Lol, 39% of Trump voters think the stock market has gone down since Obama took office, and 67% think unemployment increased.

Sounds about right. Trump supporters don't do facts.

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(December 16, 2016 at 3:53 pm)Bella Morte Wrote: A random video on YouTube isn't evidence.

You didn't watch it, did you?

(December 16, 2016 at 9:31 pm)Faith No More Wrote: You didn't watch it, did you?

I did.

Could you link me to the results of the polls she is quoting her video?

(December 12, 2016 at 4:32 pm)Secular Elf Wrote: I view Conservatism and Conservatives as a threat to democracy and a properly run government.  It has a history of stopping and turning back reforms.  The Republican Party has shown that it really does not care for the middle and lower classes,  but only cares for the rich and the corporate elite.  Add Dominionism to the mix and you have a very poisonous cocktail indeed.

I am really frightened for the future of America and for my people.  Let me explain: by "my people" I mean all of the Nones and Secularists that make up part of the Left, the atheists, agnostics, and Freethinkers and all the un-churched.  For many years I have seen the Religious Right as dangerous, and especially when I found out how the Dominionists view those who are not exactly like them, and how they want to establish a fascist theocratic Christian state.  Levitical Law is quite clear: those who do not cow-tow to the deity are eliminated.  We are in  grave danger here in America.  And those of you around the other parts of the world are in danger too.  

So what I am getting at is that I do not think we who are Progressive in our politics and are skeptical of religion should be complacent or unprepared for what is coming down the road.  I think we need to be more aggressive in our response to Conservatism and Dominionism.  We should be doing all that we need to do to protect ourselves from a possible oppressive regime.

So far I have not seen any discussion about taking measures to protect ourselves within the Secularist community.  Thus I am kick starting it now.

What are everyone else's thoughts?

I suspect what will be done is a bunch of whining on the internet. If people had any balls:

(December 16, 2016 at 10:04 pm)Bella Morte Wrote: I did.

Could you link me to the results of the polls she is quoting her video?

You have to scroll down to the second one.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/polls/

Here's what happened when Obama took office in 2008: He had a Democrat House and Senate. He passed some things very unpopular with the right. The Republicans rallied and took 63 seats in the House, winning back the majority. They gained six seats in the Senate, closing the gap between them and the Democrat majority significantly. They've kept the House ever since. The Democrats kept the Senate in 2012, but in 2014, at least partly through unprecedented Super PAC spending (3.7 B total spending, a record), and with a record low turnout; the Republicans increased their majority in the House and took the Senate.

In a sense, the Obama presidency gave us the results of the recent election. The rise of the Tea Party, the rise of fake news, Democrat voter apathy, the rise of Trump...all at least in part a reaction to having Obama in the white house.

The Republicans are sitting pretty right now, but they've never been more vulnerable. Their model for winning is not sustainable in an America that grows more diverse every year, and with Trump, they're stuck with that model. They've set the stage for a Democrat backlash against Trump as intense as the Republican one against Obama. And frankly, I see a lot of Trump voters defecting after a year or two of seeing him in action.

If Democrats can't take back the Senate in 2018 under these conditions, they'll have no one but themselves to blame, it's theirs if they want it bad enough. All they have to do is freaking show up to vote. In 2020 they could be in a better position than they would have been if Clinton had won. There will be shit to clean up, but that's when Democrats win, when the crap has piled up so high the majority realizes they need someone else to clean it out.

The main thing Trump could do to win a 2nd Term is start a war; Americans are reluctant to shift commanders-in-chief in the middle of a war. That would leave a bigger mess to clean up in 2024, but would guarantee a Democrat majority. Not much of a bright side in the short term; but the Republicans will never be able to win the white house again the same way Trump got in. Trump was an act of desperation for a party that's no longer truly viable in its present form.

(December 12, 2016 at 4:32 pm)Secular Elf Wrote: I view Conservatism and Conservatives as a threat to democracy and a properly run government.  It has a history of stopping and turning back reforms.  The Republican Party has shown that it really does not care for the middle and lower classes,  but only cares for the rich and the corporate elite.  Add Dominionism to the mix and you have a very poisonous cocktail indeed.

I am really frightened for the future of America and for my people.  Let me explain: by "my people" I mean all of the Nones and Secularists that make up part of the Left, the atheists, agnostics, and Freethinkers and all the un-churched.  For many years I have seen the Religious Right as dangerous, and especially when I found out how the Dominionists view those who are not exactly like them, and how they want to establish a fascist theocratic Christian state.  Levitical Law is quite clear: those who do not cow-tow to the deity are eliminated.  We are in  grave danger here in America.  And those of you around the other parts of the world are in danger too.  

So what I am getting at is that I do not think we who are Progressive in our politics and are skeptical of religion should be complacent or unprepared for what is coming down the road.  I think we need to be more aggressive in our response to Conservatism and Dominionism.  We should be doing all that we need to do to protect ourselves from a possible oppressive regime.

So far I have not seen any discussion about taking measures to protect ourselves within the Secularist community.  Thus I am kick starting it now.

What are everyone else's thoughts?

I wonder if the fears of the progressive left are rationally justified or misinformed hysteria. I notice the left seems to make mountains out of mole hills, and really tend to get worked up in their own minds and project their fears on to the world around them. The left seems to be stuck in a dependency state which is the lowest on the maturity continum, where they blame their problems on others and live in an extended state of victim identity. Their fears manifest into their perceived reality.

Trump is really more of a businessman who hopes to rise the tide to raise all ships. It's an agenda to raise all living standards. On the left they like to cater to what's best for the various factions in the LGBTQ+ community, or what's best for black people, or what's best for women, or what's best for X Y Z. How about an agenda of what's best for everyone which will make people forget about their differences and move forward to the point that social justice issues don't need to be addressed because economic security will be addressed on the whole curing many ills that the social justice warriors focus on. It's one of the reasons I left the DNC many years back. It was too fragmented and seemed out of date.

I'm optimistic about what Trump will do. I'm more of a classical liberal, but find often conservatives have better arguments and are not as emotional as progressive leftists who try to shut down dialog by name calling. They kind of did this to themselves because as the rest of us grew up the left seemed to try and one up their peers to score social points by being more and more offended to prove and validate their perceived moral superiority when in the end they ended up looking like crazy people who demanded others validate their deranged belief system.

(December 15, 2016 at 2:53 pm)Loading Please Wait Wrote:

(December 15, 2016 at 8:57 am)Bella Morte Wrote: Would you still moan if the election didn't go the way you wanted it to?

Why should they leave?

No I wouldn't moan and cry, I'd accept that Hilary won, and just vote in 4 years to get rid of her and move on with my life!

I'm giving my opinion that if you hate the way this country has turned out, or hate who is in charge, then leave! No point in wasting American resources on these pricks. Of course This is America we're taking about, so you have every right to be a little bitch. Just be expected to be treated like one.

You should take that immature and ignorant attitude and shove it back up your ass from whence it came.
Your position is antithetical to the principles on which the country was founded.

(December 15, 2016 at 6:25 pm)Faith No More Wrote:

(December 15, 2016 at 2:53 pm)Loading Please Wait Wrote: I'm giving my opinion that if you hate the way this country has turned out, or hate who is in charge, then leave! No point in wasting American resources on these pricks. Of course This is America we're taking about, so you have every right to be a little bitch. Just be expected to be treated like one.

I love it when conservatives say this.  If only they put their money where their mouth was, none of them would still be here after the whine-fest of the last eight years.

"Wah!  Obama is a secret Muslim, commie socialist that is ruining our country and making us look weak!  Wah!"

<Fast Foward to 2016>

"If you don't like Trump, you can just leave!  America doesn't need you whiners!"

Good point Faith No More. I am reminded of what I read recently in the Top 10 Conservative Myths http://www.conservativemyths.com/10myths.html , regarding the fact that the old Conservatives in the American Colonies, the Tories, fled back to Britain, Canada and to Jamaica after the Revolutionary War. A move which many modern Conservatives castigate Liberals for saying or doing. I find that quite hypocritical of them.

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(December 15, 2016 at 7:41 pm)Tonus Wrote: Does anyone think there could be a circumstance under which Trump is impeached shortly into his term?  Normally that would be all but impossible with a GOP majority, but impeaching Trump would leave them with President Pence and whoever becomes the VP, which will presumably be a GOP stalwart.  Would President Pence be more palatable to the GOP rank-and-file?  He's a card-carrying creationist, so I'm assuming he'd have the full support of the religious right.  Is that better than four years of Trump, or just another step into the abyss?

Just spitballin' here.

It would be acceptable to the Conservatives, especially their Dominionists. Neither one are acceptable to me, though.

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(December 16, 2016 at 1:05 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: I was at a company party last night. Half the people there freely predicted the apocalypse and impending fascism. The rest of us kept our mouths shut. It was an election. One party won, the other party lost. That's it.

Will there be policy changes? Of course. Some will be good, some bad. Then we'll have another election. It's not the end of the world.

Tell that to the Jews, gays, Ukrainians, intellectuals, and political enemies who survived Nazi Germany and WWII.

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(December 16, 2016 at 1:21 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: I think it would be good to remember that we elected a president, not a king. I'm not saying this to be insensitive to those who are still very upset, just trying to offer some perspective.

Hitler was elected by the German People, a small margin mind you, but he was fairly elected. We all know, or should know at least, how that turned out.

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(December 16, 2016 at 1:42 pm)Aroura Wrote: We didn't ele the a president, we elected a man child. It could end up being just mildly bad, or disastrous. I cannot pretend to see the future, but considering what we've already seen, including his dismissal of fact and embracing of conspiracy, and how he's appearing to appoint people that are against the departments they are heading, I don't think it's an overreaction to at least assume the worst is a possibility.

To act like he's just another president like any other is crazy. He's not. You can't normalize it just by saying it.

Exactly. I have every reason to expect the worse. I have every reason to be scared. History is a good guide. People with power who have no good sense or sense of proper responsibility to the electorate or the common people usually engage in activities and policies that cause great harm. Especially when it is based on unfounded claims to truth. But facts do not matter to Conservatives and the Republicans.

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(December 16, 2016 at 2:06 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote:

(December 16, 2016 at 1:21 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote: Trump has positioned the worst people to do every single job....a creationist among his top picks.

How would someone's views about creation affect his or her ability to balance a check book?

1. Creationists don't give a shit about the facts of science.
2. Figures don't lie but liars figure.

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(December 16, 2016 at 2:33 pm)Asmodee Wrote: There are two ways things seem to be going right now.  If it goes one way, nothing needs to be done.  If it goes the other way, we need to completely take over education to take politics and religion out of it.

The first way things seem to be going is the Republican party is self-destructing.  The lunatics in the party that the Republicans have courted over the years are gaining such a presence that they're starting to take over.  They demand that Republicans be conservative to the extreme on every issue or they WILL go after them and cost them their seat.  This fundamentalist approach seriously hurts electability in all but the dumbest and most southern states.  If this continues, leave them alone and they'll kill themselves.

The other way things seem to be going is that the American public is getting dumber and dumber, choosing to believe exciting fake news over more mundane real news.  Democrats want everyone to have access to health care?  That's nice.  It's boring, but it's nice.  Wait a minute!  The Affordable Care Act mandates that we all get bar code tattoos and chips implanted in our hands!!??  Death panels!!??  Fucking Obama!!!!  Now that's exciting!  If this trend continues we have a serious problem because this trend rewards the one who tells the biggest lie, which is ALWAYS the right.  Fact-checking is a thing of the past.  You see a story on Facebook that's just unbelievable and you just believe it, get outraged and get rid of those damned Democrats so they don't come 'n' git yer guns!  it is SO EASY to control people with outrage.  Want to sell more guns?  Tell everyone that the new international treaty we're about to sign is going to allow foreign governments to outlaw guns in America.  American's won't read the damned thing!  They'll never know!  And if someone on the left does read the damned thing and point out that this is a lie, well, their facts and figures are no match for wild, unfounded hysteria.

This is a serious problem which I don't think will end on its own.  Something DEFINITELY needs to be done about this.  As the last presidential election showed us, nobody gives a shit about the truth any more.  They don't care if you ACTUALLY lie.  All they care about is the lies you are ACCUSED of and how much that accusation enrages them.  It doesn't matter if it's not true.  Case in point, Pizzagate was a thing and, in fact, is still a thing.  The Birther movement isn't entirely dead.  I once had a 40 minute conversation with a lady about Obama's birth certificate.  The first 20 minutes were dedicated to trying to convince me that the font on it proved it was a forged birth certificate.  When that failed the next 20 minutes were dedicated to trying to convince me that it was a document Hawaii issued for children born in other countries.  Think about that for a bit.  Just mull it over.  The most glaring problem which smacks you right in the face is that it is very unlikely that all births in foreign countries are registered in Hawaii.  But that is actually MORE believable than something else about that.  For the first 20 minutes, it was a birth certificate.  For then next, it was not.  For the first 20 minutes it was a forgery.  For the next, it was not.  This woman believed SIMULTANEOUSLY that this was a FAKE document which WAS a birth certificate, proving Obama was born in Kenya, AND a REAL document which WAS NOT a birth certificate, proving Obama was born in Kenya.  How can it be both real and fake?  How can it be both a birth certificate and not a birth certificate?

Truth doesn't matter.  Only the sensational matters.  I had another friend tell me EXACTLY where I could find the part in the ACA where we had to all get chipped.  While he was talking I brought up the bill on my phone.  I told him, "I have the bill right here.  It's not there.  That section is talking about..."  I don't remember what, but it was unrelated.  HE JUST KEPT TALKING!  He ignored me altogether and just pretended I hadn't JUST proved him wrong.  (He was talking to the room, not just me).

I have no idea what can be done about this.  What can you do about people CHOOSING to be stupid?  Because that is exactly what is happening.  People are choosing to ignore reality and believe the sensational, even impossible story.  Hillary personally lead the attack on Benghazi.  Her and Bill killed, what, 46 people?  Obama is a Muslim who wants to give America to Saudi Arabia.  Hillary is criminal for using her own email server and it is EXACTLY THE SAME as when some military guy, knowing full well it was a security breach, took photos of classified technology and allowed others access to those photos, which he was never cleared to have in the first place.  A mistake from ignorance is EXACTLY THE SAME as knowingly violating security protocol, proving a double standard because he got charged and she didn't.

I think the only thing that could possibly be done about it is if the targets of these fake news articles and sites start suing the people behind them.  Take the money out of fake news, because right now it is VERY profitable.  People want to be lied to.  People want the fantastical to be real.  How the hell do you combat ignorance when it's a choice?

Yes, sue people behind fake news and hold them accountable. We are going to have to do more than just that though. When people become so willing to believe a lie over a fact that facts do not matter to them anymore, you are going to have to do something that gets their attention and snap then out of it. And when they refuse to snap out of it then you will have to do something more drastic. They then become too dangerous for the survival of a society to continue to have around.

I suggest that what we need is for Progressives and Secular people to wake up, take these threats very seriously, and join together to form an anti-Conservative movement. It should be a movement with attitude and teeth, and have more power and influence than the enemy. Conservatism is that enemy. It has become a threat to everyone, it is dangerous, and it needs to be put down. I have ideas for the formation of this movement. But it will never take off unless people are willing to do the work that is necessary to make it possible.

What we need now more than ever in the Progressive-Secular community is a discussion about exactly this. But we should not take too long. Time is ticking and the Inauguration is around the corner.

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(December 16, 2016 at 3:05 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote:

(December 16, 2016 at 2:51 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote: But Pence is more than a book balancer, he may become the president when Trump rage quits or is impeached, and he believes an easily disproved nonsense. Would you want the president to believe that there is a fairy that lives in his butt and offers advice, because that is the level of delusion you need to be a creationist these days. There is no controversy creationism is wrong.

I think you're missing the point. Otherwise competent people can function at high levels even if they believe some really dumb things. For all I know, Obama thinks the pyramids were built by ancient aliens. He still would have passed the ACA.

Well it is quite clear that Ben Carson believes that the Pyramids of Giza were built to be granaries. Oh, wait, I was just told by an archaeologist who saw the tomb carvings and read the hieroglyphs that the Egyptians built them as tombs for their pharaohs. Oh, right, that fact does not mean shit to him.

(December 16, 2016 at 10:14 pm)CapnAwesome Wrote:

(December 12, 2016 at 4:32 pm)Secular Elf Wrote: I view Conservatism and Conservatives as a threat to democracy and a properly run government.  It has a history of stopping and turning back reforms.  The Republican Party has shown that it really does not care for the middle and lower classes,  but only cares for the rich and the corporate elite.  Add Dominionism to the mix and you have a very poisonous cocktail indeed.

I am really frightened for the future of America and for my people.  Let me explain: by "my people" I mean all of the Nones and Secularists that make up part of the Left, the atheists, agnostics, and Freethinkers and all the un-churched.  For many years I have seen the Religious Right as dangerous, and especially when I found out how the Dominionists view those who are not exactly like them, and how they want to establish a fascist theocratic Christian state.  Levitical Law is quite clear: those who do not cow-tow to the deity are eliminated.  We are in  grave danger here in America.  And those of you around the other parts of the world are in danger too.  

So what I am getting at is that I do not think we who are Progressive in our politics and are skeptical of religion should be complacent or unprepared for what is coming down the road.  I think we need to be more aggressive in our response to Conservatism and Dominionism.  We should be doing all that we need to do to protect ourselves from a possible oppressive regime.

So far I have not seen any discussion about taking measures to protect ourselves within the Secularist community.  Thus I am kick starting it now.

What are everyone else's thoughts?

I suspect what will be done is a bunch of whining on the internet. If people had any balls:

I remember those riots, seeing that on the news and recognizing how horrible that was will always be with me.

Here is the thing though: what we have been seeing here in America over the years with the racial tensions and tensions with police is just a symptom of what is deeply wrong with our society: a basic distrust of one another based on class and racial divides, among other things. The solution is more dialogue between the disparate groups. A willingness to see one another as human beings. Until that happens, things will continue to go wrong.

And here is the kicker: Conservatism exacerbates the problem 10-fold. Wrong-headed ideology, wrong-headed attitudes, wrong-headed policies just makes things worse.

On top of that: 1/3rd of "Americans" want the democratic Republic to be replaced with a theocracy. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/fred-rich/...61262.html

Which brings me to my main point: We, the Secular and Progressive people of America are going to, better have, prepare for the worst. Because you can never have peace nor unity with a segment of a population that wishes you great harm. I propose the formation of our own army, our own militias, controlled by a national movement and a governing body of that movement of our peers. Have we never learned anything by the holocausts of Germany, Cambodia, or Yugoslavia. Never say that it can't happen in America. We have our own forms of tribalism here, and you know what folks? Things will get worse before they get any better, if they get better at all.

Anyone can call me pessimistic, or kooky, or a scaremonger if they want. But I call myself just wanting the best for my people, I am trying to get my fellow Progressives and Seculars to understand that we better look at what is going on. We are going to have to protect ourselves.

Surely I am not the only one who sees this and thinks and feels this way.

(December 28, 2016 at 2:56 pm)Secular Elf Wrote: Hitler was elected by the German People, a small margin mind you, but he was fairly elected.  We all know, or should know at least, how that turned out.

Hitler wasn't elected. He needed the conservatives to form a coalition. And the conservatives were eager to help. Under the false assumption that they could reign him in.

It's always wrong not to take a populist at their word and to think they could be tamed.