Phi for All

Don't look a thing like I remember. You're talking about mean, vicious, isolationist people who oppose science, diversity, public education, freedom of choice, and just want to use socialism to get the poor and middle class to pay for their airports, roads, and seaports. Ike was the one who warned the real Republicans not to do what they're doing now, remember? Don't let industry get in bed with government Dwight Eisenhower, that's the guy I'm talking about. I think you're confused.

The combination of refusing to release documentation that would allow us to see if he's using political office for personal gain and the reversal of trade agreements/pipeline proposals he and his cronies might benefit from is enough in my mind, but that's from an ethical standpoint. Trump will only be impeached if his personal gains run contrary to enough other wealthy people's personal gains. It will be a matter of who owns more congressional clout. Watch for a tipping point, when enough of the uber-wealthy stop fighting him because they've finally positioned themselves to profit from him.

What would you call an Eisenhower Republican these days? That's where I learned about America's real strength.

! Moderator Note Hijack and subsequent replies split off to their own thread in Speculations.

! Moderator Note These posts have been split off from the topic they were hijacked from, and moved to this section due to the speculative nature. Please take the time to review the special rules for the Speculations section.

But not nearly on the scale of the right. And remember that the religious right used to be Democrats, when the Dems were considered less godless. Liberal religious people usually recognize the need for a separation of church and state, where conservative religious people tend to insist their beliefs be part of the law of the land. Liberal Christians are basically "Love thy neighbor as thyself" type people, which runs counter to more fundamental conservative dogma.

Please take a look at your responses, both here in this thread, and in most of the threads you're involved with. Notice how they rarely address the points the other people in this discussion bring up? Notice how you just keep standing on your soapbox, shouting out what you believe, no matter what anyone else is saying? That's what we call preaching here. It tells us you have no intention of learning from anyone here, but rather have come to push your flavor of the 9000 different versions of Christianity and nothing will stop you. It's not what we do here, it's not discussion, and it's just irritating as hell because you try so hard to use science, a thing you barely understand, to argue about something nobody can understand.

I forgot about this thread.

Amen.

You think this supports your point, and I think it supports mine. You fear the wrath of the supernatural, yet are excited at the prospect of crashing in a plane.

I have no problems with professions of faith, and expressions of hope. These things often provide comfort and a feeling of centeredness some can't find any other way. But for some of us who find these things in the natural world, your willingness to actually mold your life, change the way you live, and make major decisions based on Iron Age superstitions that have no observable manifestations in reality seems ridiculous in the extreme. It's why we worry someone like you or Sarah Palin could get codes to nuclear missiles and decide that it's Armageddon time, and you might kill us all because you thought your god(s) wanted you to. Your faith scares rational people.

He doesn't believe that.

In the early 80s, I was part of a group of actors, and we worked with the Denver Police Department academy trainees filming some domestic abuse scenarios, based on a relatively new system the DPD was promoting. The system categorized domestic violence in 10 escalating steps, and the officers had been trained on the proper responses to each. It was one of the most intense experiences I've ever had. Having a police force properly trained in domestic abuse is one of the most difficult but necessary things a progressive society can offer its families. It's a way to step in and have dangerous common situations diffused before they can escalate to physical violence while still respecting personal rights on personal property. 40 years of these kinds of policies and procedures have made a favorable impact. We lose about three women a day in the US to domestic violence, and that's a horrible number. One an hour is a human rights violation of international scope, and I sincerely hope the supporters of Putin/Trump are looking at these figures and rethinking just what kind of men they really are.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38794677 And it all stems from a backward, uber-conservative argument that the state has no right to get in bed between a husband and his family. This is the result of small-government-mindedness, and harkens back to barbarism and reiver mentality. It's cowardice of the worst sort for a "man" to raise his hand against a vulnerable family that's forced to live within his reach.

Any reputable school of economics. We'll listen to a lecture as we eat our apples.

I think you're a person who has tricked themselves into thinking they can argue against something they don't understand, armed with something they only think they understand. Does that make sense?

The religious right have quite a lot of power in US politics. Reality seems at odds with your statement. And I'm calling the Metaphor Police. You shouldn't be mixing them like that.

No. Belief is either blind like faith, or it's untethered like hope, or it's grounded like trust. Your faith that your god(s) will cure Aunt Emma is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING LIKE the trust I have that a board certified oncologist will be able to cure her. I can check the doctor's credentials, I can go over past history on the procedures used, I can dig deeper into epidemiology, or I can even decide to go back to school and study medicine. I can learn to use my brain so the explanations I choose to believe are based on trust, and not on hope. And especially not on faith, a form of belief that requires me to believe STRONGLY in disproportion to my ability to reason.

This is wrong. The belief that something unobservable is responsible for natural events requires faith, a type of belief that persists despite a complete lack of evidence. You have faith that it was your god(s) and not the doctor that saved Aunt Emma from cancer. The belief that billions of years in a primordial soup of chemicals, heat, and light produced the diversity of life today is something that can be verified by those who can be bothered. We can use the accumulated human knowledge based on thousands of years of observation, history, and in more modern times, the scientific method. Using these tools, we uncover explanations we believe in because we trust them to be true, not because we hope or make believe or use blind faith.

"It's all bullshit, folks, and it's bad for you." -- George Carlin

Enjoy your alternative facts. Thanks for the chat.

Science doesn't contradict the existence of your god because it's unobservable. That precludes science from being a tool that can help in these instances. Can you understand that? Science needs to deal with reality or it's not effective.

No evidence. Not a shred that suggests a supernatural explanation is needed, ever. That, and the fact that over 9000 versions of Christianity alone exist, each claiming to be true. That kind of con game is easily recognized.

You seem to be saying that since we don't know everything, we can't trust what we think we know. That may have been true at some point, but you know, science happened.

! Moderator Note Is there any evidential support you can offer that raises your idea beyond a Wild Ass Guess? This is what we need to develop a discussion of your idea. Without it, the wheels of your mind spin with no traction. Please provide evidence.