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posted by CoolHand on Monday August 29 2016, @01:42AM   Printer-friendly
from the it-takes-all-kinds dept.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/sunday/a-confession-of-liberal-intolerance.html?_r=0

WE progressives believe in diversity, and we want women, blacks, Latinos, gays and Muslims at the table — er, so long as they aren't conservatives. Universities are the bedrock of progressive values, but the one kind of diversity that universities disregard is ideological and religious. We're fine with people who don't look like us, as long as they think like us.

O.K., that's a little harsh. But consider George Yancey, a sociologist who is black and evangelical. "Outside of academia I faced more problems as a black," he told me. "But inside academia I face more problems as a Christian, and it is not even close."

I've been thinking about this because on Facebook recently I wondered aloud whether universities stigmatize conservatives and undermine intellectual diversity. The scornful reaction from my fellow liberals proved the point.

"Much of the 'conservative' worldview consists of ideas that are known empirically to be false," said Carmi. "The truth has a liberal slant," wrote Michelle. "Why stop there?" asked Steven. "How about we make faculties more diverse by hiring idiots?"

To me, the conversation illuminated primarily liberal arrogance — the implication that conservatives don't have anything significant to add to the discussion. My Facebook followers have incredible compassion for war victims in South Sudan, for kids who have been trafficked, even for abused chickens, but no obvious empathy for conservative scholars facing discrimination.

The stakes involve not just fairness to conservatives or evangelical Christians, not just whether progressives will be true to their own values, not just the benefits that come from diversity (and diversity of thought is arguably among the most important kinds), but also the quality of education itself. When perspectives are unrepresented in discussions, when some kinds of thinkers aren't at the table, classrooms become echo chambers rather than sounding boards — and we all lose.


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  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:48AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:48AM (#394386)

    Think about it. None of this is based on scientific evidence but inferior ideology. Thousands of years of randomised and blinded trials on human populations (ie: history) has proven that successful civilisations look after children and families, whereas all of this liberal stuff is just made up and a tool to obtain power. For those people who refuse to believe this, you can look at formal scientific research and see that all the rubbish you hear about tolerance and acceptance of dysfunctional lifestyles on the basis of 'born that way' or 'cant help it' is baseless. I don't advocate hurting anyone but the positive discrimination the liberals espouse is equally harmful.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday August 29 2016, @02:13AM

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Monday August 29 2016, @02:13AM (#394397) Homepage

      This is deliberate. It is an indirect method of curtailing first-amendment rights by punishing, and often depriving the livelihood of, individuals exercising their first-amendment rights much in the same way that there is a deliberate effort to indirectly deprive individuals of their second-amendment rights -- banning lead bullets, banning ever-increasing classes of firearms, more stringent background checks, frog in the pot turn up the heat etc. etc.

      The mistake that the people who are pushing this all are making is that they believe that the common man will believe anything that they say -- and the resurgence of right-leaning parties in Europe, as one example, proves them wrong.

      The crux of the issue is control. When you deprive people of their livelihoods and prosperity, they are easier to control. When you direct the public perception such that more and more subjects are taboo, then your subjects are easier to control. When you induce learned helplessness into your subjects, they are easier to control. When you keep the people squabbling and divided, they are not banding together to address the real problem. All this divisive PC bullshit, Black Lives Matter, etc are very deliberate efforts to keep the people divided and those who subscribe to divisive ideologies are useful idiots for those who wish to control the people. Megaliberal morons and college students are especially vulnerable because they're like, so righteous, man.

      Unfortunately for them, control is controlled by the need to control and the people are becoming increasingly pissed. One would surmise, based on the China-levels of mass-media disinformation in the United States, that they are in control, but nothing could be further from the truth -- they are in fact desperate and shitting their pants.

      And Americans won't simply eat that shit-sandwich and roll over as the Europeans have.

      • (Score: 4, Informative) by ilPapa on Monday August 29 2016, @02:51AM

        by ilPapa (2366) on Monday August 29 2016, @02:51AM (#394411) Journal

        All this divisive PC bullshit, Black Lives Matter, etc are very deliberate efforts to keep the people divided

        The guy running the campaign of Donald Trump said he doesn't want his kids to go to school with Jews, but it's "PC bullshit" that's keeping people divided.

        You're a silly SOB.

        --
        You are still welcome on my lawn.
        • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday August 29 2016, @03:01AM

          by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Monday August 29 2016, @03:01AM (#394415) Homepage

          As a kid I went to school with Jews, and I strongly encourage all gentiles to let their kids go to school with Jews, just so they can see how annoying Jewish kids are.

          It's a good life-lesson because Jews don't stop being annoying when they grow up. In fact, they get much worse.

          " Y-you're contradicting yourself and being divisive! "

          Possibly. But that's because in my 3+ decades of life I've never encountered a Jew who wasn't also an asshole. Muslims too. I can't say the same for every other category of individual. You can hate me for being divisive against 2 classes of people, while Facebook (run by a Jew) is classifying people into over thirty genders.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:29AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:29AM (#394432)

            Yeah, they know what they're doing, and we're letting them do it.

          • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Ramze on Monday August 29 2016, @05:32AM

            by Ramze (6029) on Monday August 29 2016, @05:32AM (#394481)

            Ever thought the common denominator was yourself? Perhaps you're an asshole, and that's why people who you act like an asshole towards are reacting badly towards you? Seems like the most likely possibility rather than "everyone that believes in these two religions and/or is descended from people indigenous to a certain region of the planet are assholes." We're talking about billions of people here. Only 16 Million Jews worldwide, but about 1.6 Billion Muslims on the earth. I gotta say, just the odds alone that ALL 1.6 Billion or so are assholes is infinitesimal compared to the odds that perhaps it's just you that's the asshole.

            My own anecdotal evidence is quite the opposite of your experience. Granted, I've only known a handful of Muslims (that I know of -- many are Black Muslims who choose to hide their religion for fear of being ostracized,) but all the Jews I've met have been among the kindest, most thoughtful, and well-rounded individuals I've ever known. In fact, I'm travelling with one of my favorite friends (who happens to be Jewish) to a huge convention this coming weekend (along with several other friends), and we're going to have a hell of a lot of fun. He's even covering for another friend who can't afford to pay his share of the expenses up-front and will let the guy pay him back over time b/c he's good for it... and no, he's not charging interest. lol.

          • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:33AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:33AM (#394482)

            > You can hate me for being divisive against 2 classes of people, while Facebook (run by a Jew) is classifying people into over thirty genders.

            Yeah, you are actually being inclusive.
            You combine over thirty different kinds of asshole into one person.

            • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @07:18AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @07:18AM (#394511)

              Liberals thought they could replace Christianity with a kind of ersatz charity without God. The bit they forgot about is real Christian society doesn't put up with bullshit like rapist muslim men or usurers/banksters etc. But Liberals roll over for everything because they are ideologically loose like a two bit whore. So now the experiment has failed, time for all you liberals to find some real substance or go home.

              • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday August 29 2016, @05:53PM

                by DeathMonkey (1380) on Monday August 29 2016, @05:53PM (#394849) Journal

                Christian society doesn't put up with bullshit like rapist muslim men
                 
                Yeah, if the keyword is Muslim. Rapist Christian Men get moved to a different Parish.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:38PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:38PM (#394658)

              > You combine over thirty different kinds of asshole into one person.

              Are we discussing "The Donald" now?

        • (Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Monday August 29 2016, @03:01AM

          by dyingtolive (952) on Monday August 29 2016, @03:01AM (#394416)

          Which is crazy to me. If it's good enough for the Jewish, it's good enough for me. Shit. I wish I could have gone to such a school growing up.

          --
          Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
          • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:25AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:25AM (#394455)

            Everyone knows it's the black schools you didn't want to go to. You know, the middle schools with the resource officers and metal detectors.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:31AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:31AM (#394480)

        > The crux of the issue is control. When you deprive people of their livelihoods and prosperity, they are easier to control.

        Which is why no black people have killed you for being such a racist asshole. Centuries of deprivation have kept them weak. But you can only keep a people down for so long. BLM is going to show you that ethan-lives don't matter. You better start running while you still can. They are coming for you.

        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 29 2016, @01:26PM

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @01:26PM (#394649) Journal

          "You better start running while you still can"

          That's some silly shit right there. Why die tired? Better to make a stand, and take some of the bastards with you. Molon labe!

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:26AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:26AM (#394478)

      Thousands of years of randomised and blinded trials on human populations (ie: history) has proven that successful civilisations look after children and families, whereas all of this liberal stuff is just made up and a tool to obtain power.

      What does that even mean? You sound like you think you are hating on "liberal" policies like Medicaid and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). But those are clear-cut examples of a civilization looking after children and families.

      you can look at formal scientific research and see that all the rubbish you hear about tolerance and acceptance of dysfunctional lifestyles on the basis of 'born that way' or 'cant help it' is baseless.

      Oh, this is gay bashing. I get it. Never mind that various homosexual behaviors happen in non-human species all the time. [wikipedia.org]
      Now, where is this "formal scientific research" you think says otherwise? Hmmm? Oh, that's right, it doesn't exist.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @06:33AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @06:33AM (#394494)

        A knee jerk reflex is automatic, you can't stop it no matter how hard you try. But poking your stick in a brown-eye is not automatic, but learned behavior. Say it ain't so!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @06:51AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @06:51AM (#394503)

        Giving the family man a job looks after his family more than a stupid handout that becomes the psychological equivalent of castration.

        • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @07:08AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @07:08AM (#394507)

          The modern conservative is much more interested in telling the poor to get a job than they are in actually giving them a job.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @07:22AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @07:22AM (#394514)

            Conservatives give more to charity than liberals.

            • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @07:55AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @07:55AM (#394529)

              > Conservatives give more to charity than liberals.

              Only if you include giving to their own social clubs, aka churches.
              Which is definitely not about giving people jobs.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @07:24AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @07:24AM (#394518)

            Yeah but even for a second to pretend that liberals give a shit about families is ridiculous. Socialism is anti-family at its very core.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @07:57AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @07:57AM (#394530)

              (a) That's circular logic - they are bad because they support something that I declare to be bad.
              (b) It also presumes that liberalism == socialism

      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by jmorris on Monday August 29 2016, @07:51AM

        by jmorris (4844) on Monday August 29 2016, @07:51AM (#394526)

        But those are clear-cut examples of a civilization looking after children and families.

        I only see a mind so closed it can't imagine other possibilities could exist, and when exposed forcefully enough to another idea that some reaction is required the only reaction that is usually seen is irrational hate.

        Both Progressivism/Marxism and Classical Western Civ/Conservatism/whatever see poor people as a societal problem. You guys believe Medicare and TANF are the optimal solution. We believe Ben Franklin had it right when he said:

        “I am for doing good to the poor, but...I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed...that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”

        Now one of these policy positions is obviously more successful than the other. History answers that question pretty conclusively, especially the history of the 20th Century. The facts are so clear it leads the more conspiracy minded to suspect your side's sad devotion to a dead philosophy is grounded in something other than a concern for the poor. Farming them in vast ghettos for votes comes to mind.

        So tell us all again how you guys are 'reality based' again. As RAH teaches us, "One man's religion is another's belly laugh."

        Or how about HBD (Human Biological Diversity), something the Alt-Right accepts but most modern 'cucked' Conservatives and all Progs reject out of hand. The only way diverse human populations who quite obviously vary in a multitude of physical characteristics and observably vary intellectually as individuals could possibly be exactly the same in every conceivable mental aspect when averaged across any racial subgroup one proposes would be Divine Intervention. Yet this very same religious belief that flies directly in the face of Darwin's Theory of Evolution is a foundational article of faith on the Left which Must Not Be Questioned. Who is acting like a religion?

        And do I even need bother reposting the litany of purely science based Questions Which Must Not Be Permitted on the subject of AGW? How anyone who doesn't chant "The Science is Settled" on command is to be purged, defunded and declared "Not of the Body of Science!"

        One side stands up and declares that the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution must be repealed. To preserve Free Speech is the insane justification given. I swear, Orwell probably didn't even see that coming. Hint: It ain't Conservatives, it certainly ain't Libertarians and it isn't the Alt-Right.

        • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @08:01AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @08:01AM (#394531)

          > I only see a mind so closed it can't imagine other possibilities could exist,

          You mean like how incredibly awesome it was for the poor in the US back when corporate towns and union busting was the norm?
          Yeah, fantastic possibilities!

          > You guys believe Medicare and TANF are the optimal solution

          No. We guys believe they are a minimum baseline beyond which no one in the richest society on the planet should ever have to fall below.

          • (Score: 3, Informative) by jmorris on Monday August 29 2016, @09:53AM

            by jmorris (4844) on Monday August 29 2016, @09:53AM (#394569)

            You mean like how incredibly awesome it was for the poor in the US back when corporate towns and union busting was the norm?

            You do know how a corporate town worked, right? Somebody built a factory/mine/whatever AND a town and then people clamored to be the ones hired to move in. Whatever the problems, and there were plenty, people were making a decision that moving there offered them a better opportunity than where they were. And I don't remember reading of razorwire and guard towers keeping people in.

            As for unions, they once served a purpose but that was lost long ago as organized crime and better organized socialists took them over and made them playthings for tyrants backed by government granted monopolies.

            • (Score: 5, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Monday August 29 2016, @12:21PM

              by Phoenix666 (552) on Monday August 29 2016, @12:21PM (#394614) Journal

              Uh-huh. Do you remember when Rockefeller hired a private army to set up a machine gun on a ridge overlooking a tent camp full of men, women, and children who were on strike and open fire, slaughtering scores? Because they did that at Ludlow, CO. And those miners were on private land that the union had leased, so they had left the company town in fact. Of course Rockefeller and the mercenaries were acquitted, too, lest you claim that they were punished for their crimes.

              It's so egregious that to this day the Rockefellers all deserve to be dispossessed and exiled.

              The utopia you reach for, where unions don't exist and Darkie knows his place, has already been tried and failed. All that we have today, with OSHA, social security, medicaid, the FDA, etc are 100 years worth of regular people trying to wrest a minimum that enables them to live from aristocrats, oligarchs, and tyrants.

              --
              Washington DC delenda est.
              • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Monday August 29 2016, @11:18PM

                by jmorris (4844) on Monday August 29 2016, @11:18PM (#394990)

                Yea. Rich, politically connected people ignore the law. Shocking isn't it. Remind you of anyone in the news lately? She has even planted a whole cemetery of people who threatened her rise to power. It isn't new, but one political philosophy espouses the Rule of Law that is applied to everyone as an ideal goal and other endorses lawless behavior of that sort because it holds to the Rule of (wo)Men.

            • (Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Tuesday August 30 2016, @07:57PM

              by Capt. Obvious (6089) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @07:57PM (#395409)

              people were making a decision that moving there offered them a better opportunity than where they were.

              People were so far in debt to the company store they could not leave and had to start sending their kids to work (and go into debt) to survive. I mean, whether they made a decision once to move there (or were just born into it), certainly, they weren't able to chage their mind.

              As for unions, they once served a purpose but that was lost long ago as organized crime and better organized socialists took them over

              Sounds like the solution is more union membership/voting against the corrupt leaders. But I suppose you could just say "any time an asshole takes over an institution it must be destroyed."

              • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday August 30 2016, @09:55PM

                by jmorris (4844) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @09:55PM (#395467)

                Sounds like the solution is more union membership/voting against the corrupt leaders.

                Remove the government monopoly grant and sure, go ahead and try to reform the unions. I won't ever join one but it is still a mostly free country so people are free to have a different opinion. Let the market decide. I suspect you will find that in the modern world, without the monopoly few will see the need for a union. But if there are some industries where it makes sense then more power to em.

          • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @10:18AM

            We guys believe they are a minimum baseline beyond which no one in the richest society on the planet should ever have to fall below.

            At my expense, yes, I'm aware.

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @10:38PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @10:38PM (#394964)

        A conservative "think tank" did a garbage "meta study" claiming to disprove "born this way" really recently, so a bunch of wing-nut websites are running articles about how gay people really are just un-American child-ruining monsters who have "made a choice" just to stick it to their parents, or Jesus, or society, or something.

        http://www.unitedliberty.org/articles/19659-born-this-way-new-study-debunks-lgbt-claims [unitedliberty.org]

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 30 2016, @12:17AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 30 2016, @12:17AM (#395014)

          Nice! Thanks for the link. That explains a lot.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:49AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:49AM (#394387)

    Story queue runs dry over the weekend, so the editors had to pick something a few days stale from the reject pile.
    Too bad it was runaway masturbating in public again. Nobody wanted to see that.

    • (Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:16AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:16AM (#394399)

      The New York Times: the second most popular alt-right news site, behind Breitbart.

      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:08AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:08AM (#394474)

        Maybe that means you should recalibrate your understanding of the "liberal media."
        If they are running stories that give runaway a hard-on, then maybe they aren't so agenda-driven after all.

        Truth is, runaway has a history of submitting stories from the NYT. Just most of the time he doesn't bother to include the actual URL. [soylentnews.org]

        Its kinda weird actually.

        • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Monday August 29 2016, @07:53AM

          by jmorris (4844) on Monday August 29 2016, @07:53AM (#394527)

          Well it is considered rude to post paywalled material. It is considered polite to locate a similar version out on the open Internet and link that.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @08:04AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @08:04AM (#394533)

            (a) If you can't get past the the NYT's flimsy paywall, maybe you are on the wrong site
            (b) He didn't post an alternate source either. If you can't figure out how to click the provided link to the soylent story, maybe you are on the wrong internet.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @11:44AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @11:44AM (#394608)

              What the hell for an argument is (a)? You are not supposed to do everything you are technically able to.

              If NYT wants to live without 50% of its potential eyeballs and thus lose mindshare they can shoot themselves into their collective feet by all means. Why are you advocating for letting them both eat and keep their cake?

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:25AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:25AM (#394404)

      When there's a perfectly shit story in the queue about the Internet of Toilets.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 29 2016, @04:52AM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @04:52AM (#394465) Journal
      Short queue effect makes the little ACs cry.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:57AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:57AM (#394468)

        Short queue effect makes big tough khallow act like internet tough guy.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 29 2016, @05:09AM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @05:09AM (#394475) Journal
          I'll try to be gentle next time.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:36AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:36AM (#394483)

            Make sure to keep replying with non-sequiturs to keep your ego protected!

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Leebert on Monday August 29 2016, @01:52AM

    by Leebert (3511) on Monday August 29 2016, @01:52AM (#394389)

    Like Mr. Yancey, I am what most would describe as an "evangelical Christian". It surprises me that any one of us would expect anything other than antagonism. The Bible tells us to expect it (for example, 2 Timothy 3:12).

    It's nice when people are nice to you in spite of their dislike of your belief, but I generally don't expect it. I think we get treated pretty well in present day society, honestly.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:57AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:57AM (#394390)

      Then you've lost your saltiness. If you were on your own side you'd be fighting harder for what you believe in.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:03AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:03AM (#394391)

        That's what causes the filter event. Probability of survival (per 100 years) < 40%, those aren't very good odds.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 29 2016, @04:54AM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @04:54AM (#394466) Journal

          Probability of survival (per 100 years) Who's giving those odds?

      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @07:23AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @07:23AM (#394515)

        The problem for many Christians they have a habit of being Salt when they should be Light and Light when they should be Salt. But it's often not so simple to know whether you are supposed to try to change stuff from within or stand out and make a difference. ;)

        Back to the topic of academia and intolerance, I remember Michael Reiss lost his job as the Director of Education at the Royal Society in the UK because the media misrepresented what he had to say and then a mob gathered to "lynch" him.

        Compare what he said:
        https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2008/sep/11/michael.reiss.creationism [theguardian.com]
        (ignore the biased paragraph at the start which is from the Guardian and not from him!)

        Compare the media's spin: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2008/sep/11/creationism.education [theguardian.com]
        http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7612152.stm [bbc.co.uk]
        http://www.americanscientist.org/science/pub/leading-scientist-urges-teaching-of-creationism-in-schools [americanscientist.org]

        See also: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2006/nov/28/academicexperts.highereducationprofile [theguardian.com]

        This sort of deception and bigotry is not very "academic" nor scientific. There were plenty of Christian scientists. Galileo himself was a Christian, he even had help from the Pope till he mocked the Pope in a publication.

        Even elsewhere on Soylentnews you can see the bigotry:

        I'm personally shocked that somebody who believes in magical fairy tales isn't being taken seriously in academia. It's almost like these are institutions of higher _learning_ and that ignorant bronze-aged beliefs have no place.

        The truth is people can be wrong about all sorts of stuff but more correct than everyone else within their fields of expertise. To throw them out merely because they are wrong about unrelated stuff is bigotry and can be counterproductive for Academia and Science. There are mathematicians who are geniuses in math but fools in many other things. Should we throw them out too?

        As for arrogance and even hubris, I wouldn't want to be as silly as Pacman saying based on the known rules and information of the Pacman Universe there's definitely no Creator of the Pacman Universe. Mysterious writings (copyright message etc) somewhere in the Pacman universe don't prove anything- in other games mysterious writings may talk about gods but those gods aren't the actual creators ;).

        Physicists already have plenty of _scientific_evidence_ that our universe is rather weird:
        https://source.wustl.edu/2015/03/in-the-quantum-world-the-future-affects-the-past/ [wustl.edu]
        http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v11/n7/full/nphys3343.html [nature.com]

        So it's genuine arrogance and hubris to be so sure that if there's a Creator the Creator and motives of the Creator would be so simple. Of course it could turn out to be very simple - e.g. make enough money to buy more beer ;).

        There are arrogant/extremist Christians, Muslims,etc but I see the same arrogance from Atheists too. The rest of us just don't have as much faith that we are 100% right :).

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @10:31AM

          I'm pretty sure the Creator wrote a brilliant little perl script which turned out to be me and the rest of you are just what happens when too much input is taken from /dev/random.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 29 2016, @01:38PM

            by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @01:38PM (#394657) Journal

            Perls before swine?

          • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:45PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:45PM (#394725)

            So you think that you're the only real person and that nobody else is a real person, with real consciousness and feelings? Congrats, you just admitted to being a sociopath.

            • (Score: 3, Funny) by DECbot on Monday August 29 2016, @04:30PM

              by DECbot (832) on Monday August 29 2016, @04:30PM (#394793) Journal

              If I were I perl script, I would call any output from java as garbage from /dev/random.

              --
              cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @11:18PM

              I admitted to being a perl script, which is not subject to human shrinkery.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 30 2016, @11:41AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 30 2016, @11:41AM (#395214)

              Bah.

              First, sociopathy is a personality disorder, not a philosophy.
              Second, while some elements of the latter could _hint_ at former, in this case it's pointing towards narcissism instead.

    • (Score: 2, Flamebait) by Francis on Monday August 29 2016, @02:14AM

      by Francis (5544) on Monday August 29 2016, @02:14AM (#394398)

      I'm personally shocked that somebody who believes in magical fairy tales isn't being taken seriously in academia. It's almost like these are institutions of higher _learning_ and that ignorant bronze-aged beliefs have no place.

      The problem here is that reality has a liberal bias to it. Just because there are two sides does not mean that they're both equally valid. Conservatives are mostly fighting for a bygone era and the people going to college are being trained to advance society.

      • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday August 29 2016, @02:33AM

        by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Monday August 29 2016, @02:33AM (#394407) Homepage

        It's not nearly as black-and-white as you suggest. It's pretty much like everything else in politics, you gather as much information as you can about all sides and assign weights to them.

        When I was on Slashdot (despite my bigoted comments) I was an honest pro-Israel liberal Democrat, had voted for Obama's first term, and repeatedly lambasted the senior Slashdot staff for having attended a Christian college because I was an edgy super-atheist.

        I'm still an atheist and consider believing in an imaginary sky-daddy a flaw, but besides that I've had many positive impressions of Christians who strive to do the right thing and yet have the honest barbarism to admit when shit is fucked up. I prefer women who have had some religion in their upbringing because they make great girlfriends. More often than not modern Christians will gladly discuss religion but listen to your viewpoint if you have non-Christian leanings. Early Christianity had a strong intellectual tradition, and we owe many of our groundbreaking scientific developments to them. Even if you aren't a Christian you can still appreciate their contributions to art, history, music; and the religion itself is rich with symbolism. Many Christians are cultural only, that is, they are steeped in the tradition but don't believe in a literal sky-daddy. The bible itself says that the kingdom of heaven is already in your midst, not some sky-palace up in the clouds.

        I've met some pretty awesome Christians, Whites, Asians, Blacks and Latinos. Jews and Muslims, however, are scum and I've never met a single instance of either who wasn't a rude and malignant asshole. Nuke 'em!

        • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Absolutely.Geek on Monday August 29 2016, @03:06AM

          by Absolutely.Geek (5328) on Monday August 29 2016, @03:06AM (#394418)

          That was close I almost had to give a positive mod to Eth; but luckily he finished as we have come to know and love.

          Jews and Muslims, however, are scum and I've never met a single instance of either who wasn't a rude and malignant asshole. Nuke 'em!

          --
          Don't trust the police or the government - Shihad: My mind's sedate.
          • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:33AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:33AM (#394434)

            Yeah, at least he dares to say it.

          • (Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @10:33AM

            No worries, Flamebait plus Underrated covers situations like this.

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:54PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:54PM (#394669)

            Isn't that called Projection.

          • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday August 29 2016, @02:16PM

            by tangomargarine (667) on Monday August 29 2016, @02:16PM (#394693)

            Hey, he's got a reputation to maintain, man!

            (moderated as if the last line didn't exist)

            --
            "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
        • (Score: 2) by shrewdsheep on Monday August 29 2016, @08:42AM

          by shrewdsheep (5215) on Monday August 29 2016, @08:42AM (#394545)

          I've met some pretty awesome Christians, Whites, Asians, Blacks and Latinos. Jews and Muslims, however, are scum and I've never met a single instance of either who wasn't a rude and malignant asshole. Nuke 'em!

          I have.

        • (Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Monday August 29 2016, @02:27PM

          by DutchUncle (5370) on Monday August 29 2016, @02:27PM (#394707)

          "Early Christianity" was sort of Jewish. Jesus, the original disciples, the writers of the original gospels . . . all Jewish. Are you categorizing them too?

      • (Score: 5, Interesting) by khallow on Monday August 29 2016, @04:19AM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @04:19AM (#394451) Journal

        The problem here is that reality has a liberal bias to it.

        Typical defensive bronze-age rhetoric, without evidence of course. Look just how primitive these arguments are for would-be progressive beliefs.

        Conservatives are mostly fighting for a bygone era and the people going to college are being trained to advance society.

        Except when that's not happening, of course. A classic example is libertarianism. Libertarianism tends to have some relatively novel economic and political beliefs, but they tend to be considered conservative on these very subjects (with phony beliefs often attributed to them to confirm the assertion).

        Meanwhile what is often considered liberalism on these very subjects tends to have a lot of bronze-age mythology, such as zero sum thinking (if rich people are getting richer, it's because the rest of us are getting poorer), magic thinking (if we do this ritual then free stuff!), one sour note ruins the whole song (the people who disagree, no matter how few or how quietly, hold us back), our presentation of our motives equals the outcome of our actions, appearance equals reality (GDP - genuine economic improvement in societies tends to come with increased activity therefore the converse must also be true), and defensive rhetoric such as the above "reality has a liberal bias".

        Genuine liberalism isn't tribal. It would incorporate the best of supposedly conservative beliefs and lessons rather than hostilely ostracize such beliefs.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:29AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:29AM (#394457)

          Libertarians? You mean Republicans who say keep your dirty hands off my money, but smoke pot and are bi-curious? These are exactly the practitioners of cognitive dissonance that academia must weed out, lest we all end up more stupid as a result.

          • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 29 2016, @01:43PM

            by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @01:43PM (#394661) Journal

            You couldn't get much more stupid. You're right at base level now, dude.

      • (Score: 5, Touché) by tibman on Monday August 29 2016, @06:30AM

        by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @06:30AM (#394492)

        I think most institutions of higher learning have a class for teaching bronze-age stuff. They even charge you hundreds (maybe thousands) just for the privilege to hear someone read it aloud from a dead-tree book so that you can "advance society".

        I've seen plenty of religious people ace biology and chemistry. You just sound like a bigot.

        --
        SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
      • (Score: 5, Informative) by jmorris on Monday August 29 2016, @08:21AM

        by jmorris (4844) on Monday August 29 2016, @08:21AM (#394539)

        ..ignorant bronze-aged beliefs have no place.

        Apparently it is far better that an ignorant 19th Century religion be taught in the place of traditional ones. I double dog dare you to actually read some Marx and tell me that crazy son of a bitch isn't just as irrational as any boy buggering pope or goat raping imam. And pretty much everything in the intellectual tradition along the fork from Western Civ to Marx was equally daft, starting with the leaders of the French Revolution. If you wanna puke, read a bit about that little fiasco. Those clowns pretty much did everything wrong and France still hasn't thrown off most of the defective mental baggage.

        Your problem is you are so blind you can't even see that your belief system meets every qualification for the word "Religion." Science, properly understood, can't answer any of the Big Questions required to produce a civilization. At anything like our current level of understanding of Science it can't even really try to tackle any of the big questions. Science can't even get close to answering What the Universe is, and only then would it be possible to tackle Why? And only then could we imagine a Science that could try to say what sort of moral code we should adopt and what sort of governing system would be optimal to implement it.

        Brutal example: The Poor. Science could probably tell us how to identify the least likely to succeed in the current social order. It can't say whether we should, it also can't say whether we should kill/abort them as soon as they are identified, whether we should instead research some treatment to 'correct them', whether to simply warehouse them in ghettos, drive them out of our society, do nothing and let them survive as best they can or even place them in positions of authority. Those are questions entirely out of scope for Science, for answers to those questions one must exit the Sciences and head over to the Religion and Philosophy Departments.

        So like all Progs you are picking a set of core values and building a religion / philosophy around it and claiming the mantle of Science believing that makes you immune from criticism. It doesn't, it just makes you deluded or a liar. Considering the track record of every time your ideas have been given free reign it is certainly defective. Which isn't really surprising considering how many obvious logical flaws are in it.

        • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @10:12AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @10:12AM (#394574)

          dare you to actually read some Marx and tell me that crazy son of a bitch isn't just as irrational

          I have, and he's not. What part of Dialectical Materialism did you not understand? It is an economic theory, just as testable as any and all economic theories.

          What Big Questions are you saying have to be solved to produce a civilization? I don't see that as being crucial at all, and if you read your Marx you would know that ideological superstructure like religion is a side-effect of civilization, not a cause of it. Really, it is the little questions, like division of labor, sanitation, government granaries, and educating very recondite alt-right people, that produce civilizations. Marx called these the relations of production, and capital. Knowledge is capital. Tech is capital. Money is dumb.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:48PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:48PM (#394664)

            Yet another half-wit ^ This one thinks he understands civilization. He doesn't even understand his own, but he presumes to know what makes any civilization.

            • (Score: 5, Informative) by DECbot on Monday August 29 2016, @04:42PM

              by DECbot (832) on Monday August 29 2016, @04:42PM (#394803) Journal

              DECbot's definition of a civilization: a group of people able to economically support and socially tolerate a village idiot.

              --
              cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
          • (Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Tuesday August 30 2016, @02:07AM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 30 2016, @02:07AM (#395067) Journal

            It is an economic theory, just as testable as any and all economic theories.

            Except of course, when it's not. Labor theory of value is pretty notorious for begging the question. Just about everything has some labor attached to it, so it's trivial to claim that the value of everything came purely from the labor. Nothing to test there.

            Then there's the gobbledygook such as "commodity fetishism" which is a derogatory way to describe the market interface (which among other things, separates buyers from irrelevant details like having to consider the labor value of goods they purchase via a market). Putting emotional labels on things isn't a sign of a scientific theory.

            The asymptotic march of humanity to a state of pure communism is a fantasy based on ignoring both human nature and various forces in society (which are merely asserted to wither away). This asymptotic stuff is also a great way to deliver unfalsifiable stuff. If you don't measure certain events happening (like the withering away of the state), it's merely because it hasn't happened yet.

            What part of Dialectical Materialism did you not understand?

            What does dialectical materialism have to do with Marxism? Any economic theory can be expressed in terms of the philosophy. It's just a language for describing dynamical systems. And it's a bad choice at that due to the clunky, cultish jargon, unquantifiable nature, and ignoring key principles like relativity or conservation of material invariants.

            • (Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Tuesday August 30 2016, @07:16PM

              by Capt. Obvious (6089) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @07:16PM (#395397)

              It's interesting, because the labor theory of value really is a very capitalist idea. After all, what claim do you have to the land your home is on? Usually it traces back through voluntary exchanges to the guy who got the land in return for investing labor in improving it. If you don't believe human labor is the ultimate reason, what right do you have to any land or commodity good?

              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 30 2016, @07:39PM

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 30 2016, @07:39PM (#395404) Journal

                If you don't believe human labor is the ultimate reason, what right do you have to any land or commodity good?

                Because creation of such ownership rights enables better and more responsible use of land or good. It's not about having an ultimate reason (which can be blatantly ignored), but a sensible way to structure a society's economy.

                For an extreme example, Russia is on the second or third cycle of oligarch ownership of former Soviet assets. There is no way that such ownership has anything to do with valid property rights. It was stolen from a thief. But if modern Russia were to nail down the laws concerning such things, then it would greatly improve economic conditions since the oligarchs would now have a choice other than "ruthlessly exploit your asset before you lose it". Obviously, a fairer distribution of such assets would be far better, but my point is that even in the complete absence of fairness, we still have a better outcome than the present iterative theft of assets from the prior generation of thieves since things aren't truly owned and hence, the parties which control such assets have a weakened interest in improving (or at least not diminishing) the value of such assets.

                • (Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Tuesday August 30 2016, @08:14PM

                  by Capt. Obvious (6089) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @08:14PM (#395416)

                  Because creation of such ownership rights enables better and more responsible use of land or good. It's not about having an ultimate reason (which can be blatantly ignored), but a sensible way to structure a society's economy.

                  So you're fine with wealth redistribution?

                  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 31 2016, @01:54AM

                    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 31 2016, @01:54AM (#395551) Journal

                    So you're fine with wealth redistribution?

                    Depends on the method. Voluntary trade is just fine. Taking stuff from other people and delivering it to your cronies is not.

                    • (Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Wednesday August 31 2016, @06:40PM

                      by Capt. Obvious (6089) on Wednesday August 31 2016, @06:40PM (#395791)

                      Taking stuff from other people and delivering it to your cronies is not.

                      Ah, why would you object to this. I mean, the cronies have the same moral right to it as the original owner, since we agreed that the "owner" was something invented by society, and society can reorganize (ala your Russian example).

                      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 31 2016, @07:29PM

                        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 31 2016, @07:29PM (#395816) Journal

                        Ah, why would you object to this. I mean, the cronies have the same moral right to it as the original owner, since we agreed that the "owner" was something invented by society, and society can reorganize (ala your Russian example).

                        Because we haven't actually agreed as demonstrated with the next "reorganization". When the balance of power shifts, who owns what gets shuffled around again. It doesn't take morality to realize that cooperative behavior which has some degree of long term planning and long term stability to it, is more effective. Ownership which survives the vagaries of political whims is one way to generate a considerable degree of long term cooperative behavior.

                        • (Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Wednesday August 31 2016, @08:55PM

                          by Capt. Obvious (6089) on Wednesday August 31 2016, @08:55PM (#395854)

                          Granted. That's why I shall propose a one-time only reset, to address wealth inequality. I bet I could get a super majority to vote for it. So, would that be okay? Maybe as a constitutional amendment that says that such an action may be initiated one time?

                          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:14PM

                            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:14PM (#396233) Journal
                            Depends how many one-time resets it turns out to be. It started in Russia as a one-time reset of Soviet assets and went from there. Further, what's the basis of this reset and why won't these conditions repeat in a few years or months even? For example, if you're resetting because people are poor, then it won't be long before they're poor again, duplicating the conditions of the original reset.
                            • (Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Friday September 09 2016, @02:20AM

                              by Capt. Obvious (6089) on Friday September 09 2016, @02:20AM (#399461)

                              Alternatively, if it resets whenever the supermajority of people (enough to pass an amendment) think it's too out of wack, it could encourage the richest people not to try to concentrate wealth so much. Can you imagine what it would do to the pharmaceutical prices if they knew raising the price of drugs by 700x overnight would likely result in confiscation of the factory/IP?

                              You're right that chaos is bad for the economy, and it would be necessary to teach people that such power must be used super-rarely, but I see no reason why a nuclear-option like check would be horrible.

                              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 09 2016, @02:58AM

                                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 09 2016, @02:58AM (#399473) Journal

                                Alternatively, if it resets whenever the supermajority of people (enough to pass an amendment) think it's too out of wack, it could encourage the richest people not to try to concentrate wealth so much.

                                Or it could encourage concentration of wealth via demagoguery which I think has already happened in Russia. Personally, I don't see the point of making a permanent failure mode because of a temporary wealth concentration. A society with economic mobility is preferable to repeated seizure of wealth without addressing the causes of the wealth inequalities that create the pretext for the seizures.

                                • (Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Friday September 09 2016, @06:06PM

                                  by Capt. Obvious (6089) on Friday September 09 2016, @06:06PM (#399733)

                                  ociety with economic mobility is preferable to repeated seizure of wealth without addressing the causes of the wealth inequalities that create the pretext for the seizures.

                                  Hey, I think you're right. I just don't know how possible addressing the underlying causes is. Also, I don't know if mobility is terribly important. I don't really care who the richest 1% are, so much as if they control 99% of the wealth or 5% of the wealth.

                                  But I tend to think that most "underlying causes" deal with more regular confiscation/taxes. The primary ways I can think of off the top of my head to prevent wealth inequalities are: higher capital gains taxes, financial transaction taxes, property taxes, estate taxes, more progressive income taxes. Oh, and regulations of various sorts.

                                  That said, I think the idea of a nuclear option in the hands of the majority helps bring those changes into effect. Russia is not so much a democracy under demagoguery as under the control of a strongman. So it seems a bad choice. France or Sweden seem to be far more democratic, and able to achieve things. Or look at Iceland's recent (post-2009) government control over various economic levers.

                                  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 09 2016, @07:11PM

                                    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 09 2016, @07:11PM (#399753) Journal
                                    Incidentally, another example of confiscatory regimes is Zimbabwe. They might have improved their wealth inequality (particularly on ethnic grounds), but at the expense of making everyone still in the country vastly poorer and put into place a bunch of policies that might make them one of the last countries to achieve developed world status.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:07PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:07PM (#394779)

          Your problem is you are so blind you can't even see that your belief system meets every qualification for the word "Religion." Science, properly understood, can't answer any of the Big Questions required to produce a civilization.

          There is some argument that "Science" is a form of "Religion." There are two key differences between it and most religions, though.
          1) They openly acknowledge what they don't know, and work to try to answer those questions. For example, there is a huge open question of "dark matter" and "dark energy." Physicists know it is a problem, they are working to solve it, and they are letting the public know what they are trying to do to solve it (albeit maybe with a time delay to be "first to publish"). They don't just dismiss things with platitudes like, "God works in mysterious ways."
          2) Science produces things which are testable and reproducible. For example, they say "gravity work like this," and you can disprove it by dropping something and timing it. They say "light waves bend like that," and you can disprove it by shining light through a prism. In contrast, religions are an end unto themselves and untestable. For example, let's say somebody says "everything you think is wrong, the only way to get to Heaven is to murder somebody," (and you would possibly be rewarded with numerous virgins there)... how could you disprove this?

          Those are questions entirely out of scope for Science, for answers to those questions one must exit the Sciences and head over to the Religion and Philosophy Departments.

          This seems like something of a Red Herring. As you note, Science is amoral (not immoral, amoral). It is a mechanism to determine the "rules" of how things work. I've not heard a single scientist ever say "the Science says we must do XYZ."

          The much more common (and easy to mistake) thing I've heard is, "the Science says we must do XYZ to avoid ABC, which is bad." So for example, Anthropogenic Global Warming. I've never heard somebody say, "Science says we need to cut carbon emissions just because Science (like 'God says it is a sin' a.k.a. Sharia Law)." I've always heard "Science says if we don't cut carbon emissions we could end up with run-away greenhouse effect which will raise sea-levels, reduce crops, and other effects. As having all those things happen would be bad (judgment call, not a Science assertion), we must cut carbon emissions."

        • (Score: 1) by Francis on Monday August 29 2016, @07:46PM

          by Francis (5544) on Monday August 29 2016, @07:46PM (#394898)

          I've read Marx, apparently you haven't.

          Also, you make it sound like I was born with these beliefs and haven't changed them over time. I hold the views I have because they're significantly better at describing the world than the alternatives. I regularly reevaluate my views.

          You can't say that about the typical conservative. Their party still believes that Iraq was a great idea and that fetuses are the same thing as babies and that tax cuts to the rich will benefit the poor.

          The notion that they're on equal ground is absolutely ridiculous.

          • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Monday August 29 2016, @10:12PM

            by jmorris (4844) on Monday August 29 2016, @10:12PM (#394952)

            I've read Marx, apparently you haven't.

            I am still reading him. But if you didn't spot the fundamental flaw right up front you are either dumb or so emotionaly invested in the outcome you engaged in a leap of faith over it. I.e. it is a religion for you. I will give you a hint: The Labor Theory of Value. Take that out and the entire edifice falls over, kinda like Christianity without the immaculate conception. And it is so obviously false you should not have to think very long to see through it. Christians freely admit they must accept the immaculate conception purely as an article of faith, but if Marxism is "Scientific" then you are not allowed to.

            Their party still believes that Iraq was a great idea and that fetuses are the same thing as babies and that tax cuts to the rich will benefit the poor.

            Do you even get CNN on your planet? Did you happen to notice how the one candidate who smoked the rest of the field said Iraq was a bad idea? The Neocons still like the idea of nation building but they are the ones raging at being written out of the Republican Party.

            Since you went there lets go. When does a fetus become a baby? Science certainly can't answer that question. A strict reading of the U.S. Constitution says one thing but Science makes that position problematic. What magic happens in the birth canal that transforms a fetus into a baby? So is it a baby an hour earlier? Is it still a fetus an hour after? Abortion is an issue where both extremes are sign of our moral understanding hitting a limiting case and becoming silly or evil. On one end you have "Every sperm is sacred" and on the other infanticide. We should apply the most recent information Science provides and put the line around a point where it is more baby like, certainly at or before the point where premies are routinely delivered and survive to adulthood.

            And while it isn't true that ALL tax cuts benefit all, the ones Conservative economists propose have proven to increase general GDP and even increase revenue to the Treasury every time they have been tried. Every single time. Not a theory, not a belief, math backed by historical evidence. Meanwhile your economic theories lead to human misery and hardship every time they are tried in direct proportion to the extent they are implmented. Every time. Who is science based and who is practicing the politics of envy?

      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 29 2016, @01:39PM

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @01:39PM (#394659) Journal

        Wow - you trotted that line out right quick. It's good to see that you know your playbook so well!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:36PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:36PM (#394715)

        The problem here is that reality has a liberal bias to it.

        Did you fail history? It has a decidedly non liberal bias to it. The natural reaction to most humans is to build dictatorships. We have several of them going on right now in our world.

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:17AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:17AM (#394400)

      Things like this make me think it might be right to force those who hold bronze age beliefs to live like the people in the bronze age.
      Your out dated book, which says itself you have to take it all or you are not a christian. Among other crazy and contradictory passages, in it does not have a place at the table in modern times where a few button presses can kill hundreds of millions of people.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by TheRaven on Monday August 29 2016, @09:23AM

        by TheRaven (270) on Monday August 29 2016, @09:23AM (#394557) Journal
        Bronze Age is being thrown around a lot here. It's perhaps worth remembering that it was a Bronze Age civilisation that invented democracy and republics. If you want to discard all Bronze Age beliefs, then you throw away all of ancient Greek philosophy too.
        --
        sudo mod me up
        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by aristarchus on Monday August 29 2016, @09:34AM

          by aristarchus (2645) on Monday August 29 2016, @09:34AM (#394563) Journal

          It's perhaps worth remembering that it was a Bronze Age civilisation that invented democracy and republics.

          Um, just for the Bronze-Age-challenged about history and sky-fairies here on SoylentNews: Greece in the Bronze age was pretty much monarchies, think Iliad and Odyssey. By the time Athens established a democratic form of government, Greeks were well into the Iron Age. Same with the Romans, and their Republic.

          • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 29 2016, @01:50PM

            by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @01:50PM (#394665) Journal

            So, here we are in the "Information Age", and you're taking some kind of pride in your Iron Age beliefs, while casting aspersions at someone you believe has Bronze Age beliefs?

            That shit is pretty unbelievable.

            • (Score: 3, Informative) by aristarchus on Monday August 29 2016, @04:53PM

              by aristarchus (2645) on Monday August 29 2016, @04:53PM (#394808) Journal

              Reading comprehension, my dear Runaway!

              That shit is pretty unbelievable.

              Yes, it is like alleged "liberals" confessing to their own intolerance. You fell for it hook, line and sinker, eh?
              No, I was just correcting the metal-age references. Religion belongs to the Bronze age (Blessings upon Zarathustra!) in not before, and philosophy did not begin before the Iron age. I offered no judgment on the implications for the status of either.

    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @06:21AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @06:21AM (#394490)

      It surprises me that any one of us would expect anything other than antagonism.
      The Bible tells us to expect it (for example, 2 Timothy 3:12).

      2 Timothy 3:12 Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,

      That verse is a favorite of the wrong kind of christian, because to the self-righteous, all criticism becomes proof of righteousness.

      It is carte blanche for acting like an asshole and shifting personal responsibility for bad behavior on to scripture and God instead. Jesus said a lot of things about compassion for others, [biblehub.com] not wearing one's religion like a badge, [biblehub.com] and not being self-righteous. [biblehub.com] The bible is packed with verses like that.

      But the wrong kind of christian ignores those verses and is quick to cite 2 Timothy 3:12 to avoid self-examination. In my experience, citation of that verse is so strongly correlated with un-christian behavior that it should be avoided at all costs.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 29 2016, @07:36AM

      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday August 29 2016, @07:36AM (#394522) Journal

      We try, anyway. Despite knowing that you worship a genocidal, narcissistic devil who runs an eternal concentration camp full of fire and fear and pain and misery and torture for people who don't kiss his ass (read; most of the human race). I like to think this is because I have actual morals, with an objective basis in reality, rather than marching orders handed down from the Big Angry Jew In The Sky :)

      --
      I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @09:33AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @09:33AM (#394562)

        The Bible has a lot of contradictory shit in it.
        Why do you favor the worst of it instead of the best of it?

        • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @10:41AM

          Because she's a nasty cunt. Check her past posts if you care to see the pattern of behavior.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:40PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:40PM (#394802)

            > Because she's a nasty cunt. Check her past posts if you care to see the pattern of behavior.

            That's rich coming from you, someone who fetishizes being an asshole.
            BTW, I'm the AC who asked that question of her.

            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @11:11PM

              You can't see the difference between my not caring if I hurt someone's fee-fees and her intentionally seeking such? Interesting.

              Posting from another location then? My sooper adminy powahs tell me the hashes of the IP address don't match. (The first five characters of the hash are printed in the gray bar on every comment for adminy types, no actual work was required to check.)

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 30 2016, @04:52AM

            by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @04:52AM (#395121) Journal

            See, Uzzard, this is another prime example of what I mean by "you make my point for me with your own hand" :) This may surprise you, but I'm only nasty to the people who deserve it.

            P.S.: guys who use "cunt" as an insult probably don't like ladybits very much. Probably they like huge throbbing dicks. Given how you talk, I can only assume you swallow more sausage than the clientele of a bratwurst restaurant. You sure do seem to love your long, hard, stiff point-and-shooty things...

            --
            I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 31 2016, @01:47AM

              by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday August 31 2016, @01:47AM (#395546) Homepage Journal

              And you have a problem if I do prefer the cock? There went your virtue signaling participation trophy...

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
              • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday August 31 2016, @04:48AM

                by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Wednesday August 31 2016, @04:48AM (#395581) Journal

                Oh no, not at all. I'd be incredibly hypocritical to have a problem with gay men, as a gay woman, simply for BEING gay. Suck all the wang you want, so long as you're honest with all your partners and, if married or otherwise in a committed relationship, have permission from your SO. Just use protection and don't do anything stupid. I've seen some frightening statistics about men who have sex with men...

                No, it's all the *other* bullshit that goes along with your slow-motion 50-car-pileup of a worldview that I've got an issue with. Specifically, your constant macho attitude and your right-wing politics are rather anti-gay in the collective even if you yourself aren't, and by contributing to that you're being very hypocritical if you're actually anywhere in the LGBTQ bowl of alphabet soup.

                Oh, and anyone who uses the term "virtue signalling" or "cuck" automatically loses; it's Godwin's Law for the mid-to-late 2010s.

                --
                I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:35PM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:35PM (#396240)
                  • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:51PM

                    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:51PM (#396247) Journal

                    *siiiigh*

                    Look, dipshit, "virtue signalling" is a snarl word. It's what jackasses like you use when you have no argument. My pointing this out, and then turning it back on you and showing you how you're doing an even worse version of the same thing, is not only not losing, it's a coup de grace. Not only was your complete lack of argument exposed, it was shown to you that you're attempting to do the same thing you accuse others of, *and failing miserably at even that.*

                    Am I just expecting too much from the average poster here? Have I been ruined by all that study in logic and argumentation I did?

                    --
                    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
        • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday August 30 2016, @01:33AM

          by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 30 2016, @01:33AM (#395049) Journal

          One plausible reason would be because, on a per incident basis, the Bible is more given to promoting atrocities than to promoting compassion. It also has a lot about self-defense being good, of course, but almost nobody disagrees with that. An occasional Christian will, and there are places that back their stance, also.

          There's also the translation problem, and that has lead to many persecutions of this group or that. What, e.g., was the sin of Jezebel? The Bible would lead you to believe that it was that she wore cosmetics, but actually it was that she represented a foreign political power. (And let's not get into Lot.)

          --
          Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:27PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:27PM (#394650)

        I like to think this is because I have actual morals, with an objective basis in reality

        What are your morals (perhaps a single example for sake of debate) and how do they have a basis in objective reality, a reality that is unaffected by culture, human fiat, etc.?

        • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 30 2016, @04:49AM

          by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @04:49AM (#395118) Journal

          I am SO glad you asked! Far too few people ever take any interest in examining themselves or their supposed morals. Basically it goes like this: morality itself, moral machinery you might say, is older than humanity. Much older. I suspect that not only do most or all of the great apes have it, but so do most cetaceans and probably elephants too.

          Now, the output of that machinery is going to differ somewhat with environmental factors--take, for example, ideas about hospitality in the scorching desert compared to, say, a tropical island--but because of our evolutionary heritage and the sort of animals we are, you're going to see some universals. You'll see, for instance, near-universal prohibitions on murder of members of the in-group (however that's defined). In a thinking species like us, with our freakish memories and ability to think and plan ahead, it's also going to involve more abstract things like "the good of the human race" or "the seventh generation of us."

          The take-home point here is that morals are neither arbitrary constructions nor Platonic ideal forms floating in the mind of some God somewhere; rather they emerge from who and what we are as a species. The ultimate judge of these seems to be the environment itself and our interactions with the same; we find, for example, that murderous pedophiles don't get very far, while cooperation is generally a better strategy than deciding to take on the world alone.

          And yes, ALL of this is suspectible to a million and one different twists and perversions. Convince someone that "the good of the human race" depends on eliminating a certain group of it, for example, and you have not only genocide but a group of people happy to commit it. Convince enough people that it's for "the good of society" for a few to be very rich and most to be poor, and you'll end up with today's crony capitalism. And of course there are some people who become aware of all this and decide to piss into the abyss on purpose.

          --
          I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @03:26PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @03:26PM (#396199)

            Apologies for my delayed response.

            Since I'm not happy with the fundamentals of moral relativism, I'm most interested in morals of the objective sort. These morals would by necessity exist without support from humans' existence, as you've already noted.

            However, you went on to define objective morals as things that "emerge from who and what we are as a species". If human morality is based on who and what we are as a species, then I don't see how such morals can simultaneously be objective (i.e. uninfluenced by personal/cultural prejudice; existing outside of the human mind; empircally observable). My simplistic comparison for an objective law is the law of gravity: it existed before humans, it functions regardless of history's humans' opinion of it, and will likely continue to exist after humans, remaining consistent throughout all that time.

            I assume I may have overlooked some implication in objecting to your description of your moral examples as "objective"; if you would, please cover the basics of that for me with, say, an example of morality based on something that exists outside of humanity.

            • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:58PM

              by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:58PM (#396253) Journal

              You mostly got it actually :) By "objective" this means "we don't sit around like a constipated-looking Greek statue trying to invent our moral machinery; it's built-in."

              Now, yes, the output of that machinery is going to be somewhat subjective, but even there, you can see universals that go all the way back to the great apes. A sentient being's shape and physical makeup are going to have a lot of input into the results of running its morality machine.

              --
              I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Francis on Monday August 29 2016, @02:11AM

    by Francis (5544) on Monday August 29 2016, @02:11AM (#394394)

    This whole topic is begging the question. Conservative views are not equally well-reasoned and equally well-grounded in reality. A lot of it comes from a bronze age book and all the superstitions that come from it. There's also this need to prevent society from changing in any way and take us back to a bygone era when certain folks weren't allowed to go into certain establishments and women weren't allowed to wear pants.

    Of course, they'll couch it in different ways, but the era they're glorifying was a pretty horrible time to be alive if you weren't one of the fortunate few to have plenty of money and be of the correct socio-economic grouping to take advantage of the situation.

    Not to mention that people who want to see the world improve have a tendency to gravitate towards college whereas people who don't want to change their minds have a tendency to avoid academic institutions so that they aren't forced to acknowledge that there's plenty of evidence backing things like climate change.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:02AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:02AM (#394417)

      Gee, as if the only flavor of conservative is religious, and while we're speaking of being grounded in reality, let's not forget the worldwide conspiracy by males to oppress women, and where that unsubstantiated claim is now an entire department at university.

      And of course, if you are critical of the current idiocy of the left, you MUST be some bible-thumper wanting to bring back Jim Crow.

      What an ass.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaJLEUg5DrM [youtube.com]

      is a nice summary of the problems with political uniformity in academics. The left set themselves up to fall on their on sword of hubris, proclaiming themselves as the sole source of truth and light.

      You were never that wise.

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:54AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:54AM (#394438)

      I disagree. That these values should be discarded because they are 'bronze age'.

      I will make them relevant for you today.

      1 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me.

      Do not create false gods. They lead to sin. Sin is explained bellow (2-10) This can be something as simple as money or power.

      2 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My Commandments.

      Do not make a physical thing out of your false god. Why? It forces you to think of your sinful ways in every moment and reminds you to commit sins.

      3 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.

      Do not swear. It shows you have become weak and allows others to tear you down.

      4 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

      Take some time off you work-a-holic. 24/7/365 rots the mind. This has been prove over and over scientifically no less. It is set down in 'law' form as people would take advantage of each other. "If you want a job show up tomorrow or find someone else to work for".

      5 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

      Wisdom does come from your elders. Think of your 10 year old self and now your 20 year old self. They are different people with different experiences. Both thought they knew what the world was. All I know is that I know nothing. The more you do the more you can pass on to those after you.

      6 “You shall not murder.

      Do not kill people. It is wasteful and hurts more than just 1 person.

      7 “You shall not commit adultery.

      Do not fuck whatever comes along. STDs exist. It causes out of wedlock children. Two parent homes are proven to be more stable to children than anything.

      8 “You shall not steal.

      It is not yours. Do not take what does not belong to you.

      9 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

      Do not lie in court. Do not start rumors. This causes nothing but pain all around. It makes you to look a liar if proven and reduces your cred. It also hurts the person you are doing it to.

      10 “You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.”

      “The only time you look in your neighbor's bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don't look in your neighbor's bowl to see if you have as much as them.” -- Louis C.K. Basically do not lust after the things of others. That lust will make you miserable and unable to cope with what you do have.

      • (Score: 1) by Demena on Monday August 29 2016, @04:59AM

        by Demena (5637) on Monday August 29 2016, @04:59AM (#394470)

        Do you understand that you just mentally masturbated over everyone? Do you understand that you actually committed a deliberately offensive act and took joy in it? And you wonder why you are scorned. Do you understand that from your ridiculous tirade you would force attitudes, actions on people?

        Religion is not the answer it is the problem

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @10:53AM

          Take your pick. Societies are created either by religion or men with guns. If you think I'm wrong, you simply failed to spot your own religion. Here's a hint, if you entered the society voluntarily, you either were a man with a gun or it is a religion.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 29 2016, @01:56PM

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @01:56PM (#394671) Journal

          Who really gives a flying fuck that you were offended? There may be two or three people who actually care. The rest of us are laughing at you.

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 29 2016, @07:46AM

        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday August 29 2016, @07:46AM (#394524) Journal

        The Buddhists had far better ethics than Jesus and beat him to it by centuries. And I can't help but wonder why the Old Testament God, Yahweh, couldn't be bothered to say something like "don't fuckin' commit rape" in that list of 10 but had two, or three depending on which kind of Christian you are, commandments devoted to kissing his ass.

        Also, "do not use the name of the Lord in vain" refers to swearing oaths, i.e., not committing perjury. It was also believed that the true name of God had magical power, and was not to be invoked by common mortal man. This is why you see devout Jews writing G*d even though the actual word being censored out would be some variation on YHVH. We don't know what the vowels were, as the old Hebrew only had yod-hey-vav-hey,

        --
        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
        • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @10:50AM

          Nasty, hateful spew. Do please continue giving us fine examples of why nobody should ever listen to a word you say.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:20PM

            by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:20PM (#395354) Journal

            Because being nasty and hateful makes someone wrong automatically? Hah.

            Considering how important it is to you and your kind not to be "PC" and how you're supposedly all about logic over "fee-fees," you have a very, very sensitive ego. Hypocritical as hell, too; you project like a mile of movie theaters. And apparently you got your head wedged so far up your ass you don't even see this.

            Thanks for proving every single thing I say about you, and then some, every single time you open your rotten mouth, Mr. Self-Admitted Staff Troll.

            --
            I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 31 2016, @01:59AM

              by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday August 31 2016, @01:59AM (#395552) Homepage Journal

              No, being nasty and hateful just makes you a cunt that's not worth anyone's time to listen to. Not everyone has my utter lack of give-a-shit about your lameass attempts to sway public opinion by shit talking everyone you disagree with. I grew up with four brothers, I was in the Army, and I've spent far too much time around Texans. Your fu? It's shit.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
              • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday August 31 2016, @04:36AM

                by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Wednesday August 31 2016, @04:36AM (#395579) Journal

                You're getting rather upset, Uzzard...might want to calm down before you burst a blood vessel.

                Look at what you've been reduced to: nothing but macho posturing ("Hurr durr Imma vet durp-tee-durr had four bruvvers wot now mate?!"). Oh, and ad homs. Or ad-fems I suppose; is that even a thing? The truth is, Uzzard, you did this to yourself. Every time you let something slip you show everyone what kind of walking disaster area you are, and you *keep doing it.* You're not even intending to; it's when you're not trolling, when you let your guard down and say what you really believe, that the worst of you comes out for all to see.

                I almost feel sorry for you now, Mr. Staff Troll. Almost.

                --
                I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
        • (Score: 1, Disagree) by ewk on Monday August 29 2016, @11:36AM

          by ewk (5923) on Monday August 29 2016, @11:36AM (#394606)

          "couldn't be bothered to say something like "don't fuckin' commit rape" "

          No. 7 looks pretty clear to me.

          --
          I don't always react, but when I do, I do it on SoylentNews
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:36PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:36PM (#394655)

            "couldn't be bothered to say something like "don't fuckin' commit rape" "

            No. 7 looks pretty clear to me.

            Same with #8, on a "theft of services" type of level (I have funny, unexplored ideas about marriage, sex, and prositution).

            Stealing a person's body, even if it is on a time-limited basis, is still taking something which doesn't belong to the taker.

          • (Score: 4, Informative) by FatPhil on Monday August 29 2016, @02:22PM

            by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Monday August 29 2016, @02:22PM (#394698) Homepage
            female consent adultery rape
            partner y n n
            partner n n y commandment 7 is deficient
            married y y n
            married n y y
            single y n n [*]
            single n n y commandment 7 is deficient

            Commandment 7 makes 3 out of those 5 rapes look nonrapey. It's pretty clear that it does not say "don't fucking rape". In a fair few places the psycho space fairy basically says "go ahead and rape, it'll help you relax after you've murdered all the males in my name."

            [* Even if the man is married, this still isn't adultery, only the state of the female - promised to another man or not - matters. It's basically a law governing whether you've harmed that other man for using his property.]
            --
            Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
          • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:08PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:08PM (#394744)

            Adultery isn't fornication. If they meant fornication they'd say fornication. Adultery means cheating on your spouse, which means raping somebody who isn't married is acceptable - the bible even specifically makes that clear, as all you have to do after raping a virgin is pay her father her dowry and you're golden.

          • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:04AM

            by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:04AM (#395133) Journal

            And this, RIGHT HERE, is what is wrong with the Abrahamic worldview concerning sex. Good grief.

            People downthread have already said it, but this bears repeating: "thou shalt not commit adultery" is neither solely about, nor all-encompassing of, rape. Adultery very often is not at all rape-y, and most rape is not of a married person. You disgust me.

            --
            I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
            • (Score: 1) by ewk on Tuesday August 30 2016, @07:53AM

              by ewk (5923) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @07:53AM (#395181)

              "neither solely about, nor all-encompassing of, rape"
              And that's why it pretty much covers it... It actually does cover a lot more (according to the Christian teachings (*)), but, hey, don't let the sounds of the whoosh over your head distract you from your rant.
              And once you let go of that limited view that adultery can only be consensual (or not) between person 1 (married) and person 2 (married [but not to person 1] or not), the rape-reference actually makes sense. (Or not, but then think about it a bit more. You seem like an intelligent person, so you'll understand it eventually)

              (*) which, btw, I do not subscribe to, but don't let that bother you too much.

              "You disgust me."
              Now, now, that's not a very Buddhist thing to say...

              --
              I don't always react, but when I do, I do it on SoylentNews
              • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 30 2016, @04:10PM

                by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @04:10PM (#395317) Journal

                I'm not a Buddhist :) I like some of the ideas contained in the Pali canon and some of the Mahayana scriptures, but don't feel they represent reality...though they DO seem to have figured out a lot of psychology that the Western world is only now approaching, which is fascinating.

                The rest of your post is barely even worth replying to. You seem to forget, as an AC below pointed out, that your Bible says a lot about rape outside this, directly about rape, *and it treats rape as a property crime.* 50 shekels and forced marriage if a man rape someone's daughter. Essentially it's "you broke it (her hymen), you buy it."

                If you don't follow these teachings, stop supporting them. Women are not property. My vulva and vagina and uterus are not commodity goods.

                --
                I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
                • (Score: 1) by ewk on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:18PM

                  by ewk (5923) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:18PM (#395352)

                  This reading comprehension thing is not really working, is it?
                  After all, you still insist on "your Bible" even when I explicitly state that "I do not subscribe to".
                  To me an indication that further discussion will become rather fruitless and cumbersome (and even more off topic).

                  As about AC's... I don't read those. Can't distinguish one AC from the other AC anyway, so that only mixes things up.

                  --
                  I don't always react, but when I do, I do it on SoylentNews
                  • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 30 2016, @08:26PM

                    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @08:26PM (#395421) Journal

                    You didn't read my reply did you?

                    I have news for you: if you defend something, it's yours. You may not be a Christian, but if you defend their views (technically Jewish views, but Mt. 5:17-20 has Jesus explicitly say they're still in effect...) they are indeed yours. You are defending a worldview that sees women as chattel. I am not a commodity. Get this through your head.

                    --
                    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
                    • (Score: 1) by ewk on Wednesday August 31 2016, @06:21AM

                      by ewk (5923) on Wednesday August 31 2016, @06:21AM (#395603)

                      I did read your reply and found no new points of view. Sorry if you thought otherwise.

                      Yet, out of the goodness from my heart and as a final closure, I have news for you too: pointing out something is not defending that something.

                      Hazuki: "Why aren't there laws against speeding cars in this town?"
                      ewk: "Look there... that looks like like speed limit sign..."
                      Hazuki: "You moron, why are you defending that cars might speed at all?"
                      ewk: .....

                      --
                      I don't always react, but when I do, I do it on SoylentNews
                      • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday August 31 2016, @09:01AM

                        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Wednesday August 31 2016, @09:01AM (#395627) Journal

                        False analogy. More like this:

                          Why the hell aren't there laws against speeding in this town?
                          Hey look, a "yield to pedestrians" sign! That makes it allll better!
                          ...what does that have to do with speeding?
                          What is your problem, woman?! Look, there's a sign!
                          But...the problem is speeding, not people forgetting to stop for a crosser...
                          Yeah well they're the same because reasons so shut up i'm going home now and taking my ball with me bitch
                          (WT actual F?)

                        --
                        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
                        • (Score: 1) by ewk on Wednesday August 31 2016, @10:09AM

                          by ewk (5923) on Wednesday August 31 2016, @10:09AM (#395636)

                          vulva, uterus, vagina AND now even a ball as well... now if you only had a brain...

                          --
                          I don't always react, but when I do, I do it on SoylentNews
                          • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday August 31 2016, @04:50PM

                            by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Wednesday August 31 2016, @04:50PM (#395738) Journal

                            You don't read so good, do ya boy?

                            --
                            I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
                            • (Score: 1) by ewk on Wednesday August 31 2016, @04:59PM

                              by ewk (5923) on Wednesday August 31 2016, @04:59PM (#395740)

                              You don't keep promises (about that ball and pissing off) so good, do ya sis?

                              --
                              I don't always react, but when I do, I do it on SoylentNews
                              • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday August 31 2016, @05:24PM

                                by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Wednesday August 31 2016, @05:24PM (#395754) Journal

                                I can't help poking the idiots in their cages, is all. Bad habit of mine. I never, ever let things go without giving them what they deserve. You fail reading comprehension hard, then you double down and start trolling? Yeah, you're gonna have a Bad Time (TM).

                                --
                                I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
                                • (Score: 1) by ewk on Thursday September 01 2016, @08:06AM

                                  by ewk (5923) on Thursday September 01 2016, @08:06AM (#396089)

                                  Bad Time(TM_) ?? Oh goodie... for now you're not even an itch that warrants scratching. So don't flatter yourself.
                                  As for the trolling, doubling down and lack of reading comprehension... seems you looked in the mirror when you came up with that.
                                  But, since I do have better things to do than try and attain the impossible, I'll leave the thread to you.
                                  Have fun and maybe you learn something from it if you reread a few times. Probably not, but who knows... stranger things have happened.

                                  --
                                  I don't always react, but when I do, I do it on SoylentNews
                                  • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday September 01 2016, @05:08PM

                                    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Thursday September 01 2016, @05:08PM (#396261) Journal

                                    Oh, I've learned plenty from re-reading your posts...and that is that I massively overestimated you. What a shame; you seemed reasonable and intelligent enough :(

                                    --
                                    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Mykl on Monday August 29 2016, @04:30AM

      by Mykl (1112) on Monday August 29 2016, @04:30AM (#394458)

      You're making the assumption here (as are most people in the comments) that Conservative == Christian. That's not always the case and, although the article focuses on someone in academia who was criticised for his Christian beliefs, I think it equally likely that non-religious conservatives can be discriminated against for their beliefs.

      What about people who hold conservative beliefs about economic issues, immigration, foreign policy etc yet are also athiests? I'll readily concede that issues such as gay marriage, abortion etc are religion-based, but you don't need to be religious to hold a conservative view on tax and welfare. Here in Australia, there are examples of non-religious conservatives being marginalised because of their non-religious beliefs in certain areas, most lately around the issue of 'illegal' refugees arriving by boat.

      My interpretation of the article wasn't strictly a religious vs non-religious debate. It was about the intolerance of the left to alternative viewpoints and their willingness to ignore all views from an individual once they disagree with one view of theirs (e.g. "Your views on welfare are idiotic, so I'll ignore your views on immigration before even hearing them."). Of course, the right is equally guilty of this but, as the article states, nobody really benefits from this polarisation.

      • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:05AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:05AM (#394472)

        I'll readily concede that issues such as gay marriage, abortion etc are religion-based.

        Actually no.

        "Gay marriage" is a bit of a misnomer, as the issue isn't whether gays can marry, but restrictions on partner selection, which can be arbitrary, but is by no means specific to gays (interestingly western society has grown more restrictive towards age in the same time).

        So the question becomes if sexual orientation is sufficient cause to negate restriction, why should any of the others be encumbered as well (incest, pedophilia, zoophilia, etc.)?

        Abortion is simply valuing human life so that there should be an overriding concern in ending it which "my body, my choice" doesn't even come close to.

        The left is fond of painting conservatives with a broad brush of religious doctrine, but the arguments are generally more nuanced than God said so, and frequently don't originate from religion at all.

        • (Score: 4, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 29 2016, @08:05AM

          by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday August 29 2016, @08:05AM (#394534) Journal

          Regarding your idiocy conflating gays getting married with pedophilia: the question here is one of harm. This isn't a hard concept, and you're deliberately repeating propaganda you ought to be too smart for.

          My girlfriend and I getting married harms no one. Why is this? Because we are two adults, in our late 20s, with less than 2 years' difference between us, both of sound mind and body. We are doing financial planning, both employed, and neither of us are criminals nor drains on society.

          Now compare this to the pedophile. A child, and indeed a teenager, is not ready for and cannot understand sex or relationships. Minds and bodies both are undeveloped. This is a clear-cut case of harm: children and teenagers CANNOT MEANINGFULLY CONSENT. Worse, if the body is also undeveloped, sex is outright injurious, especially to girls.

          Incest: usually involves a massive power differential and/or blackmail, and prevents people from maturing properly and looking for mates outside the family. See above re: pedophilia. Personally, while it squicks me out, rationally-speaking I am not sure how I could morally condemn, for example, a pair of incestuous sisters or cousins. But even so, it may be better to prevent the entire category to stop the abusive cases, which is going to be nearly all of them anyway.

          Bestiality: Again, animals cannot meaningfully consent. They are not humans, they do not (usually) have a theory of mind, and they can't understand how or why a human wants his/her way with them. This is animal abuse.

          Do you get it now? Or were you just trolling?

          --
          I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
          • (Score: 2, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @11:16AM

            Wow, that's some quality Wrong to go with your normal morning bowl of Nasty. Teenagers are fully capable of making decisions every bit as good as those of adults, they simply need someone else's pool of experience to draw upon rather than their own limited pools. This is where teaching your kids about life instead of expecting a school to do it for you comes in. It helps if you are a good example but a bad one can do just as well, lucky for you.

            This idea that teenagers are still metaphorically in diapers and need coddling is both extremely new and extremely foolhardy. No, their brains are not completely developed. They will make mistakes. They will also learn from them. Yours is fully developed (though in an abnormal and badly in need of servicing sort of way) and you likely have a worse decision-making record than the average teen but we treat you like an adult just the same.

            The fact of the matter is, human beings were designed (by either nature or their creator, take your pick) to become sexually active at around twelve. Are you really brilliant enough to think that you can single-handedly outsmart whichever method of deciding that you picked? I'm pretty sure I can't outsmart a genetic algorithm that's been running for as long as it has, operating on billions of seats but then I don't have the kind of hubris it takes to be called a liberal today.

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:46PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:46PM (#394662)

              The fact of the matter is, human beings were designed (by either nature or their creator, take your pick) to become sexually active at around twelve. Are you really brilliant enough to think that you can single-handedly outsmart whichever method of deciding that you picked?

              It's much more pleasant wading through the -1 sewer when some exposition goes on to uncover the flaws in dangerous viewpoints rather than simple retorts using name-calling.

              Thanks to both you and the author of the more detailed AC post below [soylentnews.org] for putting in the extra time.

              • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @02:00PM

                *Hat Tip*

                Personally, I'm only in this one because I enjoy pointing out when AH is being a moron. I prefer my women over thirty and have since I was a teenager myself. I'd rather opt for celibacy than fuck a teenager, though they are nice to look at. It's just more fun to kick AH's ass with facts and logic if I have the time.

                --
                My rights don't end where your fear begins.
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:58PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:58PM (#394737)

              The fact of the matter is, human beings were designed (by either nature or their creator, take your pick) to become sexually active at around twelve.

              Puberty always happens, without fail, at or before twelve? Thats news to me, I didn't go through puberty until 15 or 16.

          • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @12:22PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @12:22PM (#394615)

            Regarding your idiocy conflating gays getting married with pedophilia

            No, that was your idiocy. To repeat, there was not a single statue written that stated specifically that gays could not marry. There were ones that specified partner selection, and as far back as the dark ages of the 1980s, a 12 year old could marry with parental consent. Now it's around 16, well within the general consensus for pedophilia.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_marriage_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]

            Perhaps you should actually learn the history of the laws before proceeding to lecture me?

            Moving on...

            the question here is one of harm.

            Which is exactly why you couldn't be bothered to learn the age requirements for marriage, and have been tirelessly advocating for raising the minimum age?

            Or maybe you are just self-serving, I'm-alright-Jack, while bringing up a point that was never broached in the first place?

            A child, and indeed a teenager, is not ready for and cannot understand sex or relationships.

            Which is why you are against sex education that starts in grade schools now, you closet conservative you, right? Or that even a brief survey of married men would make clear that sex and marriage is mutually exclusive, otherwise you'd be arguing for raising the age of consent across the board, not exclusive to marriage.

            Incest: usually involves a massive power differential and/or blackmail

            That's a nice fairytale. Got any actual proof to justify your assertion?

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_regarding_incest_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]

            As you can see, marriage isn't prohibited in all jurisdictions either in cases of incest, so in your quest for harm reduction, you are 0 out of 2.

            Boy, you've really got a handle on this marriage thing, don't you?

            Bestiality: Again, animals cannot meaningfully consent.

            Ah, so it is okay to kill and eat an animal, but damnit, they can't consent to marriage. That's just obscene.

            And has been the running theme in this exchange-

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoophilia_and_the_law_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]

            So again, can you point me towards your exhaustive research on the subject before you reached your conclusions, because your very conservative approach to sex and marriage is clearly out-of-step with a large portion of the US.

            See how easy it is to be very conservative about marriage, especially when it doesn't directly affect you?

            And while this very selective, doesn't-stand-to-benefit-me-at-all notion of consent is amusing, you are also restricting mentally retarded people from sex and marriage.

            Do I have to cue the information on this as well, or can we establish by this point you haven't the foggiest idea of what you are talking about?

            Do you get it now?

            Yes, you're basically a hypocrite who will make the most tenuous justifications excreted directly from your nether regions to make a claim.

            • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:27AM

              by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:27AM (#395145) Journal

              This is one long list of fallacies. I'm not even sure I should attempt to correct you, but there seems to be a masochistic streak here, so here goes...

              First off, I'm actually all for sex education early on. I learned about the birds and the bees at four. 4. Quatro. Count 'em, four years old. The result of this? I stayed a virgin by choice until 21, despite having had the option to lose it earlier. Yes, some of what held me back was fear; I didn't feel right coming out to anyone but family before college. It also doesn't help that I haaaaaaated teenagers, especially other girls, while I was one. Seriously, high school is only some magical fantasy land on TV, and God teenage girls are awful.

              As to the rest of your bullshit: your objection to the age of consent going up because "as late as the 80s it was 12 in some places" is a non-sequitur. So it was lower until a few decades ago. So fucking what? 400 years ago they would hang you or worse for blasphemy against the Holy Ghost; should we go back to THAT too?

              Concerning nature's tendency to make us hit puberty early (don't fucking start; I was bleeding at 10 and my sister was barely past her 9th birthday), this is a naturalistic fallacy. The same mechanisms that make us hit puberty in early to mid teens also expected us to die at 30 of some horrible disease or starve to death or bleed out pushing kid #7 out. The entire POINT of being an intelligent species is so we can tell Mother Nature and her abusive pimp Malthus where they can go, what they can do when they get there, with whom, and for how long.

              "Hurr hurr meat is fine but not fucking animals ur a hypocrite" is another non-sequitur. Also, how do you know I'm not a vegetarian? :) You assume rather a lot here.

              I don't know what else to say concerning incest; you SHOULD, if you actually bothered to read my post, have noticed the part where I said I'm aware that "eww gross" does not a law make, and withhold judgement beyond "eww gross" in non-fertile cases like, for example, a pair of sisters.

              You really, really suck at this :(

              --
              I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
          • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday August 29 2016, @02:15PM

            by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @02:15PM (#394692)

            Because we are two adults, in our late 20s, with less than 2 years' difference between us, both of sound mind and body. We are doing financial planning, both employed, and neither of us are criminals nor drains on society.

            Planning to adopt? If not you should not get legally married. (note qualifier of "legally", its gonna be important to the discussion)

            The purpose of the massive amount of government social engineering around the religious concept of marriage is to encourage reproduction and healthy stable long term family life for the kids. Family life as in "you gonna raise some kids". Not have pets, not buy a condo together, etc.

            You seem reasonably intelligent, if occasionally outright incorrect on certain opinions, and at least claim to be a useful member of society of which I have no reason to doubt. That puts you ahead of quite a few actual parents, unfortunately. So I'd encourage you to have kids and get married, so as to generally improve the gene pool on average. And that would go for any other gay couples of a similar level of quality however many or few there are (honestly, no sarcasm intended nor any negative feels)

            ... Or if like most gay couples there is no intention of kids, that means no point in legal marriage. From the .gov point of view. From your point of view maybe you really enjoy filling out 1040A tax forms as a married couple, maybe you get the nice feels, but the .gov and society in general has no reason to encourage you or encourage that behavior. "Whats in it for us?" I'm not a social holiness spiral signalling type, like most people, so I get no dopamine rush by being righteous.

            From a religious point of view, marriage being a sacrament, go ahead. Two adults having fun in church that hurts no one is not an issue for any sane person. Insane people, of course, are going to flip their shit, but I enjoy watching that show as much as anyone else, so absolutely no problem there. They're always flipping out about something or another anyway.

            Just trying to open your mind a bit, that I agree completely with your assessment in your examples that gay marriage seems a victim-less crime. I agree with you completely in your analysis and find no fault in it. Its just that you did the wrong analysis topic, and your opponents did a totally different analysis topic. That is the fundamental failure of your argument, which was otherwise well written, reasoned, and persuasive.

            The actual problem, is similar to tax fraud, like trying to claim my 1960s suburban tract house is a Victorian for those sweet prop tax historical marker reductions. In that way, all of your examples are LARPy, if in the specific example you assume no adopting kids.

            Pretending to be married is bad for everyone actually doing it, eventually the .gov is going to take away our kids education credit, or some damn thing, once the percentage of couples faking it exceeds Z%, where Z might be any arbitrary low number during a budget crisis. Consider it an insult directed against the government and their love of social engineering programs. Its not you per se, its that enough of you are going to get our tax credits taken away unless all those gay couples adopt at a rate matching other couples having kids plus adopting. Gay couples you got your marriage, now you better be smashing down the doors at the state adoption agencies to keep up with us straights...

            Personally I would feel a lot happier if as per separation of church and state, the government had about as much control over and interaction with the religious rite of marriage as they do over baptism. Then you can do whatever you want at church, as you should, and it won't impact my relationship with "big brother" even theoretically. I think the whole world would be better off if Big Brother's giant nose were about as interested in the rite and ceremony of marriage as it is WRT the rite and ceremony of first communion, aka "none"

            Another useful opinion to float is I clearly have a strong probably unbreakable analysis and argument against it, but its a useless debate to have, as the whole thing is only coming up as a "divide and conquer" propaganda anyway. Is it wrong in a binary yes no sense? Yeah, clearly. Is it worth fighting over? Hell No. Its about as "wrong" as jaywalking. Actually that's a pretty good analogy in many ways. If one couple jaywalks it doesn't matter much. If everyone jaywalked we'd be totally F'ed in so many ways. But not many people are going to regardless if its legal or not. That also doesn't mean the cops should never write a jaywalking ticket, or that people who jaywalk are right or morally superior, it doesn't mean anything other than some couples are now very lucky we're not enforcing some plain sense traffic laws today. Of all the wrongs in the world to right, it's pretty low priority in the list.

            • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:17AM

              by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:17AM (#395142) Journal

              Yes, actually, we DO plan to adopt, if we're allowed to. My girlfriend is Chinese by way of Malaysia; she has stories, SO many stories, to tell about girl babies thrown away for the sin of not having a Y chromosome. We are going to adopt at least one if money (and law) permits.

              --
              I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by TheRaven on Monday August 29 2016, @09:37AM

          by TheRaven (270) on Monday August 29 2016, @09:37AM (#394564) Journal

          "Gay marriage" is a bit of a misnomer, as the issue isn't whether gays can marry, but restrictions on partner selection

          The issue is precisely about marriage, as few few of the people who object to it would make gay couples illegal entirely. The issue is that we conflate a religious notion of marriage with a legal definition encompassing inheritance rights, power of attorney in case of incapacitation, visiting rights in hospital, income tax breaks, and so on. Gay people are objecting that there are a bunch of legal rights that they are only available to heterosexual couples. The solution to this should be:

          • Remove automatic tax-exempt status from religions. The portion of their income that is used for (audited) charitable purposes can be tax exempt.
          • Disaggregate all of the legal rights that come with marriage into separate things.
          • Provide a standard contract for adopting all of these together.

          If a church wants to refuse to marry gay couple's, that's fine, as long as they're not able to do so while also benefiting from tax exemption for services that they offer.

          --
          sudo mod me up
          • (Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @11:27AM

            Your numbers are off. The people with firmly held religious beliefs against gay marriage do not precisely coincide with those objecting to gay marriage. There are plenty who simply hate you and everything you stand for as a default position. There are also people who disapprove of homosexuality simply because it is a deviant* lifestyle and thus at odds with their own. There are also plenty of people who disapprove simply because it was culturally unacceptable when they were growing up to be gay at all. Yeah, lots of reasons that don't involve a bible at all.

            I, for example, used to have a purely pedantic beef with it back in my 20s. I don't like definitions of words being changed to suit a political agenda. I decided that was a stupid reason to tell people what they could do and changed my position but you angrily telling me it was a stupid reason would have been about as counterproductive as it was possible to be.

            * Yes, it by definition is. Look up the word "deviant" in the dictionary.

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @11:09AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @11:09AM (#394590)

          why should any of the others be encumbered as well (incest, pedophilia, zoophilia, etc.)

          Are you really so stupid you can't figure this out on your own?

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:51PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:51PM (#394667)

            Gee, if it's so obvious as to why it's stupid, how about rattling off the simple reason(s) as to why it's so stupid rather than using absolutely nothing other than ad hominem?

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:14PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:14PM (#394752)

              If you can't tell the difference between an animal and a person of legal age to consent, there's no helping you.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:35PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:35PM (#394799)

                The latter I sweet-talk/buy into having sex with me; the former I kill for food or sport.

                Are you saying death is better than consensual penis-in-vagina sex?

      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Monday August 29 2016, @01:19PM

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @01:19PM (#394646)

        Conservative == Christian

        Because they're uneducated and/or kids. Old people remember that before the civil rights era and the end of Jim Crow laws and "the southern strategy", your average white religious-nut evangelical in Mississippi was a Democrat. Politics makes strange bedfellows so from the civil war until 1960 or so, the creationist wing of American Christianity was pretty much 100% Democrat. There's vestiges of it today, the Catholics still poll somewhat leftie and there are black baptist churches in the deep south that have been D party supporters since the civil war reconstruction era.

        The next problem is confusion of liberal vs conservative. If you define it as traditional party membership and all R are conservative and all D are liberal you're in for a huge impact with reality, as the 60s hippies ARE the conservatives in 2016. The lefties from 1960 ARE "the man" in 2016. The crazy liberals who want to think about new ideas and try new things are all on the right wing, reactionaries, alt right etc. Hillary for example is the establishment candidate this year and she's channeling Johnson from the 60s and she's never seen a country full of brown people that she doesn't want to bomb, whereas Trump is the only seriously anti-war candidate we've had in decades (well, serious as in made it to nomination, srry Bern-victims). The hippies have made a disaster of things for 50 years, so by conservative do you mean going back to 1970 or 1950? The progressives have been in charge for a long time and they've really Fed everything up and its time to replace them. Prog ideas are simply obsolete, old ways of thinking that no longer model the real world successfully. What in the 60s were brave new ideas are in the 10s obsolete, failed, discredited, and low energy, although they're the very popular establishment ... today ... for a little while longer, but not much longer.

        Try a scientific analogy. There's nothing wrong with trying on the theory of epicycles on and walking around and seeing how it feels for a couple decades. Now the longer you use it, the worse it seems to fit reality. You can punish people for measuring the position of the planets and getting results that don't fit the epicyclical theory all you want, but that doesn't make the world go away. And Copernicus has crazy new ideas about elliptical orbits that are Very non-establishment ... but ... they aren't the failed system, and they seem to work when rubbed up against both present AND past data. Huh. Now its not a moral or ethical failing to have tried epicyclical theory for awhile. The people that tried it were not necessarily evil. They happened to be wrong and its an obsolete worldview in 2016. Ditto progressivism. The Cathedral has failed. Oh well. Time to move on. We have better ideas that model reality more closely to use now. In 2016 its a moral and ethical failing not to use Copernicus to predict planetary orbits, or to not use post-progressive politics to understand how the world works. Sorry, Woodstock is over. It mostly failed. Well thats OK, we have better new plans and better time tested plans.

        Another confusion is the neocon merger of crony capitalism and evangelical Christianity is dying in the republican party. Assuming you mean the R party when you say "conservative". So the radical alt right Trump etc no longer needs to be creationist. Furthermore you seem to have the bizarre idea that conservative views only come from holy books. Most conservative views are best defined by a dead dude named "Robert Conquest". Yeah I know it sounds like a pen name. But he's got some friggin awesome quotes:

        “Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.”

        He has some awesome Dilbertian or Menckenian commentary. Worth the time to at least read a list of his quotes.

        The point I'm trying to make is I don't need Jesus to know murder is bad, nor do I need Jesus to know abortion is best avoided or minimized as much as possible. Government regulated marriage (including gay)? Probably as bad of an idea as government regulated baptism or government regulated last rites. Folks on the radical or far or alt right don't need a holy book to identify stupid ideas. To describe them charitably, the "highly religious" are getting laughed out of the R party and either are demographically dying out or are moving to the D party. The majority of people on the right today in 2016 with new and interesting ideas are either atheists or are atheist compatible (like America should be a Catholic nation but with extremely strong separation of church and state, culturally Catholic not governmentally Catholic, as a non believer myself, I kinda like that idea... Culturally I like the Catholic worldview, I just don't want them in charge of my taxes or kids education or the DoD)

        The final section is its possible to build elaborate pipe dream mechanisms to explain the behavior of some lefties as progressive political with elaborate rationalizations of policy. However, a much simpler predictive model that matches observed reality much closer is to simply assume they're racists who are anti-white and sexists who are anti-male. Occams razor and all that. Its a simpler model with a higher correlation when compared to actual behavior. A similar analogy can be made around the Civil War WRT southerners trying to erect elaborate and ridiculous theoretical models of insane complexity to explain why their behavior which vaguely resembles anti-black racism is actually a mere figment of capitalist theory or a distortion of observation. Naw, you can build all this distracting rationalization but it boils down to racism. Ditto progs in 2016 and the Democratic Party and BLM and all that, they talk a big game and make elaborate rationalizations but it boils down to they're racists and sexists who hate white males. I'm not trying to argue if its justified or not. I'm just describing what is, and what helps predict their behavior more accurately than elaborate psuedotheory inspired by astrology and rationalization. Then you got to decide if you want to hang out with people who are 1) racists 2) anti-white racists. So I've got three reasons not to be a leftie D party progressive, they hate me for what I was born as, I somewhat dislike racists (depends a lot on your definition of the word and the actions of those identified), and I don't like anti-white people for obvious personal reasons.

        • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:11AM

          by Reziac (2489) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:11AM (#395137) Homepage

          Someone pointed out that the regressive left, behaving as a religion, is just filling the void left by the decline of Christian culture -- that as humans we're gonna have SOME sort of "guiding principle" and if it's not one, it'll be another.

          This remark made me rethink the value of Christianity to Western civilization, and I say that as a nonbeliever.

          --
          And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
          • (Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday August 30 2016, @11:55AM

            by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 30 2016, @11:55AM (#395217)

            is just filling the void left by the decline of Christian culture

            There's been an ongoing discussion for some years, more so recently, on the "ascending the tower" podcast where a simplification and distillation of modern alt-right thought could be summarized to the American revolution was a continuation of the English civil war between the Puritans and, well, the sane people, and progressiveism, under any name, is a degenerate evolved form of that Puritanism. So its not really a decline in terms of influence or followers but more a degeneration (or evolution) of specifically Puritan beliefs.

            Obviously that's a huge simplification, like trying to explain the French Revolution or WW1/2 in one line, you can get some insight but obviously there's a lot going on...

            • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday August 30 2016, @03:41PM

              by Reziac (2489) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @03:41PM (#395307) Homepage

              Yeah, that's a reasonable way to look at it. There will always be a subset of people who think if only they could dictate terms for everyone, the world would be perfect. Western civilization has been perhaps unique in generally keeping such types out of power.

              I'm reminded that the reason America wound up with the Puritans is because they kept imposing their beliefs on their neighbors and as a result were kicked out of the most tolerant countries of their era.

              --
              And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:32AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:32AM (#394459)

      My God! (Or, "Mein Gott in Himmel!" since thing do seem headed in a Godwin kind of direction.) Francis used "begging the question" correctly!!! (I think, let me live with the illusion for a while, if not.) Maybe we ACs should take back everything we said about him before. But then, there is the next post.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 29 2016, @06:33AM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @06:33AM (#394495) Journal

      Conservative views are not equally well-reasoned and equally well-grounded in reality.

      Speaking of begging the question, not equally well-reasoned and equally well-grounded compared to what? You're making a huge assumption here about the quality of current academia beliefs which is unwarranted. You may recall writing [soylentnews.org] the following:

      The reality is that if you go to college, you're probably going to be exposed to ideas that aren't comfortable. All those safe spaces do is skew it towards the "majority" folks. It was hugely uncomfortable sitting through those feminist and diversity propaganda where cherry picked statistic after cherry picked statistic was presented with no context as a way of making white men feel like shit.

      Sounds to me like there's a bunch in academia who don't want to see the world improve. The point of diversity is in large part so that there's always a counterweight to anyone who wants to pull crap like the above. If there was a significant number of open Christians and/or conservatives on campus, then this stuff wouldn't fly.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday August 29 2016, @12:47PM

        by Phoenix666 (552) on Monday August 29 2016, @12:47PM (#394629) Journal

        I don't think there would be a problem if conservatives upped their intellectual game in general. Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck have eviscerated conservative thought and replaced it with doggerel because it makes them money. Now we have two generations of dittoheads running around who couldn't construct an argument if their lives depended on it. So there's nobody left in the public eye who can counter and chase out the simpering fear monkeys who are the hobgoblins of the Left.

        You guys here on Soylent are a different breed, thank goodness. Some throwback to William F Buckley, perhaps. You give as good as you get.

        --
        Washington DC delenda est.
        • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday August 29 2016, @02:38PM

          by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @02:38PM (#394717)

          Now we have two generations of dittoheads running around who couldn't construct an argument if their lives depended on it.

          Agreed. But it doesn't matter.

          Consider philosophy of rhetoric vs dialectic. If you want the right wing perspective on it there's an interesting essay or essay series by Vox Day thats reasonably well written. But the TLDR summary is there's at least two philosophical ways to convince people and they're utterly totally incompatible, as you've noticed.

          So Rush abandoning rhetoric would result in:

          1) Their best rhetorician (well, kinda) being out of the rhetoric game which hurts their rhetoric game.

          2) There is no reason the guy who's best at dialectic is any good at rhetoric other than some fuzzy "SAT verbal scores" level of argument.

          3) The audience who likes rhetoric is probably going to say "F this" when handed a plate of dialectic. Ditto (Oh LOL Rush) the reverse, as sounds like you want dialectic and you're not amused at getting a plate of rhetoric.

          So I wouldn't hold breath waiting...

          If you want right wing dialectic google a dude named Moldbug, as one example.

          The reason why you don't notice the separation as much with the lefties, is they're the establishment which means they're huge (like 299 cable TV channels vs 1 channel). So, I donno, your Marixst Studies professor in college was likely pretty good at dialectic or maybe some internet troll. And some politician might be good at rhetoric. But being the huge establishment you don't notice the left is separated along the same lines. Some MSNBC news reader isn't interchangeable with Karl Marx but the left being the huge establishment they don't need to interchange...

          Whereas if all you think the right has is Rush 1) you're wrong LOL in a post mass media world there's no unified mass media propaganda anymore 2) you're not going to see a diversity of argument styles if you only see one or two dudes.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 30 2016, @12:31AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 30 2016, @12:31AM (#395016)

            You linked to a Moldbug essay once, and I read the first several chapters. Perhaps I should finish it before asking this, but does he ever get around to addressing why progressivism is bad beyond some vague fear that will go too far?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:54PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:54PM (#394734)

          Don't think that is really the problem anymore as the progressives have replaced even the semblance of argument with invective and these bizarre ruminations as to the psychology of their detractors (the yesteryear architects of the Age of Enlightenment are now agents of the right).

          The right has their own problems, and only get the stick when pandering their own brand idiocy (note the conservative repugnance towards the rhetoric of Trump).

          Nope, what you are look at is honest-to-goodness moderates that after looking askance at the rise of the Religious Right are now doing the same with the Regressive Left.

          The sad fact of the matter is that intellectualism is dying, which Buckley and Chris Hedge are flag-bearers.

          And even Hedges is critical of the Progressives, but taking his arguments into account also means taking into account the long history of the Liberal Church (which apparently these new-fangled arbiters of truth are completely ignorant of) and understand where even the religious have common-cause with the most cherished notions on the left.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:34PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:34PM (#394796)

          Some throwback to William F Buckley, perhaps.

          God! How I wish we could have another William F Buckley in this country! That would be such a welcome change from Rush/Beck/Hannity/Coulter et al.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 29 2016, @10:11PM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @10:11PM (#394951) Journal
          It's not Limbaugh or Beck's job to up anyone's intellectual game. That's the role of college. Talk radio is entertainment.

          And perhaps we could improve this particular situation by not excluding conservative viewpoints from the college campus? If for example, we similar excluded an ethnic group or gender from college campuses, should we then be surprised when the group forms a more or less anti-intellectual viewpoint from the "us versus them" effect?
    • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday August 29 2016, @09:26AM

      by TheRaven (270) on Monday August 29 2016, @09:26AM (#394559) Journal

      Conservative views are not equally well-reasoned and equally well-grounded in reality. A lot of it comes from a bronze age book

      Plato's Republic?

      --
      sudo mod me up
    • (Score: 2) by Username on Monday August 29 2016, @10:05AM

      by Username (4557) on Monday August 29 2016, @10:05AM (#394573)

      Conservative views are not equally well-reasoned and equally well-grounded in reality.

      Ok, I’ll bite. How is managing natural resources so the vast majority of fauna and flora do not die out unreal and unreasonable? Conservatism is a conservative view point.

      bronze age book and all the superstitions that come from it

      How is not killing, raping, or steal from your neighbors a bad thing? Almost all current laws are based on the 10 commandments.

      acknowledge that there's plenty of evidence backing things like climate change

      There is plenty of evidence of climate change in the bible. It’s just most people already understand that the climate has always changed and do not need to dramatize it. Funny how global warming became climate change when they realized the temperature has yet to go out of range of previous interglacial periods.

      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @11:13AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @11:13AM (#394595)

        How is managing natural resources so the vast majority of fauna and flora do not die out unreal and unreasonable? Conservatism is a conservative view point.

        If only conservatives believed in this.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:12PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:12PM (#394687)

          When a word loses its definition, it becomes useless for constructive purposes.

          "Conservative" and "liberal" are useless words today. Please use other words whose meanings have not yet been eviscerated.

          I prefer "individualist" (individual equal to all other individuals and each is greater than society) and "collectivist" (society's "needs" trump those of individuals) for now; hopefully their meanings will remain intact for a while longer.

    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @10:45AM

      Well done, Francis! That was some quality trolling there. I tell people we have the best trolls on the net all the time and posts like this are the reason why.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:10PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:10PM (#394783)

      Not to mention that people who want to see the world improve have a tendency to gravitate towards college whereas people who don't want to change their minds have a tendency to avoid academic institutions so that they aren't forced to acknowledge that there's plenty of evidence backing things like climate change.

      Oh! Ha Ha Ha! Hee Hee! Oh! Ewww! Oww! Ha Ha! Hee Hee! Now, that was funny! Now, for some reality: people tend to "gravitate towards college" because they just graduated from high school and they have the grades and SAT scores to get in to college. The vast majority of them have little to no interest in improving the world. Most of them are far too self-absorbed for that kind of visionary thinking. If you doubt me, go to your nearest college campus and try to engage the local student body in discussion about how to "improve the world". It will be an eye opener. On the flip side, most people skip college either because they don't have the grades or the money; it isn't a fear of being contaminated by controversial ideas such as climate change that is driving them away.

    • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday August 30 2016, @01:42AM

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 30 2016, @01:42AM (#395053) Journal

      None of our political parties make honest arguments based on testably true foundations. NONE.

      And none of them are admitting the on-coming crisis caused by lack of jobs due to automation. If you think that people should just work cheaper I have to ask you how cheap a phone switchboard operator would need to work to replace the phone companies automatic switching system. That's so far below subsistence that the question's absurd. And no human could switch calls that rapidly anyway.

      Back in the 1940's there used to be a skilled job called "computer". How many people do you think hold that job today? Machines so totally outclassed them that there isn't any sense even thinking about it.

      We are currently at a stage of automation where jobs are being destroyed through automation faster than people can be trained to handle new jobs. And THAT should be the main topic of political discussion, but no candidate has said anything substantive about it.

      --
      Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
  • (Score: 4, Funny) by RamiK on Monday August 29 2016, @02:13AM

    by RamiK (1813) on Monday August 29 2016, @02:13AM (#394395)

    I'm working on wiki-bible. A holy verse from the true god\s as delivered through the masses. All perspectives will be represented in this collaborative scripture of openness and dialog. Editing will be done without moderating or exclusion. Services will be determined through a vote.

    No voice will go unheard.

    Praise.. Wait, who was it again this week? Right. AssMcBoatTheGreatCheeses. Praise him\her\it* be.

    *Voting on that next week.

    --
    compiling...
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by julian on Monday August 29 2016, @02:13AM

    by julian (6003) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @02:13AM (#394396)

    Much of the 'conservative' worldview consists of ideas that are known empirically to be false

    That's actually not far off, as long as we are rigorous in defining the domains we're describing. If conservative here means US politics of the evangelical Christian Right then it's a totally valid observation. They are confused about a great many things. The metaphysical claims made by their religion are false. The neodarwinian synthesis is a powerful scientific tool that accurately accounts for the origin of species and the mechanism of speciation. Geology correctly places the age of the Earth in the billions; the Bible incorrectly suggests an Earth that is merely thousands of years old. The Flood story is a myth that never happened and is so laughably implausible that a grown adult should feel embarrassed admitting they believe otherwise. Climate change is happening, it's primarily caused by human activity, and economic regulations can and should be used to stop and reverse it. Since our society is secular and explicitly non-theistic by our very Constitution, any argument that relies on dualism or the existence of immaterial souls as a premise is automatically invalid. This collapses almost every argument against early-term abortions.

    That's not even an exhaustive list, but you get the picture. So yes, conservatives believe many things that are false.

    Now I'll do the liberals. There's a lot I could talk about but the worst and really the only thing worth focusing on is the sad situations that many liberals (I'm not one of them) have been seduced by moral and cultural relativism. This leaves them with no ethical arguments to make against how The Taliban treat women and girls. It's just their culture, who are we to judge? This is moral cowardice done out of misplaced fear of appearing racist or insensitive. To hell with that. Some cultures are worse than others. It really is worse to deny girls an education. It really is worse to mutilate the genitals of children (boy or girl) than to not mutilate them. It really is worse to kill apostates than to respect their right to freedom of conscience. In short, liberals suffer from an overabundance of tolerance for the intolerant.

    • (Score: 2) by Jiro on Monday August 29 2016, @02:56AM

      by Jiro (3176) on Monday August 29 2016, @02:56AM (#394414)

      and economic regulations can and should be used to stop and reverse it.

      That's a policy question and certainly isn't "known empirically to be false".

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @06:34AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @06:34AM (#394496)

      > This leaves them with no ethical arguments to make against how The Taliban treat women and girls. It's just their culture, who are we to judge?

      Oh bullshit. Show us even one mildly prominent "liberal" who has excused the Taliban for their mistreatment of females.

      I think the closest you might find is a "let them wear whatever clothes they want" because "liberals" have figured out that preaching without standing is inherently selfish. It doesn't convince anyone to change their ways, it just serves to give the preacher that warm feeling of smug self-satisfaction. Not that there aren't plenty of "liberals" who haven't figured that out yet (Bill Maher and the so-called new atheists being chief among them).

      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @12:26PM

        That warm feeling of smug satisfaction is what defines today's liberals.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:45PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:45PM (#394804)

          > That warm feeling of smug satisfaction is what defines today's liberals.

          Your posts constantly drip with smug satisfaction. Case in point, that very post
          Who knew you were a liberal?

      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 29 2016, @02:13PM

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @02:13PM (#394688) Journal

        Every single liberal who opens his pie hole to espouse the notion that extremists don't represent Islam. All of them. In regards to Islam, pretty much all American liberals are idiots. Well - for the sake of inclusiveness, pretty much all European liberals are idiots as well.

        If you allow rattle snakes to nest in the crawl space beneath your house, you can't complain when you get bitten by a rattle snake.

        If you allow Muslims to move into your country, you can't complain when they start beheading your relatives who refuse to worship Allah.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:11PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:11PM (#394747)

          the notion that extremists don't represent Islam.

          Because a couple thousand certainly do represent 1.6 billion people perfectly. Thats definitely not a false generalization fallacy, nope nope, not even close!

          • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 29 2016, @03:42PM

            by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @03:42PM (#394766) Journal

            Where in HELL do you get the idea that there are only thousands of Islamic extremists? One out of every four human beings are Muslim. By the most simplistic estimates, then one in four extremists are Muslim. We might go a step beyond simplistic statements here, and try to come up with a better estimate. Let us just grab one of the idiotic liberal/progressive claims that "only 1% of Muslims are extremists!" I rather like that claim. As of 2010, there were 1.6 BILLION Muslims in the world. So, 1% of that would be 16 MILLION extremists. That is one fucking HUGE army!

            And, I believe that crazy, wild estimate. Islam is waging war in Asia, Africa, Europe, Micronesia, Asia Minor, the South Pacific - Islam is waging a global war against all unbelievers.

            Now, aren't you happy to know that you've pulled a ridiculous number out of your ass? ISIS alone has more than a few thousand actively militant members.

            1 600 000 000 x .01 =
            16 000 000

            I know there's a lot zeros there, but they are separated by spaces so you can count them easily.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:53PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:53PM (#394809)

              > Where in HELL do you get the idea that there are only thousands of Islamic extremists?
              > One out of every four human beings are Muslim.
              > By the most simplistic estimates, then one in four extremists are Muslim.

              Wow, you really are innumerate aren't you?
              I mean, bigots are defined by sucking at math, but holy fucking shit do you suck at math.
              I'll spell it out: Even if it is true that 25% of extremists muslim, that says nothing about how many muslism are extremists.

              > So, 1% of that would be 16 MILLION extremists. That is one fucking HUGE army!

              You are right. That would be a huge, world-conquering army. The entire world would be FUCKED.
              And yet there is no such army. Nothing even remotely close to that.
              Funny how your "facts" disprove your own thesis.
              That's what happens when you put ideology ahead of logic.

              • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 29 2016, @05:31PM

                by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @05:31PM (#394831) Journal

                You're an idiot. I threw numbers at you to show how stupid your statement of a few thousand extremists is. I threw more numbers at you to show how stupid the liberal claim is that "only 1%" are extremists.

                The FACT of the matter is, that few thousands statement is moronic, and so is that "only 1%" statement.

                The truth? I don't know how many "extremists" there are. Maybe it's less than a million - depending on how you define "extremist". But, one thing is certain - there are literally millions of people who support, directly, the expansion of Islam. And, there are more millions who support it indirectly. And, there are multiple governments that support jihad, both directly and indirectly.

                As you might imagine, it's damned near impossible to find any firm number of ISIS fighters, but estimates were between 20,000 and 31,000 active fighters. Conflicting reports say that the numbers have been decreasing this year, and that the numbers have been INCREASING. Take your pick. We start at a base of 2 or 3 infantry divisions, then try to figure out who is lying, and who has the most insight. So - between 1 and 4 infantry divisions?

                Mind you, that is active infantry troops, located in one area.

                Then, we have Afghanistan/Pakistan, where at least that many active infantry are making life miserable for everyone in reach.

                Then we have all the support lines for those active infantry.

                Plus all the "extremists" who aren't active duty in an organized structure. Guerilla warfare, all around the world.

                There are easily a million people actually fighting for Islam, and easily another million actively supporting those fighters. You won't find any credible estimates that are any smaller than that.

                Of course, you can make up your own numbers, like you did above, and try to convince yourself that there are only a couple thousand people causing all the problems around the world.

                • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:28AM

                  by Reziac (2489) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:28AM (#395146) Homepage

                  Regardless of how many extremists exist -- the real question is: since they're vastly outnumbered by the nice normal peaceful Muslims, why don't those nice normal peaceful Muslims put the brakes on their own extremists?

                  Could it be because under the sum of Quran, Sunna, and Hadith, and in emulating Mohammed as the perfect man, "extremism" is actually correct Islam??

                  --
                  And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
                  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 30 2016, @08:21AM

                    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 30 2016, @08:21AM (#395182) Journal

                    You are on to something there. You're not very far from the truth with that last question.

                    The "moderate" Muslims are afraid to speak out. For starters, their holy book explicitly calls for jihad. Now, reasonable people realize that there are several different kinds of jihad - or they have rationalized jihad into several different kinds. A kid struggling with math in school can be said to be waging a form of jihad, for instance.

                    Second, the so-called extremists have those verses and commandments in the Quran to justify their violent jihad. So, go back to "afraid to speak out" - few if any can be sure that the extremists aren't right. What surer way of going to hell, than to struggle against another man who is struggling to perform Allah's will?

                    Third - just as with Christianity, no matter what a verse means, or how clear it might be, there are those who will twist that verse into a pretzel so that it says whatever he wants it to say.

                    And, the community accepts this status quo. They understand that there are many "ways" to paradise, and that some ways are harder, more violent, or whatever. The "way" of the martyr seems wonderful to them. Exert yourself and suffer for a short period, and go straight to heaven? Why not? The alternative is a lifetime of work and suffering. Let's take the easy way - or at least, if I'm to cowardly to take that easy way, I certainly shouldn't stand in the way of another man who is brave.

                    That is the "moderate" Muslim for you. He is a conformist, and he will conform to community expectations. In a community where Muslims are a tiny percentage, he obeys the laws of the unclean heathen. Get a few more Muslims, and he begins to obey the laws of Allah. A few more Muslims in the community, and he conforms with demands for Sharia, and to punish unbelievers, etc ad nauseum.

                    Conformism can be deadly.

                    • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday August 30 2016, @03:33PM

                      by Reziac (2489) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @03:33PM (#395305) Homepage

                      I just read something the other day about how through the tolerance exercised by the majority, a tiny minority can exercise a tyranny of change on the majority. That's pretty much what we're doing across the board right now, because most of us are tolerant, reasonable people. Fundamentalists change moderate Muslims (look at formerly-secular Turkey); Muslims change Westerners; eventually we're all fundamentalist Muslims, like it or not.

                      Intolerance is a GOOD thing, if you want to preserve Western freedoms.

                      As to jihad, Islam defines four kinds: war, economic, spoken word, and written word; migration is one of the accepted ways of spreading Islam. Why go to the bother and expense of a shooting war if pouring money into the right hands will get your creed shouted to the rooftops and your missionaries invited everywhere?

                      Do you know Bill Warner's videos? (Political Islam) Very informative and objective analysis.

                      --
                      And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @07:34PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @07:34PM (#394887)

              And because of the 1%* you are willing to war with the 99%? Or persecute them? If you're not willing to go to war or eliminate the Muslims, then what are you trying to achieve**? Tell people to go about hating them? How is that going to help? You yourself should know how well Islam handles haters. If you war with them it's literally a gift of God to the extremists. They'll be able to get more of the "more moderate" to follow them.

              Can't we use your same arguments and reasonings about Muslims against human males too? Speaking as a male, more than 70% of terrorists are males. The percentage of terrorists being males is higher than the percentage of terrorists being Muslims. Most of the violent stuff is done by males. Most of the mass murderers are males. More of the crazy nutters are males. Most of the evil dictators are males. A lot of the pioneering and great stuff is done by males too, but from the species perspective, we don't need that many males to keep the species going. So using your arguments perhaps we should start concentrating on eliminating the bad ones from the gene pool. You don't have to kill them, just sterilize/castrate every violent offender, every single murderer, rapist and robber or genocidal sociopath (no need to sterilize me - I don't ever intend to breed). Then the rest of the better domesticated human males can go spend their time making love and not war, got to keep the species alive you know ;). Go look up on how a species is domesticated (not the same as tamed). There's evidence that humans are one of those species that can be domesticated, however we aren't that well domesticated due to haphazard breeding.

              * p.s. I know way more than 1% are extremists. I live in one of those Muslim countries where more than 70% of them stupidly want Sharia law.
              http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-beliefs-about-sharia/#sharia-as-the-official-law-of-the-land [pewforum.org]
              And more than 60% of those that want Sharia Law are in favor of killing apostates: http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-beliefs-about-sharia/#penalty-for-converting-to-another-faith [pewforum.org]

              ** p.p.s. Assuming you're in the USA if you want to kick the Muslims out of your country perhaps you should first ask why your country has been repeatedly screwing up the Muslim world. Many of those countries weren't under the control of Islamists till your country messed them up. Given your country shares a lot of responsibility for the mess, it's your country who should actually take in a lot of Muslims refugees.

              While you're at it go ask why your country is such great friends with the evil Saudi Arabia. They have a habit of looking for bad ways of interpreting Islam and implementing it. I'm not saying overthrow them but wow you and your friends are actually selling them arms and they go on to sell/give them to extremists (don't tell me your government doesn't know what happens to them, it's just like your gov somehow "not knowing" why the ISIS has so many Toyota trucks).

      • (Score: 2) by julian on Monday August 29 2016, @04:34PM

        by julian (6003) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @04:34PM (#394797)

        Show us even one mildly prominent "liberal" who has excused the Taliban for their mistreatment of females.

        The woman in this conversation is an advisor to President Obama on bioethics. So that should be prominent enough. The "me" is Sam Harris. Taken from this article. [huffingtonpost.com]

        She: What makes you think that science will ever be able to say that forcing women to wear burqas is wrong?

        Me: Because I think that right and wrong are a matter of increasing or decreasing well-being--and it is obvious that forcing half the population to live in cloth bags, and beating or killing them if they refuse, is not a good strategy for maximizing human well-being.

        She: But that's only your opinion.

        Me: Okay... Let's make it even simpler. What if we found a culture that ritually blinded every third child by literally plucking out his or her eyes at birth, would you then agree that we had found a culture that was needlessly diminishing human well-being?

        She: It would depend on why they were doing it.

        Me (slowly returning my eyebrows from the back of my head): Let's say they were doing it on the basis of religious superstition. In their scripture, God says, "Every third must walk in darkness."

        She: Then you could never say that they were wrong.

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @10:01AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @10:01AM (#394570)

      Considering your own obvious, self-righteous intolerance, you're doing a fantastic job of proving the author's point. And it sounds like you'd say that you're proud of it, no less, proving the point further.

    • (Score: 2) by digitalaudiorock on Monday August 29 2016, @01:29PM

      by digitalaudiorock (688) on Monday August 29 2016, @01:29PM (#394652) Journal

      Now I'll do the liberals. There's a lot I could talk about but the worst and really the only thing worth focusing on is the sad situations that many liberals (I'm not one of them) have been seduced by moral and cultural relativism. This leaves them with no ethical arguments to make against how The Taliban treat women and girls. It's just their culture, who are we to judge? This is moral cowardice done out of misplaced fear of appearing racist or insensitive. To hell with that.

      This one confuses me beyond words. Where are these liberals you're describing? Most people I know are to the left and I've literally never met anyone with views even in the same universe as that. Are people are so brainwashed with the myth of the "liberal politically correct SJW" that they actually think these people actually exist?

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:47PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:47PM (#394663)

      The metaphysical claims made by their religion are false.

      Hey everybody, julian has singlehandedly ended thousands of years of arguing over religion. Guess we can all go home now.

      • (Score: 2) by julian on Monday August 29 2016, @05:19PM

        by julian (6003) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @05:19PM (#394821)

        No need to thank me, I didn't do the work after all. I'm just passing along the good news. If you must thank someone you could try Epicurus, Spinoza, Thomas Jefferson, Darwin, Hitchens, and many others I'm forgetting at the moment

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:12PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:12PM (#394686)

      If conservative here means US politics of the evangelical Christian Right then it's a totally valid observation.

      It doesn't, though. "Conservative" today means everybody not on the wacko fringe of Communists who support al-Qaeda, those lunatics who control the government, the education system, the mainstream media, and most of the alternative online media so you're not allowed to hear about it. Porn and free love is now "conservative". Protecting gays from Islam is now a "conservative" idea. Science and reason are "conservative" -- asking for evidence is something that only right-wing racist nazis do! Atheism is "conservative" and must be reformed to be subservient to Islam. Rebelling against "The System, Man!" is hella "conservative."

      The right-wing evangelical fringe was spot on in blaming the people responsible for this change: The Frankfurt School, The Muslim Brotherhood, George Soros, and Communist college professors. They all allied together and are eating American society from inside. You don't think it's possible that such a conspiracy could survive contact with adults and now your code isn't good enough for Github unless you submit to whatever new party line the Communist Party made up last month, the Democratic Party is running on the idea of outlawing opposition media, and the United Nations is seriously considering international law to make it illegal to say that Anita Sarkeesian has clearly never played some of the games she pretends to criticize. When right-wingers say that something is a Communist plot, listen! You probably don't know how to identify one.

    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday August 29 2016, @03:40PM

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Monday August 29 2016, @03:40PM (#394765) Homepage
      > Climate change is happening, it's primarily caused by human activity

      The most accurate predictive model that I've seen (which isn't hard, the warming alarmists have come up with some absurd models which have repeatedly failed) put just under half of the blame on human hands. I don't know if about half counts as "primarily". (Note, the model in question, http://www.coyoteblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Slide52.jpg was explicitly not made to be a predictive model, it's just that he decided to see what happens if you extrapolate forwards from when he first posed it, and it fit remarkably well. So it's predictive by happenstance, not by design/intent.)
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Tuesday August 30 2016, @07:39PM

      by Capt. Obvious (6089) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @07:39PM (#395403)

      It's not that cut and dried. For argument's sake:

      he metaphysical claims made by their religion are false.

      The metaphysical claims are non-falsifiable. If the earth was 1000's of years old, it would defy geology, evolution, etc. But it wouldn't have been by a natural process, so that seems like a wash.

      Since our society is secular and explicitly non-theistic by our very Constitution, any argument that relies on dualism or the existence of immaterial souls as a premise is automatically invalid. This collapses almost every argument against early-term abortions.

      And pretty much any argument you could make against infanticide. Any of those can be applied to early-term abortions. I mean, you have to jigger it a little bit, but I'll challenge you to make one that doesn't just hinge on a few continuous variables that could be tweaked to make that case. And double-challenge for late-term abortions

      There's a lot I could talk about but the worst and really the only thing worth focusing on is the sad situations that many liberals (I'm not one of them) have been seduced by moral and cultural relativism.

      For liberals, I would say that there more immediately worse things than cultural relativism. Factually incorrect things. The anti-GMO panic will someday lead to famine. The anti-vaccination people are going to cause massive resurgences of near-extinct diseases.

      • (Score: 2) by julian on Tuesday August 30 2016, @08:15PM

        by julian (6003) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 30 2016, @08:15PM (#395417)

        The only antivax person I know is a conservative. That's not large enough a sample to make any conclusions. I don't know how this issue breaks down along political lines. I suppose it could be a liberal flaw and I'll acknowledge it as one if that's the case.

        As for GMO, my objections to it are not based on food safety concerns. They appear to be just as safe as "traditional" fruits and vegetables and the technology provides a lot of benefits. I object to the business practices and the patent system around the industry. It's part of my larger stance against protections for the fraud of "intellectual property" [gnu.org] in general.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:18AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:18AM (#394401)

    This article was most assuredly not written by a progressive/liberal.

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by Demena on Monday August 29 2016, @02:49AM

      by Demena (5637) on Monday August 29 2016, @02:49AM (#394409)

      It was not written by any one who understands what liberal OR progressive (they are not the same) values mean.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:35AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:35AM (#394460)

        It was not written by any one who understands what liberal OR progressive (they are not the same) values mean.

        Breitbart staff, then. People who could not get a job in academe, and so went rouge.

    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 29 2016, @02:14PM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @02:14PM (#394690) Journal

      No true Scotsman? Got it.

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by aristarchus on Monday August 29 2016, @02:29AM

    by aristarchus (2645) on Monday August 29 2016, @02:29AM (#394406) Journal

    The whole thing began back in the American Civil War. Further than that, if you take Kevin Phillip reading of history seriously, in he Cousin's Wars. But here is the deal: The Cavaliers lost, the Roundheads were dummies, and Pickett's charge was seriously inadvisable. But this is the thing. On the surface, you fight a war and if you lose, well, you lost.

      The entire purpose of having a war in the first place is to settle an argument, to have a loser. But this changed in the Civil War. After the decisive defeat of the Confederacy, I forget which battle, the Union fully expected capitulation, but the South fought on. Why? Because they could not accept the fact that they were wrong, that they lost, that history was against them.

    They even tried irregular warfare, something that arose from Napoleon's occupation of Spain (which ended, wait for it! The Spanish Inquisition!), the "little" war, guerrilla war. And even after they were soundly defeated, after they provoked Sherman, they still continued an insurgency, a rear-guard action to reject Northern aggression, Segregation, the KKK, George Wallace, Trent Lott. But most importantly, Pat Buchanan. Yes, we are talking about culture wars.

      But here is the thing, they have already lost. The reason there are so few conservative academics is because conservatives cannot tell when they are wrong. They are no more able to recognize that their theories have been disproved than the Confederacy was able to admit it was over. So we have the the alt-right, the final weapon: the "SJW", and the constant whining by people sorely afflicted by the Duning-Kroeger effect. The South will Lose Again.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:29AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:29AM (#394479)

      This is exactly the kind of modern liberal arrogant elitist shit sandwich that has driven former liberals like myself out of the fold. Hope you feel proud that you are losing democrats real votes.

      • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 29 2016, @08:20AM

        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday August 29 2016, @08:20AM (#394538) Journal

        Also happens to be true. Eat shit.

        --
        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Monday August 29 2016, @09:25AM

          by aristarchus (2645) on Monday August 29 2016, @09:25AM (#394558) Journal

          former liberals like myself

          Southern Democrats hardly count as liberals. And this is the real problem with non-liberals, they mistake truth for arrogance, and cannot tell that they are not liberal. You know, "liberal" means "free". This is what the "Liberal Arts" are, the skills and basic knowledge of free people. Liberalism is what America is about. If you hate liberals, you hate America. Why do you hate America?

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @12:28PM

          You just agreed with someone who was spewing a blatant troll. What does that make you? Besides a fool I mean.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:04PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:04PM (#394680)

            How difficult would it be to create an "other" user-selectable category in addition to friend and foe?

            The top Soylent trolls are incredibly skilled, but I often find myself halfway through their posts (since I try to avoid looking at the author's name first) before I recognize I'm right in the middle of another post made by an excellent troll and have wasted my time doing so.

            I certainly don't want to assign trolls as friends, but neither are they foes.

            (Note to self: consider looking at GreaseMoney as a means to load up SN comments pages without having authors' names visible by default.)

            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @02:17PM

              Honestly, I'm not sure. I haven't looked at the zoo (what the friends/foes system is internally named) much at all.

              In either case I'm not sure applying a modifier to someone you'd tagged as a troll would be a good idea anyway. Looking at the latest stats [soylentnews.org], our top troll percentage-wise only trolls one post out of four*, so you'd miss a significant number of posts by blanket hiding them. Maybe give us a little troll icon beside the subscriber star if we're in the user's troll list instead?

              * That's not where the post ends up rated Troll, that's where anyone at all has modded a post Troll. Now that I think of it, that query may even count multiple Troll moderations per comment. I'll have to check.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:02AM

            by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:02AM (#395131) Journal

            Sometimes even a troll tells the truth. Hell, even YOU can't be wrong ALL the time. If you told me the sky was blue, I would still double-check, but wouldn't sit there with my arms crossed and go "Nuh-uh, this jackass says it's blue so it's gotta be orange with green polka dots."

            --
            I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by ilPapa on Monday August 29 2016, @02:46AM

    by ilPapa (2366) on Monday August 29 2016, @02:46AM (#394408) Journal

    Runaway1956 writes:

    Oh boy.

    But consider George Yancey, a sociologist who is black and evangelical. "Outside of academia I faced more problems as a black," he told me. "But inside academia I face more problems as a Christian, and it is not even close."

    In what way is evangelical Christianity consistent with education outside of a seminary or one of the special god-botherer "universities" like Liberty U?

    The stakes involve not just fairness to conservatives or evangelical Christians

    "Why won't academia be fair to my theories of chemtrails and homeopathy? My inability to have University of Chicago Press publish my book proving the geocentric universe is proof that academia is biased!"

    Nick Kristof is a well-known liberal concern troll. He makes his living doing for the Left what David Brooks has long done for the Right. It's all masturbatory. It's the high-brow equivalent of clickbait. "You won't believe what these three liberals did then!"

    I've been thinking about this because on Facebook recently I wondered aloud whether universities stigmatize conservatives and undermine intellectual diversity.

    This is my favorite quote from the article. Nick Kristof "wondering aloud". It's the journalistic equivalent of "Many people say..." It's like those headlines that ask a question: "Is Barack Obama the Antichrist?". As they say, if the headline asks a question, the answer is probably no.

    --
    You are still welcome on my lawn.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:53AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:53AM (#394413)

      As they say, if the headline asks a question, the answer is probably no.

      meme with the best of them [wikipedia.org]

    • (Score: 2) by number11 on Monday August 29 2016, @06:32AM

      by number11 (1170) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @06:32AM (#394493)

      In what way is evangelical Christianity consistent with education outside of a seminary or one of the special god-botherer "universities" like Liberty U?

      To be fair, there are fields that fundamentalism (of whatever flavor, evangelical Christians have a lot of similarities to certain other religious groups) is not in conflict with. Engineering (ever notice that a remarkable number of top-level Middle Eastern terrorists are engineers?), for one. Computer science. Architecture. Maybe agriculture. The performing and visual arts. Geography. Maybe economics (so long as they're not anticipating the end times anytime soon). The military. Chemistry. Mathematics.

      It's when they wander into fields where they are tempted to mix religion (geology, history, the social 'sciences', teaching) that the problems arise.

      whether universities stigmatize conservatives and undermine intellectual diversity

      They do, some. They also generally stigmatize communists, anarchists, militant atheists, vocal proponents of multiple marriage, KKK members, and (in the US) Putin apologists (note that neither Trump nor Manafort is an academic). As with employers in general, they don't like people who rock the boat or attract unwelcome attention, it's bad for business.

      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @12:32PM

        They also generally stigmatize communists, anarchists, militant atheists, vocal proponents of multiple marriage, KKK members, and (in the US) Putin apologists (note that neither Trump nor Manafort is an academic).

        The hell you say. Radical thought is perfectly acceptable on campus so long as it's the right kind of radical thought.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 2) by ilPapa on Monday August 29 2016, @12:59PM

        by ilPapa (2366) on Monday August 29 2016, @12:59PM (#394636) Journal

        To be fair, there are fields that fundamentalism (of whatever flavor, evangelical Christians have a lot of similarities to certain other religious groups) is not in conflict with. Engineering (ever notice that a remarkable number of top-level Middle Eastern terrorists are engineers?), for one. Computer science. Architecture. Maybe agriculture. The performing and visual arts. Geography. Maybe economics (so long as they're not anticipating the end times anytime soon). The military. Chemistry. Mathematics.

        OK, you're conflating some things here. While there have certainly been religious people who have contributed (and excelled) in all of the fields you mention (Jesuits in plate tectonics, for example), they have not been evangelical Christians. Who is the great evangelical painter? The Christian mathematicians who are usually put forward as examples, like Euler, were not evangelicals.

        Religion may well be harmonious with higher learning. Evangelicalism and fundamentalism are not.

        --
        You are still welcome on my lawn.
        • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday August 29 2016, @02:06PM

          by tangomargarine (667) on Monday August 29 2016, @02:06PM (#394681)

          So do you have a rigorous definition of what makes a denomination evangelical? From a strictly grammatical standpoint, according to Google (in reverse order):

          zealous in advocating something.

          90% of religions are about outreach and converting people to begin with...zealotry is rather subjective.

          of or according to the teaching of the gospel or the Christian religion.

          Well, that's no help at all. Are there any denominations who call themselves Christian that *don't* teach the Gospel? And those "or"s mean you can pick any one of those clauses, I guess.

          of or denoting a tradition within Protestant Christianity emphasizing the authority of the Bible, personal conversion, and the doctrine of salvation by faith in the Atonement.

          I seem to remember that there are several of those unitary [wikipedia.org] "eh come in and believe whatever you want and any sermons we do will be extremely generic to avoid offending anyone" denominations included in the general definition of "evangelical." Which sounds like the exact groups that the term was created to contrast with.

          So the descriptor just seems meaningless to me.

          --
          "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
          • (Score: 2) by ilPapa on Monday August 29 2016, @04:18PM

            by ilPapa (2366) on Monday August 29 2016, @04:18PM (#394788) Journal

            So do you have a rigorous definition of what makes a denomination evangelical?

            Let's see...

            according to Google...

            I thought you said, "rigorous".

            But no, there is no "rigorous definition" of an evangelical. In parlance, however, since the late 1970s, it has come to mean the "Religious Right". A prominent Christian polling firm, Barna Group, has traditionally used a very specific nine-question definition that requires, for example, the person to claim they believe Satan exists.

            --
            You are still welcome on my lawn.
            • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday August 29 2016, @04:22PM

              by tangomargarine (667) on Monday August 29 2016, @04:22PM (#394791)

              Yes, I was saying I had an ad hoc definition and asking did you have a better one.

              Link to this 9-question definition?

              --
              "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:14PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:14PM (#394818)

                Its funny, he plagiarzed that line [google.com] so he doesn't have a link for you.
                I plagiarize stuff all the time because good writing is good writing and as an AC I can't claim credit for anything anyway.
                Still its funny.

              • (Score: 2) by ilPapa on Tuesday August 30 2016, @02:04AM

                by ilPapa (2366) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @02:04AM (#395065) Journal

                The Barna Group website doesn't list the actual 9 questions, but they do list these 9 criteria:

                Evangelicals met nine specific theological criteria. They said they have made “a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today,” that their faith is very important in their life today; believe that when they die they will go to Heaven because they have confessed their sins and accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior; strongly believe they have a personal responsibility to share their religious beliefs about Christ with non-Christians; firmly believe that Satan exists; strongly believe that eternal salvation is possible only through grace, not works; strong agree that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; strong assert that the Bible is accurate in all the principles it teaches; and describe God as the all-knowing, all-powerful, perfect deity who created the universe and still rules it today. Being classified as an evangelical is not dependent on self-identification, church attendance, or the denominational affiliation of the church attended. Respondents were not asked to describe themselves as “evangelical.”

                Now here's where it gets interesting:

                Non-evangelical born again Christians say they have made “a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today” and believe that when they die they will go to Heaven because they have confessed their sins and accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior. However, they do not accept all of the other seven theological beliefs that categorize someone as an evangelical.

                Notional Christians are people who consider themselves to be Christian but they have not made “a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today” or believe that when they die they will go to Heaven because they have confessed their sins and accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior.

                So, you can be a Christian and believe 0 out of 9 of the criteria that make you an Evangelical. I find that interesting.

                Oh, and the other important qualifier: You can't be a Catholic. Catholics can never be considered Evangelical Christians, because reasons.

                --
                You are still welcome on my lawn.
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Farkus888 on Monday August 29 2016, @02:50AM

    by Farkus888 (5159) on Monday August 29 2016, @02:50AM (#394410)

    My primary problem with liberals is how presumptuous they tend to be. Tell one you own a gun and then try to convince them you are for gay marriage. They paint the entire world with a real wide all evil guilt by association brush. The disturbing newer trend is that the Conservatives aren't much behind in that behavior. Both are anti intellectualism and bad for society.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by dyingtolive on Monday August 29 2016, @03:10AM

      by dyingtolive (952) on Monday August 29 2016, @03:10AM (#394419)

      Yes. I'm generally liberal leaning, overall. That being said, every time I hear someone on the internet or even a few times in person takes that condescending, manipulative stance to try to sway people to their new version of leftism, I can't help but find myself grimacing and turning a little bit more conservative in knee-jerk reaction. You know the stance I'm talking about. That whole, higher-than-thou smiley-gladhands, "well, do you REALLY think that's the kind of opinion you should have? Can you explain it a little more to me? Maybe we can talk through that a little," thing they get going on.

      I swear to someone else's god, the left will eat themselves in the end as much as the right has. I just wonder what will be left behind.

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:42AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:42AM (#394462)

      Tell one you own a gun and then try to convince them you are for gay marriage.

      All my liberal friends own guns. Not all of them are gay married, though. Lots of the ex-SEALS and Marine snippers are, but not all of them. All good liberals to the core. Who are you presuming you are talking to that are so presumptious? Could it not be that it is your own presumption that makes you presume that liberals presume when it is actually yourself that is doing the presumptioning?

    • (Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Monday August 29 2016, @06:07AM

      by cubancigar11 (330) on Monday August 29 2016, @06:07AM (#394489) Homepage Journal

      The entire problem is with 'progressives' is that they want to see a human problem with scientific eye. 1 PLUS 1 EQUAL TO 2. 2 > 1. Anybody who is against 1 + 1 is against 2. There is a condescending attitude towards all the dots that exist between 1 and 2. Life holds no value for progressives. Want equality? Give sacrifice.

      Large number of conservatives are denied any platform to poke holes in liberal and progressive theories. The only people who are given any attention are those who have bad arguments. Truth is that liberals are the true conservatives - they have got the power and they are ruthless to keep it. The only way to keep liberals in check is to take their ball and then run with it. It won't get better until it gets worse.

      • (Score: 0, Troll) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 29 2016, @08:13AM

        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday August 29 2016, @08:13AM (#394536) Journal

        Wait, so your problem is that they're correct? Wow. I love how you guys are so unintentionally revealing.

        'cause, hate to break this to you Kyuubey, but 1 + 1 does equal 2, and if you say it doesn't, one must assume you either don't understand the underlying concepts and axioms at play, or have some agenda that makes you deny the obvious. You fucked up there.

        --
        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
        • (Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Monday August 29 2016, @08:41AM

          by cubancigar11 (330) on Monday August 29 2016, @08:41AM (#394544) Homepage Journal

          So you agree that life holds no value to you. Why not? As long as someone else is coming under the bus and you are getting the money in the wallet!

          • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 30 2016, @04:55AM

            by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @04:55AM (#395124) Journal

            Life has value to me. If it didn't I wouldn't be giving over a third of my income to anti-human trafficking causes...and directly, along with personal work, not to some shady charity (which, a little research shows, usually do not help).

            You wanna know who takes this soullessly-scientific approach to life you accuse the left of? People like JMorris. Anyone who says "human biodiversity" and thinks the rest of us don't know that's code for scientific racism under the guise of "well black folks are dumb so we're justified in exterminating them." Eugenecists. Social Darwinists, which is a misnomer if I ever heard one. Generally, Kyuubey, people like you. And yes, I am calling you that for a reason.

            --
            I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
            • (Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:52AM

              by cubancigar11 (330) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:52AM (#395154) Homepage Journal

              I have no interest in knowing your personal opinions so keep them to yourself. You said 1+1=2 and there is nothing to debate there. It follows that you don't value human life as per your own admission. It also follows that causing harm to other people if it benefits you is acceptable behavior for you. Either that or you accept that there are more things than simple math when human life is involved. Be exact in your response.

              And by the way, ever heard of Winterhilfswerk?

              • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 30 2016, @04:07PM

                by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @04:07PM (#395315) Journal

                First off, fuck you and die; I bet YOU don't lift a fucking finger to help those in need. Why would you? You're a good little Calvini--pardon me, Randroid, and OBVIOUSLY "those people" deserve to suffer, right?

                Second: 1 + 1 does equal 2. Thankfully, humanity is a hell of a lot less simple and black-and-white than arithmetic...though you're trying hard not to be. At this point I can predict most of your answers before you type them.

                Third: yes, I have heard of that (winter + help + labor), and all that proves is that some things are so bleeding obvious that even a goddamn Nazi can get them right...which raises the question, what the FUCK is wrong with YOU, Kyuubey?!

                tl;dr: even the average Nazi had better morals than you. Kill yourself.

                --
                I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
                • (Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:49PM

                  by cubancigar11 (330) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:49PM (#395367) Homepage Journal

                  Thanks. First get yourself checked because a normal person doesn't talk like that. Then we will have logical debate because then you might be able to try to understand what is being said instead of going on one craptastic tirade after the other. bye bye.

                  • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 30 2016, @08:24PM

                    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @08:24PM (#395420) Journal

                    Sounds like I hit a sore spot, Kyuubey :) Sorry, but being shown for the complete walking trash fire of a human being you are does not give you an excuse to do nothing but drop ad-homs (ad-fems?).

                    If someone you don't know from Eve is looking at what you type and saying "wow you're literally a fucking Nazi but worse," it may be time for a *little* self-reflection...

                    --
                    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
                    • (Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Wednesday August 31 2016, @06:19AM

                      by cubancigar11 (330) on Wednesday August 31 2016, @06:19AM (#395602) Homepage Journal

                      Hehehe. I hope you understand how much off the mark you are so next time you can save your energy. You blamed me for not replying so I entertained you. Think of it like pity-sex. Its over now. From next time it will be time-pass only. :D

                      • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday August 31 2016, @08:58AM

                        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Wednesday August 31 2016, @08:58AM (#395624) Journal

                        Wowwww. Classy as fuck, Kyuubey. You're another one who doesn't know when to shut his stupid fucking mouth, and ends up revealing waaaaaay more about himself than intended.

                        Besides which, your reply clearly shows I've hit a sore point for you. You fucked up, and left yourself wide open, and you deserved that. Seriously, you are Literally Worse Than A Goddamned Nazi (TM) by your own admission. Even I'm stunned; I didn't think you were so completely and utterly bankrupt. Hell welcomes you with open arms...

                        --
                        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @12:35PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @12:35PM (#394623)

          It seems your problem is that you can't understand what an analogy is.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @06:49AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @06:49AM (#394500)

      > Tell one you own a gun and then try to convince them you are for gay marriage.

      Maybe you haven't noticed, but a significantly well-funded political organization has spent the last 40 years trying to make that connection true. You can't really fault someone for paying attention to the fact that the republican party has stridently defined itself around a handful of planks including those two. That you aren't part of all that is great, but not only does the party frequently claim to speak for all gun owners, they are home for the largest group of gun owners. (Compare that to something like ISIS which claims to speak for all muslims but has a membership that is a fraction of a percent of all muslims.)

    • (Score: 2) by number11 on Monday August 29 2016, @06:49AM

      by number11 (1170) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @06:49AM (#394502)

      My primary problem with liberals is how presumptuous they tend to be. Tell one you own a gun and then try to convince them you are for gay marriage.

      I dunno, I own a gun and I'm not opposed to gay marriage. I'm certainly not a "conservative". I would acknowledge that I'm not a liberal either, I'm to the left of them.

      My impression is that there is a correlation between gun ownership and being against gay marriage, but it's a weak correlation. I suspect the correlation is stronger for the gun-waving, flag-waving set, but I'm not at all convinced that the majority of gun owners is included in that set.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @11:15AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @11:15AM (#394597)

      Pot, meet kettle.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:22PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:22PM (#394790)

      My primary problem with liberals is how presumptuous they tend to be. Tell one you own a gun and then try to convince them you are for gay marriage.

      Nice stereotyping all "liberals" under one fictitious brush. Hypocrite much?

      I know several people who are both arms-bearing and support gay marriage. I'll go so far as to say if you actually told somebody this, they'd accept you at face value. Have you actually tried it? What reaction does a so-called liberal have? "You must be lying, you can't support gay marriage because non-sequitur?" I'd be surprised if anybody except a small minority called you a liar.

      I'd be more inclined to believe you if you said, "I'm anti-abortion and in favor of the death penalty," but even then I'd guess the reaction would be more of curiosity and asking how you can support a superficially contradictory position rather than claiming you are lying.

  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:53AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:53AM (#394412)

    Here [twitter.com]

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:40AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:40AM (#394436)

      Sometimes the dumbest sounding thoughts turn out to be the truest. Liberals have turned into one-eyed ideologues that would put the Spanish Inquisitors to shame.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @09:45AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @09:45AM (#394566)

        Sometimes the dumbest sounding thoughts turn out to be the truest.

        True dat, Billy-Bob! But just 'cause it happens sometimes, does not mean all dumb sounding thoughts are correct. That is just about Fox News/Breitbart stupid right there, it is!

  • (Score: 2) by Snotnose on Monday August 29 2016, @03:23AM

    by Snotnose (1623) on Monday August 29 2016, @03:23AM (#394424)

    I was born in '58, my parents never listened to any music but hauled my ass off to church 3 times a week (sunday morning/night, wed night). I remember the pastor playing the Beatles song "Revolution", then doing an hour long sermon on how godless and anti-patriotic it was. Didn't have the nerve to raise my 10 year old arm in church, but on the way home I was all "um, wtf, they're saying you want a revolution so go have a nice life without us". Got shot down. Hard.

    Oddly enough, I was about 10 when I started asking questions. I'd ask a church elder, they'd say "you have to have faith". I'd reply "if I had faith I wouldn't be asking".

    Dad forced me to go to church 3 times a week until I was 16 and got a job that, hey imagine that, made me work sunday morning/night and wed night.

    Only time I've been in church since I turned 16 was when mom died, I figure the last time I'll be in church is when dad dies.

    --
    Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:47AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:47AM (#394437)

      That's great, but it's still not a reason to become a liberal.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:05AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:05AM (#394444)

    Honestly, I'm more libertarian leaning than anything else.. I thought the summary raised a few good issues that would be interesting to discuss from an academic perspective and to see at least how different viewpoints can be heard, regardless of how one feels about them personally.

    I really didn't expect the outright hostility and downright aggressively unwelcoming tone in the comments, and it has opened my eyes to the fact that the poster here might actually be on to something. I'll look into this some more, as it actually dovetails with some of the research I'm doing..

    Anyways, thank you for the thoughts, I won't bother trying to have a conversation/debate, as none seems to be wanted...? (honestly, i don't really have a dog in this fight, i just wanted to talk about the issue), but wanted to than the submitter for the direction to look in.

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:46AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:46AM (#394463)

      honestly, i don't really have a dog in this fight, i just wanted to talk about the issue), but wanted to than the submitter for the direction to look in.

      Listen here, young man! We will have no thanning of submitters on this site! Take your ungodly perverse lust somewhere else!!!

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @07:16AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @07:16AM (#394510)

      I really didn't expect the outright hostility and downright aggressively unwelcoming tone in the comments, and it has opened my eyes to the fact that the poster here might actually be on to something.

      Sure. Or it might open your eyes to the poster's posting history in which he has regularly revealed himself to be dogmatic and unreasoning. No one who knows the guy can see this story as anything more than a passive-aggressive dig at people he considers his cultural enemies. The article itself is over 3 months old, which means he didn't happen across it while perusing the latest news. It was forwarded to him from someone else in his bubble as a "see, even liberals think liberals are phony hypocrites!"

      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @12:41PM

        Which does not remotely preclude him or the author of TFA from being 100% correct. "I hate you so will disagree with anything you say" is about as far from rational thought as anyone you complain about on the other side.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 29 2016, @02:34PM

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @02:34PM (#394711) Journal

        I got your passive-aggressive swinging. Proggies, liberals, SJW's all know that passive-aggressive routine. They've studied it since puberty. Don't accuse me of being like you.

        There is nothing passive-aggressive about the post, or the article. It flat out states that liberals are closed minded, intolerant asses.

        Now, get off my lawn.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by zeigerpuppy on Monday August 29 2016, @04:54AM

    by zeigerpuppy (1298) on Monday August 29 2016, @04:54AM (#394467)

    The arguments used to bolster "conservative" discourse have been the same for centuries. What has changed is that the directions that societies has taken since the Enlightenment have de-powered religious conservatism. Now those who feel their authority (aparently given by God and handed down by the book and the sword) threatened want to legitimize their oppression of dissenting thinkers by turning the arguments of liberal thought to their advantage.
    This more or less rest on the crux of "tolerance".
    The religious believe in some pretty odd ideas and want the rest of us to be "tolerant" of their beliefs. However, they forget how intolerant religion has been of the rights of logical scientific thinkers, women and of other cultures.
    Now that they're on the back foot they want to play the victim.
    I'm sorry it doesn't work that way. When religions of all flavours have suppressed, incarcerated and killed dissenters (heretics, heathens, witches, infidels...) they really need to think what is broken in their ideology.
    The rest of society has slowly woken up to the fact that the bile that religion spouts is not to be "tolerated". There is much to be gained from an enlightened point of view where a patriarchal vindictive God doesn't call the shots as far as social norms.
    Now, they can certainly think whatever they like but we are justified in limiting religious power and calling out ill-thought and unsubstantiated theories (especially when they are an excuse for an institutionalized system of social control).
    I firmly believe that society needs to move beyond religion for us to be truly civilized. That doesn't mean that we turn our backs on the history of group action and understanding that religion may have contributed to (when it wasn't just being used to justify war an oppression of women).
    It does mean that religious ideas should be exposed to the full blinding light of logic and that we should see an appeal to tolerance as nothing more than a feeble defense.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:06AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:06AM (#394473)

    I think the core issue here is that liberal and conservative no longer make much sense in today's society.

    Being a liberal is fundamentally about freedom. This entails marrying who you like, putting what you like into your body, and so on. It also entails that as a society we do all we can to improve the lives of as many people as possible. However, and this is where 'modern' liberalism begins to diverge, it also entails the freedom to say what you like and an active avoidance of infringing on the freedoms of others. Features of modern liberalism today include:

    • acting in a racist fashion against a race or gender and arguing it cannot be racist or sexist because [insert mental gymnastics]
    • actively working to exclude people from expressing themselves and speaking, particularly at academic institutions, even when there are plenty of other students who would like to hear them speak
    • openly and actively avoiding ideas and notions that run against their own preconceptions and demanding warnings and safe areas to escape to when somebody would like to express something that does not agree with said preconceptions
    • going along with poine 3 - attacking, literally be it physically or socially, people that espouse views or opinions that run against one's preconceptions or woldview

     

    And so on. These are not liberal values. These are authoritarian or fascist values. There's a quote that's been attributed to countless individuals and that is because it is self evident upon reflection, but shocking at first:

    There are two types of fascists: fascists and anti-fascists.

    And many liberals today have become just as fascist as those they demonize such as Rush Limbaugh. Consequently I think the real distinction between people today is not necessarily conservative vs liberal, but authoritarian vs libertarian. And in a world of social media echo chambers reinforcing increasingly radical views, authoritarianism is seeing a sharp spike from both sides. Let the authoritarians and fascists on both sides have their little battles of trying to see who can silence and attack the most people that disagree with them. I'll take the level-headed conservatives on my 'side'. I may disagree with them ideologically, but we can work on that because we're willing and able to listen and abide the other side. And that I think is a far more important and fundamental factor than our opinions on welfare, regulation, or even social values.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @06:35AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @06:35AM (#394497)

      The real problem is the acceptance of post-modernism - i.e. the rejection of reason. As the many comments here show in their personal anecdotes, there are many examples nowadays of both liberals and conservatives believing they deserve to be taken seriously while they wilfully disregard reason and evidence. If you want to improve the situation, I suggest you all make an effort to apply the correct labels since clearly "liberal" and "conservative" are not relevant to the current conversation.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @06:49AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @06:49AM (#394501)

        Agreed, but this is the transition moment. You see, liberal philosophy and its offspring (modernism, post-modernism) were made for revolutionary purposes. It is meant to sow discontent, upset norms, undermine certain established institutions and create a somewhat chaotic social environment. Once complete power is assumed, the leaders of the liberal movement (mostly operating in the shadows) who rode in on the back of liberalism will enforce their own conservatism. That's what we are about to witness.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @07:05AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @07:05AM (#394506)

          > Once complete power is assumed, the leaders of the liberal movement (mostly operating in the shadows) who rode in on the back of liberalism will enforce their own conservatism.

          You have unwittingly described the arc of the republican party. They were the driving force behind the anti-slavery movement. But then they won the civil war and their people assumed power in washington. At which point the lucrative effects of being connected to power began to turn them away from caring about racism and towards caring about (a) their own wealth and (b) maintaining power. But that corruption began to visibly surface during the civil rights era and culminated in the metastasis of Trumpism through the body of the party.

          I doubt "liberalism" will go through the same process because it knows no specific party. As the democratic party has been co-opted by wealth, it has also strayed from liberalism, they just haven't traveled as far down that path as the republican party has. But the principles remain, just reinvented by another generation as evidenced by Bernie Sanders, BLM, Occupy, etc.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @07:49AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @07:49AM (#394525)

            Both sides are of the same coin, there was nothing unwitting in (my) original post :)

          • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 29 2016, @02:40PM

            by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @02:40PM (#394718) Journal

            All that you have said is, history repeats itself. And, that statement only affirms what GP said to start with.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:36PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:36PM (#394800)

      I think the core issue here is that liberal and conservative no longer make much sense in today's society.

      Actually, the core here is the misappropriate of the terms "liberal" and "conservative." If you've taken a course on Western History (possibly especially in regard to the Enlightenment), you see that "liberal" had a different meaning. See Liberalism rejected the prevailing social and political norms of hereditary privilege, state religion, absolute monarchy, and the Divine Right of Kings. [wikipedia.org] (standard caveats of anybody-can-edit apply).

      So back then you had the idea monarchy/theocracy vs liberalism. This ended up being pulled into a three-way split with the introduction of communism.

      The confusion comes from the splitting of liberalism into a left-liberal and right-liberal. Left Liberals tend to think that the massive social changes were causing problems for society and they would need to compromise on some enlightenment ideals to survive (see: the rise of communism, so if they didn't relieve some of people's suffering there could be a complete revolution), whereas Right Liberals were harder-line "we've figured things out, they'll sort themselves out in the end, it's for the greater good."

      This is the "conservative" vs "progressive" debates you see now... in the end they are all classic liberals. Just different flavors of it.

      For example, when's the last time you heard a American Republican proposing that presidential positions should extended or the position made heritable (a classical conservative position)? When's the last time you heard of an American Democrat proposing nationalizing the airlines (a classical communist position)?

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by bradley13 on Monday August 29 2016, @07:43AM

    by bradley13 (3053) on Monday August 29 2016, @07:43AM (#394523) Homepage Journal

    Francis writes: Conservative views are not equally well-reasoned and equally well-grounded in reality.

    Which pretty much proves the point that TFA is trying to make. Liberal arrogance: if you don't agree with me, you are wrong.

    Particularly in the US, conservatives and the religious right ran together for too long, and now the religious views have come to dominate. The conservative movement in the US is no longer politically conservative. The Republicans are happily big government, as long as that government is imposing morality on people and funding the right programs.

    The big problem of liberals, as pointed out in julian's comment, is moral relativism. European culture, with its roots running back to the Romans and ancient Greeks, is the foundation of western civilization. It's downright weird that people arguably at the pinnacle of this civilization spend much of their time trying to tear the culture that underlies it.

    This liberal failure to defend their own culture is the reason for the rise of the alt-right. The alt-right is well on the way to displacing traditional conservatives, and its call to battle is simple: "defend white, european culture".

    As soon as liberals see someone write the word "white", they cry "racist". That is not the case. People of other races and other cultures are free to take pride in their own cultures. The alt-right simply says that it should not be taboo for white Europeans to do the same.

    --
    Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
    • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 29 2016, @07:54AM

      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday August 29 2016, @07:54AM (#394528) Journal

      You know, we aren't all this dumb. I haaaaaaaate "post-modernism" and will call it out wherever I see it, and am not stupid enough to join fellow leftists in their idiotic love affair with Islam. Frankly I'm probably better described as "left libertarian" than "liberal" in the modern sense, with a heavy overlay of technological fascination.

      Thing is, though, this entire submission is bait. And it's stupid bait. Furthermore, it's a cynical attempt to turn the value of tolerance around on itself by essentially whinging that people aren't tolerant of intolerance. And then lambasting their targets for "undermining their own values." The amount of projection here is incredible.

      No, we're not tolerant of intolerance, because that would be a complete fucking contradiction in terms. And hey, guess what: some ideas ARE worse than others. What was that about postmodernism again? Yeah. The postmodern thing to do would be to ignore that. So it's damned if we do, damned if we don't, all of it coming from people who frankly can't find their ass with both hands.

      I agree the liberals have bankrupted themselves over the last 20-odd years with lack of intellectual rigor. Sad, but true. But this submission is bullshit, and every single inbred toothless jackhole (looking at YOU, KHallow) who's come along to preen and strut can go fuck yourselves.

      --
      I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @08:11AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @08:11AM (#394535)

        > I am not stupid enough to join fellow leftists in their idiotic love affair with Islam.

        Just stupid enough to join fellow bigots in their idiotic crusade against muslims.
        Like runaway, you are an ISIS collaborator. Helping to spread their message that there is no place in the west for muslims.
        When in fact the strongest foes of ISIS and "radical islam" are the billion+ muslims who aren't assholes.

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 29 2016, @08:15AM

          by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday August 29 2016, @08:15AM (#394537) Journal

          Oh fuck off. Islam is toxic as hell and anyone who's ever read the Koran can tell you that. The only way we're gonna beat it is slow cultural assimilation, which we CANNOT do by letting idiots launch all-out offensives against the Muslim world. Not to mention, a good chunk of our Christians are basically Taliban with Bibles.

          --
          I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @08:45AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @08:45AM (#394548)

            > Oh fuck off. Islam is toxic as hell and anyone who's ever read the Koran can tell you that.

            When are you going to read the quran? I don't mean verses hand-picked without context by people deliberately selling hate. I mean actually read the whole book, or at least entire passages with the aid of context from academics with an interest in describing how it is applied by regular muslims?

            > Not to mention, a good chunk of our Christians are basically Taliban with Bibles.

            An overwhelming small minority. The worst of them live in the same conditions as the worst of muslims. For example, are you aware that female genital mutilation is a social practice bounded by geography, not religion [politifact.com] as is commonly asserted?

            • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:36PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:36PM (#394714)

              The Quran, placed in chronological order, describes the transition of Mohummad from a troubled nobody, to leader of a failed peaceful religion, to a wildly successful bandit-warrior. Chronology is critical due to the Quran's own "satanic verses" that outline the concept of abrogation: the old is replaced by the new. The peaceful aspects of Islam have been abrogated by the newer conquer-the-world warlike Islam.

              Embedded concepts in the "cannot-be-wrong" Quran make reasoning with Islamic advocates impossible due to the existence of "moral lying" termed taqiyya.

              Those interested in further analysis would be well-served to read the book Prophet of Doom [prophetofdoom.net], freely available in PDF format (and sadly lacking its former accessibility of HTML, audiobook, and dead-tree formats).

            • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 29 2016, @02:54PM

              by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @02:54PM (#394735) Journal

              I probably read the Quran before you were born. I took that little task on when I was in the Navy. I was running low on reading material, stumbled across an interesting looking book, and picked it up.

              EVERYTHING that people fault the Bible for, is repeated in the Quran, and multiplied a thousand fold.

              For all of it's excesses, Chriatianity was founded by a peaceful man. Islam was founded at the point of a sword. Anyone who doesn't understand that Islam's purpose is to conquer the world is just plain stupid. For all her faults, Azuma at least understands that.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:34PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:34PM (#394798)

                I probably read the Quran before you were born. I took that little task on when I was in the Navy. I was running low on reading material, stumbled across an interesting looking book, and picked it up.

                Oh puhlease, nobody believes that bullshit. You may have thumbed through a copy, but every post you make about islam proves that your understanding of the quran is nothing more than crap you got from dedicated islamofoes. Half the time you post a URL on the topic its from a hate site. If you had a serious interest in understanding rather than scapegoating your sources would be a lot more neutral.

                For all of it's excesses, Chriatianity was founded by a peaceful man. Islam was founded at the point of a sword.

                Really? So, if that is the end all and be all determinant, the fact that Moe and his buddies were chased out of Mecca (the hegira) [historyworld.net] at the point of a sword after a failed plot to assassinate him ought to count for the same. The hegira is the official start of Islam. But that doesn't count, does it? How about his return to Mecca which is negotiated through diplomacy? Nope that doesn't count either.

                Your hypocrisy is especially ripe given how frequently you promote violence in the name of christian superiority.

                • (Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 29 2016, @05:47PM

                  by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @05:47PM (#394843) Journal

                  Moe was a warrior, a pedophile, a necrophile, a murderer, a rapist, and so much more. I've not discovered any redeeming virtues.

                  I've read a bit about the Hindu faith, Native American spirituality, Wicca, Paganism, and more. Compared to any of those, Islam is a death cult.

                  I repeat - everything that is wrong with the Christian patriarchy is multiplied a thousand fold in Islam.

                  Thanks to that pedophile pig, you can find "learned" imams in Islam proclaiming that it is perfectly alright for a horny man to use infants for satisfaction. Don't believe it? Read this report from the US Army - http://www.wnd.com/2012/12/army-acknowledges-pedophilia-part-of-islam/ [wnd.com]

            • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:09AM

              by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:09AM (#395135) Journal

              AC below me said it better than me.

              I'll restrict myself to answering your rhetorical question: although not in the original Arabic I've read the thing several times all the way through. It's not a huge book, though it still boggles me that apparently some people *memorize* the entire thing. Thing is, it doesn't get any better with repeated reads. It just...doesn't. The Bible at least has some interesting material in it (I like Eccelesiastes, at least until the very obviously pseudepigraphical ending...). I honestly cannot find one redeeming thing about the Koran.

              --
              I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 29 2016, @02:48PM

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @02:48PM (#394731) Journal

          You're still a half-wit. ISIS is recruiting people FROM AROUND THE WORLD. England, France, Belgium, anyplace where Muslims are wealthy enough to have spare people with the time to enlist. You've read the headlines about the narcissistic little teenage asswipes who run away to join ISIS. But, most of the asswipes don't get into the news - they just go, and no one cares. Their mothers and fathers approve of the children becoming martyrs.

          Wake up and smell the coffee.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:36PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:36PM (#394801)

            > You're still a half-wit. ISIS is recruiting people FROM AROUND THE WORLD.

            And you are doing your damndest to help them by spreading their message.
            You fucking collaborator.

            • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:11AM

              by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:11AM (#395136) Journal

              So what do you suggest we do? Because I think alerting fellow leftists that, hey, this shit is toxic as hell and it's massively hypocritical to give it a free pass is just basic logical hygiene; it undermines supposed liberal values to let that shit slide.

              --
              I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
      • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @12:46PM

        There is nothing libertarian about you. By the way, how do you get the jackboots to fit on over your harpy talons?

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:48PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:48PM (#394730)

          I've been working on trying to dig out the outline of Azuma's foundation for scrutiny for a while now (the benefit to me being energetic attacks on my own premises which should serve to help strengthen them by revealing any weaknesses I can discard). Every time I've gotten close to the crux of the matter where cognitive dissonance should start being painful for authoritarians-in-denial, she has not chosen to continue the discussion.

          Latest thread where I was starting to get hopeful [soylentnews.org], continuing down this branch [soylentnews.org].

          • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @11:16PM

            Oh, I just didn't bother either believing or disbelieving her. Or caring. We are on the Internet after all. Where the men are men, the women are men, and the kids are FBI agents.

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 30 2016, @04:58AM

            by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @04:58AM (#395126) Journal

            Please...the only thing "self-owned" about you is in the sense of you constantly playing yourself. Anyone who's so completely un-self-aware as to assert their own independence in one breath and in the next bend over and profess pig-bottom authoritarian Christian faith is a complete basket case. It was silly of me to even waste my time on you.

            --
            I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 30 2016, @11:28AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 30 2016, @11:28AM (#395209)

              so completely un-self-aware as to assert their own independence in one breath and in the next bend over and profess pig-bottom authoritarian Christian faith

              The single strong theme consistent in both (individual self-ownership and authoritarian Christianity) is individual freedom of choice.

              (Since we've engaged once on my reasoning on some of this [soylentnews.org] and it seems that you chose to disregard my thoughts in their entirety as "irrelevant, fallacious, and outright sociopathic" with no further explaination, I see little point in re-engaging on such complex matters at this time versus simple, tightly-focussed topics.)

              • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 30 2016, @04:12PM

                by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @04:12PM (#395319) Journal

                > The single strong theme consistent in both (individual self-ownership and authoritarian Christianity) is individual freedom of choice.

                Those words all make sense individually, but not in that order. They make, in fact, the complete opposite of sense when you put them in that order. I don't think you'll ever understand why, though, because you don't want to. From the sound of it you haven't studied apologia or formal logic much.

                --
                I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
        • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:00AM

          by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:00AM (#395129) Journal

          What jackboots? I much prefer to go au naturel...makes it SO much easier to get a tight grip on the soft, weak throats of people like you and *squeeze.*

          Seriously, you've lost. You've got nothing but tone trolling left. Sorry (not sorry) if I've hurt your precious, fragile feelings; may it be the worst thing I ever do to you!

          --
          I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
          • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 31 2016, @01:53AM

            by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday August 31 2016, @01:53AM (#395550) Homepage Journal

            The jackboots you consistently break out every time you find out someone less fortunate than you exists. You, my sad little muffin, are nothing approaching a libertarian. A libertarian is by definition fiscally conservative and socially liberal. If you're both fiscally and socially liberal, they already have a word for that: Liberal.

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
            • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday August 31 2016, @04:40AM

              by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Wednesday August 31 2016, @04:40AM (#395580) Journal

              When did Libertarian morph into "selfish, shortsighted, autofellating Randian jackoff?" And why do you alt-right jackasses think you invented the search for a philosophical justification for selfishness?

              --
              I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 29 2016, @02:45PM

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @02:45PM (#394726) Journal

        "o it's damned if we do, damned if we don't,"

        And, you'll be just as damned as all those patriarchs you hate so much.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @08:01AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @08:01AM (#394532)

      we can't all be right. 1+1 can't be 2 and 3 at the same time. if you think it is 3, then at least in context of maths, you are wrong.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @08:23AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @08:23AM (#394540)

      The big problem of liberals, as pointed out in julian's comment, is moral relativism. European culture, with its roots running back to the Romans and ancient Greeks, is the foundation of western civilization. It's downright weird that people arguably at the pinnacle of this civilization spend much of their time trying to tear the culture that underlies it.

      You know what's funny about that? In china they say exactly the same thing about Chinese culture.

      Its pretty much the same story everywhere. Our team is best because that's all we know. You complain about the bogeyman of "moral relativism" when in fact you embrace it, you just don't realize you are doing it because you are profoundly ignorant of any cultures beyond your own.

      > As soon as liberals see someone write the word "white", they cry "racist".

      It ain't liberal to call racism racist. When you use your own culture to claim moral superiority over cultures you have only petty knowledge of, don't expect a free pass from anyone with more knowledge than you. The alt-right's fetishization of incivility for incivility's sake doesn't exactly encourage anything more than a simple smack-down either.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by TheRaven on Monday August 29 2016, @09:47AM

      by TheRaven (270) on Monday August 29 2016, @09:47AM (#394567) Journal

      Liberal arrogance: if you don't agree with me, you are wrong.

      No, more 'we tried this for 400 years and it didn't work, why do you expect it will work better now?' Liberals are people who want to make new mistakes, conservatives are people who want to recreate old ones.

      European culture, with its roots running back to the Romans and ancient Greeks, is the foundation of western civilization.

      Ah, revisionist history too. You might want to have a look at how much the Persian Empire influenced both the Greeks and Romans. Rome couldn't have built its empire without technology from Persia.

      --
      sudo mod me up
      • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday August 29 2016, @11:09AM

        European culture, with its roots running back to the Romans and ancient Greeks, is the foundation of western civilization.

        Ah, revisionist history too. You might want to have a look at how much the Persian Empire influenced both the Greeks and Romans. Rome couldn't have built its empire without technology from Persia.

        And one mustn't forget that much of the knowledge of the ancient greeks and romans was lost during the dark and middle ages in Europe. That knowledge only came back to "Western" civilization through the Muslims, which sowed the seeds that would bring for the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.

        So, next time you see a Muslim, thank him or her for the fruits of Western Civilization.

        --
        No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
        • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday August 29 2016, @11:11AM

          Screwed up the quote tags above. That should read:

          European culture, with its roots running back to the Romans and ancient Greeks, is the foundation of western civilization.

          Ah, revisionist history too. You might want to have a look at how much the Persian Empire influenced both the Greeks and Romans. Rome couldn't have built its empire without technology from Persia.

          And one mustn't forget that much of the knowledge of the ancient Greeks and Romans was lost during the dark and middle ages in Europe. That knowledge only came back to "Western" civilization through the Muslims, which sowed the seeds that would bring for the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.

          So, next time you see a Muslim, thank him or her for the fruits of Western Civilization.

          --
          No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:03PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:03PM (#394741)

            That knowledge only came back to "Western" civilization through the Muslims, which sowed the seeds that would bring for the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.

            So, next time you see a Muslim, thank him or her for the fruits of Western Civilization.

            You assume that a civilizational benefit produced by Islamic countries was produced because of Islam rather than in spite of Islam. The wanton destruction of massive libraries by past conquering Muslims [wikipedia.org] supports the idea that societal fruits borne out of Islamic countries was done in spite of Islam: "If those books agree with the Koran, then we have no need of them. If they are opposed to the Koran, burn them."

            Ponder the ramifications about all the wonders that we could be enjoying today, but are not, because so much knowledge was intentionally destroyed by conquering Muslims.

        • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday August 30 2016, @06:40AM

          by Reziac (2489) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @06:40AM (#395168) Homepage

          And think how much further ahead Western civilization would be if the invading Muslims hadn't burned some 80% of the ancient libraries.

          --
          And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
          • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday August 30 2016, @04:01PM

            by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Tuesday August 30 2016, @04:01PM (#395313) Homepage Journal

            Cool story, bro. Except Western "Civilization" had already lost most of the knowledge of the ancient world and Christianity was persecuting anyone and destroying anything that conflicted with their dogma *before* Islam existed.

            --
            No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
            • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday August 30 2016, @04:19PM

              by Reziac (2489) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @04:19PM (#395321) Homepage

              Not really true; you're forgetting the eastern Roman empire.

              And the real cause of the dark ages was Islamic pirates on the Mediterranean, cutting off trade (Egypt was the breadbasket of Europe).

              --
              And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @09:51AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @09:51AM (#394568)

      Which pretty much proves the point that TFA is trying to make. Liberal arrogance: if you don't agree with me, you are wrong.

      Shut up, Bradley! Being correct and able to reason and know stuff does not make you arrogant! You are not wrong because you disagree with liberals, you are wrong because you are wrong. (And not seeing that suggests a certain lack of mental acuity.) And liberals are not wrong because you say they only say you are wrong! They are right because you are in fact wrong. Now about that increase in minimum wage . . . .

      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @12:59PM

        Increasing minimum wage? Minimum wage is for teenagers and people who don't want to care about or put any effort into their job. If your job demands more of you, you should not be making minimum wage. I have no problem with you demanding more pay if you are bringing more to the table. That's what unions are supposed to be for (though they mostly aren't nowadays) if you're unable to argue your own raise.

        Raising minimum wage though is absolutely one of the most foolish things you can do. It is effectively saying "I don't think very much of the job people making what I want to raise the minimum wage to are doing. I'd like to fiscally equate their performance to what a teenager can do with one day of training." as well as "You know, inflation hasn't fucked me in the ass nearly enough lately."

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by julian on Monday August 29 2016, @10:06PM

      by julian (6003) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @10:06PM (#394950)

      As soon as liberals see someone write the word "white", they cry "racist". That is not the case. People of other races and other cultures are free to take pride in their own cultures. The alt-right simply says that it should not be taboo for white Europeans to do the same.

      Well I'm a liberal, and if I see anyone displaying an overabundance of creepy pride in their race I'm going to call them a racist. Doesn't matter if they are white or black or Asian. Racial pride almost always turns into racial supremacy. It certainly has in the alt-right. They usually hide their beliefs in layers of irony and pseudo-intellectual pablum but it never takes more than a few questions to uncover.

      I will agree with you that Western civilization deserves and needs defending, but here's where we depart. You seem to attach race to the Western cultural identity. I think that's an error. Anyone can be a Westerner if they adopt Western values. A black African can come to the USA or Europe and fight for liberal secular democracy just as well as anyone else; and they often do. Here's another point where I diverge from modern liberalism: I recognize that many of these immigrants aren't interested in defending and building Western culture. They come here and are resentful, they want to destroy what we have.

      And here's the part that really makes me a bad liberal: the majority of these bad apples are coming from one particular tree--Islam. But I turn the tables yet again by saying Muslims or people of Muslim heritage can and do make just as good Westerners as any white Christian. Witness Maajid Nawaz or Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Either of them has done more for Western civilization than any alt-right mental defective racist. I'd rather my entire neighborhood be filled with people like them than Trump supporters who share my skin color. I have absolutely no use for racial pride or for people so bereft of real accomplishments they have to cling to the achievements of people long dead who shared their melanin concentration.

  • (Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Monday August 29 2016, @02:18PM

    by DutchUncle (5370) on Monday August 29 2016, @02:18PM (#394697)

    Liberals believe in diversity, and try to accept diverse people; conservatives, or at least some of the major thought-groups of conservatives, are less concerned with diversity. By the very nature of this difference, it can be difficult to include both positions in the same group, because the conservative position would tend to exclude some members of the group. As a very narrow specific example, with amusing shifts in nomenclature consider the "conservative" and "orthodox" branches of a major religion; the "conservatives" say, "We should convene a religious court to consider issues and modernize our practices", and the "orthodox " reply "Any court that would "modernize" anything is obviously not observant enough, so of course it is not qualified to make such decisions and we would simply ignore it".

  • (Score: 1) by Nightdreamer on Monday August 29 2016, @03:22PM

    by Nightdreamer (6285) on Monday August 29 2016, @03:22PM (#394757)

    Does that mean that I'm not sufficiently inclusive for the conservatives?
    .
    .
    .
    The point here is that faith and conservatism are part of a lifestyle, and a morally shady one at that. I don't give religious conservatism any respect for the same reason that I don't give respect to the views of Nazis and serial killers.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:05PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:05PM (#394815)

      Your first half was funny.

      But your conclusions do not follow. Conservatism has its place, its when it tries to impose its restrictions on others that it becomes a problem. I'd say that the proper term for that is fundamentalism - a rigid adherence to restrictive principles. Nazis were fundamentalists, racial fundamentalists. ISIS et al are (nominally) religious fundies as are the religious right in the USA.

      Someone less clever than they think will claim liberals are fundies too, but that argument is typically the logic of false equivalency. Like arguing the GPL isn't really Free because it restricts you from taking away other people's freedom.

  • (Score: 1) by VitalMoss on Monday August 29 2016, @07:24PM

    by VitalMoss (3789) on Monday August 29 2016, @07:24PM (#394884)

    The Summary makes valid points in regards to Liberal Exclusion, but it's hard to comment and critique these actions within a liberal space due to this arrogance.

    One huge issue is that it's not even a conscious action, but rather mob mentality gone wrong. We've normalized vigilante shaming and revenge pictures, and have chopped up the speaking podium and replaced it with airhorn. It's about being loud, not about being right.

    It's also hard to have a discussion about topics that most liberals are invested in, because there is generally at least some semblance of privilege in play. Whether it's color, gender, age, ethnicity... the liberal discussion group will invalidate any voice that isn't oppressed. It's scary to think that we are trying to start a cultural, political, and literal revolution with this kind of divisiveness within the movement's sects. It's a nightmare.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @10:59PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @10:59PM (#394974)

      The Summary makes valid points in regards to Liberal Exclusion, but it's hard to comment and critique these actions within a liberal space due to this arrogance.

      Oh, you poor dear! It must be so difficult for you to comment here, what with all the arrogance. I guess we should have posted a trigger warning on anything submitted by Runaway, to point out that tender conservatives may have their feefees hurt, or that they may suffer recurrence of PTSD incurred in college. Yes, I can see how it can be a nightmare to be so wrong about so much, and I can see how you might come to blame those you don't understand for the pain your own ignorance inflicts upon yourself.

      I can see one way only that you might escape your condition: become a liberal! It is not that hard! A bit of education, some self-awareness and social acumen are all that is required! And we will be glad to have you join us! But you will have to stop being an anti-science racist misogynist, however.

  • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday August 29 2016, @09:38PM

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Monday August 29 2016, @09:38PM (#394940) Journal

    And the flames are burning hot. Is over 200 comments a new record here?

    As to the subject, there are some who could get a simple problem wrong, and somehow convince themselves that they weren't wrong, or the problem didn't matter, or they were somehow cheated, perhaps mislead, maybe set up to fail, tricked. They are quick to abuse widely accepted authority to staunch the wound in their pride, claiming that some authoritative work agrees with them. The work is not necessarily a holy book but that's a popular choice of course. They don't see that creative interpretation and selective quoting can twist words to mean just about anything they want them to mean. In short, they blame anyone and anything other than themselves. Makes it mighty hard to learn from your mistakes, if you can't admit to ever making any.

    A fine example is a translation into English of the Quran which I skimmed. I really began to wonder how inaccurate the translation was, as there was a lot of crazy stuff in it. The translator trotted out this numerology idea as "proof" that the Quran was the Word of Allah. He observed that suspiciously many elements of the Quran occurred in multiples of 19. The word "Allah" appears in some multiple of 19 times, the number of verses is also a multiple of 19, and so on. To him, that could not have occurred by chance, nor could human writers have managed that, and therefore that was proof that the work was of divine origin. It's a crying shame he fell for such a simply disproved idea. If any element didn't work out to a multiple of 19, it is a simple matter to add more until it does. Including this one, "Allah" has so far appeared in this paragraph 3 times, so to make occurrences come out to a multiple of 19, all one has to do is write it 16 more times, like this: Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah. There. Was there no one who could tell him this? Or, didn't he listen whenever anyone tried?

    So it is with Global Warming. The social conservatives have painted themselves into a corner, again, having tied denial of Global Warming to acceptance of Christianity. To them, to accept Global Warming is to deny God. How did they make that link? There's this thinking that God is perfect (I suppose that follows from omniscience and omnipotence), and Earth is God's perfect, permanent, unchanging creation, and therefore Global Warming can't be real. They did it 5 centuries ago with the whole idea that the Earth is the Center of the Universe. The Church was particularly interested in funding astronomical studies, in the firm faith that what was observed would merely confirm the Truth as written down in the Bible. When that didn't happen, they did their utmost to shoot the messenger, Galileo.

    The social conservatives also make laughingstocks of themselves with the Creationism vs Evolution debate they've lost but from which they just can't yet move on.

    This idea that science is a religion is also wrong. I found it an interesting exercise to reason out why. Religions take things on faith. Maybe there is a God, or not. There's no way to prove it. Science takes nothing on faith. And that's the crucial difference. Consequently, many questions cannot be answered, and scientists accept that. Religion tries to provide answers to these unanswerable questions, tries to soothe the burning desire many have to know what it's all about.

    There is valid thinking in conservatism that has been almost completely drowned out by the noise from loudmouth idiots such as Rush Limbaugh. Until the Right cleans up their act and stops behaving like whiny brats who scream that the teacher is prejudiced and unfaaair for taking points off for wrong answers, that good thinking is going to stay buried. That is the real loss of diversity that is hurting us.