US Politics Thread

[BlueMoonAcrossThePond]

Anyone else have a close relative whose politics/beliefs you simply don't fathom?

My brother is one such. He claims to be "very spiritual" - and further does not wish to associate with those holding opposing views. He and I grew up as Catholics - but he no longer believes in Catholicism - I think he's Buddhist.

Although my brother has a bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering - and although he worked in engineering/tech firms - he has a bias against science and expert opinion.

For years past my brother was a climate change denier - eventually he accepted that climate change is occurring but he believes that it's possible/likely that climate change is occuring for reasons other than human activity. Too he seems to regard the expert opinion about COVID as being untrue.

If you speak to my brother he'll profess expertise on climate change/COVID - on the basis of extensive "research" he's conducted. Whereas if you drill down on his claims, it turns out that he's simply read a bunch of non-scientific opinion pieces available online and on this basis feels he's expert and well qualified to contest widely held scientific opinion. He readily admits that his chief source for information he trusts is twitter.

In the recent past, my brother emailed an article about polar bears. The article falsely claimed that polar bears were not in danger of going extinct due to climate change - but were instead proliferating. The article attacked David Attenborough as being completely wrong about polar bears and their diminishing numbers.

I readily debunked this article and sent an angry response to my brother. He agreed that the article he sent seemed to have been false - but he defended his distribution of this false narrative as simply being a story of interest.

Moreover, my brother's opinions on numerous topics are extreme. Using grey-scale as an analogy,virtually nothing is grey for him - everything is either black or white with nothing in between.

For example - he believes that it's wrong to kill life, ever, under any circumstance. Should we be invaded by bloodthirsty barbarians who were killing our men and boys, and raping our women - he believes that it's wrong to take the life of any such invader.

Another example - in terms of surveillance as a means to provide extra security and justice - e.g, the widespread use of cameras to record what transpires - well, to him, that's simply an invasion of privacy and he'd rather that no cameras at all recorded anything in public, period.

But what about public violence - murders, robbers and other crimes committed in public? - I questioned. Surely you'd want to prevent these or, if such crimes did nonetheless occur, surely you'd want to apprehend those guilty.

Nope - to him - any deployment of cameras to record actions taken in public is a violation of privacy and must be rejected.
===
Due to disagreements on the issues above and on other things on which my brother took a radical, polarized view, we haven't spoken in 3 or 4 years; one of the ideas my brother found on the Internet and later endorsed was the idea that you would be happier by cutting all communication with anyone who disagrees with you.
===
Anyhow - I'm bewildered. How could someone I grew up with somehow come to endorse extreme opinions on so many social issues? Moreover, how could my brother - a college graduate with a career in science/technology come to reject consensus scientific/expert beliefs?
===
One final anecdote - at one point my brother was trying to make the case for meditation. I said that I wasn't interested. This evolved into an argument. Eventually my brother said that, through meditation, he was able to conduct a scientific experiment into the existence of God. He stated that he was able to confirm the existence of God because, after meditation, he was able to feel/hear/experience God's presence.

Let that sink in - my brother believes that he has scientific proof for the existence of God.
===
How on earth did this sort of wrong-think come to pass?
===
Look - I don't believe in God - but I get that many Bluemoon members do; and I respect this.

Belief in God is a very personal choice - but it's beyond the scope of science. One can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God.

What I find so disturbing in my bother's beliefs - is that he seems to think that he is able to scientifically prove that God exists - and that anyone not believing in God is evil and should thus be avoided. In other words - my brother has no idea whatsoever about what science entails and seems to have wholly forgotten the scientific method.

 

[west didsblue]

Anyone else have a close relative whose politics/beliefs you simply don't fathom?

My brother is one such. He claims to be "very spiritual" - and further does not wish to associate with those holding opposing views. He and I grew up as Catholics - but he no longer believes in Catholicism - I think he's Buddhist.

Although my brother has a bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering - and although he worked in engineering/tech firms - he has a bias against science and expert opinion.

For years past my brother was a climate change denier - eventually he accepted that climate change is occurring but he believes that it's possible/likely that climate change is occuring for reasons other than human activity. Too he seems to regard the expert opinion about COVID as being untrue.

If you speak to my brother he'll profess expertise on climate change/COVID - on the basis of extensive "research" he's conducted. Whereas if you drill down on his claims, it turns out that he's simply read a bunch of non-scientific opinion pieces available online and on this basis feels he's expert and well qualified to contest widely held scientific opinion. He readily admits that his chief source for information he trusts is twitter.

In the recent past, my brother emailed an article about polar bears. The article falsely claimed that polar bears were not in danger of going extinct due to climate change - but were instead proliferating. The article attacked David Attenborough as being completely wrong about polar bears and their diminishing numbers.

I readily debunked this article and sent an angry response to my brother. He agreed that the article he sent seemed to have been false - but he defended his distribution of this false narrative as simply being a story of interest.

Moreover, my brother's opinions on numerous topics are extreme. Using grey-scale as an analogy,virtually nothing is grey for him - everything is either black or white with nothing in between.

For example - he believes that it's wrong to kill life, ever, under any circumstance. Should we be invaded by bloodthirsty barbarians who were killing our men and boys, and raping our women - he believes that it's wrong to take the life of any such invader.

Another example - in terms of surveillance as a means to provide extra security and justice - e.g, the widespread use of cameras to record what transpires - well, to him, that's simply an invasion of privacy and he'd rather that no cameras at all recorded anything in public, period.

But what about public violence - murders, robbers and other crimes committed in public? - I questioned. Surely you'd want to prevent these or, if such crimes did nonetheless occur, surely you'd want to apprehend those guilty.

Nope - to him - any deployment of cameras to record actions taken in public is a violation of privacy and must be rejected.
===
Due to disagreements on the issues above and on other things on which my brother took a radical, polarized view, we haven't spoken in 3 or 4 years; one of the ideas my brother found on the Internet and later endorsed was the idea that you would be happier by cutting all communication with anyone who disagrees with you.
===
Anyhow - I'm bewildered. How could someone I grew up with somehow come to endorse extreme opinions on so many social issues? Moreover, how could my brother - a college graduate with a career in science/technology come to reject consensus scientific/expert beliefs?
===
One final anecdote - at one point my brother was trying to make the case for meditation. I said that I wasn't interested. This evolved into an argument. Eventually my brother said that, through meditation, he was able to conduct a scientific experiment into the existence of God. He stated that he was able to confirm the existence of God because, after meditation, he was able to feel/hear/experience God's presence.

Let that sink in - my brother believes that he has scientific proof for the existence of God.
===
How on earth did this sort of wrong-think come to pass?
===
Look - I don't believe in God - but I get that many Bluemoon members do. Belief in God is a very personal choice - but it's beyond the scope of science. One can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God.

What I find so disturbing in my bother's beliefs - is that he seems to think that he is able to scientifically prove that God exists - and that anyone not believing in God is evil and should thus be avoided. In other words - my brother has no idea whatsoever about what science entails and seems to have wholly forgotten the scientific method.

Is he a Trump supporter?

 

[BlueMoonAcrossThePond]

Is he a Trump supporter?

He's fickle with regard to this question. In 2016 he claimed that Hillary was a crook, just like Trump and that neither candidate deserved endorsement. My guess is that he voted for Trump in 2016 as his politics were extremely aligned with Trump - and I suspect that he voted for Trump in 2020 for similar reasons.

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

Fox are a f*cking disgrace.

 

[SWP's back]

Anyone else have a close relative whose politics/beliefs you simply don't fathom?

My brother is one such. He claims to be "very spiritual" - and further does not wish to associate with those holding opposing views. He and I grew up as Catholics - but he no longer believes in Catholicism - I think he's Buddhist.

Although my brother has a bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering - and although he worked in engineering/tech firms - he has a bias against science and expert opinion.

For years past my brother was a climate change denier - eventually he accepted that climate change is occurring but he believes that it's possible/likely that climate change is occuring for reasons other than human activity. Too he seems to regard the expert opinion about COVID as being untrue.

If you speak to my brother he'll profess expertise on climate change/COVID - on the basis of extensive "research" he's conducted. Whereas if you drill down on his claims, it turns out that he's simply read a bunch of non-scientific opinion pieces available online and on this basis feels he's expert and well qualified to contest widely held scientific opinion. He readily admits that his chief source for information he trusts is twitter.

In the recent past, my brother emailed an article about polar bears. The article falsely claimed that polar bears were not in danger of going extinct due to climate change - but were instead proliferating. The article attacked David Attenborough as being completely wrong about polar bears and their diminishing numbers.

I readily debunked this article and sent an angry response to my brother. He agreed that the article he sent seemed to have been false - but he defended his distribution of this false narrative as simply being a story of interest.

Moreover, my brother's opinions on numerous topics are extreme. Using grey-scale as an analogy,virtually nothing is grey for him - everything is either black or white with nothing in between.

For example - he believes that it's wrong to kill life, ever, under any circumstance. Should we be invaded by bloodthirsty barbarians who were killing our men and boys, and raping our women - he believes that it's wrong to take the life of any such invader.

Another example - in terms of surveillance as a means to provide extra security and justice - e.g, the widespread use of cameras to record what transpires - well, to him, that's simply an invasion of privacy and he'd rather that no cameras at all recorded anything in public, period.

But what about public violence - murders, robbers and other crimes committed in public? - I questioned. Surely you'd want to prevent these or, if such crimes did nonetheless occur, surely you'd want to apprehend those guilty.

Nope - to him - any deployment of cameras to record actions taken in public is a violation of privacy and must be rejected.
===
Due to disagreements on the issues above and on other things on which my brother took a radical, polarized view, we haven't spoken in 3 or 4 years; one of the ideas my brother found on the Internet and later endorsed was the idea that you would be happier by cutting all communication with anyone who disagrees with you.
===
Anyhow - I'm bewildered. How could someone I grew up with somehow come to endorse extreme opinions on so many social issues? Moreover, how could my brother - a college graduate with a career in science/technology come to reject consensus scientific/expert beliefs?
===
One final anecdote - at one point my brother was trying to make the case for meditation. I said that I wasn't interested. This evolved into an argument. Eventually my brother said that, through meditation, he was able to conduct a scientific experiment into the existence of God. He stated that he was able to confirm the existence of God because, after meditation, he was able to feel/hear/experience God's presence.

Let that sink in - my brother believes that he has scientific proof for the existence of God.
===
How on earth did this sort of wrong-think come to pass?
===
Look - I don't believe in God - but I get that many Bluemoon members do; and I respect this.

Belief in God is a very personal choice - but it's beyond the scope of science. One can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God.

What I find so disturbing in my bother's beliefs - is that he seems to think that he is able to scientifically prove that God exists - and that anyone not believing in God is evil and should thus be avoided. In other words - my brother has no idea whatsoever about what science entails and seems to have wholly forgotten the scientific method.

Sorry to hear that about your brother. Not sure how I’d be able to deal with someone like that in my family.

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

Sorry to hear that about your brother. Not sure how I’d be able to deal with someone like that in my family.

I feel bad for my 88 year-old mother, who still has all her marbles and has never been conservative in the least. After my Dad died, she moved back to LA from SF to be with some of her older friends who were still around (we moved to San Francisco from LA in the early 70s when I was a little kid — but Mom never wanted to leave LA). She started hanging around with some old, close family friends who became Trump cult members and she had to cut them off, even though her reason for moving there was to be with them. Sad. These were smart kind, people once. But this is what cults do to the frightened and the angry and the hopeless. They prey on it.

 

[mancity1]

Anyone else have a close relative whose politics/beliefs you simply don't fathom?

My brother is one such. He claims to be "very spiritual" - and further does not wish to associate with those holding opposing views. He and I grew up as Catholics - but he no longer believes in Catholicism - I think he's Buddhist.

Although my brother has a bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering - and although he worked in engineering/tech firms - he has a bias against science and expert opinion.

For years past my brother was a climate change denier - eventually he accepted that climate change is occurring but he believes that it's possible/likely that climate change is occuring for reasons other than human activity. Too he seems to regard the expert opinion about COVID as being untrue.

If you speak to my brother he'll profess expertise on climate change/COVID - on the basis of extensive "research" he's conducted. Whereas if you drill down on his claims, it turns out that he's simply read a bunch of non-scientific opinion pieces available online and on this basis feels he's expert and well qualified to contest widely held scientific opinion. He readily admits that his chief source for information he trusts is twitter.

In the recent past, my brother emailed an article about polar bears. The article falsely claimed that polar bears were not in danger of going extinct due to climate change - but were instead proliferating. The article attacked David Attenborough as being completely wrong about polar bears and their diminishing numbers.

I readily debunked this article and sent an angry response to my brother. He agreed that the article he sent seemed to have been false - but he defended his distribution of this false narrative as simply being a story of interest.

Moreover, my brother's opinions on numerous topics are extreme. Using grey-scale as an analogy,virtually nothing is grey for him - everything is either black or white with nothing in between.

For example - he believes that it's wrong to kill life, ever, under any circumstance. Should we be invaded by bloodthirsty barbarians who were killing our men and boys, and raping our women - he believes that it's wrong to take the life of any such invader.

Another example - in terms of surveillance as a means to provide extra security and justice - e.g, the widespread use of cameras to record what transpires - well, to him, that's simply an invasion of privacy and he'd rather that no cameras at all recorded anything in public, period.

But what about public violence - murders, robbers and other crimes committed in public? - I questioned. Surely you'd want to prevent these or, if such crimes did nonetheless occur, surely you'd want to apprehend those guilty.

Nope - to him - any deployment of cameras to record actions taken in public is a violation of privacy and must be rejected.
===
Due to disagreements on the issues above and on other things on which my brother took a radical, polarized view, we haven't spoken in 3 or 4 years; one of the ideas my brother found on the Internet and later endorsed was the idea that you would be happier by cutting all communication with anyone who disagrees with you.
===
Anyhow - I'm bewildered. How could someone I grew up with somehow come to endorse extreme opinions on so many social issues? Moreover, how could my brother - a college graduate with a career in science/technology come to reject consensus scientific/expert beliefs?
===
One final anecdote - at one point my brother was trying to make the case for meditation. I said that I wasn't interested. This evolved into an argument. Eventually my brother said that, through meditation, he was able to conduct a scientific experiment into the existence of God. He stated that he was able to confirm the existence of God because, after meditation, he was able to feel/hear/experience God's presence.

Let that sink in - my brother believes that he has scientific proof for the existence of God.
===
How on earth did this sort of wrong-think come to pass?
===
Look - I don't believe in God - but I get that many Bluemoon members do; and I respect this.

Belief in God is a very personal choice - but it's beyond the scope of science. One can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God.

What I find so disturbing in my bother's beliefs - is that he seems to think that he is able to scientifically prove that God exists - and that anyone not believing in God is evil and should thus be avoided. In other words - my brother has no idea whatsoever about what science entails and seems to have wholly forgotten the scientific method.

How did you debunk the notion that the number of polar bears on the planet have increased from around 22000 in 2005 to around 30000 in 2020 having declined significantly in number until hunting them was lawfully banned in many localities they occupied in 1973 when numbers were less than 10000 notwithstanding from 1980 to 2000 due to mans desire to hunt them in numbers in defiance still totalling on average around 1000 kills each year.

Even climate " warming " scientists believe that by their best estimates although some of their habitats might alter in the coming decades as they have over many centuries is that the populations will adapt.

Read Zac Ungers research as he knows more about their habitats and adaptability and the fact they are not a monolithic population no matter the impact of climate which does present issues for their population than you or I do.

Like the harp seal whose population reduced to as low as an estimated 1 million the greater danger to their existence was /is mans desire to kill them in massive numbers although their numbers have risen significantly from those lows.

 

[The perfect fumble]

It’s very scary.

Now imagine for a moment that there was this guy in an election running against a moderate Democrat, and you refused to vote because the Democrat “wasn’t progressive enough.” Never mind that your vote might be critical to preventing a fascist from holding sway over the land.

Oh wait, I don’t have to imagine — that’s the choice I faced and I took the moderate Democrat while others here of a “progressive” bent would have looked the other way and let it happen and even been happy because the “incrementalist” would have lost.

What you're saying is that Trump and his cult present an existential threat to democracy, and as such everything should be done to halt them in their tracks. So progressive need to stop being so anal, look at the bigger picture, the clear and present danger to the Union! Stop fucking about and get behind middle of the road, but fundamentally decent Joe Biden.

For you this is self evident and I can tell by your posts that you don't have time for those that can't or won't see it.

 

[Bigga]

If you can't play gutter politics with the cult, because they'll always go lower than you, then you have to outsell them with a compelling message, which returns us to this....



So, as far as you're concerned, the Democrats have nothing, no hardball politics and no policies worthy of your consideration, you think they'll survive on decency and folksy Biden whimsy?

That's a recipe for disaster.

Or on "I'm not Trump"!

 

[Bigga]

"A certain poster on here" (fucking childish, really!) states that the US are trying to do in "aviation" terms "Aviate, Navigate, Communicate."!!

When in reality, that stupid analogy doesn't make you realise your pilots have clicked on autopilot whilst they sit back having 'brunch'. All the time at the very back of the 'US plane' there's passengers fighting in second class, so the first class shut their curtains. They know they're there, but they just don't want to deal with it.

In actual analogy, the US is akin to a runner, not pie-in-the-sky floating the clouds 'aviation', but hard running 'navigating' the hard slog, the pit falls, the hill climbs and the vicious drops.

The question is, if the journey becomes harder and the cracks begin to take effect, do you think 'communication' with the injury makes it better or does pausing, examining and tending to the wound make every bit of sense rather than breaking down every few metres because the same injury getting slightly worse each time?

Laughable how much you lot that 'aviation' horseshit.

 

[The perfect fumble]

Or on "I'm not Trump"!

I've watched you two slugging it out and I've no desire to join in.

FogblueinSanFran is clearly invested in the system and believes it's worth fighting for, particularly if its very existence is under threat.

Others don't see it that way, they believe Trump and his cult are not an aberration but a product of that system, as natural a product as Clinton, Bush, Obama or Biden. So if the system gave us Trump, then the system can go fuck itself.

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

What you're saying is that Trump and his cult present an existential threat to democracy, and as such everything should be done to halt them in their tracks. So progressive need to stop being so anal, look at the bigger picture, the clear and present danger to the Union! Stop fucking about and get behind middle of the road, but fundamentally decent Joe Biden.

For you this is self evident and I can tell by your posts that you don't have time for those that can't or won't see it.

That's all correct. It also means that moderate conservatives (non-cult members) need to do likewise. And I would have made exactly the same argument for moderate Democrats had Bernie Sanders won the primary and I would have gotten behind him the same way I'm behind Biden now -- not all his policies, but the man as a decent, normal, experienced leader who won't, you know, try to rip down the fabric of democracy. I thought Biden would be a better national unifier than Sanders, with a better chance of defeating Trump the existential threat, which is why I voted for Biden in the primary.

I have no time for those who cannot and could not recognize the existential threat Trump poses, regardless of political affiliation. I wear the Orange Man Bad disparagement I've been saddled with with great pride, because it is correct in terms of my perspective, which is in turn also correct about Trump -- he's bad, in every conceivable way, shape and form, as he demonstrated repeatedly.

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

I've watched you two slugging it out and I've no desire to join in.

FogblueinSanFran is clearly invested in the system and believes it's worth fighting for, particularly if its very existence is under threat.

Others don't see it that way, they believe Trump and his cult are not an aberration but a product of that system, as natural a product as Clinton, Bush, Obama or Biden. So if the system gave us Trump, then the system can go fuck itself.

Take away your last sentence, and the two are not mutually exclusive, a point I have been trying to make on these threads for about five years. But those who believe the "system can go fuck itself" can afford to believe that because they don't live in it. They have no skin in the game.

 

[Bigga]

I've watched you two slugging it out and I've no desire to join in.

FogblueinSanFran is clearly invested in the system and believes it's worth fighting for, particularly if its very existence is under threat.

Others don't see it that way, they believe Trump and his cult are not an aberration but a product of that system, as natural a product as Clinton, Bush, Obama or Biden. So if the system gave us Trump, then the system can go fuck itself.

No desire for you jump in either.

I cannot understand that certain people don't want to look at what made people vote Trump. He's a symptom, not the cause and hasn't been created in a vacuum.

If people continue to believe getting rid of him will solve the ills of the US, then they're sadly mistaken.

 

[journolud]

No desire for you jump in either.

I cannot understand that certain people don't want to look at what made people vote Trump. He's a symptom, not the cause and hasn't been created in a vacuum.

If people continue to believe getting rid of him will solve the ills of the US, then they're sadly mistaken.

Don’t think I’ve seen anyone suggest getting rid of Trump will solve the ills of the US, what seemed to be a reasonable hope was that getting rid of Trump would bring some balance and sanity back to US politics.

It appears from the outside that hope was misplaced. The GOP seems to be a basket case.

I’m somewhere in the middle of you and Fog, closer to Fumble in that I don’t believe it’s enough for Biden to be just not Trump, he needs to be something more tangible than that.

For all your passion and anger on the subject I can’t share your lack of nuance about it all, but then I’m one of those woolly minded individuals that thinks change comes in small slices and that the resistance to big change is too strong to go in with a sledgehammer.

Lucky for you and I that we don’t have to live with the consequences of the broken US system although we do have enough crackpots and corruption and shit of our own to deal with

 

[Bigga]

Don’t think I’ve seen anyone suggest getting rid of Trump will solve the ills of the US, what seemed to be a reasonable hope was that getting rid of Trump would bring some balance and sanity back to US politics.

It appears from the outside that hope was misplaced. The GOP seems to be a basket case.

I’m somewhere in the middle of you and Fog, closer to Fumble in that I don’t believe it’s enough for Biden to be just not Trump, he needs to be something more tangible than that.

For all your passion and anger on the subject I can’t share your lack of nuance about it all, but then I’m one of those woolly minded individuals that thinks change comes in small slices and that the resistance to big change is too strong to go in with a sledgehammer.

Lucky for you and I that we don’t have to live with the consequences of the broken US system although we do have enough crackpots and corruption and shit of our own to deal with

I agree with your assessment to a good degree, but it almost feels like the Dems are reluctant to put out a roaring fire with anything other than a water pistol and a bucket at most.

I've been saying it for years, that if the Dems wanted to truly fuck the GOPers out of existence, they would give the working class something real to get them onside and Republicans with no chance for a look in.

The Dems cannot serve two masters in equal measure and that particular balance is why the GOP keep returning to power.

 

[The perfect fumble]

No desire for you jump in either.

I cannot understand that certain people don't want to look at what made people vote Trump. He's a symptom, not the cause and hasn't been created in a vacuum.

If people continue to believe getting rid of him will solve the ills of the US, then they're sadly mistaken.

Posting from the UK can feel like people in glass houses, so while I recognise the very real structural problems in the USA, Fogblue is Johnny on the spot and you and I are not, and that means something.

Both the UK and USA have deep-seated issues and only radical solutions can address them, but neither country is on the cusp of embracing these solutions, that is simply the reality of it, whether we like it or not.

I'll tell you the problem with progressive politics, you can't win with it. You might well say the system is rigged and it is, here and across the pond, but that isn't going to change anytime soon. So you either make peace with incrementalism, give up, or agitate to bring the system down, and if system destruction is your option then Trump is doing a lot of the heavy lifting for you.

Let's be honest, the default setting for the comfortable middle class in our country, would be a one nation Tory party led by a Blair clone and a soft Tory Labour party led by a Blair clone.

The factory setting for the comfortable middle class in the States would be a Bill Clinton lookalike for the Democrats and a Mitt Romney lookalike for the Republicans. That wouldn't solve much, but people would sleep easier in their beds and it would be a damn sight better that what they have now, and who are we to argue with that?

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

Not sure this belongs in here but...

 

[PinkFinal]

What human sewage...

 

[andyhinch]

What human sewage...

What a ****