Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can!

[David Horn]

(01-28-2019, 08:21 PM)taramarie Wrote: Reading that this dispute is still going on over a year after i stopped posting here i am unsure whether to commend the people here for their perserverance or to shake my head as you would get more results from banging your head on a wall. Best of luck, guys. Namaste and peace to you all.

As a Kiwi, this should seem lame to you.  As a Yank, it's a bit different.

[David Horn]

(01-28-2019, 09:22 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: You'd be hard pressed to find an investigative reporter or a journalist who would be willing to stick their neck out and place their careers/future  on the line to explore information relating to dirt or wrong doings by  Obama and you'd be hard pressed to find a blue would be foolish or crazy enough to implicate Obama or his administration at the time. We know that he/his administration used the IRS inappropriately and we know that the FBI was used inappropriately as well. We know that the FBI director made decisions that he didn't have the authority to make in regards to Hilary's case and we know she cleaned had her hard drive cleaned by a professional and we know she had her assistants destroy their government issued phones as well. How do we know this, it's all on record and it's all been collaborated by admittance of guilt. Even the Russian collusion thingy has more evidence of collusion between the DNC and Clinton Campaign and the Russians involving the Steele Dossier that was used as evidence by the FBI and the Department of Justice to obtain the FISA warrant to spy on the Trump Campaign and launch an investigation into collusion between the Trump Administration and the Russian government.

Do you have anything to back your allegations?  Somehow I doubt it.  Why?  Because this road has been trodden by the pros for years, and nothing that can be substantiated has ever been found -- at least on the Obamas.  I'll grant that Hillary is a bit sleazy, but even here, the evidence indicates sleaze, not criminality.  I notice you also dragged-up the Steel Dossier.  You do know that it was initially funded by never-Trumpers on the right.  Only when Trump won the nomination did the Dems pick it up -- as they should have.  Opposition research is standard fare in all elections.  Arguing that it was used to obtain a FISA warrant is nonsense, since FISA warrants are both classified and hard to obtain.  How could you know anything, yet assume the highly unlikely?  

I do find it hard to believe that you actually buy this stuff.  Mueller will finish at some point (barring interference by the Justice Department), and we'll see how close you guesses are.  Judging by Mueller's output to date, I'll be more than willing to bet against you.

[David Horn]

(01-29-2019, 01:21 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(01-28-2019, 04:45 PM)David Horn Wrote: I recommend not holding your breath on a massive Blue Comeuppance.  More to the point, start working on excuses for Mafia Don, because his days really are numbered.

Don't worry, I'm not going to hold my breath for a decade and I won't be working on excuses for Trump either.

One of three things will happen (in the order from most to least likely):

1. The PTB will find a way to reject Trumpian politics (if not Trump himself) while managing  to keep the pro-wealth gains Trump made (especially the sweetheart tax deal) but dumping the neo-Fascist part of his message, or
   
2. The leftward drift in the Democratic Party will be validated at the polls, and the 4T will resolve with 1950s-like high taxes on the rich, more social spending on schools and the like, and an infrastructure update project that will last for 25 to 30 years, or
   
3. The Dems counter to Trump will fail and Trump will establish his junta as the New American Democracy.
   

Note: I'm finding Trump-the-All-Victorious less likely than total repudiation of his message, but more of what went before to be the most likely outcome of the next Presidency if not the election itself.

[David Horn]

(01-29-2019, 01:45 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: ... BTW, what makes you think that blues are going to have a choice whether their leadership decides in favor of implementing a Fascist system instead of a Communist system to replace the American system?

What make you think that a return to the economics of the 1950s is either Fascist or Communist?  All the "radical lefties" are advocating what has worked in the past, not some new junta of the left.

[David Horn]

(01-29-2019, 07:20 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: This will always be a mystery for me: how can an alliance between political orientations that have almost nothing in common last so long?

Christian Republicans promote Rand, although she openly hated Christianity. She was praised by the famous Satanist Anton LaVey:
https://www.churchofsatan.com/satanism-and-objectivism/

On the other hand, Jesus made it clear that those who worship mammon are not his followers. I have pointed it out to some Republicans on Personality Cafe, but they typically come up with gimmicks like "glorifying personal achievement is not worship of mammon". In essence, they redefine this sin in such a way that it's almost impossible to commit.

As for racism, I don't agree that libertarianism is racist since it views the individual as most important, rather than a collective like race. But its outcomes ARE harmful for economically less powerful individuals, and those individuals are more likely to be non-White, so in practice you are almost right

The simple answer is cognitive dissonance.  The more complete answer involves that in addition to fear of "the other" and total lack of imagination.  I have friends who hold these opinions, are unshakable in their beliefs, but can't defend them even to themselves.

[Eric the Green]

(01-29-2019, 07:20 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:

(01-29-2019, 01:43 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: It has been very clear for years that the Christian right and the Libertarian-economics right (neo-liberalism) are the two main factions in the Republican Party, and they are joined at the hip and overlap. Militarism is another strong component of the Republican brand, which we often call neo-con. George W Bush when he was president specifically mentioned these three items on the white house webpage as their purpose. Racism is in the background of neo-liberalism, although not explicitly stated, and so it has been since Nixon's southern strategy.

Now under Trump, the Christian right continues to back him, and he rewards them with policies, even though Trump is scarecly moral himself and totally egotistic. But I don't see that as any kind of ideology. It doesn't seem to be a factor at all for the Christian right; they back Trump. Some neo-liberals don't, but most do, because except on trade Trump policies are so thorougly neo-liberal libertarian free-market trickle-down economics. As for militarism, Trump is less interventionist, but not immune to it, and he is keen to build up the military just like previous Republicans. The main difference is that Trump is more outspoken in his racist xenophobia, although not completely overt about his racism, except in his anti-immigration policies which are the cornerstone of his campaign and his presidency.

This will always be a mystery for me: how can an alliance between political orientations that have almost nothing in common last so long?

Christian Republicans promote Rand, although she openly hated Christianity. She was praised by the famous Satanist Anton LaVey:
https://www.churchofsatan.com/satanism-and-objectivism/

On the other hand, Jesus made it clear that those who worship mammon are not his followers. I have pointed it out to some Republicans on Personality Cafe, but they typically come up with gimmicks like "glorifying personal achievement is not worship of mammon". In essence, they redefine this sin in such a way that it's almost impossible to commit.

As for racism, I don't agree that libertarianism is racist since it views the individual as most important, rather than a collective like race. But its outcomes ARE harmful for economically less powerful individuals, and those individuals are more likely to be non-White, so in practice you are almost right

Christian fundamentalism and evangelical churches really have little in common with what Jesus actually taught. The religious right in the USA is a political movement. It is motivated largely today by opposition or revulsion against the counter-culture, feminism, secular humanism, and other movements that came to the fore in the sixties, as they perceive it. Fundamentalism actually goes back some decades before, toward the beginning of the century, but was more often aligned with Democrats and liberals back then, as with W.J. Bryan and the social gospel. Religious fundamentalism is a traditional religious counter-awakening that could be said to have, like other Awakening trends, skipped along from 2T to 2T, and gaining power in the 3T and losing some ground in the 4T.

Neo-liberalism or individualist free-market ideology like Rand's does glorify personal achievement, especially in making money. But the two movements have fused in our time, and in fact were mostly never apart in our times, going back to before the 2T. "Christian character," and especially "American Christian character," is seen to consist in self-reliance, and in opposition to socialism and communism which, being "godless," is quite anti-Christian in their mind. So, charity and taxes for welfare are not compatible, in their view, since liberal programs are seen as socialist in essence (as per Classic Xer). And Marxism is explicitly atheist, and was excoriated as such during the Cold War, preparing the ground for this sentiment among many patriotic and allegedly self-reliant red-state and rural/small town Americans today.

Sometimes, some Christians have a problem with the latest representative of mammon in political power, Mr. Trump, such as Mormons in Utah; but they still vote for him more often than for Democrats, because they see their religion in politics orientation as supporting the good character of self-reliance and opposing communism and socialism.

Racism has quite clearly, and increasingly, been linked to libertarian or Randian economics. Libertarianism in its liberal side supports democracy and human rights, at least explicitly, so that is not racist. But it conservative side, its economics side, its more powerful and important side, has a strong racist undertone, and your comment touches on it. I would say it's not only in the outcome, but partly in its intention too. Those who oppose taxes spent on welfare, the main gripe voiced by libertarian economics supporters, know all too well that disadvantaged ethnic groups are the people who get most of the welfare checks, or are assumed to be the ones, whether they actually are or not. So the conservative proponents of libertarian economics, from George C. Wallace and Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich, also spoke out against such things as "busing to achieve racial balance in schools" as well as "welfare mothers who have more children in order to get benefits." And now the immigration issue affords even more opportunity for racism, patriotism and libertarian economics to fuse, with Trump as the chief proponent of this racism.

As David mentioned, "fear of the other" shows itself in opposition to non-fundamentalist religion or atheist influence in society, as well as non-white ethnic groups whether indigenous, here since slavery, or latinos and muslims coming over the border.

The distinct attribute of all conservative views, is respect for and submission to authority and the power of traditional hierarchies. For free-market advocates, this is the business boss. For religious conservatives, it is church authority. And for both, America right or wrong. But--- not the government when it supports those atheist, non-American "others" who aspire to overthrow tradition and hierarchy.

[Classic-Xer]

(01-29-2019, 03:11 PM)taramarie Wrote: It is kinda lame to me in all honesty as i have never seen so much polarization and bickering politically here in comparison. I have listened to it here in nz with talkback radio and with reading political discussions on fb as well as ....well....living here of course. It tends to be a bit more constructive than this. What is to be gained when neither moves from either position and from so much polarization and in fact tends to at times resort to some childish retorts which do not help at all.

Well, it's hard to be constructive when one group isn't at all interested in what the other group has to offer the other group or interested in what the other group stands for and represents to the other group these days.

[Classic-Xer]

(01-29-2019, 01:55 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: So why aren't you up on us, then? You have us completely un-pegged.

I am up on you unless everything that you have communicated to me or others blues was all a lie which is completely possible knowing the blues these days. Do you not believe in socialism? Do you not belief in most of the things that say or post and promote? I've seen Democratic who make a living lying through their teeth to American viewers. I see them on Fox News all the time. I can understand lying to me but lying to your own group isn't good. I wouldn't put it past you. I mean, the moral high horse that you view yourself isn't actually all that tall. So, unless you enlighten me by confessing to me and others, I'm going to stick to the belief of having you pegged. I'm not one to put words in other people mouths or claim to know what's going on in other peoples minds as far as beliefs, motives or intentions.

[pbrower2a]

(01-28-2019, 02:54 PM)Bill the Piper Wrote:

(01-28-2019, 01:09 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I think we blues do believe we are mounted on a moral high horse compared to you reds; I'll give you that. We on the Left do think that moral values are important; but it's certainly likely that most reds believe that as well, as long as they are of the traditional religious kind, or at least moral values of American self-reliance.

I see it this way: the Left tends to base its political thought on some sort of moral values. For modern American Left (and Americanised Left in Europe) generally right to self-expression is paramount. The individual needs to have his material needs satisfied to express himself, so the Left views its as a moral duty to ensure noone is hungry. Equality is another "moral high horse" for blues, who are reds or purples on my diagram.

The Right recently believed that everyone needed to create his own luck if he wasn't born rich -- in which case he was under obligation to not live a dissipated life. That is the essence of rugged individualism in a consumer society. Now it seems to believe that the rest of humanity exists only to serve the elites so that people already rich can live dissipated lives. It's back to a Marxist stereotype of capitalism.

Quote:The Right is divided. The "old Right" with its Christian values (black on my diagram) is very moralistic, while the anti-PC "new Right" (blue on my diagram) often takes pride in promoting unabashed egoism. For example Mencius Moldbug, the "founding father" of neoreaction, mocked idealism and described secular humanism as no more reasonable than theism. I like the Christian right on some issues (mainly concerning sexual morality), but for anti-PC types like Moldbug or the UK blogger Sargon of Accad I have no feelings save disgust.

The 'Old Right' allows some sanity; tradition shows its relevance when people mock it with recklessly amoral behavior on a grand scale. Loveless sex is a bad idea; indeed, there is no more loveless sex than rape. I'll take the liberal side on feminism and homosexuality, but anyone who messes with children is a damnable pervert! I also find it repugnant that men ditch wives when they no longer look like the Playboy centerfold except for being fully clad. Cohesive families are the safest and sanest environments for children; I am beginning to wonder whether family chaos does more harm to children than does poverty.

Can we have a pro-family stance without homophobia? Sure -- if we accept homosexuality as normal. Mainstream gays and lesbians won their struggle for marital equality by excoriating the perverts as harshly as might the late Jerry Falwell. They made us realize that any child can go homosexual, and if that child goes homosexual, it is still your child and still deserves your love.  Without male chauvinism? Women can choose, and they can reject the creeps. Men who genuinely support gender equality may be more effective at dating and finding spouses.

I have my bias about humanism; I consider it the only viable ideology. All else subordinates us.

[Classic-Xer]

(01-29-2019, 11:48 PM)taramarie Wrote: Excellent point. Which is why i ask why bother when it is as pointless as talking to a brick wall when minds are totally closed off on either side?

The reason why is because the future America is important to me. I'm not here from them. I could care less about them or careless about what happens to them. I'm  here for the poor kid or naive kid who doesn't you know much of anything about them or their politics.

[pbrower2a]

(01-28-2019, 09:22 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: You'd be hard pressed to find an investigative reporter or a journalist who would be willing to stick their neck out and place their careers/future  on the line to explore information relating to dirt or wrong doings by  Obama and you'd be hard pressed to find a blue would be foolish or crazy enough to implicate Obama or his administration at the time. We know that he/his administration used the IRS inappropriately and we know that the FBI was used inappropriately as well. We know that the FBI directer made decisions that he didn't have the authority to make in regards to Hilary's case and we know she cleaned had her hard drive cleaned by a professional and we know she had her assistants destroy their government issued phones as well. How do we know this, it's all on record and it's all been collaborated by admittance of guilt. Even the Russian collusion thingy has more evidence of collusion between the DNC and Clinton Campaign and the Russians involving the Steele Dossier that was used as evidence by the FBI and the Department of Justice to obtain the FISA warrant to spy on the Trump Campaign and launch an investigation into collusion between the Trump Administration and the Russian government.

1. Futility. No substance means no story.

Not even FoX Newspeak Channel, always hostile to President Obama, could find anything. Crooked pols typically show signs that journalists look for, like secretiveness, deviousness, arrogance, and cynicism.

Journalists want their names on biting stories, and if the Governor seems to 'need' a big campaign contribution to a slush fund if one wants a contract to build or upgrade an expressway, then that is a story on which journalists pounce as if cats going after a mouse. Wild parties at the official residence of the Mayor of Detroit led to the downfall of Kwame "Crookpatrick".

A widespread consensus is that Barack Obama had as squeaky-clean an administration as there has been in a long time. If you want to cover Obama, then what you see is what you get -- and that is the news.

2. I am more likely to believe that wiping sensitive materials from federal computers can be an issue of security -- if such material can be used against America in the wake of a breach. Hard-copy files tucked away in a vault and subjected to rigid security are safer than material on line.

Obviously no public official has any right to delete files that might hold evidence of wrongdoing.

3. The DNC was practically powerless between the Republican win of the Senate in the 2014 election and especially after the election of Donald Trump. Donald Trump has connections to some of the shadiest people in existence. He has ties to organized crime in both the Sicilian and the Russian Mafia. The FBI has been consistently hostile to organized crime, whoever the President is. With Obama as President, FBI investigations of organized crime had no political significance because the President did not interfere. With Donald Trump, the President is the issue.

Just look at the people already convicted -- a veritable rogue's gallery. Papadopoulos, the alleged 'coffee boy'. Manafort, who advised a dictator on how to loot his country and lived high as a reward for such. Lieutenant General Flynn -- a violator of a basic tenet of military life, which is to avoid involvement in partisan politics. Michael Cohen, the President's personal lawyer, who forgot that an attorney must never become complicit in a client's legal misdeeds. Does threatening to kill a squealer's therapy dog sound like witness tampering?

The Trump Presidency is Amateur Hour.

[Bill the Piper]

(01-29-2019, 09:34 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Christian fundamentalism and evangelical churches really have little in common with what Jesus actually taught. The religious right in the USA is a political movement. It is motivated largely today by opposition or revulsion against the counter-culture, feminism, secular humanism, and other movements that came to the fore in the sixties, as they perceive it. Fundamentalism actually goes back some decades before, toward the beginning of the century, but was more often aligned with Democrats and liberals back then, as with W.J. Bryan and the social gospel. Religious fundamentalism is a traditional religious counter-awakening that could be said to have, like other Awakening trends, skipped along from 2T to 2T, and gaining power in the 3T and losing some ground in the 4T.

Neo-liberalism or individualist free-market ideology like Rand's does glorify personal achievement, especially in making money. But the two movements have fused in our time, and in fact were mostly never apart in our times, going back to before the 2T. "Christian character," and especially "American Christian character," is seen to consist in self-reliance, and in opposition to socialism and communism which, being "godless," is quite anti-Christian in their mind. So, charity and taxes for welfare are not compatible, in their view, since liberal programs are seen as socialist in essence (as per Classic Xer). And Marxism is explicitly atheist, and was excoriated as such during the Cold War, preparing the ground for this sentiment among many patriotic and allegedly self-reliant red-state and rural/small town Americans today.

Sometimes, some Christians have a problem with the latest representative of mammon in political power, Mr. Trump, such as Mormons in Utah; but they still vote for him more often than for Democrats, because they see their religion in politics orientation as supporting the good character of self-reliance and opposing communism and socialism.

In Britain, High Tories always preferred traditionalist values to bourgeois values. Their idea of an ideal human being is an old fashioned landowner. (Think of Tolkien's Shire. Tolkien was a High Tory) In France, Catholic fundamentalists like Lefebvre have been even more critical of capitalism and even the American revolution, which they see as a masonic plot. Like the American evangelicals, Lefebvre's brand of paleo-Catholicism has also become influential during the last 2T, as a reaction against the spirit of 1968.

Marxism is obviously atheistic, but it also belongs to the bourgeois Western civilisation since it's in principle a form of scientism. All serious Christians I know despise Marxism, maybe except the supporters of liberation theology in America. But nowadays there are no really influential Marxist movements, so anti-communism only serves as a distraction from all more serious problems I have described in my Western civilisation thread.

[Classic-Xer]

(01-30-2019, 01:02 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(01-28-2019, 09:22 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: You'd be hard pressed to find an investigative reporter or a journalist who would be willing to stick their neck out and place their careers/future  on the line to explore information relating to dirt or wrong doings by  Obama and you'd be hard pressed to find a blue would be foolish or crazy enough to implicate Obama or his administration at the time. We know that he/his administration used the IRS inappropriately and we know that the FBI was used inappropriately as well. We know that the FBI directer made decisions that he didn't have the authority to make in regards to Hilary's case and we know she cleaned had her hard drive cleaned by a professional and we know she had her assistants destroy their government issued phones as well. How do we know this, it's all on record and it's all been collaborated by admittance of guilt. Even the Russian collusion thingy has more evidence of collusion between the DNC and Clinton Campaign and the Russians involving the Steele Dossier that was used as evidence by the FBI and the Department of Justice to obtain the FISA warrant to spy on the Trump Campaign and launch an investigation into collusion between the Trump Administration and the Russian government.

1. Futility. No substance means no story.

Not even FoX Newspeak Channel, always hostile to President Obama, could find anything. Crooked pols typically show signs that journalists look for, like secretiveness, deviousness, arrogance, and cynicism.

Journalists want their names on biting stories, and if the Governor seems to 'need' a big campaign contribution to a slush fund if one wants a contract to build or upgrade an expressway, then that is a story on which journalists pounce as if cats going after a mouse. Wild parties at the official residence of the Mayor of Detroit led to the downfall of Kwame "Crookpatrick".

A widespread consensus is that Barack Obama had as squeaky-clean an administration as there has been in a long time. If you want to cover Obama, then what you see is what you get -- and that is the news.

2. I am more likely to believe that wiping sensitive materials from federal computers can be an issue of security -- if such material can be used against America in the wake of a breach. Hard-copy files tucked away in a vault and subjected to rigid security are safer than material on line.

Obviously no public official has any right to delete files that might hold evidence of wrongdoing.

3. The DNC was practically powerless between the Republican win of the Senate in the 2014 election and especially after the election of Donald Trump. Donald Trump has connections to some of the shadiest people in existence. He has ties to organized crime in both the Sicilian and the Russian Mafia. The FBI has been consistently hostile to organized crime, whoever the President is. With Obama as President, FBI investigations of organized crime had no political significance because the President did not interfere. With Donald Trump, the President is the issue.

Just look at the people already convicted -- a veritable rogue's gallery. Papadopoulos, the alleged 'coffee boy'. Manafort, who advised a dictator on how to loot his country and lived high as a reward for such. Lieutenant General Flynn -- a violator of a basic tenet of military life, which is to avoid involvement in partisan politics. Michael Cohen, the President's personal lawyer, who forgot that an attorney must never become complicit in a client's legal misdeeds. Does threatening to kill a squealer's therapy dog sound like witness tampering?

The Trump Presidency is Amateur Hour.

What did any of them (the people and the crimes they've been convicted of doing or openly admitted to doing or are currently being formally charged/accused of doing) have to do with the issue Russian collusion? BTW, this place is Amateur Hour but that doesn't seem to stop you from posting and looking like an idiot.

[David Horn]

(01-29-2019, 03:11 PM)taramarie Wrote:

(01-29-2019, 11:37 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-28-2019, 08:21 PM)taramarie Wrote: Reading that this dispute is still going on over a year after i stopped posting here i am unsure whether to commend the people here for their perserverance or to shake my head as you would get more results from banging your head on a wall. Best of luck, guys. Namaste and peace to you all.

As a Kiwi, this should seem lame to you.  As a Yank, it's a bit different.

It is kinda lame to me in all honesty as i have never seen so much polarization and bickering politically here in comparison. I have listened to it here in nz with talkback radio and with reading political discussions on fb as well as ....well....living here of course. It tends to be a bit more constructive than this. What is to be gained when neither moves from either position and from so much polarization and in fact tends to at times resort to some childish retorts which do not help at all.

Consider much of what you see and hear in the Political Arena as a faux sport.   All the posturing and name calling is similar to professional wrestling: neither real or important.

[David Horn]

(01-30-2019, 03:28 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: What did any of them (the people and the crimes they've been convicted of doing or openly admitted to doing or are currently being formally charged/accused of doing) have to do with the issue Russian collusion? BTW, this place is Amateur Hour but that doesn't seem to stop you from posting and looking like an idiot.

Embedded in these cases are over 100 contacts between members of the Trump campaign or administration with Russians or Russian cutouts.  Note: that doesn't even count the Trump/Putin assignations that have occurred with no American witnesses -- an action unheard of in the past.  Mueller is still working.  Wait for him to finish.  If it turns out to be a nothingburger, I'll be the first to say so.

[Eric the Green]

(01-30-2019, 05:50 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:

(01-29-2019, 09:34 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Christian fundamentalism and evangelical churches really have little in common with what Jesus actually taught. The religious right in the USA is a political movement. It is motivated largely today by opposition or revulsion against the counter-culture, feminism, secular humanism, and other movements that came to the fore in the sixties, as they perceive it. Fundamentalism actually goes back some decades before, toward the beginning of the century, but was more often aligned with Democrats and liberals back then, as with W.J. Bryan and the social gospel. Religious fundamentalism is a traditional religious counter-awakening that could be said to have, like other Awakening trends, skipped along from 2T to 2T, and gaining power in the 3T and losing some ground in the 4T.

Neo-liberalism or individualist free-market ideology like Rand's does glorify personal achievement, especially in making money. But the two movements have fused in our time, and in fact were mostly never apart in our times, going back to before the 2T. "Christian character," and especially "American Christian character," is seen to consist in self-reliance, and in opposition to socialism and communism which, being "godless," is quite anti-Christian in their mind. So, charity and taxes for welfare are not compatible, in their view, since liberal programs are seen as socialist in essence (as per Classic Xer). And Marxism is explicitly atheist, and was excoriated as such during the Cold War, preparing the ground for this sentiment among many patriotic and allegedly self-reliant red-state and rural/small town Americans today.

Sometimes, some Christians have a problem with the latest representative of mammon in political power, Mr. Trump, such as Mormons in Utah; but they still vote for him more often than for Democrats, because they see their religion in politics orientation as supporting the good character of self-reliance and opposing communism and socialism.

In Britain, High Tories always preferred traditionalist values to bourgeois values. Their idea of an ideal human being is an old fashioned landowner. (Think of Tolkien's Shire. Tolkien was a High Tory) In France, Catholic fundamentalists like Lefebvre have been even more critical of capitalism and even the American revolution, which they see as a masonic plot. Like the American evangelicals, Lefebvre's brand of paleo-Catholicism has also become influential during the last 2T, as a reaction against the spirit of 1968.

Marxism is obviously atheistic, but it also belongs to the bourgeois Western civilisation since it's in principle a form of scientism. All serious Christians I know despise Marxism, maybe except the supporters of liberation theology in America. But nowadays there are no really influential Marxist movements, so anti-communism only serves as a distraction from all more serious problems I have described in my Western civilisation thread.

What you describe as Lefebvre seems a bit contradictory, since the spirit of 1968 was also anti-capitalist, although not communist. It was the Third Revolution breaking out in Europe.

I agree Marxism is a form of scientism, as you say. But his Catholicism cannot be compared to the American fundamentalist Protestants. His paleo-catholicism might have some similarity to the social gospel of the previous 2T circa 1900, insofar as it is critical of capitalism. The evangelical fundies of America since the 1970s 2T (and some people from earlier) see anti-communism as central, but like Classic Xer here they identify anti-communism with opposition to the Democratic Party post-sixties and social welfare programs and other ideas of the Left in America today. So, it doesn't matter to them if Marxism doesn't really exist in America; for them, it does. And for the American right-wing, religious or not, the opposite of Marxism, the free-market, is, as it were, gospel. Libertarian economics or neo-liberalism is the heart of the right-wing today.

[Eric the Green]

Eventually I'm sure this thread will get back to making fun of Trump. We may still be bashing him, though

[pbrower2a]

I came up with a nickname for Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Reminded of Comical Ali, the hack propagandist of Saddam Hussein, I came up with "Comical Sally".

[pbrower2a]

(01-30-2019, 06:03 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Eventually I'm sure this thread will get back to making fun of Trump. We may still be bashing him, though

Somebody here seems to be very protective of a personality cult. Dissent is treason!

(No, dissent with a flawed leader is reason -- and a high form of patriotism).

[Classic-Xer]

(01-30-2019, 06:02 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(01-30-2019, 05:50 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:

(01-29-2019, 09:34 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Christian fundamentalism and evangelical churches really have little in common with what Jesus actually taught. The religious right in the USA is a political movement. It is motivated largely today by opposition or revulsion against the counter-culture, feminism, secular humanism, and other movements that came to the fore in the sixties, as they perceive it. Fundamentalism actually goes back some decades before, toward the beginning of the century, but was more often aligned with Democrats and liberals back then, as with W.J. Bryan and the social gospel. Religious fundamentalism is a traditional religious counter-awakening that could be said to have, like other Awakening trends, skipped along from 2T to 2T, and gaining power in the 3T and losing some ground in the 4T.

Neo-liberalism or individualist free-market ideology like Rand's does glorify personal achievement, especially in making money. But the two movements have fused in our time, and in fact were mostly never apart in our times, going back to before the 2T. "Christian character," and especially "American Christian character," is seen to consist in self-reliance, and in opposition to socialism and communism which, being "godless," is quite anti-Christian in their mind. So, charity and taxes for welfare are not compatible, in their view, since liberal programs are seen as socialist in essence (as per Classic Xer). And Marxism is explicitly atheist, and was excoriated as such during the Cold War, preparing the ground for this sentiment among many patriotic and allegedly self-reliant red-state and rural/small town Americans today.

Sometimes, some Christians have a problem with the latest representative of mammon in political power, Mr. Trump, such as Mormons in Utah; but they still vote for him more often than for Democrats, because they see their religion in politics orientation as supporting the good character of self-reliance and opposing communism and socialism.

In Britain, High Tories always preferred traditionalist values to bourgeois values. Their idea of an ideal human being is an old fashioned landowner. (Think of Tolkien's Shire. Tolkien was a High Tory) In France, Catholic fundamentalists like Lefebvre have been even more critical of capitalism and even the American revolution, which they see as a masonic plot. Like the American evangelicals, Lefebvre's brand of paleo-Catholicism has also become influential during the last 2T, as a reaction against the spirit of 1968.

Marxism is obviously atheistic, but it also belongs to the bourgeois Western civilisation since it's in principle a form of scientism. All serious Christians I know despise Marxism, maybe except the supporters of liberation theology in America. But nowadays there are no really influential Marxist movements, so anti-communism only serves as a distraction from all more serious problems I have described in my Western civilisation thread.

What you describe as Lefebvre seems a bit contradictory, since the spirit of 1968 was also anti-capitalist, although not communist. It was the Third Revolution breaking out in Europe.

I agree Marxism is a form of scientism, as you say. But his Catholicism cannot be compared to the American fundamentalist Protestants. His paleo-catholicism might have some similarity to the social gospel of the previous 2T circa 1900, insofar as it is critical of capitalism. The evangelical fundies of America since the 1970s 2T (and some people from earlier) see anti-communism as central, but like Classic Xer here they identify anti-communism with opposition to the Democratic Party post-sixties and social welfare programs and other ideas of the Left in America today. So, it doesn't matter to them if Marxism doesn't really exist in America; for them, it does. And for the American right-wing, religious or not, the opposite of Marxism, the free-market, is, as it were, gospel. Libertarian economics or neo-liberalism is the heart of the right-wing today.

I'm anti Communist/Marxist but I'm not a Evangelical Fundamentalist by any stretch of the imagination. I don't have interest in saving your sole from damnation or an interest in keeping you from straying off the righteous path.  Marxism belief still exists in America. We're seeing it and we are hearing it as it being promoted by the Democrats again. I doubt Kamala lives like a socialist but she seems to understand the value of it to those she needs to have the support of in order to remain in office and advance her political career/ambitions.