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Decav...I had rather be a conspiracy therorist and question everything,than be a sheep that blindly follows the bullshit they are selling us..
U know my friend....I take it u think u are so much smarter than every one else,that u can't take in what is happening around u...self centered I would call it...I luv ya bro but damn the rest of us have our beliefs and some..not say'n me ...aren't so intellectually insupieror...
Matthew 25:1-46
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Last edited by DeCav on Mon Nov 30, 2020 6:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
“Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
How you enjoy this behavior in our President but despise it in me is a bit confusing. Honestly? I think you hold me to higher standards than Trump. Would love to hear your own theories though.
And now...
....examples of me claiming to be smarter than anyone else?
“Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
There was a snake that crawled over a sharp saw and was cut. In anger the snaked wrapped the saw with its thick body and proceeded to squeeze the life out of the saw.
With each angry squeeze it felt more pain but continued because it wasn’t going to let the saw get away with the pain it caused it. The snake, refusing to let go of the saw, eventually died; not knowing the whole time, he needed to let go of the initial pain and focus on its future and where it was going. Instead, the snake, unfortunately, lost its life and didn’t even see it coming.
Control your anger, forgive those that hurt you, and don’t give people or things power over you. It can ultimately kill you.
“Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
December 2, 2020 (Wednesday)
"Yesterday evening, Trump’s disgraced former National Security Advisor, retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn-- whom Trump recently pardoned after he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with then-Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak before Trump took office-- retweeted a news release from a right-wing Ohio group called “We the People Convention.” That release contained a petition asking Trump to declare martial law, suspend the Constitution, silence the media, and have the military “oversee a national re-vote.”
The petition ends with a threat of violence, calling on Trump “to boldly act to save our nation…. We will also have no other choice but to take matters into our own hands, and defend our rights on our own, if you do not act within your powers to defend us.”
University of Texas School of Law Professor Steve Vladeck pointed out that “The Uniform Code of Military Justice defines as ‘sedition’ one who, ‘with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of lawful civil authority, creates, in concert with any other person, revolt, violence, or other disturbance against that authority.’…”
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley today pointedly distanced the military from talk of a coup. “Our military is very very capable… we are determined to defend the U.S. Constitution,” he said. “No one should doubt that.” A defense official told Military Times that the idea of Trump declaring martial law and having the military re-do the election is “insane in a year that we didn’t think could get anymore insane.”
He spoke too soon. This afternoon the president released a video of himself making a speech he said was “maybe the most important speech I’ve ever made.” It was a 46-minute rant insisting, despite all evidence to the contrary, that he won the 2020 election. While he has lost virtually every court challenge he has mounted and his own Attorney General, William Barr, has said there was no evidence of fraud that would change the outcome of the election, Trump continues to insist that there was “massive” voter fraud, and called on the Supreme Court to “do what’s right for our country” including throwing out hundreds of thousands of Democratic votes so “I very easily win in all states.”
Joe Biden leads Trump in the popular vote with 80.9 million votes to Trump’s 74 million. Biden has won the Electoral College by 306 votes to Trump’s 232. These results are not close.
Let me take a step back here for a minute to emphasize that this is dangerous, unprecedented… and crazy. The president of the United States is trying to undermine an election for which there is no evidence there was any irregularity, in order to stay in power. He might be doing so for the money—he has raised $170 million so far on promises to challenge this election—or because he is worried about the lawsuits he can expect as soon as he is not protected by the presidential office.
Or, perhaps, he is simply escalating his rhetoric to continue to grab headlines as he feels the focus of the world slipping away from him and he cannot stand it. For the focus of the world is indeed slipping away from him.
The president has largely ceased to govern, nursing his grievances in the White House and emerging only to golf.
The coronavirus pandemic is burning out of control. A new estimate from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) notes that deaths from Covid-19 are likely much higher than official numbers suggest. Deaths in the United States were 19% higher from March to November of this year than normal. More than 345,000 people than normal have died in that period. This number includes deaths from other causes—drug overdoses, for example—but suggests that the pandemic has exacerbated death rates aside from those caused by Covid-19.
Today we hit a grim milestone, with at least 2,760 new deaths today from Covid. This is the highest daily death toll in America so far, passing the spring high-water mark. Coronavirus hospitalizations also reached a new high with more than 100,000 people admitted.
Democrats made a huge concession in their efforts to combat the pandemic recession today, dropping their call for a $2 trillion coronavirus package and accepting the new bipartisan $908 billion package as the starting point for negotiations with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The new plan calls for $300 a week in federal unemployment benefits from December 1 to at least March; $240 billion in Paycheck Protection Program assistance for small businesses (this will be touchy because we learned today that most of the money from the original PPP went to big businesses, including a number of chains); $160 billion for state and local governments; $51 billion in money for vaccines and healthcare; and a temporary liability provision to shield businesses from lawsuits related to coronavirus.
McConnell has already rejected this bipartisan measure, but Senator John Thune (R-SD), part of the Republican leadership, called the Democrats’ willingness to come so far down “progress.” For his part, Biden today agreed with Americans talking about the recession in a virtual roundtable that Congress must “pass a robust package of relief to address your urgent needs now,” but reminded them: “my ability to get you help immediately does not exist. I’m not even in office for another 50 days. And then I have to get legislation passed through the United States Congress to get things done.”
Still, for all that Trump’s posturing seems like a sign that he sees power slipping away from him as the country confronts the pandemic and the recession without him, his words are a deadly assault on our democracy by the man who swore an oath to defend it. This attack cannot be dismissed as Trump being Trump. It strikes at the very heart of who we are.
For all that attacking the election might be reality television for Trump, his supporters take it very seriously indeed. At a rally in Georgia, Trump’s ally, lawyer Lin Wood, insisted he had seen the “real” results of the election, and that Trump won “over 410” electoral votes. “He damn near won every state including California!” The crowd blamed Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, a Republican, for the fact that the state’s recount did not go to Trump. “Lock him up!” they chanted.
Today, the Supervisor of Elections in Pasco County, Florida, Republican Brian E. Corley, said he felt compelled to speak out against those attacking the election. “Facts are stubborn things,” he wrote in a statement. It is a lie to say the election was fraudulent, he said, and "[w]ith every deep state conspiracy and illegitimate claim of fraud our democracy sinks deeper and deeper into divisiveness. As the world looks on, the greatest democracy in the world dares to risk the peaceful and orderly transition of power in favor of propagating unfounded claims of ‘rigged elections.’" “The people have spoken, and… the election is over.”
Tonight, the Vermont Secretary of State’s Office tweeted that their elections team was “threatened with execution by firing squad.” It said, “This has to stop. The wild, unfounded accusations amplified by [Trump] need to stop.”
But much of Republican Party leadership is not denouncing Trump’s behavior. Leaders are staying silent, although they are sidling away from him. It is noticeable that Vice President Mike Pence has been silent about Trump’s reelection accusations—he was on the ticket, too, after all—and although Trump has made it clear he intends to run again in 2024, Trump’s hand-picked Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel has invited about a dozen potential 2024 candidates to a meeting in January, signaling that she is not wedded to another Trump candidacy.
Meanwhile, Trump’s former lawyer Sidney Powell illustrated the growing divide between Trump supporters and the Republican Party when, after insisting that Trump lost in Georgia because the voting machines there are not secure, she urged voters to boycott January’s runoff Senate elections in the state. Those elections will determine which party controls the U.S. Senate.
While today’s Republicans are looking the other way as their president undermines our democracy, it has not always been this way. On this date in 1954, the Senate voted 67 to 22 to condemn the behavior of Senator Joe McCarthy, who lied and bullied and blustered to stay in power until finally, in televised hearings, lawyer Joseph Nye Welsh shook his head at McCarthy’s recklessness and cruelty and asked: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"
-Heather Cox Richardson
“Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Great posts CatMan.
Btw, if you want I can make you a Peter Criss Avatar with Orange and Purple make up if you want.
I’ll give it an audition. Always liked the original KISS drummer. They should have allowed him to sing more of those ballads. Beth was a major hit. Water under the bridge.
I'm no KISS fan. However, Beth is one of my all time favorite songs.
Decav...I had rather be a conspiracy therorist and question everything,than be a sheep that blindly follows the bullshit they are selling us..
U know my friend....I take it u think u are so much smarter than every one else,that u can't take in what is happening around u...self centered I would call it...I luv ya bro but damn the rest of us have our beliefs and some..not say'n me ...aren't so intellectually insupieror...
Matthew 25:1-46
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Decav, take notice to what he said to those on the LEFT! LOL You know from our conversations that i'm Conservative. However, you also know from our conversations that I love opposing viewpoints. Although I don't agree with everything you and Penguin say, I do like to hear y'alls thoughts. My thought is that progress, like anything else, can be good or bad. It depends how we use it. I think today's kids are much more intelligent than we were. I don't think they have near the common sense that we did though. My baby boy recently drove me out of state for some medical treatments. He was using his GPS. He was telling me how he'd rather I give him an address than directions. The GPS is great. However, I also see how it has dumbed us down. We no longer study maps or even try to remember how we got somewhere. Where we had to memorize things, they're now taught how to find the answers. I don't dislike folks because of their differing views, skin color or anything along those lines. Attitude makes the difference. I do believe today's youth are intellectually superior to me. It is so refreshing to talk to most of them. Of course, they don't know what I know. That's because of life experiences though. I've lived alot of years and alot of experiences, but if I compare myself at their age, they know much more. I appreciate you brother! Of course, I really like what I know of all you guys that i've interacted with over the last few years. I think we have a pretty good group of folks on here.
Decav, take notice to what he said to those on the LEFT! LOL You know from our conversations that i'm Conservative. However, you also know from our conversations that I love opposing viewpoints. Although I don't agree with everything you and Penguin say, I do like to hear y'alls thoughts. My thought is that progress, like anything else, can be good or bad. It depends how we use it. I think today's kids are much more intelligent than we were. I don't think they have near the common sense that we did though. My baby boy recently drove me out of state for some medical treatments. He was using his GPS. He was telling me how he'd rather I give him an address than directions. The GPS is great. However, I also see how it has dumbed us down. We no longer study maps or even try to remember how we got somewhere. Where we had to memorize things, they're now taught how to find the answers. I don't dislike folks because of their differing views, skin color or anything along those lines. Attitude makes the difference. I do believe today's youth are intellectually superior to me. It is so refreshing to talk to most of them. Of course, they don't know what I know. That's because of life experiences though. I've lived alot of years and alot of experiences, but if I compare myself at their age, they know much more. I appreciate you brother! Of course, I really like what I know of all you guys that i've interacted with over the last few years. I think we have a pretty good group of folks on here.
I hear ya man! I also appreciate the opposing viewpoints. As far as the Bible verse, of course, I'm being just a bit tongue in cheek. Actually, I've always been right of center my whole life. My dad was always a Republican and a Carolina fan. So of course I grew up leaning conservative and always pulling for the Gamecocks. A few have read my brother's eulogy. Bo was an entertaining dude to be around back in the day or so I'm told. But beyond being a touchstone for wild times and memorable stories, he gave less than a sht back to the world he was born into. His dying words to his own son..."I'm sorry I was an asshole."
It was Bo who galvanized my conservative beliefs. I saw his income tax returns for many years because he'd somehow had the government convinced at one point that he lived at my address.
$0.00
That's what many statements said through the years about the money he earned. A big goose egg. And of course any percentage of zero is zero which is what he paid in taxes. (Not much less than DJT). But in his last 7 or 8 years of life he was receiving $200 a month from our government. Free money. Rewarded for a life unfulfilled. I saw firsthand the bum who walks the streets begging for money. Who refuses to work. Who only takes, a tick on society and the rest of our wallets. Yeah, I believe in a country that takes care of it's own but you should have some merit before you get to live off the fat of other people. That's why I voted Republican as often as I did. So strange that if you aren't in the party of Trump then you're just a sheep or libtard. Again it's so ironic to me that the most outspoken Christians will wrap themselves in and embrace the moniker and role of the sheep or the lamb of God in one sentence to one person and then turn and throw the same word as an epithet and insult at people who as their God given right don't follow in the same footsteps as themselves.
Literally in a red state, right here in Trumpland, USA where you, CavE have lumped me in with Penguin as, I suppose, the only two liberals on this whole board...(again, I'm actually a conservative).....where I've gone way against the grain, stood up and espoused my positions and beliefs which do not align at all with probaby 90% of my very good friends here.....
Somehow, being the odd man out and not satisfied to just draw a hood over my face and just be a face in the crowd politically, I'm labeled as a sheep. Someone who isn't going along with the crowd. Someone who has chosen to stick his neck out and risk it being socially chopped off. Climbed out on a branch away from the rest of my peers where people can pick up a rock and hurl it at me with disdain for daring to go against the flow of my local community and all my friends. Somehow this behavior of mine is described derisively as me being a sheep, the exact opposite of what the insult "sheep" is supposed to mean and connote. All the while, the same people dispensing terms of derision like "sheep" champion concept such as "herd immunity" and "herd mentality".
I suppose the contempt here is that somehow because I don't respect our president's level of character or discourse that I'm "sheeping" along with almost exactly half of this country who feel our current president is unable to rise to the level that every other president has attained. A level which I didn't use to think was really all that high. I realize now going back and looking at the men who've served as president and watching old footage during and after their terms....somehow we always got it right, or right enough. But somehow, in a mind-bending twist of logic, I'm the sheep because I'm not going along with everyone around me. And conspiracy theory is now celebrated as a renegade thing? Thousands of people crowding into auditoriums or filling up stands at an airport and just mindlessly chanting whatever nonsense the person on the stage is spouting off about and I'm the sheep because I won't get with the "herd mentality". My guitar cables don't get as tangled as all this "non-logic." No consistency and when I point that out I'm labeled as arrogant, a know-it-all, self-centered for what is essentially me saying to our president's supporters that they are better and smarter people than he is. To a person.
My rhetoric probably comes off as me putting down anyone for voted for or supports Trump. And that's on my I suppose and on my approach or wording. What I should be saying is that I'd pick anyone on my Facebook page or on this football board in a second to replace the man currently in the White House. In a second. You're all smarter, braver, more hard working than he his. You're all more eloquent and well spoken than he is. You're more analytical, logical, intelligent, moral, and ethical than he is. All of you have more guts than he does, you have more character than he does, you are all more mature than he is.
Tell me I'm wrong Mikey. Tell me I'm wrong Ken. Tell me I'm wrong CavE or Scotty. Tell me you're less mature than Trump. Tell me you aren't as smart as him or as brave. Tell me he works harder than you do. The man who savaged Obama for the amount of golf he played and then played more golf in four years than Obama played in eight years. Our current president who famously doesn't care to hear the national security briefings ever. The man who famously lays around in bed til noon watching Fox news and tweeting.
Who among us would not revel in the opportunity to sit in on national security briefings every morning? Heck that's why we're here on this board every season. It's why Jack and Ken and Ruben count the beans year after year after year. The first thing I pointed out about Trump was that he had the exact same mentality of Victory6. I even pointed that out to 1CatFan four years ago and he had to admit I had a point. Watching everyone I love and respect just give it all not to God but to Trump would be like watching all of PFT just bow to Victory6 and except every prediction, every boast, and ever brag as the Gospel truth. Imagine Vicky poppin in on a Saturday morning after another Viking loss and claiming the SCHSL was rigged against the Vikes and everyone here just going along with that completely out of nowhere. I just don't get it is all. I promise I mean no disrespect and I really thought that the ten years as a poster leading up to this presidency would have afforded me just a little more currency or weight.
But the proof is in the pudding. Watch our president. Doesn't matter how celebrated a person was yesterday whether McCain, Comey, Mattis, Kelley, Barr, FOX NEWS.....all this man has to do is pick up his phone and tweet that anyone in this country is a traitor or turncoat and the mob turns on that person for no other reason that the president said they should. Not unlike, well I won't make any cattle references. I honestly don't care at all about any names or labels hurled at me. I know who I am. I've known my whole life what I believe in and it has served me most effectively. The dude born into a family with an alcoholic father and pot-head mother and 3 brothers who were drinking and smoking heavily every day of my childhood around me. I wasn't a sheep then either. Went the first 45 years of my life dismissing that nonsense, even toured the tri-state for 3 years in a band of drinking and smoking musicians and still never got high or drunk the entire time. I mean call me a sheep if ya want. It really doesn't stick though.
I'm assuming CavE you're making a reference to the political right and left as it pertains to God's left and right hand? I know it's just a poke and a play on words. The whole concept of right and left though really should be rethought. I could say two wrongs don't make a right but three rights make a left. Or how about the fact that left-brained people are politically right and right-brained people are politically left. Again, just a harmless poke. So to was my reference to the Biblical notion of what a sheep is.
I remember we held a mock election at West View Elementary in 1980 with real mechanical voting booths...come to think of it....
Dang dude. It just occurred to me after all these years. I'd always thought it was cool for my school to bring in voting booths and let the students vote for president. Of course, now I realize the school was a voting precinct and the machines were there for the real election. I guess they wanted to test them before election day by letting the elementary students vote one day. Of course, we ALL know how that would've gone over in 2020........sadly. There'd be no way in Hell you could let a bunch of 3rd graders go vote on the machines before election day in 2020. Whackos would scream bloody fkn murder and wanna hang the school administration and students for voter fraud.
Anyway, I remember voting for Reagan over Carter. I'm sure most of that was my father's political views and some of it was Reagan's flashy presentation and he was the Bedtime For Bonzo guy. Also, I remember thinking in the late 70's Carter was kind of a limp dk. Looking back, I feel sorry for him. That hostage crap and who knows what else really put a bind on his presidency. He even tried to go in and rescue our guys. A gutsy call. Looking back, of course Carter had egg on his face for the disaster but you look at what happened and there's really no way you could've blamed the failed attempt on the president.
I have to say that our current president has put a lot of things in perspective for me. We've always dumped on our politicians and wondered aloud why we couldn't elect smarter more capable people to occupy the White House. There's no doubt in my mind what a fine man Carter was and is now. I couldn't have possibly known that when I was 8 years old. But time has a way of putting things in perspective. Dude is nearly 100 years old now and still building houses by hand for those in need.
I've been watching some George Bush videos also lately. Actually watching a lot of presidential videos lately. I really feel in a profound way that a president's term in office and his legacy his shaped in a significant way by the years of his life after his presidency. Carter proved to be a mthrfkr of a dude. But also there are moments we miss during their terms. All I remembered about the Bush/Shoe incident was just how ridiculous it was that an American president was despised enough for someone in another country to throw a shoe at him. I can't imagine that our current president wouldn't have just run out the side door. But Bush not only maintained his cool, to my surprise when I went back to watch the footage, he went out of his way to defend the man who threw both his shoes at our president, saying essentially that it was a very American thing to do....basically to throw a shoe or yell something or gesture without all five fingers at the most powerful man in the world. There was no tough talk. No bluster. Here was an Iraqi man who hurled two objects at our president and basically Bush celebrated him and lauded the fact that the man had the guts to make a statement to act in a way to bring attention to himself and cause a discussion about him.
Years later we have a president using profanity to address a man who simply chooses to kneel during a national anthem. Or someone at his rally holds up a sign or chants and our president actually encourages physical violence against that person. Think about that for a second. For all the crap W had to take for 8 years, whether it was warranted or not, he kept a stiff upper lip and didn't whine about it. He didn't complain anything was ever rigged against him. He never called our free press the enemy of the American people.
One US president has a Muslim hurl two projectiles at him and he defends and celebrates the man and reminds the embarrassed Iraqi diplomats that that's what freedom is about. It's what America believes in. Everyone gets a say. J. Peterson says it's a Hell of a thing that our Western society has figured out so early in it's existence that the poorest most wretched citizen is just as important as the King. It's a staggering concept and one that is right.
One president celebrates a foreigner's anger and intent to register that anger. Another American president suggests "knocking the Hell" out of an American on American soil for doing much much less. For daring to hold up a sign or shout out something disparaging. Does this make sense to any American? Does it actually make sense to any human being?
I've been studying cognitive dissonance. Sorry. Don't mean to act like a know-it-all. I can't help it that I try to consume as much information and insight as I can whenever I can. Was messaging with Dfactor one night. Our discussion did actually push some buttons with him. The dude went to college. Studied religion, philosophy, and poly sci. And what did he get from his peers in SC? Contempt. Scorn. He went out and paid for an education and was ridiculed for it. As if trying to learn and know as much as you can is a liability. A "strike" against him he called it. His college diploma is actually seen by most of his peers as a strike against him and his character and, insanely enough, his actual intellectual acuity. Somehow by going to college, his friends and co-workers who didn't go to college consider him stupider for it.
Anyway, I've been trying to tackle this issue. Hey, I know it goes both ways. I've been told by people who I respect and believe are intelligent that I'm just "lost". They can't believe that I can't see that Trump isn't the greatest president ever in the history of this country. I've been asking myself, "What is it that I'm not allowing myself to see? What have I been blind to in the last four years?"
I don't know brothers. Help me out. If it's one thing I have no been guilty of, it's being deaf to anyone's arguments. Yeah, there's symmetry with the fact that I don't understand why one group of people see's things the way they see it and they don't understand the same about me. But there is definitely a sharp A-symmetry when it comes to the substance of the discussions I've had on Facebook. In every single instance within a few comments any dissenters just float away. Why is that? Why is there one question that not only will no one answer....no one will even act as if they the question was even asked. I even present it on a silver platter with a challenge....."Nobody will touch this question with a ten foot pole. Maybe you'll be the first but I doubt it."
Then I asked the question...
...crickets. And good God the strawman arguments. Posted Martin Luther King's letter from an Alabama prison because of how timely and on point so much of it was and one Trump supporter tried the awkward tactic of charging me with accusing Donald Trump of having gone back in time to have MLK Jr. arrested. Really? I honestly expected more from this lauded debater. Every time I try to discuss politics with these people the responses are either just one-worded insults, strawman arguments, obfuscation, anger, or ultimately silence.
Remember all the debates on the football boards where B1 or 1st and Goal or Cannon would quote and then go in and color code every statement and address each point on it's own merits one by one? None of that with any of my arguments. I learned what a waste of time it was to drop 5,000 words on someone with 20 bullet points in it. 19 of them, completely ignored and the last misrepresented. If I'm lucky I just get an inept insult. Had one person post for the hundredth time the "Biden hasn't done a thing in 47 years of politics..." nonsense.
I absolutely dismantled that soundbyte. Know what the response was?
"Wow you're a dork."
Seriously. That was his best comeback. Basically to inform me that apparently I was over-informed? Did too well in school? I'm not cool somehow because I know my history and can write 5,000 words about the history of Marxism and how it relates directly to the story of Caine and Abel in the Bible and how it's a failed governmental system that pits the proletariat against the bourgeois and that it always leads to millions of death and tyranny. I compare and contrast communism with social democracy which isn't even close to the same thing. I point out great works of literature like The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, a three-volume non-fiction text written between 1958 and 1968 by Russian writer and dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn about how truly evil and vile communism is.
And of course, Orwell and the two minutes hate speech which sounds EXACTLY like a Trump rally...
"In the dystopian novel 1984, the Two Minutes Hate is the daily, public period during which members of the Outer Party of Oceania must watch a film depicting the enemies of the state, specifically Emmanuel Goldstein and his followers, to openly and loudly express hatred for them. The political purpose of the Two Minutes Hate is to allow the citizens of Oceania to vent their existential anguish and personal hatreds towards politically expedient enemies: Goldstein and the enemy superstate of the moment. In re-directing the members' subconscious feelings away from the Party's government of Oceania, and towards non-existent external enemies, the Party minimizes thoughtcrime and the consequent, subversive behaviors of thought criminals."
"The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretense was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledgehammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp."
Ok...let me just interject....
Here it is December 5. On Oct 27th, a news source reported that Trump was repeatedly confusing our missile defense system with Sonicare toothbrushes saying we have new hydro-sonic missiles. I'm currently watching Trump's rally in Georgia for the run-off election. And he did it again. While bragging about what he's done for the military, and remember NOBODY KNOWS MORE ABOUT AMERICAN MILITARY THAT TRUMP. HE KNOWS PROBABLY EVEN MORE THAN THE GENERALS. <---------The President said this.......
He claims our military has hyper-sonic missiles (CORRECT!)....AND!.....we have hydro-sonice missiles (NO SUCH THING!). And then just to clarify in case anyone is confused...like say...the president....he states "Do you know what hydro-sonic is? That's water!" And makes a diving motion with his hand. No Mr. President, that's not a hydro-sonic missile. That's called a torpedo which predates missiles by about 75 years.
And then! As if to ram home the lunacy of all this, the crowd upon hearing him say hydro-sonic missile starts chanting "USA USA USA....."
Good Lord, he says we have a new missile that is 17 times faster than any other missile. Tonight it's just 7 times faster than any other missile in the world though. He has a special name for the missile. It's a super sexy name. Have you heard it? It's basically the same way we used to describe how fast our new running shoes were in elementary school or how strong any one of us might be on any given day. He literally calls our new hydro-sonic missiles that go 17 times faster than any other missile and has SOMETHING to do with water....he calls it...
"Our Super-Duper missile."
Not some stupid name like a Tomahawk or Patriot or Stinger. Nah this is the Super-Duper missile. Not to be confused with the next generation of missile defense coming up behind it, the Hyper-Hydro-Super-Duper-Mega-Sonic missile. Or "Bullshit" for short. Good God when you guys compared Obama to Hitler for wanting universal health care....if he'd been spouting this tripe some of you would probably have self-immolated yourselves.
Guys! Someone...Mikey! Humble me here. This is bad right? Sorry dudes, but I simply cannot unhear our president talk for months about hydro-sonic missiles. Let me guess...I'm taking him too literally? I'm picking apart his words too carefully? I'm listening too precisely? This same guy who claimed we captured British airports during the revolutionary war. There is something defective about my brain that disqualifies me from being able to make rational decisions of basic political policy and pick the most effective candidate because I can't simply dumb myself down and except that sometimes the president says shit stupider than a 5th grader would say?
Quayle misspelled potato and got HAMMERED for it. Could someone explain to me what this new hydro-sonic missile is? Does it whiten the enemy's teeth before annihilating them? If you don't know what he's talking about then reason with me about how it's ok for our commander-in-chief to be this confused for this long? You know his advisors have told him time and time again to stop saying that. At this point it's either an ice cold and no one has any grasp on reality OR it's a big joke. A big punk. Honestly, if I was a Trump supporter I'd go with that totally. It's all a big joke on the MSM and liberals. Everyone got together on Parler and decided there was such a thing has hydro-sonic missiles for the purposes of making the rest of the country think that Trump and his followers are super stupid. Kind of a spin on a Sun Tzu tactic....
"If you're strong make your enemy think you're weak. If you're weak make your enemy think you're strong."
"If you're near make them think you are far. If you are far, make them think you are near."
I don't remember any part of The Art Of War that says, "If you're smart, make your enemy think you're an idiot."
Unfortunately, that tactic only works one way. Well...I say that. I know people who swear Trump is the smartest human alive so obviously, he pulled that off. I invite his defenders to take that argument. They don't even do that. Just say he really knows what he's talking about and so do the supporters, they just like pretending they don't really know much just to keep the left off-balance.
Anyway. You start watching our past presidents and how they behave after their term in office and it really seems that once they've gotten a taste serving our country that they want more even after office.
By creating Habit For Humanity, Carter is literally responsible for housing more than 22 million Americans. Look up his efforts to provide "shithole" countries with clean potable water.
Reagan continued to be a statesman traveling to Rome and to Russia on diplomatic missions for America.
George W Bush got seriously involved with wounded vets, inviting them to his ranch every year for bicycle races and other competitions. Later after he started painting, he created 98 portraits of wounded American veterans and released them in a book with a one-page biography to go along with each soldier. Not sure where the proceeds went but I doubt he pocketed any of it.
Bush's dad, H.W. and Clinton got together to raise money for relief in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake and also money for Katrina.
Of course, it'll fall on deaf, angered ears to talk about the Clinton Foundation and its efforts to fight HIV worldwide. That was surely a money grab. As was the Uranium mining contract in exchange for a donation to his foundation.
Not sure how Clinton visiting North Korea and getting two Americans released single-handedly is some kind of Faustian arrangement but the now ever-present conspiracy theorists will no doubt invent some colorful way to disparage that.
You guys realize that the term "conspiracy theory" used to be a euphemism for "bullshit"? Literally a conspiracy theory is the unscientific thinking that Occam's Razor was invented to combat? Needlessly tangled thinking invented to explain something that doesn't need a complicated explanation? These anti-Occam's Razor guys are dragging us backwards, not forward into the future. This is obvious, yes?
I don't agree that progress is a bad thing. It's almost always a good thing. But like anything, its implementation needs to be precisely thought out and weighed. The (maybe) sad fact for a lot of folks in this nation is that whether you like it or not, we're dragged inexorably towards progress all the time. And at each node in history, there are detractors and naysayers. Yeah, this up and coming generation is probably too dependant on GPS technology. I'll tell ya one thing. I used to deliver pizza in my early 20's with just a map of Spartanburg in my car. Did it no problem and never got lost. But gimme GPS and a destination, I'll get there quicker than you can with just a map. I had the first GPS of anyone I knew. I got lost in the late 90's somewhere in NC looking for a boat marina when I was designing boat covers and pulled out my map from my glove compartment to get unlost. That night I went into a Best Buy somewhere in NC to buy a map program for my computer.
Just wanted a digital map that I didn't have to fold and unfold and that I could do searches with. Found a Garmin map package with an actual GPS dongle that came with it. Never looked back.
What other basic progress have we made? Well let's see...American figuring out its lowliest citizen is as important as its highest was and damn remarkable breakthrough. How about slavery? I submit the Ten Commandments could have been better thought out. Maybe sub out one of the more abstract commandments with "Though shalt not own another human." That would have been progressive indeed! And would have saved an awful lot of lives in this country in the late 1800's, hey?
Remember how television was going to rot minds? Didn't happen....well......see above.
You're dawggone right about this generation though. Smarter, wiser, faster, stronger. Chuck's brother was complaining about politics leading up to the 2016 election. Last thing he said to me and Chuck after a trip was, "I'm just afraid my kids aren't going to be able to grow up in the country that I did."
After he walked off, I asked Chuck what the Hell his brother was talking about. Chuck just said, "Tom's really confused at times."
His brother Tom played football for Dorman. When he was at Dorman students were allowed to smoke cigarettes. Tom had experimented with alcohol, had been to parties where there were orgies taking place.
By contrast, Chuck's son who also played 4 years for Dorman, never drank...didn't go to any parties, wasn't exposed to premature sexual experiences and won't even use profanity. At 18 years old I had no direction in life, no structure, no goals. I was lucky enough to learn to play music and join a band for a few years but did not start earning real money until after I was married with a son. My own son at 18 has a 'Vette, a Miata, and two motorcycles. Has is own auto repair business, and is interning at BMW in the engineering department.
Things are so much better for our kids than they were for us. It's so strange. There's a meme going around Facebook peddled mostly by Trump supporters. In one post they'll say this country over the last four years is now better than ever. Then in the next post they post a meme asking if you would trade your childhood to be a child in 2020 and to a man, they say "Hell NO!"
Well Hell, I've had half a bottle of wine and my beautiful wife has a migraine that I need to alleviate with a finger massage to her forehead and temples.
Check out the following vid of Bill and George being cool ASF to each other. Trump will never be this cool folks.
Peace and love to all you! Let's do a ballroom meet and greet. I can host a fundraiser live on Facebook coupled with Gofundme
“Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Why don't we talk about something we can agree about? Like the difference between Joe Biden and the radical left. Do you guys draw a nuance between the two? You might see that you and Biden have more in common than you think.
The radical left is more of a danger than you think. Antifa is a mosquito. How many of you can describe the most dangerous angle they have on American life?
“Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
LOL You know from our conversations that i'm Conservative. However, you also know from our conversations that I love opposing viewpoints. Although I don't agree with everything you and Penguin say, I do like to hear y'alls thoughts. My thought is that progress, like anything else, can be good or bad. It depends how we use it. I think today's kids are much more intelligent than we were. I don't think they have near the common sense that we did though. My baby boy recently drove me out of state for some medical treatments. He was using his GPS. He was telling me how he'd rather I give him an address than directions. The GPS is great. However, I also see how it has dumbed us down. We no longer study maps or even try to remember how we got somewhere. Where we had to memorize things, they're now taught how to find the answers. I don't dislike folks because of their differing views, skin color or anything along those lines. Attitude makes the difference. I do believe today's youth are intellectually superior to me. It is so refreshing to talk to most of them. Of course, they don't know what I know. That's because of life experiences though. I've lived alot of years and alot of experiences, but if I compare myself at their age, they know much more. I appreciate you brother! Of course, I really like what I know of all you guys that i've interacted with over the last few years. I think we have a pretty good group of folks on here.
and no one has any grasp on reality OR it's a big joke. A big punk. Honestly, if I was a Trump supporter I'd go with that totally. It's all a big joke on the MSM and liberals. Everyone got together on Parler and decided there was such a thing has hydro-sonic missiles for the purposes of making the rest of the country think that Trump and his followers are super stupid. Kind of a spin on a Sun Tzu tactic....
