Dude, he's not dead. He's pining for the fjords.

And Jill rocks.

Definitely understated :)

You have won nothing, Jill, and you're not going to. Sure, you're stubborn. Sure, you pursue subadult ideas. Those shall not win the day for you, handily nor otherwise. Fanatics collide with me and they break.

Let's start in on the nature of the Left, shall we?

Particularly this last is whence the opposition to the Obama Administration and its agenda springs. Even the temperately-read words of the usual sort of Obama speech, exemplified in the "clinging bitterly to their guns and their religion" speech, show a profound disdain for people who just plain don't merit disdain. It mischaracterizes them as bitter, then abuses the practitioners of the vaccination of the body politic against genocide -- or do the JPFO have it all wrong?

I doubt that last in particular.

Being rather right of center myself allows and causes me to be whole -- unbroken. I am not here to lead you astray, Jill. I am here to do the very opposite. Indeed, such is my character that I could no other, all right? You don't have to like it right off, you don't have to believe me right off. But you will come to a somewhat uncomfortable awareness that I do rather well, because of what I hew to; because I have a clear understanding of who and what the monsters are. This is a faculty the Left -- well, it is kindest to say that they lack it.

This will, I think, be a great deal of fun.

Did they also ask questions about belief in eating the magic biscuits that are actually the body of the son of the bearded sky-daddy who made the world in six days and carries you off to the cloudland when you die?

Or was the study as one-sided as you present it to be?

ay, there's the rub...

Y'know what, Zen? I eat wafers. Free wine on Sundays, too. (If the phrase sounds familiar but you can't put your finger on it, Google is your friend and Bob's your ungulate.)

And I was raised Unitarian if I was raised anything. I like to think the experience of youth plus that of maturer years gives me a broad and sensible perspective.

Atheism is much too cramped for me. Too much a belief in unbelief so its final reward seems so... picayune. Perhaps the most sturdily rational, or rationalist, atheist I ever heard of was Robert A. Heinlein -- a fellow I'd happily consign to Heaven.

Or is it righter to reckon of those who are atheistic "Verily, they have received their reward."

The list of despots who behaved all their lives as if there were no afterlife that might possibly be influenced by their deeds in this life is long and written in dried blood: Jenghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Josef Stalin and his enabler Vladimr Il'ych you-know-who, Pol Pot, Adolf Hitler. Those are just the high points. Their nearest real approach to God seems to have been when they were swearing at somebody. There's always that whiff of dead folks around the anti-believers who operate on a large scale, who very often do not discourage their followers to worship them, mortal men, instead of something more abstract and with the right touch of the supernal.

What the small-scale antibelievers seem to lack looks like the opportunity to slaughter like the big boys.

Now I follow a trinitarian way, to the point of being an Episcopalian lay minister, duly licensed by the Diocese of Los Angeles. There's a lot of... brain going on in the Anglican Communion. You know that's the kind of thing I like.

The difference between religious thinking and superstitious (or magickal) thinking seems to me to be in what you do with it once you've thought it.

Or perhaps you are just a legend in your own mind.

A strange mind indeed to quote Michael Graham, who suggests that all of Islam is a terrorist organization.

Leaves one to wonder if he was speaking about himself and those who quote him when he said:, "The problem is not extremism."

Right. The problem is fear-mongering, whether its an "islamofacist" hiding under our beds or Obama taking away your guns.

Witch hunts all across Europe and US, US Slavery, Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition

Just a few of the atrocities that Christians (who did believe in the after life) committed.

You mean like a good Christian like likely presidential candidate Mike Huckabee who links gay sex to bestiality and abortion to slavery and who wants to amend the Constitution to reflect those views?

Y'all are so cute trying to sustain a rational dialog with UG! :corn:

Just testing the findings of a recent study in the UK that suggests people with right wing views have a larger area of the brain associated with fear. ;)

SRLSY!

I think it's you guys who rock! You sure made my day! :blush: I pursue "subadult" ideas? That's hilarious, considering you're the one who suggested that being a Beauty Queen was somehow relevant to political superiority.

Interesting that you wish to "break" me, as opposed to convince me. Personally, I'd just like for you to learn a few things, and perhaps acknowledge a few truths, even if you don't come around fully to my way of thinking, politically. Why would you want to "break" me? That's not very respectful. How about let's not. This thread is about the death of Osama bin Laden. I'd say it's already been hijacked enough, wouldn't you? On the other hand, I simply cannot allow a misquote to go without correction. It is you who is doing the mischaracterizing here. Then-candidate Obama did not say that anyone was clinging bitterly to their guns and their religion, and certainly not within a speech. And it certainly wasn't in an attempt to marginalize anyone.

Barack Obama was discussing the reason that so many people in "small town America" are bitter -- and they are, let's be honest.

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not."

Do you deny this truth? Is this not an accurate depiction of many small towns throughout the Midwest, where jobs have dried up and nothing more than lip service has been paid to those who have been suffering through the demise of their livelihoods?

And that, friend Guerrilla, is why Barack Obama then said, "And it's not surprising then they get bitter."

It's not surprising, is it? It doesn't surprise me that people who've been "left behind" by technology and job outsourcing and politicians entering into treaties and working trade deals that have contributed to their towns crumbling around them, would be bitter. I'd be bitter! Wouldn't you?

And what do people who have become bitter about how the government has in many ways orchestrated their devolution towards poverty do, when they don't have the political clout to effect change in the big ways that would rebuild their communities?

"They cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmi...enophobia.html

That isn't even remotely how you depicted his statement, is it?

I don't mind debating you on facts. You're certainly well within your rights to want to counter the assessment Barack Obama made, based on what he actually said. But it's impossible to have a reasonable debate with someone when they aren't debating realities, but made-up stuff. I have no doubt that you do very well. I'm quite certain that you attribute that to how you hew politically. I contend, however, that you are completely unaware of who and what the monsters really are, or you would be fighting to save America from them instead of embracing them while watching your beloved country crumble around your ears. For one of us, perhaps. I'm not sure it's who you think it is, though. Indeed. As exposed above. If one doesn't view the political landscape through the lens of reality, the world becomes distorted and no problems can ever be resolved, nor can agreement ever be reached. I may tire of it at some point, but for now, I'm willing to engage him, at a minimum to show him that he has formulated opinions based on faulty information. Not just that, but "people with self-reported liberal views tended to have a larger anterior cingulate cortex -- a brain area involved in processing conflicting information." :thumb2:

In the meantime, Osama bin Laden is still DEAD! And it was Barack Obama who orchestrated it. http://cellar.org/picture.php?albumid=24&pictureid=169

Sooooooo when you made that post wishing to commit adultery with Anne Coulter [shudder] that was a shining example of your character? Alrighty then!!

Oh that's just nasty. [shudder] is right.