's the house of representatives. It's not supposed to be the elite. I'm glad people like her are in it. Idiots deserve representation too.

Yes. If they made a big deal about what Matt Gaetz' job was prior to being inexplicably voted into Congress then I would also state that he should return to that job as he also appears to be a moron.

I think it is perfectly acceptable for highly intelligent people in a community to serve as the Congressional representatives for the idiots in a community. It isn't meant to be a like-for-like level of representation down to that level. This is complicated work that idiots are proving over and over and over that they are incapable of performing. I consider myself to be of above average intelligence and I do not feel I could do a good enough job in that role to best serve my constituents were I to be voted into that position. The job simply requires that person to know too much about too many topics to vote with any sort of knowledge and intelligence as to what you're doing for many of us to do it properly. Not every job can be done well by everyone.

[Shirley]

https://twitter.com/JoJoFromJerz/status ... wsrc%5Etfw

Ron Filipkowski 38m
She did a tweet like this before (although not the TV turning on) where she is paranoid that someone may be trying to kill her, so she is saying that she is happy and healthy so if something happens to her that looks like an accident it won’t be. Kari Lake did a similar one too.

[Shirley]

Christo-Fascist sexual molester says what?

https://twitter.com/hardcore_lib/status ... wsrc%5Etfw

[Shirley]

You'd think "moderate" SC republican Nancy Mace was talking about Trump, right?

https://twitter.com/Panosfrmgoranos/sta ... wsrc%5Etfw

[Shirley]

Definitely not a fascist cult:

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/stat ... wsrc%5Etfw

The heartbreak of constipation:

https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1673118 ... wsrc%5Etfw

[Shirley]

From the "Christian" guy who says he's never asked for forgiveness:

https://twitter.com/JoJoFromJerz/status ... wsrc%5Etfw

[Shirley]

When the Christo-fascists tell you who they are, "conservatives" aspiring to be like Stalin, Mao, and Hitler, believe them:

https://twitter.com/TheSGTJoker/status/ ... wsrc%5Etfw

Liberty University's Ryan Helfenbein at the Faith and Freedom coalition gala said: "What we're discovering as parents and conservatives is education really is evangelism. So, if you don't control education, you cannot control the future. And Stalin knew that, Mao knew that, Hitler knew that. We have to get that back for conservative values."

This echoes the Adolf Hitler quote included in a recent Moms For Liberty newsletter. (h/t
@Meidas_Brian23

[jfish26]

This is Bob Gibson throwing 102 when everyone else was throwing 86. And throwing it right at your ear.

We've Given Religion Too Much Respect

America is deranged, but not confused.

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/weve-gi ... ch-respect

The January 6th crowd was operating on a false premise. Because of that, their actions were wrong. Had their underlying belief about the facts of the situation been correct, the whole thing would have come much closer to being justified. They were deranged, but not confused. If you want to address the root cause of the bubbling right wing extremism that is distressing the political establishment so much, you need to stop obsessing about tactics and decorum and focus on the ideas. The derangement is the thing. And if we are being intellectually honest, we must admit that there is a much bigger locus of derangement than QAnon forums or Trump speeches.

It’s politely referred to as “faith.” Faith! The belief in something just because you decide to believe it. Mainstream discourse has spent years now deriding the absurd lies of QAnon and Stop the Steal and all the lesser conspiracy theories that have enjoyed rising profiles in the Trump and post-Trump era. But all of these things, even the “Big Lie,” are babies compared to King Kong of American faith: religion. It is absurd for the same media that as a matter of course countenances prayer breakfasts and politicians proclaiming their love for Jesus to then denigrate the newer currents of faith that thousands of people followed directly to the Capitol on January 6. The “QAnon Shaman” in his face paint and head dress is no more ridiculous in substance or style than a Catholic priest in his robe and pendant proclaiming the holy liturgy. It’s little wonder that our nation’s press—the institution that everyone expects to shoot down lies of public importance—was unable to fact check our way out of Trumpism, after treating the pervasive mythology of Christianity with hushed respect for the last couple of centuries.

Religious freedom—great. Love it. Very important element of a society that is not riven by constant bloody religious crusades. Everyone has the right to their own personal faith. But when that faith is used as the rationale for public policies, it becomes fair game for brutal scrutiny. Indeed, it is the responsibility of the press to ensure that powerful people and institutions are forced to show the work behind the decisions they make. Public policies and decisions of broad social importance can be reasonably justified in many ways, and all of those ways should consist of some sort of plausible, logical argument that leads to “increasing the public good.” Faith will always fail to be a coherent reason for public policy, because it will always at some point dead end at a wall of pure belief. This is where logic stops. At this point, there is no meaningful difference between Christianity or QAnon or Mind-poisoned conviction that the 2016 election was stolen. All of those things are matters of faith. None of them hold up to real scrutiny. Yet all of these mythologies do not get treated equally. The Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, causing widespread abortion restrictions that have been damaging the lives of women for a full year now, was the outcome of a determined, decades-long assault on reproductive rights, rooted in right wing religious beliefs. There is no arguing with those who believe that abortion is murder; it is a matter of faith. And, if you buy that premise, their extremism becomes easy to understand: abortion becomes the equivalent of an annual holocaust, and drastic action becomes justified in the context of such an assault on human rights. They are, in other words, deranged, but not confused. There is no magic wand to wave to rid religious fundamentalists of their faith. But I cannot help thinking that had the press spent the past half century holding Christianity up to the same standard of scrutiny that it holds other political philosophies up to, the creep of fundamentalism up to its control of the Supreme Court could have been arrested.

tl;dr:

We have given religion far too much respect in the public sphere. We have allowed a belief in private religious liberty to be weaponized into a long-term campaign to make America a religious state. We’ve let faith become an acceptable answer to questions that it has no logical claim to answering. When, over decades and decades, the public square is not scrupulously tended to, it becomes choked with the weeds of superstition. If we welcome religion into politics as an equal, and never force the religious world to confront its own contradictions, we can hardly be surprised when its adherents sink so deeply into their bizarro beliefs that they act on them. They may be deranged. But they are not confused.

[Shirley]

Thanks for posting that fish, I agree with every word.

"History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.” Robert A.Heinlein

"The truth is that male religious leaders have had — and still have — an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women," Carter said. "They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter.” Jimmy Carter

"My favorite part of the Bible is where God could have condemned slavery but chose to ban shellfish instead."
unknown

[jfish26]

Thanks for posting that fish, I agree with every word.

"History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.” Robert A.Heinlein

"The truth is that male religious leaders have had — and still have — an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women," Carter said. "They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter.” Jimmy Carter

"My favorite part of the Bible is where God could have condemned slavery but chose to ban shellfish instead."
unknown

There was a single thing in the post that I strongly disagreed with (including more for context):

What I mean is that religion has to be challenged, not respectfully welcomed, whenever it sticks its head into politics. Why is every presidential candidate able to proclaim their belief in Jesus with no subsequent pushback? Why do you believe in him? Do you believe in virgin birth? Do you believe in resurrection after death? Do you believe in miracles? Do you believe in science? You can’t believe in both. Whenever a politician nods to the Bible as their inspiration, they should be interrogated. What’s so great about the Bible? Lots of shit in there that seems clearly impossible. Why do you believe it? What else do you believe that could not possibly be true? How do we know you can assess information properly? Why should non-Christians have any confidence that you can serve them when you operate according to a book they do not embrace? Why should any of us have confidence in you as a rational adult if you abandon your reason to this Book of Myths?

I suppose a lot of pressure is put on the definition of "miracle". But I would be sympathetic to harmonizing a little bit; I absolutely believe that anomalies happen (and are in fact inevitable, at scale). I also absolutely believe that anomalies are occurrences that defy scientific explanation.

Where I'd differ from lots of religious people, though, is that I believe it's much more likely than anomalies are simply occurrences that defy our present ability to explain them scientifically (as opposed to occurrences that defy any scientific explanation).

[Shirley]

As an undergraduate in biology I asked the professors to explain things when I couldn't understand them or wanted more details. As I ascended the ladder into the higher level courses, the refrain: "we don't know", or "we aren't sure", was so common, it became really frustrating and I largely stopped asking. And, I'd tell myself, "I'll be glad if/when I get to med school where they'll finally know some things for sure".
Ha! Ha! Ha! What a self-own.

Of course, to the contrary, the plethora, the galaxy, the universe of things they, we, all of medicine/science, don't know for sure, became only more vast, the more I learned.

None of the scientists here, zen, Trad, PhD, Dr. Pepper, (sorry if I missed any), would ever go so far as to claim, i.e., pretend, that they're certain, about any of the subjects they study. Why? Because as scientists they know that when it comes to science, (like medicine), it is by its nature, always a work in progress. What we "know" is always our best current guess, based on the evidence that's currently available, that's subject to change based on more or new evidence. If you're not a dolt, you're aware of the fact that the more you know, the more you know that you don't know*.

Which only serves to make it all the more silly, more offensive, more oppressive, for people who choose not to deal with life's ambiguities by coping to a book of stories, parables, scriptures to relieve themselves of their uncertainties and look no further, to then press their book of rules written by the "Devine hand of God", on people who don't care to share their convenient delusion(s).

Is it any wonder why people who do choose to cop, and especially fundamentalists, are so susceptible to conspiracy theories? Of course not. Faced with the cultural, political, social and other challenges we're all subject to, given the choice between not knowing, or believing in a convenient, all-encompassing explanation for whatever outrage de jure your demagogue is feeding you, is “convenient". Kind of like, choosing to believe in the Bible.

Don’t get me wrong. If you want to cop and go sit and listen to someone explain your/the Book weekly, daily, twice a day, fine. Nobody cares. And, if while doing that you want to sing, or your instructor wants to burn incense and chant in a language almost no one there understands while walking up and down the aisles with funny hats on, and/or handle serpents and speak in tongues…fine. Nobody cares. You be you. Just don’t try to cram it down my throat, or use my tax dollars to pay for your grooming schools.
TIA.

“The opposite of faith is not doubt; it is certainty.”

“The first holy truth in God 101 is that men & women of true faith have always had to accept the mystery of God’s identity and love and ways. I hate that, but it’s the truth.”
Anne Lamott

“We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.”
H.L. Mencken

*Which was among the things that made it so telling that someone who obviously knows little or nothing about infectious disease, virology, the scientific method, public health, pharmacology, immunology, vaccines, etc., etc., i.e., Randy, to come on here on multiple occasions and make a fool out of himself claiming that he or any of the other cultists "knew all along", anything about the pandemic. None of the scientists who've spent their entire lives studying the subjects would ever make such a preposterous claim. But, of course, Randy knows what Randy knows, and any evidence to the contrary, be damned.