The Mind of the Regressive Leftist

It’s been a while since I’ve been on here and I am feeling especially chipper this morning.  I had a wonderful chat with a bloke who is advocating for the firing of Katie Hopkins because of a “racist” or “inflammatory” or “offensive” tweet.  After many back and forth posts, this was the resultant gem of wisdom that I was left with.  I feel I just had to share it with you all.

Some context

• The “hypothetical” situation he is referring to, is one in which he feels that he would shoulder at least some of the responsibility for hurling insults at someone and that person knocking his teeth out as a result.  When asked if it would have been better to have kept his mouth shut, his reply was “EXACTLY”.  When asked to confirm that violence is a great way of shutting people up, he waffled for several posts before saying “no”, completely contradicting his own view that he should have kept his mouth shut.  He had plenty to say after that, trying to dig himself out of his own trap, but that could easily be the subject of another post entirely.
• The paragraph about “What I missed” about his “hypothetical” situation was not mentioned or alluded to in anyway prior to this post – so I guess I was expected to be clairvoyant

 

“Well, after some sleep….. let me take you by the hand and explain…. watch and read very, very carefully…..

The hypothetical situation I described, was an illustration that one’s words have an impact. The reaction of the hypothetical tooth remover, one might argue, was possibly (did I mention that this is a hypothetical situation) as a result of the hypothetical third party being offended, rather than his existential raison-d’etre to ensure I didn’t say the things I said again!

What you missed, in the developing hypothetical narrative, and it would be hard for you to know about the hypothetical end of the story, but because I am exceedingly ‘hench’…. I reacted violently to having my teeth violently removed, ripped the assailants’ arms from their sockets and proceeded to hit him around the head and torso with the soggy ends of the aforementioned arms, all the while unleashing an unrestrained tirade of abuse – albeit it with a rather awkward lisp – rendering the initial verbal interaction, whimpering in its shadow!

….. so to pick up on some of the points you are trying to drive…. (as I understand them)…. when I Said ‘EXACTLY’ to keeping my mouth shut, that is all about personal responsibility…. and applying my own intelligence to not initiate a ‘situation’.

Violence only normally escalates, and from my perspective, violence or the threat of violence are not a ‘nice, great or good’ way of shutting people up (from a ‘moral’ perspective)…. it is also not efficient (on its own) from a practical perspective…. even when threatened by an overtly powerful opponent, the truth, and opposition, has ways of getting ‘in’ and getting ‘out’…. See Ghandi, see South Africa etc. etc.

Returning to the original scenario, (remember, the hypothetical one.. 😀 ) if I wasn’t so “hench” or the assailant, (by some almost impossible stretch of the imagination) was actually more ‘hench’ (almost impossible to contemplate, I know….!) I might have retreated, cowered and thought about hurling abuse at the assailant in the future. They might (hypothetically) have then used that exchange to bully me into silence in the future…. thereby effectively censoring me… especially if associated with a specific threat of “If you say X again, I will do Y”…..”

Now, after having read this, is there any possible way that you could conclude that this outburst came from the healthy mind of a normal person?

Hypocrisy or Irony or Both?

So first, let me just declare how wrong I was in regards to my last post.  I didn’t think Donald Trump had a chance at winning this election.  I honestly didn’t think that enough people would vote for a 70 year old, anti-science, conspiracy theorist, internet troll with the attention span of a toddler and the vocabulary of a 12 year old.  You sure showed me America.  Buckle up an enjoy the ride.  I think it’s gonna be a thriller.
I’ll also state however, that I don’t think that ALL of the people who voted for Trump are stupid or ignorant or hate women.  There are other legitimate reasons for Trumps victory that lie beyond that simple analysis.  Change – people tired of the same old same old.  Hillary Clinton’s very unsavory character – (pathological liar for instance).  That’s not to say that Donald Trump doesn’t have any of the same or even worse characteristics, but it levels the playing field.  Personally, I’m for change too, I just don’t think that Donald Trump is the man for the job.  I am genuinely concerned about his lack of knowledge on a great many subjects (like global climate change for instance).  If I have to pick a silver lining to this cloud, I at least hope I can say that Political Correctness is going to take a shit kicking, which I am thoroughly grateful for.  The PC, authoritarian, regressive left is becoming very menacing and it’s my hope that they’ll be taken down a notch or two in the next couple of years.

Anywho, on to the reason I am posting this.  There are many sources of entertainment in the world.  One of my favorite, is the kind that doesn’t appear to be intentionally written for the purposes of entertainment, but turns out to be awesome.  Reading though some responses on some of my old blogs posts, I found myself over at Eva’s site again and noticed that there were some updated comments on a particularly hot topic issue (her conversion to Christianity and subsequent blossoming into an all around more tolerant and accepting person for it).  I read the statement in quotes below and burst into a hysterical fit of laughter.

“Hi Justin, good to hear from you again. ‘Frustrating’ is one word for it! I actually received an email from someone who knows one of the ‘main protagonists’ so to speak, quite well, kind of filling me in on some details of that person’s life that meant I could feel nothing but patience and understanding for her (or him). It certainly made my ‘loving kindness’ meditation easier, anyway”

You’d have familiarize yourself with the whole debacle that took place last spring by going here.  As far as I am aware, only tildeb and myself were the “protagonists”, but I don’t know anyone who could have emailed her claiming to know me “quite well, so to speak”.  From what little I know of tildeb, he likes to keep his private life to himself as well, and I have divulged very little details of myself, so I’m a little skeptical of the claim of the mysterious emailer knowing either us of “quite well, so to speak”
One other detail to bear in mind:  Both myself and tildeb have been banned from commenting on her site.  So considering that, I’d like to edit her above statement into something a little more accurate:

“Hi Justin, good to hear from you again. ‘Frustrating’ Point out an inconvenient truth that I am perpetuating a lie is one word for it way to describe it!  I actually received an email from someone who knows has dealt with one of the ‘main protagonists’ so to speak, quite well, kind of filling me in on some details of that person’s life on other blog posts but doesn’t really know anything about that person at all that meant I could feel nothing but patience and understanding for her (or him) had to ban him from speaking on my site forever because he/she was rude and intolerant. It certainly made my ‘loving kindness’ meditation easier, anyway me feel secure in my own misguided irrational beliefs and knowledge that I am a morally superior person because I am no longer an “intolerant and angry” atheist.  It also ensured that nothing I ever say will ever be challenged by anyone who doesn’t share my views because I now have adopted a policy of banning all such people from commenting.
P.S. I am a VERY tolerant person.

 

 

 

The Madness is almost over – sort of

There’s only 8 days to go until the US election and I cannot wait for this to be over.  I expect Hillary Clinton to win.  I’d like to think it will be by a landslide and all polls indicate it will be that way.  It is at this point that I cannot express enough condolences to any American readers of my blog.  To have to choose between an unscrupulous, sociopathic, pathological liar and an illiterate, ignorant, psychotic moron would seem to me to be extremely depressing.  If you want to listen to a great podcast about the utter lack of any human worth in either candidate, listen to Sam Harris’ “The Lesser Evil” – a conversation with Andrew Sullivan.  It was amazing, insightful, depressing and even slightly optimistic.  Both have very little good to say about Hillary Clinton but are voting for her and recommend that everyone else does too, because the alternative would be a million times worse.

It is at this point, that I think I would like to point out that the need for education reform in the United States is DIRE.  That Donald Trump has made it as far as he has – legitimately because large numbers of extremely paranoid, ignorant, stupid people voted for him in primaries – should be of great concern for any American who would like to see that their country remain a world super power.  The US is the one country that the UN doesn’t function without.  It’s the lynch pin that, as we learned in 2008, can have serious consequences on the stability of the global economy.  We can’t have a nation full of morons voting for another moron like Donald Trump to be at the helm of a world super power without there being some disastrous consequences.  This man should have been laughed out of the room when he announced his bid for the White House.  Why wasn’t he?  That’s a question that every concerned, patriotic US citizen should be asking themselves every single day.  The second question should be “How do we prevent this from ever happening again?”  My answer to the second question is robust education which places the highest value on critical thought, sound reasoning skills and the ability to discern between evidence and rhetoric.  My answer to the first question I think should be self-evident.

Never Underestimate the Power of Stupid People in Large Numbers

I know that’s a very vague title for a post because it could be about pretty much anything, but in this particular case, the stupid people of Calgary City Council outnumber the smart ones by a ratio of 9 to 5.  That was the outcome of the vote to consider revising their 2011 decision to stop fluoridating city water.  5 said yes, 9 said no.  Now remember, it was not a vote to start adding fluoride to the water again – It was just a vote on a motion to merely consider the possibility that they might have made a mistake.

Read the article here

From a previous CBC article in February of this year (full article here)

“Lindsay McLaren, the researcher with the University of Calgary’s Cumming School of Medicine who led the study, told the Calgary Eyeopener‘s David Gray that there were more cavities in both Calgary and Edmonton over the period of the study, but “it got worse in Calgary, where fluoridation was stopped, than in Edmonton.”

McLaren said the study is clear about the cause and effect at play.

“We designed the study so we could be as sure as possible that [the increased tooth decay] was due to [fluoride] cessation rather than due to other factors,” she told the CBC.

“We systematically considered a number of other factors … and in the end, everything pointed to fluoridation cessation being the most important factor.” ”

Still, those 9 councilors for the city of Calgary are not convinced enough to even reconsider their decision.  It was even treated as a “political hot potato” with likely some of those 9 councilors opposing the motion for purely political reasons. “He (Dr. Ghali) said even asking for the information could make it look like they were reopening the “very divisive issue” of fluoridation, just as they enter an election year.”

So I guess for now, politics trumps health concerns.

And this is why you should never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers.

 

 

 

Templeton Foundation to Spend $3 Million To “Understand” Why People Don’t Believe in Bronze-Age Myths

Although the title of this post is my satirical parody, this is actually a serious question being posed by The Templeton Foundation.  “Understanding Unbelief” is the name of the “study”.  Read about it here

From reading the description, it sounds like a project, the purpose of which, is to categorize unbelievers based on “psychological and sociological” phenomenon.  The Templeton Foundation wants to know how other beliefs (about religion or the existential)  inform their unbelief and how those unbeliefs vary across groups and subcultures.
Sounds a little flawed to me from the outset.  This is simply my own opinion and I welcome challenges to it, but I don’t consider any other beliefs that I have about anything else to inform my atheism or “unbelief”.  It is simply a matter of examining the texts and claims of religion and finding that they are simply unbelievable.  They are completely irrational and illogical and can’t be believed by anyone who considers them with any objectivity and common sense.  I can’t bring myself to believe in talking snakes, in people who fly around on winged horses, in people who rise from the dead, and the need to create a race (humans) sick and diseased that then require a human sacrifice to be made to cure the sickness and disease.  This stuff is preposterous.  I’m not sure exactly how this is going to require $3 million to determine why people don’t believe things like that.

The study then goes on to state that it wants to find that answer that has already been asked and answered numerous times – in it’s own words “to answer big questions about the causes of ‘unbelief’ and its effects on such outcomes as personal wellbeing and social cohesion. ”
A simple search for “Most violent Countries on Earth” leads you here and a search for most religious countries on earth leads you here
I don’t think its merely a coincidence that the most peaceful countries on earth (Canada, Australia, Japan and large parts of Scandinavia and Europe) are also the most irreligious.
You need to spend $3 million on this type of question?  I don’t think so.  A few thousand perhaps.  All the research has already been done for you.

I look forward to reading the results of this study.

 

An Example of How NOT to Communicate Effectively

So as a follow-up to my post yesterday regarding, open, honest and clear communication, I wanted to share this response from Barry today about a question on another post (Well that’s a shame…) I made back in May.  I don’t think the timing could have been more perfect.  I’m not sure what took so long for him to answer and why I had to moderate his comment and allow it on my site even though I have already approved his commenting on here, but that doesn’t matter.  All that matter is that I have an answer.

NOTE:  It’s been edited for space considerations.  This is the complete answer to my question, but the part of the complete reply that has been removed, deals with another debate regarding quakerism and is not relevant to this question.  If you wish to see the response in its entirety, go to the Well that’s a Shame… post on this blog and you’ll see this comment at the end of the reply chain.

Anyways, if you want you have a fantastic idea of what it is like to converse with a person who can’t say what he means and mean what he says, who has to talk in endless, meaningless, useless, pointless caveats, then here it is, in all its glory.

QUESTION:  So I guess I will ask the question then Barry.  Do you believe in God(s) (of any kind)?  Yes or No?

ANSWER:
Ashley, that’s like demanding a Yes or No answer to the question “Have you stopped beating your wife?“. Sometimes it’s not possible to give a simple yes or no.

So if you don’t mind, I’ll answer the question as if you’d asked “Do you believe in the existence of god(s) in a literal sense?“. No. If I was asked “Which is more likely: We find evidence that proves the existence of god(s) or we find evidence that proves giant moa still roam the Fiordland rainforests“, then I would choose the latter. I see as much evidence for god(s) as I do for flying pigs. Where am I giving myself wriggle room that you repeatedly claim I give myself? How many more times do I have to repeat this?

To summarise: (a) I do not believe in the existence of deities (or gods). (b) I live life based on the belief that there is that of God in everyone. I don’t believe either statement is in conflict with atheism or Quakerism. If the two statements cause you a problem, ponder what I might mean by “of God” (Hint: it’s not literal).

I love the comment about asking me where he is giving himself the wiggle room that I claim he gives himself after a) inserting the useless “literal sense” caveat into my original question and b)answers another question I didn’t even ask.

But seriously though, is there a point in me critiquing this nonsensical gibberish?

NEW DEVELOPMENT:

It gets even better!

Why is it so hard to answer the question “Do you believe in god(s) – Yes or No?  Because this!:  Barry’s answer: No doubt that’s true for you, but for me to answer it, I need to make assumptions about what you mean by “believe in” and “god(s)”.

 

 

On Honest, Open, Clear Communication.

I was recently on holidays and I managed to spend quite a bit of time playing catch-up and listening to podcasts that I had downloaded over the past couple of months or so.  I recalled listening to one of Sam Harris’ Waking Up podcasts that featured Maryam Namazie as his guest.  I tried my absolute best.  I really did.  I made it about 3/4 of the way through before I shut it off and deleted it.  It was abundantly clear to me, that Maryam Namazie has zero debating skills, can’t even consider any viewpoints that conflict with her own and can’t even answer a cut and dried, simple yes-or-no question.  For example – Sam asks her “What percentage of jihadists are Muslim?”  Much rambling nonsense ensued, but no answer was forthcoming.  I saw a response post in the Godless Spellchecker blog about this podcast that I thought summed it up very well.  It was a conversation between a pragmatist (Sam Harris) and an ideologue (Maryam Namazie).  While both are committed to the same cause (the intolerance and eradication of Islamism), Sam is the only one willing to offer solutions (whether or not you agree with them is another matter altogether) that could be practically carried out and gave his reasons for doing so.  Maryam on the other hand is able to speak only in useless ideological platitudes and vague generalities.  She offers only critiques of others solutions (like Sam’s profiling for instance) because it is “bigoted” apparently but offers nothing in the way of her own ideas.  After an hour+ of listening to this vague imprecision and question-dodging crap, I decided to cut my losses and not waste any more of my time.

This gave me pause to consider many of the conversations I have had with different people on different blogs over the last couple of years.  I have come to realize that there are people who are incapable of having meaningful discussions about a topic because it is literally impossible for them to consider other viewpoints.   For me, usually the first sign is that I am told I “don’t understand” or that I am “misunderstanding” what they mean.  I get that an AWFUL lot.  I ask for explanations and further follow-ups to make sure that I am interpreting what they mean correctly. This usually devolves into back-and-forth reply/response (that would, I am sure if I continued, literally go on until then end of time) posts over the meanings of words, the meaning of phrases, the cultural differences that can cause “misunderstandings” when speaking to people in different countries, etc.  Amazingly, all of the “misunderstandings” are attributable to short-comings on my part.  NEVER, EVER to the person I am speaking with.  Evidence, logic and reason to counter what I consider to be flawed thinking?  Even using dictionaries, Wikipedia and reputable internet sources to determine meanings of words?  No, those won’t do.  There’s always more to it and I just don’t understand – and I never will.  You name it, there isn’t a reply that can’t be made to demonstrate why I “misunderstand”.  The conversations I have had very much remind me of the conversation between Sam and Maryam.  Whereas I feel that I am committed to understanding the message a person is trying to convey and commenting on it (usually criticizing it, because that is the nature of these types of conversations), if my adversary has not made the same commitment, then the conversation is going to go nowhere.

Now this is NOT to say that the whole thing is pointless because I think a conversation like the one between Sam and Maryam is very valuable.  It is very valuable in that it points out not only what someone thinks but how they think and how they defend what they think. It’s one of the reasons why I admire Sam because I not only know what he thinks, but I see him demonstrate how he thinks and give reasons for why he thinks what he does.  I agree with most of what he says but not everything.  Maryam on the other hand, demonstrated very clearly to me that she has very little capacity for critical thought, and couldn’t even attempt to debate Sam on his “bigoted” stance regarding profiling by answering simple questions.  This allows me to make use of my precious time by deciding who I should listen to and who I shouldn’t.

So why did I make this post?  To convey a simple message.  Say what you mean and mean what you say.  If challenged, be prepared to defend your views.  If your typical response is to just keep “clarifying” what you wrote because they other person “just doesn’t understand”, perhaps consider that you’re not interested in challenging your own thinking and that you’re not interested in learning anything, but are more interested in making statements and assertions that withstand all scrutiny no matter what.

 

 

A Serious Question – Who’s Worse? Trump Supporters or Trump Protestors

My fascination with American Politics has increased considerably over the last 10 years or so.  The Candidates from the Republican Party are more right wing, more ignorant and frankly, more insane every 4 year election cycle.  At the time, I thought Bush was pretty bad but when I think about it now, he’s got nothing on the new crop of Republicans.  McCain, going partially senile and demented, nominating Sarah Palin as his running mate who as far as I am concerned, is a pycho f*&king loon was worse.  The Romney/Paul ticket wasn’t a whole lot better.  This year, it would appear that the whole thing has slid completely off the rails.  I literally cannot believe what I am seeing on tv and watching on the internet.  However, I am not entirely convinced that Donald Trump is as ignorant and stupid as he appears.  I think that there is an element of showmanship and toadyism.  He appears to be pretty damn good at telling people what they want to hear.  Whether or not he actually believes it, I don’t know.

Anywho, that brings me to my question.  Who is worse – the people who are ignorant and stupid enough to follow Trump and vote for him? – Or the people who show up at his rallies to protest him and get in fights (regardless of whether or not they started them) with his supporters?  He’s got every right to be saying what he’s saying so why would they do that?  The first amendment to the constitution guarantees him that.  If you want to protest him, there’s a very easy way that doesn’t involve conflict.  Don’t vote for him.

Help me out here people.

Use Politics, not Religion to de-radicalize religious Fanatics, say Canadian Masochists

I was reading this on the CBC news website earlier today and, as usual, couldn’t comment because they don’t have a comment section set up for it.  Not that I’d be able to leave a comment anyways, because the ultra-hyper-sensitive Tone Police  diligent moderators usually disable just about everything I say. If you want to see censorship at it’s finest, try saying anything remotely controversial and see how that goes.

What an amazing coincidence that the article was written by a journalist who has a masters degree in Islamic Studies from U of T.  If you want to read some of the most pathetic, obfuscating, masochistic, Islamic apologetic garbage, that’s apparently “journalism” you’ve every read in your entire life, I recommend that you read this article.  In no what whatsoever is Islam or religion to blame for any of terrorism – the global jihad that’s affecting more and more countries every day on every single continent on earth (except for, as far as I know, Iceland).  No – The blame rests squarely on the Canadian Government and it’s foreign policy.  Excuse me, but I have to go throw up now

 

Well that’s a shame….

I received notification in the past few weeks of some new followers to my blog.  No doubt it was as a result of the big row between Eva and Tildeb a few weeks ago which spilled over to my blog as well as several other people’s blogs.  One of those people following my blog was Eva (started on the 19th of April) but I see that she isn’t any longer.  That is rather unfortunate but not entirely unpredictable.  I went over to hers and read about her experience with Enneagrams and Richard Rohr.  I tried to leave a response but it was immediately deleted.  That’s a shame.  It’s a shame because I wanted to relay some important information that I think she should know about Enneagrams and Richard Rohr.  It’s a shame because rather than have her views challenged and told that perhaps what she’s reading might be unsubstantiated nonsense written by an unqualified and untrained individual, she’d rather wallow in ignorance.  Hopefully, not all of her readers are as insecure as that.

She asked “Rohr and an online test?  What’s not to love?”  My response was as follows:

What’s not to love?  Well, if you take it as entertainment value, I suppose it could be fun and interesting – like a horoscope (if you’re into that kind of thing.  I’m not).  But you shouldn’t take it seriously.  Why am I saying that?  To be mean?  No.  Because Enneagrams are considered pseudoscience and because Richard Rohr is not an clinical psychologist or anything of the sort.  He has nothing more than a masters in theology and as such, has no qualifications whatsoever to be discussing the subject he’s discussing and writing the books he’s writing.  If you want to learn about the very complicated study of Personality Psychology, which I don’t believe is an exact science to begin with, go the Wikipedia page and check it out, then follow the references, links and further suggested reading.

But by all means, if you want to take the easy route, take a 5 minute online test and diagnose your own personality.  If you want something that is more substantive, do the reading I suggested and if you really want to know, maybe pay for some sessions with a psychologist who will be qualified to tell you what makes you tick.