THE WAGES OF AVOIDANCE: "Plastics," the man in the The Graduate said!

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2022

We offer some other key terms: Long ago and extremely far away, Mr. McGuire had one word for 20-year-old Benjamin Braddock.

Benjamin seemed to be clinically depressed, or something possibly like it. Mr. McGuire was a friend of Benjamin's parents.

At an unexplained early age, Benjamin had just graduated from Yale, where he had improbably starred on the track team. His exchange with Mr. McGuire went exactly like this:

Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word.

Benjamin: Yes, sir.

Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?

Benjamin: Yes, I am.

Mr. McGuire: Plastics.

Benjamin: Exactly how do you mean?

To his credit, Benjamin asked an extremely good question! (People should ask it much more often.) That said, the answer he got went like this:

Mr. McGuire: There’s a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?

"Will you think about it?" Mr. McGuire thoughtfully said. The exchange was captured by documentarians in the well-known 1967 award-winning film, The Graduate.

Today, we want to say one word to the world, especially to the world of journalism and analysis. Rather, we want to mention one term.

(Serious/severe) mental illness.

Why do we want to mention that term? Consider our journalistic surroundings on this day in the life:

The featured front-page report in this morning's New York Times appears beneath this headline:

‘We Told the Truth’: Sandy Hook Families Win $1 Billion From Alex Jones

We aren't medical specialists, but it seems likely to us that Alex Jones is some form of (severely) mentally ill. 

Similar thoughts pop into our heads when we hear about the grotesque behavior of many of Jones's (many) listeners, who have harassed, hounded and physically threatened the parents of the children who died at Sandy Hook.

Next, we turn to the Kevin Drum post which appears beneath this headline:

Do MAGA Republicans live in a state of constant fear?

Drum offers the text of remarks by Mike Huckabee on last night's Hannity show. The former governor was explaining why current polling may not capture the extent of next month's Republican vote. 

Huckabee claimed to describe the mental lives of many red tribe voters, The transcript goes like this:

HUCKABEE (10/12/22): Right now, if you’re pro-life, if you’re Christian, if you’re a conservative, if you are a MAGA Republican, which means you just think that America’s a great country and we ought to preserve it and protect it and pass it on that way—

If you’re one of those people, you’re kind of thinking that any given day the FBI may show up, bang your door down and haul you in. If not, they may put you on a list, call you a domestic terrorist, a threat to democracy. So, conservatives simply don’t answer polls. So, I think we’re seeing something that really can’t be factored in.

Are the types of people Huckabee lists really "kind of thinking" that, on any given day, the FBI may show up where they live, bang their door down, and proceed to haul them in?

We have no way of answering the question about what such people currently "kind of think." That said, presentations like that have become rather common in forums like the Hannity show. 

On its face, the presentation seems to be crazy. But such statements are routinely treated as perfectly sensible by people like Huckabee and Hannity, and even by a relatively mainstream figure like Iowa's Senator Grassley.

This follows years of apparently crazy belief, including belief in Pizzagate and in QAnon. Large percentages of people, including many Democrats, have expressed belief in these lunatic theories. 

We aren't medical specialists, but it seems to us that belief in such lunacies raises clear questions of (something like) mental health and mental illness, or perhaps concerning basic cognitive functioning.

We turn next to Donald J. Trump, and to his relentlessly strange behavior. His niece, a trained clinical psychology, made it clear, in a best-selling book, that she regards him as an apparent "sociopath." 

(She explicitly diagnosed Trump's father that way.)

Though their antisocial behavior must be stopped, we've long recommended pity for people who are so afflicted. That said, Donald J. Trump was the last American president—and he may be the next president too.

We aren't medical specialists, but it has seemed to us, again and again, that Trump may be some form of (severely) mentally ill. Also, how often have you watched Tucker Carlson's deeply peculiar program?

It seems to us that issues of (severe) mental illness are all around us in the daily news environment. It's also true that American journalists go out of their way, to an almost heroic degree, to avoid any such observation, to disappear such apparent phenomena.

Our journalistic elites have agreed that this branch of twentieth century science must play no role in our news analyses, in our public discourse. This leaves us naked and afraid, creating news discussions which are strikingly unintelligent.

How unintelligent do these discussions get? Consider what happened at the very start of today's Morning Joe. 

George Conway is a NeverTrump conservative attorney. (As one of the so-called "Elves," he spent the bulk of the 1990s working in secret with Ann Coulter, chasing Bill Clinton around.) 

In this morning's opening segment, Conway said that Trump's behavior in the case of the apparently purloined classified documents as "the shortest distance between Donald Trump and an orange jump suit, because it is so simple." 

He stressed the total lack of complexity in this particular matter. That may be true in the legal arena. BUt is it true anywhere else?

Moments later, Conway described Trump in psychiatric terms as a sociopath and a narcissist. Does severe mental illness introduce a degree of complexity into the way we regard public figures? Not within a mainstream press corps in which such statements simply represent a way of heightening the extent of moral condemnation.

For the past 2500 years, our culture has turned on this idea: "Man [sic] is the rational animal." 

Today, our news environment is dripping with examples of apparent disorders in mental health and / or cognitive function. But our highest-ranking journalists refuse to introduce such concepts into the public discourse.

The red tribe is deeply sunk in apparently crazy belief. We aren't allowed to hear (carefully selected) mental health professionals discuss this apparently peculiar state of affairs.

Our own blue tribe shows extremely poor discernment in the way we pursue this matter. Other shortfalls may appear.

We thought of the strangeness of our own tribe as we watched Rachel Maddow this past Monday night. Our Own Rhodes Scholar has a new, ballyhooed podcast, in which she discusses an important historical and anthropological topic.

The first two episodes were released at the start of the week. Tomorrow, we'll discuss the peculiar way the ballyhooed podcast starts.

Mr. McGuire had only one word for the struggling Benjamin Braddock. We have a series of words and terms which we'd offer our own failing world.

"(Severe) mental illness" would be one such term. This would be another such term:

"Simple basic discernment."

Will you think about it? Mr. McGuire thoughtfully asked. At times of tribal war, the typical answer is rather clear. 

At tunes like these, the answer is clear. Here's how the answer goes:

No.

Tomorrow: Does our own tribe lack discernment?


50 comments:


  1. tl;dr,
    but yeah, dear Bob, anyone who doesn't think like brain-dead liberals is mentally ill, live in a state of constant fear, and so on.

    Of course they are and they do; that's the only possibility. Obviously. If there weren't mentally ill, why wouldn't they immediately become brain-dead liberals?

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    1. Mao is a gay man, so while he is obviously an imbecile, he is unlikely to be fat.

      Delete
  2. 1. Somerby is not qualified to diagnose mental illness in anyone, much less a movie character.
    2. There was no suggestion in the film that Benjamin was mentally ill, nor that he was depressed.
    3. He did not graduate at an improbably young age but at the normal age of about 21. Dustin Hoffman was 28 at the time he made the film.
    4. Benjamin is experiencing the letdown that sometimes occurs after accomplishing a major goal. He doesn't know what to do next in his life. The same might be said of Mrs Robinson, who also finds her empty nest pursuits meaningless.
    5. Mr. McGuire is trying to suggest a career direction, and that is obvious to everyone watching the film. It is not crazy. Benjamin has no interest in plastics and the suggestion is that his parents' lifestyle is "plastic," a counter-culture term for middle class shallowness and the emptiness of pursuing the dollar in order to buy a big house.
    6. Benjamin finds purpose by pursuing Elaine, a meaningful relationship, although he discovers that he knows nothing about her and still has no idea what to do with his life, except he has someone to explore the next steps with, which is why he smiles at the end.

    This is a good movie and I am resistant to Somerby warping it to fit his own agenda, which is to excuse Republican wrongdoing by labeling people mentally ill when they have actually made poor choices. Believing weird stuff doesn't make someone mentally ill.

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    1. “….except he has someone to explore the next steps with, which is why he smiles at the end.”

      Are you sure that smile isn’t about Elaine’s mama?

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    2. I’m fond of the movie too. If you notice, both he and Elaine are smiling initially as they ride the bus away from the church. But their smiles give way to looks of uncertainty. My interpretation is that the initial euphoria of having rebelled against the system has given way to a more sober concern about the future, as Simon and Garfunkel’s “Sounds of Silence” plays. In other words, what’s next?

      Delete
    3. Yes, because he told her explicitly that he couldn't keep having sex with her after he met Elaine.

      Delete
  3. Somerby quotes Huckabee:

    "HUCKABEE (10/12/22): Right now, if you’re pro-life, if you’re Christian, if you’re a conservative, if you are a MAGA Republican, which means you just think that America’s a great country and we ought to preserve it and protect it and pass it on that way—"

    This last sentence about what it means to be a MAGA Republican is what gives away that Huckabee is not speaking in good faith. That is NOT what a MAGA Republican is. Anything Huckabee says after that is suspect. Nor is there any evidence that Democrats don't refuse to participate in surveys. Elsewhere yesterday (not going to track it down) a news report said that all survey takers were having trouble finding anyone who would take a telephone survey. So few people were willing to respond that the ability to do phone surveys was threatened by the inability to collect data. And that has nothing to do with fear of the FBI.

    Huckabee is trying to make sure Republicans go vote, as are Democrats. He wants to prevent Republicans from feeling discouraged and staying home. There is no doubt paranoia on the right about government intrusion, because that is where such beliefs live, but not enough to justify a claim of a hidden red wave that will save MAGA candidates. More likely, pollsters are undercounting women in both parties who are concerned about Roe v Wade, ticket-splitting because so many MAGA candidates are obviously underqualified, and a swing toward Democrats. But Huckabee is a Republican and his job is not to tell the truth but to get out his party's vote.

    Somerby should know this stuff and not be babbling about mental illness because a MAGA Republican says something crazy to further his own political aims.

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    1. It’s clearly important to Somerby to think of right wingers as mentally ill victims. I presume he thinks that should mean they would be treated with pity? Indulgence? What?

      I prefer not to infantilize them, but to view them as functioning adults. Thus, I think Jones/Huckabee/Carlson, etc, are responsible for what they say.

      When you say “war”, what do you mean? Are you talking about politics? It is normal to disagree, to debate. But your party today has gone way past that. They seem to be the ones talking about civil war.

      The governor of my state (Hutchinson) is a conservative Republican, but he has done some good things. He fought to keep the expanded Medicare (as part of the ACA) in the state. He had to fight tooth and nail against Republicans in the legislature who were going to end it. He ended the state celebration of Robert E Lee that just “happened” to coincide with MLK’s birthday. He knew it was an insult to blacks. He has fought to raise teacher salaries. He opposes Trump. He doesn’t demonize Democrats/liberals.

      I have no quarrel with this.

      I would of course prefer a Democrat. But how am I different from you preferring a Republican and fighting for your side?

      Delete
    2. Many non right wingers understand that there is no free will - and all that implies, understand that modern humans are naturally communal and good natured. Moderns humans were closer to their natural state for tens of thousands and maybe hundreds of thousands of years, all the way until the last 10K years, a tiny fraction of the time humans have existed, but a time in which humans transitioned to agriculture and surplus based societies, where private ownership of natural resources became dominant.

      Non right wingers acknowledge science - studies show that right wingers have a smaller frontal cortex and larger amygdala, likely brought about by trauma, likely childhood trauma (we are a nation of shit parents). Right wingers experience fear more intensely and have limitations in rationally processing threats. This does not make them inferior, it is simply a state of being, we on the Left do not look down on right wingers, we look for solutions, look for ways to improve their quality of life.

      Non right wingers do not hate right wingers, nor particularly express hatred towards them. Non right wingers do call out the toxicity of right wing ideology (which is pretty simple and straightforward - dominance!). Somerby complains when non right wingers point out the toxic and corrupt nature of right wing ideology. (By the way, those of us on the Left generally do not complain about individuals, this goes against our philosophy, we do fight against systemic and institutional oppression.) Somerby is boxed in by his nature, he is a right winger, he only knows hate, only strives for dominance; so Somerby is unable to understand what is going on when non right wingers fight against that toxic ideology, Somerby assigns everyone else the same motivations and feelings he is having, he sees non right wingers as his enemy, seethes with hatred for them.

      Right wingers do make up an unusually large amount of the population in America, and they deserve some representation in their government. It would be fairly easy to create a situation in which all eligible voters would actually vote, this would be disaster for right wingers, as they are outnumbered. 2020 provided the closest to this with mail in ballots, the results then were unsurprising.

      Sadly right wingers will respond with snarky smugness, their nature prevents them from having a good faith discourse on improving society.

      Delete
    3. It was not THAT long ago that to be
      a member in good standing in the
      Conservative party you did not have
      deny basic reality and attempt to
      rob half the Country of citizenship
      through empty claims of election
      fraud. There were left conservatives
      and right liberals, depending on
      the issue. The psychosis of
      criminal behavior is an interesting
      subject., But at least Bob admits
      today his sob sister stuff on the
      Right may have no legal baring.
      Trump broke the law. If you want
      him to do his time on a mental
      hospital, I’m open to that negotiation.

      Delete
    4. Heather Cox Richardson covers this well, documents the history of Conservatives in America, the change from progressive/Leftist Conservatives of Lincoln's time (he not only fought chattel slavery but wage slavery too) to Movement Conservatives reacting to the New Deal.

      She is an amazing historian and observer of modern times, highly recommend her YouTube videos. (really puts morons like Somerby and Drum to shame)

      Delete
    5. mh, when people are seeking a place in public office or just generally in the public sphere, you don’t help them by calling them mentally ill. If anything, that designation seems intractable. Conservatives can be never-Trumpers. They can move away from “badness” and be more to the left on their positions, or like your governor, do things that you approve.

      Conservatives can redeem themselves by being less conservative (improve their character or thinking).

      The “mentally ill” designation is more complex than not being empathetic, greedy, or respectful of expertise, etc.

      When Bob talks about this, he’s making a statement about our culture and the effect that mass media, technology, and communications have has had on our psyches. That’s not letting your contrarians off the hook.

      When I say war, I’m not advocating a civil war. No one is.

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    6. "It seems to us that issues of (severe) mental illness are all around us in the daily news environment. "

      It isn't clear who Somerby is talking about besides Trump, but if he is referring to the Q-Anon MAGA crowd, then he and Biden are both on the same page, except Biden calls them MAGA Extremists. And yet Somerby had nothing nice to say about Biden's speech at all. He objected to calling some number of Republicans a threat to democracy, even though they are (even if mentally ill too).

      Somerby cannot have this all ways at once. If he is going to call people mentally ill, he needs to designate which group he is referring to and how they should be identified, so that we can protect our nation from the threat of things like insurrections when candidates lose.

      Delete
    7. For Cesillyia, the song remains the same: their comment is incoherent nonsense, and either they have awareness and are being a hilarious troll, or they have no awareness, and that is just really sad.

      Delete
    8. Cecelia, you don't speak for everyone on the fringe right. There are certainly people there who are preparing for actual shooting war, using AR-15s and aiming at SJWs and woke people, along with the usual Jews and blacks. You can't disassociate yourself from your fellow travelers on the right just by asserting that they don't exist.

      Delete
  4. "Large percentages of people, including many Democrats, have expressed belief in these lunatic theories. "

    How many Democrats believe in pizzagate or Q-Anon? According to polling:

    "Only 4% of Democrats think the theory is even partly true, according to the Daily Kos/Civiqs poll, with 72% of Dems responding that the QAnon conspiracy is “not true at all.”

    What is Somerby's goal in suggesting that Democrats believe this stuff too, when they manifestly do not? By suggesting such beliefs are bipartisan, he gives them a sort of legitimacy -- but it is a lie to say this is a Democratic phenomenon too.

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  5. So the legal system has made a ridiculous attack on the rights of Alex Jones (and by extension of all Americans), and your take on it is to attack Jones yourself and also his many listeners??? Your knowledge of the case seems to come from MSNBC.

    "The red tribe is sunk in apparently crazy belief." Myself, it feels like my own Democratic Party has lost its mind over these last six years. It's all hate, hate, hate. Hatred for Trump and hatred for Trump voters and hatred for anybody who might be transphobic.

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    1. Alex Jones wasn't sued, and there is no such thing as "Infowars". You got suckered into believing a conspiracy theory.

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    2. You forgot to mention that the left is castrating children.

      Delete
    3. Alex Jones' game has gone downhill, ever since he won the WNBA Most Valuable Player award.

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    4. Jones…what a wimp. After years of claiming Sandy Hook was staged, he admitted it was real once the heat was on.

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    5. 10;29,
      That's what the deep state wants you to believe.

      Delete
    6. Ah, the comments section where man proves he is the rational animal. Or where one troll thinks he's a comedian (talk about a crazy belief).

      Delete
    7. 10:29 if you are mocking Republicans, it is somewhat amusing; if you are serious, seek help!

      Delete
  6. A media criticism blog would note the media shouldn't be quoting Mike Huckabee, until Huckabee says something in good faith.

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  7. "His niece, a trained clinical psychology, made it clear, in a best-selling book, that she regards him as an apparent "sociopath."

    (She explicitly diagnosed Trump's father that way.)"

    No, she did not "diagnose" Trump or his father, because she did not clinically assess either of them, as she would a client who came to her for treatment. She speculated using her clinical training and knowledge, and that is not the same as a diagnosis. This matters, because it is against the ethics of the profession to diagnose someone without doing a proper assessment of them, face-to-face, using standard diagnostic methods and tools. You don't just observe and say "that seems pretty crazy to me" and then slap a label on someone, as Somerby routinely does these days.

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    1. To be fair, Somerby is not in the profession and we laymen do have a tendency to just observe and slap on labels. Mary Trump though, is the one who apparently abused her credentials and wrote a book and got paid to go on TV.

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    2. I've read her book and she does not diagnose Trump in it. She says that someone cannot do that without examining him. The book is mostly about how badly the Trump family treated her father (Trump's older brother).

      Delete
  8. "Our journalistic elites have agreed that this branch of twentieth century science must play no role in our news analyses, in our public discourse. This leaves us naked and afraid, creating news discussions which are strikingly unintelligent."

    Not even psychologists consider clinical psychology to be a science -- it is an applied field at best that uses methods without a basis in research. There is a serious divide in psychology between those who favor evidence-based treatment and those still practicing a kind of trial and error approach, just as medicine did until recently.

    There is no excuse for using diagnostic terms to malign people in journalistic reporting. It is just as wrong when right-wingers claim Biden has dementia, again without any clinical assessment of his cognitive functioning. Somerby is calling for journalistic malpractice.

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  9. It may be that historians, looking back on this time period, may refer to a kind of mass psychosis induced by anxiety over covid (or even due to long covid symptoms of disrupted brain functioning). When people are frightened about something they cannot control, it is common to displace that fear onto something they feel they can control, such as eating habits or children's behavior or redecorating the house.

    Some on the right have denied themselves vaccines and masks, but they are still afraid of dying, so they instead focus on pedos and government and fighting abortion and getting Trump (who is a comforting strong daddy-figure) back into office. But that is not crazy, not psychotic. It is how defense mechanisms work and we all use them, just some of us maintain a better contact with reality while trying to manage threats in our environment. (And yes, climate change is another such threat. Looming war, economic failure, are others.)

    If it sounds like I am agreeing with Somerby, I am not. The way to address fears is not to call everyone crazy, absolve the grifters and move on. We need to deal with our problems directly and do something about them -- which means electing Democrats, who are in better touch with reality than Republicans.

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  10. Why does Somerby juxtapose the Alex Jones verdict with Huckabee’s statement and talk about Trump? Right-wingers are already defending Alex Jones by claiming that “the system” (which must of course ultimately mean “liberals”) has yet again silenced a conservative man who was merely exercising his first amendment rights.

    Forget the fact that it was not the government or the department of justice that went after Jones. It was the parents of the Sandy Hook victims who filed lawsuits against him. Also, forget the fact that Trump wants to make it easier to file defamation lawsuits. (Only against Republicans (or better yet, himself) of course. Consistency need not apply here.)

    Are all right wingers mentally ill? Is Huckabee? Is Rupert Murdoch? Are the Koch Brothers?

    At any rate, it’s not entirely clear what Somerby means by “discernment” in this context. He doesn’t think Trump ought to be prosecuted. Does he believe Jones shouldn’t have been? I don’t recall Jones pleading insanity…

    Is he unhappy with the satisfaction expressed by some liberals with the Jones verdict? Is he going to argue yet again that that just confirms the paranoia of Republicans and inspires them to vote harder?

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    1. Poor wording: Trump wants to make it easier to file defamation suits when he is the one supposedly being defamed. Republicans would like to extend that to making it easier to bring such suits when they are supposedly the ones being defamed. It’s never a two way street with these people.

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    2. Another sad aspect of the Trump disaster: he makes, on occasion, reasonable positions (the use of anonymous sources in the press, for example) seem stupid and petty
      because they are obviously only
      offered in naked self interest.,

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    3. Wouldn’t Trump also be more likely than you and me (or most people) to be impeded by stricter rules around “off the record” anonymous sources and widening the boundaries around defamation suits?

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    4. My point was that Trump and Republicans want to haul their critics into court and convict them of libel/defamation, so that right wingers can cheer the vanquishing of their enemies. But when Jones is convicted, by a jury, of … defamation, right wingers howl that Jones’ rights have been taken away by the liberal deep state. Aside from the hypocrisy, this reaction undermines the rule of law, implying that even juries are part of a cabal to destroy right wingers’ rights.

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  11. TDH is so locked in on his theory that Trump and now Alex Jones are "sociopaths" who deserve to be "pitied." He can pity them all he wants, but it isn't clear whether TDH is implying they are entitled to some type of insanity defense based on their sociopathic diagnosis - but legally, that would never fly. Someone with schizophrenia, or clinical depression for example would deserve pity - but not a sociopath (which I see as
    synonymous with being more or less evil.)
    A couple of observations - Mary Trump is not much of an authority here. She has an axe to grind because she thinks Trump was behind cheating her out of an inheritance (maybe she's right). She is not disinterested, aside from maybe not having the world's greatest credentials. On the other hand, TDH is hardly alone in his diagnosis, for example there is a documentary on Netflix where a bunch of shrinks maintain that Trump is clinically mentally ill, though they don't suggest that this condition entitles him to our pity.
    Another point - TDH concludes that Trump and Jones are mentally ill because they may believe the irrational claims they make. But that would seem to mean that the vast majority of humans are mentally ill. (OK, not completely implausible). Billions believe in one or the other religious dogmas - christians, jews, muslims, hindus, jehovah's witnesses, mormons etc. - yet most live ordinary lives. But the tenets of all these religions about there being this deity, who cares about us, the after-life, etc. are all "crazy" - maybe, however, there is something beyond truth that applies. Religion serves a function. (As Marx said, it "is the opiate of the masses, the heart of a heartless world.") But by TDH's logic, a large proportion of these believers seem to be "mentally ill." .

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    1. "Billions believe in one or the other religious dogmas"

      Meh. The most religious person we knew was never interested in any dogmas. She just followed the wwjd rule to make her everyday decisions (or so she said). It didn't feel irrational at all, nor does it require any supernatural beings, as far as we can tell.

      ...believing in 69 genders and wimmin trapped in men's bodies, on the other hand...

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    2. As your boy Jordan Peterson recently pointed out, there are in reality as many genders as there are people - then he caught himself and went back to his normal fascist rhetoric.

      Mao, as a gay man such as you are, it can not be easy living in an area that rejects the very notion of your existence. Your odd comments are merely a manifestation of that conflict between being gay but not being free to be gay. I hope you find peace and are able to come to terms with your true nature.

      Delete
    3. Meh, I mean Mao, when you say "we" is that the royal "we" or is this some variant of those who want to be called "them" or "ze"? But this person who claimed that she was guided in her decisions by determining what Jesus would have done seems to prove my point. Perhaps she has some insight into how Jesus would be making various decisions but it seems doubtful. Jesus was the son of God, walked on water, and rose bodily from the dead and resides to this day in Heaven. Seems pretty supernatural to me, but what do I know. But I'm sure she is a fine person, and perhaps isn't demented. Maybe you should consider what Jesus would do as far as posting on this website. before you start typing.

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    4. Meh. It makes no difference whether Jesus was the literal 'son of God', or a rabbi, wise man, metaphorical 'son of God'. You take these things literally, but it doesn't mean that everyone else does.

      His teachings are well-documented, and on account of those ancient manuscripts he constitutes a moral authority to some.

      ...y'know, like Adam Schiff to you people.

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    5. Here are Mary Trump's credentials:

      "Tufts University (BA) Columbia University (MA) Adelphi University (PhD)"

      There is nothing wrong with any of those schools. You should check before you casually malign someone's training without any factual basis.

      Delete
    6. Mao, I don't take these things "literally" - I take them as superstition. But millions do take them literally.Some take them metaphorically. He said a lot of extraoerdinary things according to the bible - turn the other check. love your enemies, render unto Caesar what is Caesar's [taxes], [paraphrasing] a rich person has the same chance of entering heaven as a camel going through the eye of a needle. I often wonder how people who purport to be Christians ignore this stuff so much .
      Then you add "y'know like Adam Schiff and you people." I thought from day one Schiff on the news every day going on about Trump and Russia was being a jerk. God, you're boring and smugly stoopid. You're an obsessive wing nut.

      Delete
    7. "...turn the other check. love your enemies, render unto Caesar what is Caesar's [taxes], [paraphrasing] a rich person has the same chance of entering heaven as a camel going through the eye of a needle."

      Yes, dear dembot, taken out of context and as a literal set of instructions it may indeed sound as "turn the other check. love your enemies". But very few ordinary people are as stupid as you liberals.

      ...your dumbass cult, on the other hand, tells you quite literal stories of wimmin trapped in men's bodies, of abortion being a "right", and so on -- and you swallow it and ask for more!

      What gives, dear dembot?

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    8. Some of them are so dumb they believe we live in a fair Democracy..

      Delete
  12. A mighty stupid post today from Bob, though it does condense a lot of the foolishness Bob now routinely peddles, so it has that practical aspect. Clearly the insanity defense is to be extended to virtually everyone on the right, a variation on Bill Maher’s pitch for understanding the poor little lambs of MAGA: they are all in a cult. Bob does seem to acknowledge his selective compassion may have no legal relevance. This is a hard position to avoid on Trump’s left of documents, crimes which would have you and I in jail long ago.

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  13. Oh dear. Demigod Barry&Co. at the Vineyard sure don't waste time:

    "Effective immediately, Venezuelans who enter the United States between ports of entry, without authorization, will be returned to Mexico."

    https://www.dhs.gov/news/2022/10/12/dhs-announces-new-migration-enforcement-process-venezuelans

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    1. This is because Republicans refused to allow Biden to drop the Title 42 policy, so instead Biden negotiated a deal with Mexico to accept Venezuelans falling under the Title 42 policy while at the same time creating a new policy to grant a legal pathway for a certain number of Venezuelans seeking asylum (similar to their Ukrainian policy).

      Furthermore Biden is accommodating a middle ground between those who want to help immigrants and those who hate immigrants.

      Mao, we understand you are suffering as a gay man in an oppressive society; we hope our understanding can help lift you past making embarrassingly bad comments such as you have here.

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  14. People watched Democrat thugs and murderers burn down cities throughout the summer of 2020 and be released the same night to harm more normal people, while participants in a dust-up at the capitol on Jan 6 lasting less than 2 hours received years-long sentences. Republican voters don't live in fear but they sure as shit understand what is happening and will stop it.

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    1. Why do Republicans keep referring to "bail" as "release from jail" and why do they object to that? It would be enormously costly to keep people locked up for minor crimes while awaiting trial. Insurrectionists who didn't get bail were likely flight risks or armed and dangerous, unlike random protesters arrested during riots when police cleared the streets but neglected the looters and right-wing militia members who committed most of the violence. The arrest of protesters are often dismissed because there is no evidence they did anything wrong, besides peacefully gathering, and because cops like to harrass unarmed protesters for political reasons, whereas looters might be armed or run from them, causing the cops to have to exert themselves.

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    2. I, too, feared the Right-wingers who brought violence and looting to the 2020 protests FAR more than the Right-wing snowflakes who threw a childish temper tantrum at the U.S. Capitol, just because black peoples votes counted in the 2020 Presidential election.

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