Since I have come to the conclusion tha America is dying of conservatism...

[monovillage]

I know, I just remember it in that one flik, which I can't remember the name of now.

So it is a ref of a ref...

Torino?
Nah, it's a joke I have with family/wife when they comment on how damn grumpy i've been getting. It's a curmudgeon thing. I tell them to get the hell off my lawn.

 

[Moonbeam]

I remember a long time ago staring at a light bulb while deep in thought and the thoughts began to stir uncomfortable feelings. Bamb, the light bulb jumped in position as my hemispheric dominance switched to a completely different train of thought I was having simultaneously in that one. I think I jumped into thoughts about beer. Could it be that something like that has happened here? It would be typical of conservative thinking if so. It's commonly called comic diversion, where the clowns come out to draw the bulls attention.

 

[monovillage]

To include yourself in that observation is not a typical conservative reaction although this may be a safe one to consider.

When we speak of science and the growth of its rejection on the right we are talking about a specific kind of consensual thinking. Why did science acquire credence in the first place other than that its whole strength lay in the notion that anybody with the tools and the knowledge could replicate the experiment and get the same results. Science is consensus thinking among scientists that trickles down to the rest of us not so trained or wealthy to buy the experimental equipment required to do our own testing. We simply accept the peer reviewed results as our best present guess at the facts. It is rational consensual thinking based on a tradition of faith in the ability of the human mind to postulate and intuit and recheck information from data. The ability to observe events and infer laws from those events is taken on faith as different folk agree on the accuracy of what is found.

Science is not and has never been a consensus thing, in fact new discoveries and the overturning of conventional/conservative thought is what science is all about. You can not be an effective scientist if you do not question authority. If you do not question the conventional thinking of your peers. Good science is all about using the scientific method to find fault with accepted dogma.

This is totally different than the imbecilic belief that because a book contradicts the evidence before your eyes that the book has to be right and the data wrong because some Deity says so. But there are millions of people who, for the promised salvation of their souls, make asses of themselves in this life. And they are dangerous because they will put you to the stake if you do anything to threaten their delusional salvation.

Please realize that science can say nothing as to the existence of salvation or God, in my own personal and completely individual way I believe in a reality where the essence of both exist, and which for me, of course, means that I don't lose either because religious texts are full of shit.

That means, therefore, that for me the religiously literal, the fundamentalist, are not only insane, but insane without reason. But as soon as your salvation is tied to false notions or the literal meaning of texts you become a psychopath and when your psychopathology operated in politics, you become a danger to sanity. Thus my interest in curing this disease.

In this part of your post you seem to say that there are no fundamentalist religious people that are liberal and/or Democrats, and that simply isn't the case. We find devout Christians and other religions in both wings and both parties.

Can faith ever be truly imbecilic? It's faith and in many ways it transcends base political belief.

 

[monovillage]

I remember a long time ago staring at a light bulb while deep in thought and the thoughts began to stir uncomfortable feelings. Bamb, the light bulb jumped in position as my hemispheric dominance switched to a completely different train of thought I was having simultaneously in that one. I think I jumped into thoughts about beer. Could it be that something like that has happened here? It would be typical of conservative thinking if so. It's commonly called comic diversion, where the clowns come out to draw the bulls attention.

Whenever I see something hot, whether it's an incandescent light bulb, the hot summer sun or (in my case) a pretty woman in a bikini, I think about beer.

That's actually the honest and true reason I oppose the twisty light bulbs, they don't make me think about beer.

 

[werepossum]

Yes, very nice. This, I would say, is transcendence through the mind or Yoga. Do you know by chance if you are an INFJ?

I not only don't know if I am one, I don't even know for sure what an INFJ is. Is that the Jungian mind classification thing? I was extensively tested as a middle schooler, but I greatly dislike being classified and honestly haven't retained much of it. As Popeye says, I am what I am.

 

[Moonbeam]

monovillage: Science is not and has never been a consensus thing, in fact new discoveries and the overturning of conventional/conservative thought is what science is all about. You can not be an effective scientist if you do not question authority. If you do not question the conventional thinking of your peers. Good science is all about using the scientific method to find fault with accepted dogma.

M: No it's not. Science is about discovering what is true. It is not about focusing on accepted science and finding something wrong with it, it is about finding truth wherever it leads. It is as much and more about finding what is not known yet as it is about looking at the known to find something wrong with it. But its all the same thing. And peer review is nothing but a consensus thing.

m: In this part of your post you seem to say that there are no fundamentalist religious people that are liberal and/or Democrats, and that simply isn't the case. We find devout Christians and other religions in both wings and both parties.

M: There are two points to make here. In the first place there are fundamentalists all over the place. What is threatening America is a conservative mentality that is defective but attempting to remake the law of the US in their image. I will worry about left wing religious wackos when they become a problem. Secondly, there is nothing about being devout that forces you to be crazy. I distinguished between all kinds of folk of faith, like me, who believe regardless of the literal truth of their texts and the nuts who can admit no error and deny reality.

m: Can faith ever be truly imbecilic? It's faith and in many ways it transcends base political belief.

M: Faith is never imbecilic when it is faith. Faith is. That means that a person of faith can believe in what is totally unprovable and doesn't care. He knows. He doesn't need to prove what he believes. He or she does not need the for the Bible or the Koran or any other text to be right in its literal meaning. They would believe anyway if all of that turned to mud. Faith is totally and completely between a person and God, whoever He is. I have my own ideas. It's folk who have no faith I worry about, folk so lacking in faith they will crumble in a heap the moment their sacred text is breached, folk so deep in denial they will kill you if you don't believe as they do. These are the paranoid delusional and the Republican party is chock full of them.

 

[Moonbeam]

I not only don't know if I am one, I don't even know for sure what an INFJ is. Is that the Jungian mind classification thing? I was extensively tested as a middle schooler, but I greatly dislike being classified and honestly haven't retained much of it. As Popeye says, I am what I am.

Yeah, probably an INFJ. Classification can be pigeon holing with the intent to label for the sake of the corrective application of put downs by sick people or it can be a tool of self understanding. Since you like yourself and don't allow the words of others to have power over you I'm not quite sure why you dislike being typed. I found it to be quite fascinating.

 

[monovillage]

TY Moonie, but i'll continue to disagree with you on the science part of your reply. While science is about finding out what is true it is also about examining our beliefs and finding out which are false.
The scientific method was developed over the centuries to make it possible for other scientists to examine and test theories, it does a decent job of this. However it can also be made ineffective if scientists won't share data or methods that allow others to check their work.

The same is true in terms of peer review in our modern and politicized science environment. Do you think that peer review is always fair and impartial and honest and is never interfered with?

 

[werepossum]

Yeah, probably an INFJ. Classification can be pigeon holing with the intent to label for the sake of the corrective application of put downs by sick people or it can be a tool of self understanding. Since you like yourself and don't allow the words of others to have power over you I'm not quite sure why you dislike being typed. I found it to be quite fascinating.

Part of it was the whole process of being tested. My IQ test scores ranged from 120s to well over 200. Even as a middle school kid I understood the concept that if your tests measure the exact same quality and get wildly varying results, your tests are worthless. (For that matter, if you can't tell if a child is "gifted" or "disabled" without running tests, why the hell should I trust you to run tests?) Then, once they decide I'm not an idiot or afflicted with ADHD (they called it hyperactive disorder back then) they want to run further tests to "pattern" me. The obvious intent is to find a box in which to put me, a framework within which to respond to me. But I'm the same kid either way. Once they have you in a box, they respond to you according to that box; the exact same actions or words are interpreted differently depending on which box you get put in. Since no classification system can match every person and remain remotely useful, it stands to reason that at least a large part of the time the classification will result in an incorrect response. It's not a binary world, it's a very aggressively analog world.

I'm a pretty sharp guy. I'm also an only child raised way the hell out in the sticks - we didn't even have indoor plumbing until about the time I started school. And I didn't have a lot of chores. So I read a lot, everything I could get my hands on, and my parents encouraged it. Had I not been a reader, had I more opportunity for playmates, or less access to books, or enough chores to eat up my free time, I would have been exactly as smart, but I would have known many fewer things. Consequently I would have been treated quite differently, especially because I was almost totally face blind. (My vision was 20/200, which didn't help.) Seeing what happened to the kids not judged gifted was a pretty strong reason to dislike being classified at all. Once you're in a box, it's hard to get out.

For the rest of it, I considered it a waste of time, and it was about three days' worth on top of two weeks of IQ tests. There's so much to see, do, read. So many people to talk with. And virtually all of that is more interesting than myself. I'm just not that exceptional, and figuring out my various "classifications" is B-O-R-I-N-G.

 

[SilthDraeth]

If conservatives do not believe in things they can not see, how do you explain religious conservatives?

 

[Moonbeam]

Part of it was the whole process of being tested. My IQ test scores ranged from 120s to well over 200. Even as a middle school kid I understood the concept that if your tests measure the exact same quality and get wildly varying results, your tests are worthless. (For that matter, if you can't tell if a child is "gifted" or "disabled" without running tests, why the hell should I trust you to run tests?) Then, once they decide I'm not an idiot or afflicted with ADHD (they called it hyperactive disorder back then) they want to run further tests to "pattern" me. The obvious intent is to find a box in which to put me, a framework within which to respond to me. But I'm the same kid either way. Once they have you in a box, they respond to you according to that box; the exact same actions or words are interpreted differently depending on which box you get put in. Since no classification system can match every person and remain remotely useful, it stands to reason that at least a large part of the time the classification will result in an incorrect response. It's not a binary world, it's a very aggressively analog world.

I'm a pretty sharp guy. I'm also an only child raised way the hell out in the sticks - we didn't even have indoor plumbing until about the time I started school. And I didn't have a lot of chores. So I read a lot, everything I could get my hands on, and my parents encouraged it. Had I not been a reader, had I more opportunity for playmates, or less access to books, or enough chores to eat up my free time, I would have been exactly as smart, but I would have known many fewer things. Consequently I would have been treated quite differently, especially because I was almost totally face blind. (My vision was 20/200, which didn't help.) Seeing what happened to the kids not judged gifted was a pretty strong reason to dislike being classified at all. Once you're in a box, it's hard to get out.

For the rest of it, I considered it a waste of time, and it was about three days' worth on top of two weeks of IQ tests. There's so much to see, do, read. So many people to talk with. And virtually all of that is more interesting than myself. I'm just not that exceptional, and figuring out my various "classifications" is B-O-R-I-N-G.

Definitely an INFJ.

 

[Moonbeam]

monovillage: TY Moonie, but i'll continue to disagree with you on the science part of your reply. While science is about finding out what is true it is also about examining our beliefs and finding out which are false.

M: If you find out what is true you will know what is false.

m: The scientific method was developed over the centuries to make it possible for other scientists to examine and test theories, it does a decent job of this. However it can also be made ineffective if scientists won't share data or methods that allow others to check their work.

M: If scientists won't share data or methods that allow others to check their work they are not scientists because that is not the scientific method.

m: The same is true in terms of peer review in our modern and politicized science environment. Do you think that peer review is always fair and impartial and honest and is never interfered with?

M: I have insufficient knowledge to determine the extent of this problem but it has been reported a number of times. The interference is not scientific, the reporting and finding it is.

 

[Attic]

Your quoting method sucks.

 

[bfdd]

lol @ moonbeam projecting his self hate etc etc etc. Moonbeam you are what you hate and complain about. You're nothing but an authoritarian drunk on group think.

 

[Moonbeam]

Your quoting method sucks.

I have noted on many occasions that it does offend superficial minds, minds with insufficient candle power to ask themselves why. All they can muster it seems, is that it sucks to them and this itch to find fault in me turns into a cardinal truth. I have not adduced yet if this is a conservative trait but it has all the earmarks of one, the fear and terror of being different and wondering away from the herd.

 

[Moonbeam]

lol @ moonbeam projecting his self hate etc etc etc. Moonbeam you are what you hate and complain about. You're nothing but an authoritarian drunk on group think.

I have it on good authority that you are wrong which can only mean that the authority you got yours from is completely worthless and a in fact an authority on nothing at all. Stop by again when you have done a better analysis of which part of your ass you pull your 'facts'.

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

really? i thought america was dying because a sizable portion of the population is on some sort of govt assistance.

 

[homercles337]

this includes listening to my father's ramblings and rantings.

And there you have it.

 

[Matt1970]

What is threatening America is a conservative mentality that is defective but attempting to remake the law of the US in their image.

It's the Liberal Progressives that want to do away with Capitalism all together. They think the Government can do things better.

 

[Moonbeam]

really? i thought america was dying because a sizable portion of the population is on some sort of govt assistance.

Yes that isn't helping anything but that is also the fault of conservatives. They don't want childhood education, planned parenthood, support for single Moms, food stamps, affirmative action, anything at all but tax cuts for the rich. They race bait, run on paranoid fears, send low pay jobs over seas, pretty much anything their subconscious hatred of themselves can dredge up that will turn about and fuck them in the end. These hideous beasts are so intent on self destruction there's no political time left to means test and develop better ideas. We've been pulled so far to the right that Death Wing is about to roll and we're going to wipe.

 

[Moonbeam]

It's the Liberal Progressives that want to do away with Capitalism all together. They think the Government can do things better.

I know; I just can't wait for Obama to go hog wild in his second term especially since he's been such a milk toast centrist in his first.

 

[bfdd]

I have it on good authority that you are wrong which can only mean that the authority you got yours from is completely worthless and a in fact an authority on nothing at all. Stop by again when you have done a better analysis of which part of your ass you pull your 'facts'.

I get my facts from the same place as you, the crazy behind my eye balls.

 

[cubby1223]

Yep, I was 100% correct in dismissing Moonbeam's entire argument after reading "Daily Kos" in his first sentence. There is no point anyone arguing with him, he is in this thread seeking people to annoy.

 

[dmcowen674]

Since I have come to the conclusion tha America is dying of conservatism...

I have been doing some research of late on the nature of the conservative brain. Know thy enemy as they say.

Another study in England suggests that the fear part of the brain is larger in conservatives, which all ties in.

It seems clear to me that if the conservative brain is out of whack and irrational, we need to do something to to try to prevent defectives from running the show.

It's pretty clear when you look at all the in-saneness happening and it ties back to Conservatives.

It's not clear on how to stop them from completely destroying the country.

 

[piasabird]

You are full of shit!