2020 US Election (Part One)

[El_Machinae]

Something makes me think that you are not a Christian.

I am not. I'm a former Christian. That doesn't leave me less capable of speaking about the original faith, though. It's a tautology, but current Christians are those who're adopting the faith as it has transformed.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I'm talking about the primaries, Bernie stayed in against Hillary and that pissed off a lot of people. I dont see him (or anyone else) doing that again.

Well you're wrong then.... Honestly, WTH are you talking about? Bernie's whole raison de etre is pissing people off, particularly conservative/moderate Democrats... so you're wrong that Bernie would drop out for fear of irritating them... being a thorn in their sides is his whole freaking deal, and his supporters love him for it. And what could I have possibly been talking about besides the primaries?? Bernie staying in after the primary was over? As-in running 3rd party? Are you kidding? Boy are you mixed up... Did you not see the video @Kyriakos posted where Bernie proudly published all the people he's intentionally pissing off? Bernie loves pissing the establishment off.

The Dems just need a moderate centrist who didn't vote on the war to take away that advantage.

Wait... what?!? You do nothing but rail endlessly about how much you hate all the "centrist" Democrats and how bad they suck, how evil they are, how responsible they are for the Middle East conflicts, the Drug War, and so on... Now you're advocating the Democrats nominate another one? Dude, you really do just make it up as you go along.

It was a joke

No, You're a joke... and not a particularly funny one. The old, get-caught-in-a-contradiction/lie-then-claim-I-was-joking, trick... reminds me of another one of our CFC OT club members... Trump would be proud of you. You weren't "joking" you were being sarcastic. Nobody's falling for it... you were just taking the old Conservative, etc., position that "If libruls want to raise muh taxes they should just voluntarily pay more themselves and leave us hardworking Muricans out of it!" You said "just give me the money instead" as a direct response to a claim that reparations would stimulate the economy. Your point was to throw shade at the idea that reparations would work that way and to challenge the libs to pay for their stupid programs out of their own pockets instead of yours. You were't "joking" at all. Nice try.

 

[Takhisis]

Bah, they knew exactly what was going on. Their problem was that 80% of Americans were demanding war, and politicians lacked the spine to do what they knew was right.

The things is that they have more than one concept of ‘right’. Groucho Marx's inspiration didn't just come from nowhere.

I am not. I'm a former Christian. That doesn't leave me less capable of speaking about the original faith, though. It's a tautology, but current Christians are those who're adopting the faith as it has transformed.

Oh yes, but I think you're failing to connect with your addressees and there seems to be an implicit derogatory tone in your comments which really doesn't help.

I know about the Christian Church becoming the state cult in the late Roman Empire and being forever changed because of that, but you appear to be oversimplifying too much (anas well as, I said, acting a bit too dismissive or derogatory).

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Maybe I'm wrong but wasn't there effectively a Christian civil war when Constantine dangled power before the Christians?

Not exactly.

Constantine did not himself convert and get baptized until he was on his death bed. He was more friendly to Christians than most* previous emperors, but still honored Sol Invictus and traditional Roman Pagan gods during his reign as well. It is not really clear whether making Sunday a Day of Rest was primarily meant to honor Jesus or his Sun God more. Many worshipers of Sol Invictus since the time of Heliogabalus had actually considered Jesus to be one of many manifestations of Sol Invictus, but of course Christians considered that blasphemy.

(*Prior to Constantine a few emperors persecuted Christians severely, but most were indifferent and preferred to let local governors do whatever they thought best to stop potential riots. There were decades when it was safe to be Christian interrupted occasionally by a few years when it was dangerous. The worst persecutions were of course under Diocletian, who voluntarily retired and was still alive and planting cabbages during Constantine's reign. Diocletian was partially motivated by paranoia around how Christians were so over represented in secretarial roles in government bureaucracies, as they had much higher literacy rates than normal and were a quickly growing demographic due to their strong opposition to abortion/infanticide/birth control. Constantine himself was not the first emperor to have Christians friends and advisors, or even to attend church services. Some claimed Phillip the Arab himself became a Christian, but there is no evidence he was ever baptized or took communion. He did ask for the Eucharist at Easter one year, but was denied and told to sit with the penitents. At that time the vast majority of Christians believed that serving in the military or government in any role that involves either personally killing or ordering anyone else to kill anyone was completely incompatible with the faith. Some said soldiers could never be forgiven, while most merely required at least one full year of penitence after leaving the job before one could be allowed to take communion. Phillip the Arab fought wars and presided over the secular games at the 1000 year anniversary of the founding of Rome, an event marked by more gladiatorial combat than ever before or since.)

Constantine's Christian advisors were mostly Arians, not Trinitarians. When Constantine called the Council of Nicea, he probably wanted Arianism to be declared orthodox. He cared more about unity than any actual doctrines though. His ideal was to have one religion backing one emperor. He never named Christianity a state religion though, but had an edict of toleration for all religions. It was his son Theodosius who first tried to make Christianity a state religion and refused to punish those who destroyed pagan temples.

Constantine never dictated any doctrine, but he did give gifts to the Christians he liked best. Many churches had property stolen under his predecessors. He not only gave back plots of land but built basilicas on them, so the growing church had more impressive places to meet than private homes. His most extravagant gifts were reserved for those who supported him politically, or at least refrained from speaking out against his many sins.

Constantine got somewhat involved in the controversy around the Traditores, those Christians who had recanted their faith and collaborated with prior persecutions, handing over bibles to be burned and naming names of other church members to be martyred. Traditores were disproportionately from rich influential families (whose support Constantine needed), and were over represented among the (literate, well educated) priests and bishops instead of the laypeople. They were not popular among the christian laity. However, due to the issues around knowing whether baptisms were still valid if performed by an unworthy priest, and a lack of records to let people know who was baptized by whom, a synod of clerics in North Africa ruled that Traditores should be not only forgiven but fully reinstated into their prior offices of trust. When people protested and tried to call a new council for the whole church to decide what to do about the issue, Constantine prevented that. He also gave a lot of basilicas to churches led by Traditores.

This led to a schism where almost half of the church became Dontanists, who had basically identical doctrines but a separate hierarchy that was purged of Traditores in any ordained positions. (Dontantists were usually quite willing to accept Traditores who agreed to be laicized and did not try to exercise any authority over the community they previously betrayed.) Eventually the Dontanist and Catholic doctrines started to diverge, mostly because the Catholics became more friendly to state power while Dontantists continued to argue that Rome was the Whore of Babylon and the Emperor (whoever it happened to at the time) was the Antichrist. Some more radical offshoots were said to crave martyrdom so much that they would raid caravans and then turn over their weapons, begging their victims to kill them for their faith.

Augustine in his early years as a Christian wrote against the use of force to compel conversions, but later he saw that it actually seemed to work pretty well in suppressing Dontantists and so endorsed having the state torture and kill all such schismatics. There are correspondences between him and a Dontantist who argued for the early Christian pacifist position, in which Augustine insisted that they cannot claim a moral high ground because he chose to assume that they would certainly be the ones advocating violence against him if they were in a strong enough position to do so.

Of all the Emperors, the one who seemed to understand Christ's teachings best was Julian the Apostate, the first and only emperor to be raised as a Christian but then choose to return to Paganism. He seems to have been motivated in a large part by disgust at how hypocritical so many professed Christians were. He reversed edicts by predecessors like Theodosius and issued a new edict of toleration for all faiths. He returned some property to pagan priests that had been stolen by his predecessors to give to Christians. He refused to give Christians any positions of power in the military or civil government, citing scripture and early church fathers to argue that such roles were incompatible with their faith. He also forbid Christians from teaching the works of Homer or Hesiod (which were the core of standard curriculum for any respectable education), because he was offended by how they tended to teach that those works were allegories about the christian god instead of being obviously polytheistic texts. He had no problem with Christian schools and tutors instead using the Hebrew scriptures, the Septuagint, or really any text that did not invoke the Olympian gods though. He never seriously persecuted any Christians, but remained friendly towards those who did not seek political power while mercilessly mocking Christian hypocrites.

 

[Farm Boy]

I am not. I'm a former Christian. That doesn't leave me less capable of speaking about the original faith, though. It's a tautology, but current Christians are those who're adopting the faith as it has transformed.

Yes, you are.

 

[Berzerker]

Well you're wrong then.... Honestly, WTH are you talking about? Bernie's whole raison de etre is pissing people off, particularly conservative/moderate Democrats... so you're wrong that Bernie would drop out for fear of irritating them... being a thorn in their sides is his whole freaking deal, and his supporters love him for it. And what could I have possibly been talking about besides the primaries??

You talked about polls, not primaries. Here's what you said:

Bernie isn't dropping out anytime soon. He would likely be the last one to drop out of the race, regardless of his poll numbers, because even if he started fading in the polls, his loyal following gives him a decent polling floor which will keep him in all the debates.

See, no mention of primaries, just polls. You interpreted my words to mean he'd drop if he kept losing in the polls, I was talking about primaries. Understand? We shall see if he stays in till the end, I think he will drop and endorse once he's history, assuming of course he isn't the nominee. In 2016 he stayed in way too long and didn't endorse Clinton until after the primaries were done. That pissed people off, I dont think he'll do that again. Course he had a motive to piss off Hillary after the dirty tricks her campaign pulled.

Bernie staying in after the primary was over? As-in running 3rd party? Are you kidding? Boy are you mixed up...

No, you're mixed up. I didn't mention 3rd parties - and you accuse me of just making it up as I go? Thats what you're doing. Look at the rant you went on because I made a simple, one line joke. All made up BS. Bernie staying in after he loses the primary race like he did in 2016, not running 3rd party. The Clinton campaign wanted him to concede instead of contesting primaries once he couldn't win the nomination. What I said is not complicated, Bernie will drop if he keeps losing primaries to Biden or Harris and can no longer compete for the nomination. You changed my argument to Bernie dropping if he remains behind in the polls.

You do nothing but rail endlessly about how much you hate all the "centrist" Democrats and how bad they suck, how evil they are, how responsible they are for the Middle East conflicts, the Drug War, and so on... Now you're advocating the Democrats nominate another one? Dude, you really do just make it up as you go along.

I'm advocating the Dems nominate a centrist that doesn't have Biden's baggage which includes the Middle East and drug war, yes. Those 2 issues make Biden vulnerable to attacks from Trump. You know, I said that already and you just ignore it and run off to build more straw men.

No, You're a joke... and not a particularly funny one. The old, get-caught-in-a-contradiction/lie-then-claim-I-was-joking, trick..reminds me of another one of our CFC OT club members... Trump would be proud of you. You weren't "joking" you were being sarcastic.

Jokes cant be sarcastic? You didn't catch me in a contradiction/lie, if Hobbs wants to hand out money to stimulate spending I'll be happy to spend his money. How do you equate that with making the innocent pay reparations?

Nobody's falling for it... you were just taking the old Conservative, etc., position that "If libruls want to raise muh taxes they should just voluntarily pay more themselves and leave us hardworking Muricans out of it!"

What I said had nothing to do with taxes or reparations, just Hobbs desire to stimulate the economy by handing out money. Give it to me, I'll spend it. Tristan had no trouble figuring it out.

You said "just give me the money instead" as a direct response to a claim that reparations would stimulate the economy. Your point was to throw shade at the idea that reparations would work that way and to challenge the libs to pay for their stupid programs out of their own pockets instead of yours. You were't "joking" at all. Nice try.

Not instead... "Gimme your money and I'll spend it". And no, that wasn't my point. I have no doubt reparations would stimulate spending, my joke assumes it.

 

[Lexicus]

Yes, but if your supposedly accurate intelligence is all based on a lie, and the intelligence community is perpetuating that lie, you can effectively find yourself hoodwinked, despite your best intentions.

You've basically made my point here.

You are glossing over the role played by many people in Congress in actually amplifying the Bush Administration's case for war. For example, Senator Joe Biden used his powerful position as head of the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee to hold hearings in which only pro-war voices were given any time to testify. Then he went around the country making a series of speeches calling for war on the basis of the hearings that he himself had convened!

I agree with the general point that the administration was responsible for hoodwinking the public and Congress, but @MagisterCultuum points out correctly that a fuller picture of the intelligence than that painted by the administration was available to people in Congress and one might argue that Congressional Democrats could have seen it as their duty to make sure that folks from the intelligence and military who were against war were at least part of the conversation.

Bah, they knew exactly what was going on. Their problem was that 80% of Americans were demanding war, and politicians lacked the spine to do what they knew was right.

There is no indication that most of those who voted for the war understood that it was wrong. And of course in reality it was not merely "wrong" it was "criminal aggression" for which "people should have been hanged".

Naw, you're wrong. Christianity is not designed to hold power. It was built when Christians were oppressed, and then perverted in order to allow people to hold power. The faith is built around having a secular oppressor, not holding the power.

In particular it is a faith tailor-made to appeal to slaves and debt peons, not emperors and government functionaries.

 

[El_Machinae]

Even government functionaries can function as Christian, because they just have to thread the line between behaving in a Christian manner and obeying the rules, and then deciding how much of their Christianity they are willing to forsake in order to enforce the rules as written. A government functionary has a a boss and a secular authoritarian above them, as well as rules written that they are supposed to follow under threat of punishment

 

[Lexicus]

Even government functionaries can function as Christian, because they just have to thread the line between behaving in a Christian manner and obeying the rules, and then deciding how much of their Christianity they are willing to forsake in order to enforce the rules as written. A government functionary has a a boss and a secular authoritarian above them, as well as rules written that they are supposed to follow under threat of punishment

Well of course, I didn't mean that only slaves and debt peons can be Christians. I'm just saying the faith is tailor-made for people like that, not for people in positions of power and influence.

 

[Tristan_C]

Eh, I'd point more towards the parable of the Good Samaritan as a clear command to treat strangers, even the "other," as a neighbor. Even the old trope conservatives often turn to about charity being a personal choice isn't applying here since donations are ignored or turned away at these centers and water left in the desert is dumped in a very unchristian manner.

I could go on with how universal healthcare is a more christ like position, giving the naked you're second tunic is a command to share wealth, the parable of the prodigal son is a sign that lifetime punishment for poor choices in youth shouldn't be a thing, tuition free college is teaching a man to fish, etc.

What made the Samaritan good was his choice to treat the "other" as a neighbor. Based on the assumption that most people are selfish, the government systems mechanize the deed and remove your choice. These systems are not charities. They do not present you with the choice to do good works, so no, they bear no resemblance to Christ's original teachings other than render unto Caesar.

The truth about people is probably something that makes evolutionary sense: most people have good general intentions, but their generosity is almost entirely parochial, and they do not trust others to be generous at all.

Your whataboutism is on pretty weak ground if "protestant work ethic" is an example of following Christ. This puts it in a pretty funny light if you're up for a laugh at your own political expense.

The protestant work ethic is something directly contrary to what Jesus taught. He said that if we would be perfect we should be like God who causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. In the parable of the laborers in the vineyard he insisted that it is right for the workers hired in the morning who worked all day to receive no more pay than those who were hired in the evening who hardly worked at all, condemning the ungrateful harder workers who thought they deserved more than the owner of the vineyard agreed to give them just because others who worked less got as much.

Dude, you're not supposed to quote God's actual words to those who claim to speak in His name.

Of course I didn't make any remark about this, so none of this garbage was necessary. The post is still there for anyone able to read.

But I could offer some remarks. I think evolutionary theory is the best tool so far for making deductions about human nature. Nothing against him, but Jesus of Nazareth did not have that tool. As for a moral system, I like the Protestant idea of fairness-as-proportionality, equity, more than equality; I think it makes more sense for a civilization of millions of strangers than Jesus' teachings or competing philosophical schools.

Kansans spend my tax dollars every day and I'm happy for it. I don't mind paying for roads and schools and hospitals in backward states even as the occupants of said states continue to scoff at me and mine as if they didn't gorge on a disproportionate amount of the tax take because I'm not a selfish monster.

I can't find much data on this. There is a 40-year general social survey (GSS) which found that Republican households had a slightly higher average income than Democrats, meaning that historically Republicans in red and blue states have been net subsidizing the needs of Democrats in red and blue states. I wouldn't be surprised if this situation has changed in the last ten years or so with the continued rise in ultra-wealthy individuals in tech and finance, and the shrinking of the relative size of the private sector vs the public.

 

[Mouthwash]

Of all the Emperors, the one who seemed to understand Christ's teachings best was Julian the Apostate, the first and only emperor to be raised as a Christian but then choose to return to Paganism. He seems to have been motivated in a large part by disgust at how hypocritical so many professed Christians were. He reversed edicts by predecessors like Theodosius and issued a new edict of toleration for all faiths. He returned some property to pagan priests that had been stolen by his predecessors to give to Christians. He refused to give Christians any positions of power in the military or civil government, citing scripture and early church fathers to argue that such roles were incompatible with their faith. He also forbid Christians from teaching the works of Homer or Hesiod (which were the core of standard curriculum for any respectable education), because he was offended by how they tended to teach that those works were allegories about the christian god instead of being obviously polytheistic texts. He had no problem with Christian schools and tutors instead using the Hebrew scriptures, the Septuagint, or really any text that did not invoke the Olympian gods though. He never seriously persecuted any Christians, but remained friendly towards those who did not seek political power while mercilessly mocking Christian hypocrites.

At times I've wondered if Christianity had always contained the seeds of its own destruction.

I think evolutionary theory is the best tool so far for making deductions about human nature.

It's one of the worst. Read Seneca, Job, Aristotle, literally any ancient. The only reason anyone ever took evo-psych seriously was the prestige it got from piggy-backing off of an actual science.

 

[Tristan_C]

It's one of the worst. Read Seneca, Job, Aristotle, literally any ancient. The only reason anyone ever took evo-psych seriously was the prestige it got from piggy-backing off of an actual science.

You'd have to explain why you're dissatisfied with it. But we'd probably risk moderation since this is well into the weeds from the 2020 US Election.

 

[Mouthwash]

You'd have to explain why you're dissatisfied with it. But we'd probably risk moderation since this is well into the weeds from the 2020 US Election.

Demands monocausal explanations for phenomena in complex systems, largely untestable, ideological to the core, detached from human experience, and most damning of all, modern.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I can't find much data on this. There is a 40-year general social survey (GSS) which found that Republican households had a slightly higher average income than Democrats, meaning that historically Republicans in red and blue states have been net subsidizing the needs of Democrats in red and blue states. I wouldn't be surprised if this situation has changed in the last ten years or so with the continued rise in ultra-wealthy individuals in tech and finance, and the shrinking of the relative size of the private sector vs the public.

I wonder what the results would be if you dropped the top and bottom 5% of households based on income.

 

[Traitorfish]

This is the flaw in your argument. Hillary Clinton couldn't appeal to moderate Republicans and independents because they have been trained to hate her for a full generation, or longer. That made Hillary a bad choice, and in truth only the GOP fielding a complete dingbat kept her from getting totally blown out. But that doesn't change the reality that no Democrat can win without appealing to moderate Republicans and independents...that's just math.

The GOP will have a much harder time sticking the opponent with "but socialist" or "but progressive" than they had sticking her with "but Hillary." That doesn't mean the Democrat can afford to make it easy for them.

Do either "socialist" or "Hilary" have the sort of clout with swing-voters or non-voters that they do with dedicated Republicans? Especially the latter: Democrats don't win by courting moderates, they won by courting non-voters. Obama provide these decisively; so, as after a fashion, did Clinton. And it's hard to believe that people who's investment in electoral politics does not extend to consistently participation even in presidential elections are going to letting the clichés of the Limbaugh set do their thinking (or thought-terminating) for them.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I wonder what the results would be if you dropped the top and bottom 5% of households based on income.

His claim flies in the face of everything I've read on the subject and is either a fabrication based on nothing or at best a highly selective reading of the data.

 

[Berzerker]

you mean the Democrats are the party of wealth?

 

[Tristan_C]

His claim flies in the face of everything I've read on the subject and is either a fabrication based on nothing or at best a highly selective reading of the data.

I didn't make a claim. I said I have not seen much data, but that what I saw did not warrant a lot of pious breast-beating about Kansas. It's like no one here responds to posts, they just make up their own garbage to yell at. Never change, internet.

 

[Hygro]

Don't worry I read your stuff Tristan.

 

[Tristan_C]

Don't worry I read your stuff Tristan.

Oh man, you have my sympathy then.