How well are we prepared to face what we may actually be facing?

[Moonbeam]

That understanding, that up improving a person's self esteem and self perception is key to creating healthy persons is critical. I knew a catholic mystic who had the gift of reading hearts. After receiving that gift, she was driven to go out into the streets to the outcasts of society - in particular, prostitutes. She told me that the root of almost every sin she saw was in the brokenness off these 'less desirables'. This, of course, is only an anecdote. But I have become convinced from my own involvement in ministries to the poor and people who never seem to 'heal' that it is the truth. Self hate and shame are almost ridiculously damaging to people whose subconscious are most affected. Abuse, particularly sexual, and willful neglect, in children, seem to be key drivers for brokenness. Curiously, some people have a level of resiliency that tends to protect them from being as wounded as others in similar circumstances. Obviously, given my faith, I believe in a real evil, but how that evil is ingested, takes root and made manifest is often through subconscious self-protective patterns created in response to harmful psychological experiences. Anyway, my 2 cents.

Your actions in the world to minister are, in my opinion, far more valuable than my talk of such things. And since the world is full of believers in evil, evil is very real. I am glad to have read your posts.

 

[Vic]

Your words suggest that it is you who has taken this vow. Especially in light of Kenosha.

My words suggested nothing more than people have the right to defend themselves.

 

[Vic]

No. Logic fail.

Yeah, he completely ignored the fact that the very reason and purpose of Nazism is to kill and enslave others, whereas Islam is just another religion that, like all religions, unfortunately has a few whackjobs extremists who mistakenly believe that God wants them to kill in His Name.

 

[hal2kilo]

For a great many people, it seems to very important to be able to believe that evil must be the result of calculating masterminds, instead of just ignorant bullies who keep doubling down on being wrong even long after the consequences of their errors are made apparent.
And IMO we should not glamorize evil, because it is not glamorous. Evil is common.

Kind of like statues for war heroes.

 

[Moonbeam]

In the wake of September 11th, 2001, I too wanted to see a threat purged. Of course I was a lot younger and a lot more naive about things.

Over time those thoughts of collective punishment were shown for what they were. I became more interested in having us make peace. To leave an open hand for Muslims to form constructive and positive attachments with us, where a degree of mutual purpose, if not kinship, could be achieved. This is, of course, with a great deal of hope that we could "corrupt" them away from an already established identity, away from their association with violent groups. We could appeal to their better nature, as human beings. Not the worst offenders, but the average person, the working parents who want a future for their children. Instead of a suicide vest or other destructive end.

The olive branch has ever become my replacement, my atonement, for the thoughts I had following 911. To reduce one's enemy by making yourself more appealing to their people. Not to offer one's own head, but to recruit them to "our" side. To convince enough of them to put down the sword, as to make the remainder ineffective.

Using the logic some posters here have used, I would be a Muslim Terrorist for NOT wanting to kill them all. After all, if we "Punch" Nazis, then we surely "Punch" Muslims too. Of course anyone who doesn't want them "Punched" is just a traitor who belongs to the enemy. Peace needs to be "Punched" too. Nothing but calls for violence from the modern American "Left". Isn't that right @Vic ? That is the exact meaning of your god damn post.


I digress. @Moonbeam you mentioned distinctions and I would speak to that. Not all who follow a group belong to it for the same reason. Not all are hardcore or dedicated. Some merely saw no better option. No one else to offer them an olive branch. No one to give them a reasonable choice. If all one sees is a rioting mob coming for your head, then naturally one is going to take up arms. For no other cause than it is the only path available.

Now that's an extreme example. Obviously voters in 2016 were not in that situation, but they were in an economic one. And no one showed them an olive branch for their woes. Hell, everyone seems to deride Republican voters as rich and sitting pretty. No reason in the world to vote the way they did except for pure evil. As if each and every single one of them were Nazis. Do "Democrats" cheer for collective punishment now?

Sure sounds like it. So very disappointing to see so many take my place, and paint a target on all the "others". For it was largely they who convinced me to seek out the distinctions and the olive branch. Now they have burned down the tree and see only Nazis. I wish America had a party that did not wantonly seek to murder the other.

I think you are angry at Vic because you are angry at your old self. I think this arises out or guilt and shame. But why feel that way. Look at how far you have come. I believe we have always been exactly as we had to be given our circumstance, and the is no such thing as sin except the belief in it. This is why, I believe, Christianity asks us to forgive. And to really forgive others we have to forgive ourselves. And the whole reason for the Christian faith, in my opinion, is to tell us we have been forgiven. The idea behind that, in my opinion again, is so we let go of recriminations period. You let go of your hatred of Muslims, let go of your contempt for those who still hate them or at least consider this.

 

[Vic]

So, on that note, I'd like to point out that self-defense was the Nazis' justication for literally everything they did, including the Holocaust. At all times, and in every circumstance, regardless of how provocative or just downright genocidal, the Nazis would claim self-defense for their actions.
The Nuremberg prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz used term pre-emptive self-defense to describe this.
Now take a look around and see who today is also abusing the term self-defense to justify hunting people down and killing them, whether it's sending our armies across the globe, vigilantes into protests to silence speech they disagree with, or gunmen into schools and places of worship because they fear any culture not their own.
It's the same thing.

 

[HomerJS]

Do you think Trumps efforts to build the wall are motivated by a desire to save US citizens from rapists, drugs, and loss of jobs or is animated by the drive to and the pleasure of fucking over people he sees as inferiors, like separating kids from their mothers? Is he a patriot or a psychopath. How about the promise of a wild time at the capitol on Jan 6. Was that about a stolen election or the hoped for murder of the VP and Congress?

Methinks you overthought.

In both cases future actions were based on past criticism. In Hitler's case his paintings. In Trump's case Obama humiliated him at the correspondence dinner.

Both are psychopaths motivated by revenge.

 

[Moonbeam]

Methinks you overthought.

In both cases future actions were based on past criticism. In Hitler's case his paintings. In Trump's case Obama humiliated him at the correspondence dinner.

Both are psychopaths motivated by revenge.

Those were simply events that triggered feeling much older than that. Trumps niece says that Trump's father was a monster who used ridicule to control him. Trump has spent his life trying to prove his father was wrong which drives him to act more and more despicably to create more and more stress to prove he isn't. The psychological reason self hate is self destruction is because the only way back to health is to regain real self respect, but we don't actually want to remember the traumatic events that made us sick and get past them that way, the real way we can. Instead we try to create our past vicariously, by constantly fucking up in the present to give our egos something to resist. That is a death spiral from which there is no way out. It is the ego that makes us sick and the one thing that prevents us from feeling the pain of our original humiliations. It is a catch 22. We have to die to the one thing that saved us, a delusional sense of self worth instead of the one we were born to have.

People like Trump need other people to thump their chests at and expecially people with a reputation for decency since that is what they were robbed of. It's the same for Hitler who failed to find self worth as an artist as was inevitable given his real problem was his own self hate. These are just two exceptionally sick individuals but the problem is universal which, of course, leads to the occasional outbreak of mass psychosis, what happened in pre WW2 Germany and (not EDIT: now) in the US.

 

[Moonbeam]

So, on that note, I'd like to point out that self-defense was the Nazis' justication for literally everything they did, including the Holocaust. At all times, and in every circumstance, regardless of how provocative or just downright genocidal, the Nazis would claim self-defense for their actions.
The Nuremberg prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz used term pre-emptive self-defense to describe this.
Now take a look around and see who today is also abusing the term self-defense to justify hunting people down and killing them, whether it's sending our armies across the globe, vigilantes into protests to silence speech they disagree with, or gunmen into schools and places of worship because they fear any culture not their own.
It's the same thing.

So true and the reason it is, in my opinion is exactly what I have said: Childhood humiliation is so painful it can't consciously be lived with and so the feeling that one is unworthy is deeply suppressed, covered over and hidden by false ego identification with something in ones own personal conditions is socially worshiped. Church, state, political party,, football team, and a million other forms of sacred cow beliefs, all of which need to be protected on pain of self remembering. All of this isn't because we are savages but because we can experience the pain humiliation and fear it will happen again. It is the capacity to associate thoughts about this being good and that being evil with early childhood experiences of pain. It is our capacity for language and thought that makes such associations possible and transmissible as cultural norms.

 

[cytg111]

You a facing this bastard, a true Trump with quadruple the brains.
DeSantis is fucking dangerous. There is your fucking mustache.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1465512371946991617

 

[HomerJS]

You a facing this bastard, a true Trump with quadruple the brains.
DeSantis is fucking dangerous. There is your fucking mustache.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1465512371946991617

Easy to flush this toad out, what's your stance on Jan 6 insurrection

 

[cytg111]

Easy to flush this toad out, what's your stance on Jan 6 insurrection

You dont think he is able to weave his way out of that one? This dude is slick smart and just as depraved as Trump.

 

[MichaelMay]

My two cents:

1) Peterson is an amazing example of confirmation bias, precisely because he's well-educated and fluent AND he's on an ideological war path. Basically, the guy is in many respects like a modern-day Athenian Sophist: he can argue about anything and is not shy of distorting truth and facts, when it serves his purposes. Unlike Trump, he has a foundation to do so - which makes him much more dangerous from an intellectual point of view. To paraphrase Jefferson, truth itself becomes suspect through association with these kind of people.

2) Ideology makes strange bedfellows. Moonbeam's use of a Jordan Peterson video in order to make a narrow point about human nature, while serenely ignoring the context and value of the information itself was... illuminating.

1) I fully agree except that when challenged on any point he makes he quite often comes up empty. On his own podium he's fine but during debates with people who are actually well educated he almost always fails to come up with anything of any worth as a response. He needs his following and nothing else.

2) Yup, it was indeed.

 

[MichaelMay]

You dont think he is able to weave his way out of that one? This dude is slick smart and just as depraved as Trump.

Why would he weave his way out of something every last of his followers is in favor of? He knows his base and they are all fascists who want ein reich under Trump.

 

[cytg111]

Why would he weave his way out of something every last of his followers is in favor of? He knows his base and they are all fascists who want ein reich under Trump.

Thoust does not understand what I mean. He has the same MO as Trump he just serves it up much nicer… more will buy the crap if DeSantis serves it up.

 

[cytg111]

About the jew final solution as a runaway train, whipped to keep morale, gaining an unstoppable momentum… The GQP is already there are they not? Instead of jews its their own country men, now Row, the big lie etc. Point I am getting at is unstoppable. Its runaway. My personal prediction is its gonna turn violent, I dont see how you can avoid it.

 

[MichaelMay]

Thoust does not understand what I mean. He has the same MO as Trump he just serves it up much nicer… more will buy the crap if DeSantis serves it up.

Ah, well that I agree with.

 

[pmv]

I'm curious to see if the Republicans try to steal the 2024 election blatantly, in full view, via quasi-constitutional shenanigans that exploit every flaw in the system (like refusing to certify votes from Democrat districts or sending alternative slates of electors and ultimately something involving the now-quite-openly-political Supremes) or if it will all be entirely under-the-table, via a large number of separate small instances of voter suppression and gerrymandering. The former would make for a much more exciting and dramatic spectacle, but I worry it might be the latter and will just pass almost unmentioned and unchallenged. Either way they'll probably feel all-the-more morally-empowered to try it, by virtue of having convinced themselves the Dems stole the last one.

The fact that it currently looks as if Roe vs Wade might die with nary a whimper of opposition makes me fear 2024 might see be the less dramatic second scenario. I hope not, because I want to see the drama of it all.

 

[MichaelMay]

I'm curious to see if the Republicans try to steal the 2024 election blatantly, in full view, via quasi-constitutional shenanigans that exploit every flaw in the system (like refusing to certify votes from Democrat districts or sending alternative slates of electors and ultimately something involving the now-quite-openly-political Supremes) or if it will all be entirely under-the-table, via a large number of separate small instances of voter suppression and gerrymandering. The former would make for a much more exciting and dramatic spectacle, but I worry it might be the latter and will just pass almost unmentioned and unchallenged. Either way they'll probably feel all-the-more morally-empowered to try it, by virtue of having convinced themselves the Dems stole the last one.

The fact that it currently looks as if Roe vs Wade might die with nary a whimper of opposition makes me fear 2024 might see be the less dramatic second scenario. I hope not, because I want to see the drama of it all.

Well they are counting on just presenting any electors the state wants to present and Manchin seems to be fine with that so...

 

[MichaelMay]

About the jew final solution as a runaway train, whipped to keep morale, gaining an unstoppable momentum… The GQP is already there are they not? Instead of jews its their own country men, now Row, the big lie etc. Point I am getting at is unstoppable. Its runaway. My personal prediction is its gonna turn violent, I dont see how you can avoid it.

Oh don't you worry, they'll get to the Jews.... They always do.

 

[Moonbeam]

I'm curious to see if the Republicans try to steal the 2024 election blatantly, in full view, via quasi-constitutional shenanigans that exploit every flaw in the system (like refusing to certify votes from Democrat districts or sending alternative slates of electors and ultimately something involving the now-quite-openly-political Supremes) or if it will all be entirely under-the-table, via a large number of separate small instances of voter suppression and gerrymandering. The former would make for a much more exciting and dramatic spectacle, but I worry it might be the latter and will just pass almost unmentioned and unchallenged. Either way they'll probably feel all-the-more morally-empowered to try it, by virtue of having convinced themselves the Dems stole the last one.

The fact that it currently looks as if Roe vs Wade might die with nary a whimper of opposition makes me fear 2024 might see be the less dramatic second scenario. I hope not, because I want to see the drama of it all.

Not to worry. Manchin and Sinema will preserve the filibuster and when the Fascists control the three branches a Democratic minority in the Senate will be able to block any destructive legislation they want to pass. We Americans are safe. You, on the other hand, will have to deal alone with our buddy Putin.

 

[Moonbeam]

Oh don't you worry, they'll get to the Jews.... They always do.

That will be a mixed bag. There is a temple that needs building in Israel before I can be drawn straight up into heaven, so friends in need are friends in deed as long as the need is there. After that they can all go to hell where they belong, fing Christ killers. Not to mention that cream, the intellectually gifted, rises to the top and there will surely be many Jews get high marks in the Fascist hit parade like my buddy Stephen Miller.

 

[dank69]

Not to worry. Manchin and Sinema will preserve the filibuster and when the Fascists control the three branches a Democratic minority in the Senate will be able to block any destructive legislation they want to pass. We Americans are safe. You, on the other hand, will have to deal alone with our buddy Putin.

If there was a bill they wanted to pass, and had the votes to pass, but could not pass because the Dems were filibustering, the GOP would nix the filibuster in a New York minute.

 

[cytg111]

Ah, well that I agree with.

See this shit?

DeSantis proposes a new civilian military force in Florida that he would control

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to reestablish a World War II-era civilian military force that he, not the Pentagon, would control.

edition.cnn.com

 

[KMFJD]

See this shit?

DeSantis proposes a new civilian military force in Florida that he would control

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to reestablish a World War II-era civilian military force that he, not the Pentagon, would control.

edition.cnn.com

was just going to post that, it's a bit worrisome isn't it?