Republicans believe in demonic possession!

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2012

Salon believes in scams: File this under the general heading, “What we’ve been talking about.”

Salon has reprinted a smokin’ hot piece from Alternet (author, Laura Gottesdiener). Salon treats itself to a smokin’ hot headline—and reveals a taste for scams:
GOTTESDIENER (11/2/12): Poll: Most Republicans believe in demonic possession

Less than one week away from the election, a terrifying new poll reveals that more than two-thirds of registered Republican voters believe that people can be possessed by demons.

A staggering 68 percent of registered Republican voters stated that they believe demonic possession is real. Meanwhile, only 48 percent of self-identified Republicans believe in another equally if not more scary natural phenomenon: climate change.

The poll was conducted by Public Policy Polling, touted by NPR as “one of the most prolific polling outfits in the country.”
Salon readers are supposed to be shocked, just shocked, to learn that 68 percent of Republicans believe demonic possession in real. Also terrified!

And staggered! Ohourgod!

Heroically, Gottesdiener resists the temptation to include a related fact: 49 percent of Democrats said the same thing in that PPP poll! Eight percent more were “not sure.” (According to PPP, only 43 percent of Dems said they don't believe in possession.)

Because we’re willing to link you to the poll, you can check this out for yourself. Salon withheld the link, as did Alternet in the original posting.

Hey, rubes! Increasingly, sites like Salon like to treat you like fools! You shouldn't take it personally, though. It's part of the business model!

Might we note a trend? Gottesdiener and the bulbs at Salon think this is good solid fun. Sadly, this is a common game among us self-impressed pseudo-liberals.

In this instance, we liberals express amazement at all those terrifying Republicans who believe this crazy thing. Here’s our question for the precious Gottesdiener and for the bulbs at Salon:

How many blacks and Hispanics believe in demonic possession? Thanks for asking! Those data are available from the PPP survey too!

In this survey, 66 percent of Hispanics said they believe in demonic possession. So did 65 percent of blacks. Those numbers are virtually identical to the number for Republicans, the number Salon finds so comical.

Question:

Using the standard logic of sites like Salon, shouldn’t we say that Gottesdiener is a terrible racist, since she's aggressively mocking a belief held by so many blacks and Hispanics? Isn’t that the approach the bulbs at Salon have increasingly taught us to take?

It happens quite routinely: White liberals mock Republicans for some cultural belief. We seem to think that no one holds these views except a bunch of southern white crackers. We laugh and laugh and roll our eyes—and we show how clueless we are.

Once again, this is the link Salon withheld. Our view?

As we increasingly emerge from our nap in the woods, our exceedingly pitiful, low-IQ tribe is increasingly clueless and vile. Our dumbness is a national security problem—a problem for the whole world.

One more link: To see Gottesdiener's piece at Alternet, just click here. Over there, the headline referred to a "Shocking Poll."

26 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Jesus used what we now call Rational Therapy to cure "cognitive dissidence" (sic) because science wasn't invented in the 18th century. Don't believe me? Look up the first book of Kings, where Ahab and Elijah set up one of the first controlled experiments in history. Nothing new under the Sun, I'm afraid.

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    1. Gee,
      And all this time I thought Albert Ellis invented Cognitive Therapy, (which he originally called Rational-Emotive Therapy)

      BTW. the story of David in Kings I is covered in exquisite and hilarious detail in Joseph Heller's novel GOD KNOWS.

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    2. I'm not talking about CBT or David.

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    3. Rational Therapy was developed before Ellis, by a foul mouthed door-to-door salesman. He published a book in the 70's where he detailed that part of his life and his approach to it. It was called Rational Therapy, not Cognitive Therapy, not Rational Emotional Therapy. Sorry the good folks on Wikipedia misled you. It's probably just embarrassing enough that Ellis developed his ideas hitting on women that it's downright disgraceful to say the your Therapy-Christ's ideas came out of market culture (just like Paul come to think of it).

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  3. It's tough for a liberal to be impassioned today, because liberals have won so much of what they stood for. The governemnt is firmly in control of medical care, thanks to Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, VA Hospitals, and ObamaCare, not to mention the health care regulatory agencies. Social Security, welfare, and pension guarantees see to it that pretty much all Americans get adquate income. Anti-discrimination laws make it illegal to discriminate based on race, gender, etc. And, federal and state agencies actively enforce the anti-discrimination laws. Abortion is legal, thanks to the Supreme Court. The federal government supports elementary education and exercises considerable control over it. And, innuerable regulators control enormous amounts of what we do.

    Not only have liberals accomplished most of what they wanted, our trillion dollar plus deficits mean that we can't afford to add to what the government does.

    So, what can liberals do to maintain their passion? One possibility is to convince people that these programs are in danger of being taken away. Here's an extreme example. My wife is another example. She'll vote Democratic no matter what, in fear that Roe v. Wade might be overturned.

    Another way is to pretend that conservatives are evil, moronic, ignorant, etc. I.e., that conservatives are lower quality human beings than liberals. So, it's not surprising that Salon ran an article unfairly smearing conservatives. Liberals need this kind of smear in order to stay committed to their cause and to their candidates.

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    1. Agreed. The top passions for Democrats this entire campaign were abortion (settled) and a couple of stupid yet inconsequential comments about rape.

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    2. "Repeal and Replace."

      Nothing to see here. We're in firm control of health care. Move along.

      Delete
    3. D in C. Wisdom is a rare commodity among all types, liberal or conservative. I think liberals or the left lost a lot of steam after winning, more or less, the Civil Rights fight and after the end of the Vietnam War (and the end of the draft, which results in present wars being fought by a voluntary army). However, my take is that the conservative right in their blogs largely come across as passionate lunatics.Fox News, Limbaugh, Hannity, etc are a cruel joke.

      The conservatives also have a problem as illustrated by your post. There is a legitimate issue about the size of the deficit, though the right never seems to want to acknowledge that after 8 years of Clinton (who was rabidly and relentlessly attacked by the right) we had a surplus; but after 8 years of Bush with his stupid war, tax cuts, etc left us in economic shambles. The right wants to cut all this spending but refuses to say what spending it will cut or to describe the consequesnces of doing so. E.g., Romney says in 2011 he would turn FEMA responsibilities to the states, but now has to back off on that. Presumably all these cuts would cost millions of jobs, would cut all sorts of important services, and would harm the disabled and the poor, amng other things. Yet, under absolutely no circumstances can taxes be raised even on the wealthy.

      AC /MA

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    4. AC /MA -- I don't fully agree that the right hasn't said where they'd cut. E.g., Ryan and Romney have two different plans to reduce the cost of Medicare. Still, I agree that we haven't seen a plan that will balance the budget and bring down the deficit.

      It's too bad that Romney hasn't laid out all the steps he'd take to balance the budget. But, Obama and Dems have shown that they no intention of even trying to balance the federal budget. Their only proposal is to raise taxes on the rich. That will bring in some extra revenue, but not nearly enough.

      Europe is now suffering, because of the long-term effect of high government spending. Their unemployment level is at a record high of 11.6%. Under Obama and the Dems, the US followed the European model just when we were seeing that the European model isn't sustainable long-term.

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    5. DinC
      Yes, a lot of liberals went to sleep after the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam.

      But the attacks by neo-cons, funded by billionaires, and the clamor raised by their clacqueurs in the Tea Party woke us up.

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    6. D in C, someone , I think Marx, called economics the "dismal science." which I tend to agree with exept with the part that it is a science.I don't know what the solution is, or if there is a solution, or what will happen. That said, it seems that Romney, who you seem to adore for no rational reason, and Ryan will increase the deficit more than Obama. Romney claims he will cut tax rates for everyone, will balance it by eliinating deductions and loopholes which he won't specify, and wants to increase defense spending. The right doesn't really care about deficits - they want to eliminate government and cut taxes, undo the New Deal.

      The major cause of the debt problem is the exorbitant and uncontrollable cost of health care (plus exorbitant military and national "securtity expenditures). We spend twice as much per capita as everyone else on health care. Instead of figuring out how everyone else does it, the Right lyingly belittles the other systems and stupidly thinks competition is the answer. When Romney was on his European tour, and the big issue (!?) was his gaffe about about the Olympics, Romney in Israel praised their european style government regulated health care system for being so cost efficient, and no one paid much attention.

      Not only will they increase the deficit, they will transfer wealth from the poor to the most wealthy. As I observed, you guys never want to address the consequences of what you advocate, as you don't do in your response.Also, I don't think the European economic problem is due to their social programs, otherwise why wouldn't Germany be messed up; it's compicated but I believe there are other causes, e.g. real estate bubble, people not paying taxes.

      AC/MA

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    7. David in CA, in a successful attempt to show *just* how stupid and economically incompetent he is says: "Europe is now suffering, because of the long-term effect of high government spending."

      As a summary of what brought the Euro and several European nations into protracted crisis, that could not be more wrong.

      Getting into an argument based on such a flawed premise guarantees no insights will be made.

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    8. So no one in your family went to school on the GI Bill, used Medicare, or Social Security. And then there's the library, roads, bridges, fire departments. All evil socialism.

      The thing is, true conservatives have been lost in the Far Right's shrill. Rove and his College Republican boy's club (Norquist, Abramoff, Reed) replaced the logic with their winner-take-all body-bag jive. No discourse allowed in the national narrative, no creative give and take, no learning. Just marketing, shape-shifting anger posing as morality.

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  4. A new Washington Post editorial sheds light on why the administration focused so strenuously on the "spontaneous" and "hijacked" nature of the attack, and the video.

    Fox News reported this week that a secret cable described an Aug. 15 “emergency meeting” at the consulate, at which the State Department’s regional security officer “expressed concerns with the ability to defend Post in the event of a coordinated attack due to limited manpower, security measures, weapons capabilities, host nation support and the overall size of the compound.”

    Fox reported that the cable, dispatched to Washington, said the emergency meeting included a briefing about al-Qaeda training camps in the Benghazi area and Islamist militias, including those that allegedly carried out the Sept. 11 attack.

    In another cable on Sept. 11, hours before the attack, Mr. Stevens described “growing problems with security” in Benghazi and “growing frustration” with the local militias and police, to which the State Department had entrusted the consulate’s defense.

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  5. Fox News reported....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

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    1. A reflexive dismissal of a confirmed report based on its original source is typical of liberal tribal ignorance.

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    2. I'll bite, what did the Post editorial say? Who sent the "secret cable on Aug 15?" Who in the"white house" received it? How many cables were sent in the past year by this consulate, on this or any other subject? Is there any possiblility that right wing "tribal ignorance' is at work trying to twist, distort and extract every scrap to fit a pre-determined conclusion? What is what you say supposed to prove? And are you saying that when Bush was president, or if Romney becomes president,something better did or will happen?

      AC/MA

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  6. It's dat old debil Obama, scaring the lilywhite Fox demographic again! It's a short trip from Hell to Benghazi as this subject changing thread hilariously demonstates! Ahem, if we may return to the real subject Bob sort of raises and then trys so hard to weasal away from:Is an evagelical christian more likely to believe in demonic possession than anyone else, and over which party do these creationist's hold sway? Is there a marginally honest person who could answer "I have no idea?"
    Is it because Bob's own approach to life is so obviously faith based ( Judgement is mine, sayeth Bob's lord, is the real ironclad mission of this blog) that he is so relentlessly touchy about matters of Politics and Faith? Even when, in this matter, his point of view is wildly observed as pundit law, and we will never have the chance to hear how much of Mitt's world view comes straight from the Planet Kolob? Might we not profit from hearing men like Bush and Obama explain how the teaching of Christ fit in to their trigger happy appoach to foreign affairs? I think we really might be better off if Bob could lose this tiresome oversensitvity. Maybe would could get Bobby Jinell to perform an exorisim.

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    1. Shorter Greg:

      Please don't talk about what bullshit this poll is, and how some "liberals" are bullshitting with it -- Instead discuss "faith and politics" as *I* want you to.

      Get your own blog, whiny loser.

      Delete
    2. Shorter Ordinary Reader:

      America, love it or leave it.

      Delete
  7. As I effortlessly show, the point of the poll and the article are quite valid. You don't even make ordinary, chump.

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