[Tsundoku]

Of course. Is it from the Book of Shasta or Tirian?

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

amphibian, on 04 October 2023 - 01:41 AM, said:

I think there's a dark horse shot Elise Stefanik gets the spot and she's absolutely garbage. She's from sorta my area of NY (I'm in Tonko's district) and I'm so tired of her shit.

Last I checked she was the frontrunner for the Trump campaign's VP pick, mainly because they want a woman... though I'd suppose she could just resign as Speaker if that happens. OTOH the fight might damage her. Or it could boost her profile enough to help secure the VP slot... if she were to pull it off well enough.

Tiste Simeon, on 04 October 2023 - 09:12 AM, said:

I often wonder if the bug mega church pastors and MAGA cult espousing evangelicals have actually ever read the words of Jesus. He had a whole lot to say about money and the rich and nothing to say about gay people.

I started watching The Righteous Gemstones and couldn't get past 1 episode because while it was funny I got too angry and sad.

Quote

multiple pastors had told him they would quote the Sermon on the Mount, specifically the part that says to "turn the other cheek," when preaching. Someone would come up after the service and ask, "Where did you get those liberal talking points?"

"What was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, 'I'm literally quoting Jesus Christ,' the response would not be, 'I apologize.' The response would be, 'Yes, but that doesn't work anymore. That's weak,'"

Christianity Today Editor: Evangelicals Call Jesus "Liberal" and "Weak" | The New Republic

Trump bringeth the New New Covenant.... MACDA---Make Are Covenant Draconian Again!

Quote

Christians who support the death penalty often cite passages from the Old Testament that allowed for capital punishment. But Jesus told his followers not to observe the Jewish law that allowed for retributive justice: "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also."

[...] "It is not possible to argue a Christian case in support of the death penalty while citing passages from the Hebrew scriptures, because this will put one at odds with Jesus himself."

[...] Many forget that Jesus once served as a one-man jury on a death-penalty case. [...] The law mandated her death but Jesus prescribed a different response: "Let whoever is without sin cast the first stone." He was teaching that only a perfect being—only God—should have power over death and life.

[...] Only five percent of Americans believe Jesus would support the government's ability to execute the worst criminals.

Would Jesus Support the Death Penalty? - The Atlantic

... but that was back in 2014.

[Abyss]

These are the same people who become enraged with denial when informed that Jesus - if he existed - would have been Semitic/Brown/not-white.

[Primateus]

Begun the GOP civil war has!

[QuickTidal]

Azath Vitr (D, on 03 October 2023 - 09:47 PM, said:

HoosierDaddy, on 03 October 2023 - 08:50 PM, said:

McCarthy OUT as Speaker. What a clusterfuck. Who wants to be held hostage by the far right MAGA people by accepting that role? Nobody wants that job... it's a lose/lose. Either you get nothing accomplished or you fuck over the country.

Time for Speaker Marjorie Taylor Greene?

... or will it be Lauren Boebert?...

This is the dumbest season of GAME OF THRONES I've ever seen.

Saw this on Reddit and it's VERY on the money:

Gaetz claims that McCarthy no longer represents the interests of the GOP caucus after the speaker worked with Democrats to pass a stopgap funding bill to avoid a government shutdown over the weekend.

That needs to be read and re-read.

They voted him out...because he worked with the other party (remember when that was a thing in Congress?) to pass a temporary compromise measure to keep the government from collapsing entirely.

It's like we're citizens of Pompeii... and there's a Pro-Vesuvius Party.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 04 October 2023 - 04:14 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Abyss, on 04 October 2023 - 03:07 PM, said:

These are the same people who become enraged with denial when informed that Jesus - if he existed - would have been Semitic/Brown/not-white.

Their rage gives it away. But the question of whether the historical Jesus, if he existed, would be considered 'non-white' in the present day United States is more complicated.

Quote

We have indication from period literature that Levantines and East Meds looked indistinguishable from Greeks and Romans (as well as emerging genetic evidence) — but markedly different from Northern Europeans. So the idea of qualifying Levantines(Jews and Western Syrians) as "nonwhite" has a yuuuuge cultural effect: it means reclassifying the entire Western Canon before the Renaissance as "nonwhite" (Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Sophocles, the church fathers s.a. Christostomos, etc.) which solves much of the current cultural wars.

[...] We now know pretty much how inhabitants of the Levant looked at the time from my colleague Pierre Zalloua's series of studies (a combination of J2a (some J2b like yours truly), R1a, R1b, E1b1b (Mediterranean) and J1 of the Northern Levant subclade).

[... What] did Judeans and Galileans look like at the time of Christ? [...] not according to some BS in a 2001 article in Scientific American (based on "scientific" reconstruction of facial features and skin tone from … bones).

[...] Western speakers of Semitic languages looked [...] no different from today's Western Syrians: like Southern Europeans; like generic Roman citizens (although most Jews were technically not citizens at the time of Jesus). Strikingly, Western Syrians (a.k.a. urban Syrians) still look the same today — in my experience they are usually indistinguishable from the Ionian Greeks, Cretans, or Cypriots who are in identity politics called "white".

No, Jesus was not a "NonWhite" refugee who would have voted for … | by Nassim Nicholas Taleb | East Med Project: History, Philology, and Genetics | Medium

In the 20th century the definition of 'whiteness' in the United States expanded to include Southern Europeans and Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jewish people. (Dark-skinned Italian-Americans or Greek-Americans can be especially vehement white supremacists... perhaps because they perceive their privileged status as 'white' people as precarious, whether based on whatever knowledge they have of historical US discrimination against Southern Europeans for being 'non-white' or as a consequence of their physical similarity to 'non-white' people (especially Mediterranean or Middle Eastern Muslims, who they may consider 'non-white').)

Quote

Among North American and European countries [...] the United States stands alone in counting Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) individuals as White. This stems from a legal ruling in 1944 that deemed all persons from the MENA region, regardless of their religion, "White by law" alongside European Americans [...]

[...] activists argued that MENA populations are not actually perceived by others in the United States as White. They have suggested that September 11, 2001 (9/11), the War on Terror, and increasingly divisive rhetoric in United States political campaigns further differentiated this group from Whites, leading to discriminatory experiences [...]

[...] it is not clear whether non-MENA Whites think of MENAs as part of the White population or as a separate non-White group [...]

There is some evidence that MENA-origin names hold non-White ethnic/racial connotations in the United States, but less is known about the comparative effects of multiple social characteristics, like names, skin tone, and religion, on the classification of MENA people (19). Furthermore, given the significant linguistic, ethnic, and phenotypic heterogeneity of the MENA population, it is unclear who is perceived as MENA by others[...]

Second, it is not clear how MENA individuals will self-identify (21). Identification as White was a conscious effort pursued by prior generations of immigrants to qualify for naturalization and signal their entry into the American mainstream (22 –24). The White category may continue to be preferred by certain immigrant generations or specific ethnic, religious, and national groups from the diverse MENA region. For example, in the United States, where White and Christian identities are closely linked, Christian Arab Americans are more likely than Muslim Arab Americans to self-identify as White (25, 26). At the same time, there is evidence that MENA Americans, as a class, face prejudice and discrimination as in the Trump Administration's Executive Orders 13769 (2017) and 13780 (2017–2021), which largely targeted potential migrants of MENA origin (27). Such racial hostility may trigger reactive ethnicity or ethnic militancy in reaction to perceived discrimination by the mainstream (28, 29). External attacks may increase MENA's internal solidarity and strengthen their identification as MENA (30). Nevertheless, even if MENA individuals perceive discrimination from others, this does not necessarily mean that they will identify as non-White. [...] Others may choose to identify as White as a coping mechanism to deal with perceived racial animosity or even due to different ethnoracial categories or ideologies from their countries of origin (32 –34). It is unclear whether a MENA category is equally appealing to all members of this heterogenous population.

Moreover, MENA individuals may not see identification as a zero-sum decision between MENA and White, and instead choose to identify as both White and MENA. Indeed, similar identification patterns have been observed among descendants of Hispanic and Asian immigrants, whose ultimate position within the United States ethnoracial hierarchy remains uncertain (35).

Middle Eastern and North African Americans may not be perceived, nor perceive themselves, to be White | PNAS

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 04 October 2023 - 07:22 PM

[QuickTidal]

Huh, I certainly didn't have "a forum member tries the 'Jesus really probably WAS white by this strict definition' tactic in the USA politics thread" on my bingo card for today, but here we are....

Also a paper by three sociologists and ZERO historians...yeah, okay, that's clearly well vetted /s.

If you're going to try to be non-biased on any topic concerning humans in our history, then you need both since they OFTEN, OFTEN wildly disagree....like to the point it's a meme that historians and sociologists disagree. Having three sociologists is just a one-sided paper I can disregard.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

QuickTidal, on 04 October 2023 - 07:37 PM, said:

Huh, I certainly didn't have "a forum member tries the 'Jesus really probably WAS white by this strict definition' tactic in the USA politics thread" on my bingo card for today, but here we are....

Also a paper by three sociologists and ZERO historians...yeah, okay, that's clearly well vetted /s.

If you're going to try to be non-biased on any topic concerning humans in our history, then you need both since they OFTEN, OFTEN wildly disagree....like to the point it's a meme that historians and sociologists disagree. Having three sociologists is just a one-sided paper I can disregard.

You obviously didn't bother reading much of it. Anyway, that paper was incidental to the main point. TL;DR: going by historical and genetic evidence, he would have had olive skin and typical modern-day Levantine features. In the present day United States, if he had a recognizably Jewish name, he'd most likely be considered 'white'. If he had a Muslim name, he'd probably be considered 'non-white', especially post-9/11.

I wish it were otherwise, since it would be politically convenient. But from what I've read it's probably not.

[amphibian]

Whiteness is more of a social construct that many people hew towards because of the material and emotional benefits than it is a clearly defined set of characteristics. The subset of "blond" is even stranger because some people who are not blond insist that they once were or are and so on for the ancillary benefits somehow.

The point in discussing these things regarding American politics is that this is messy stuff. The aspirations of politicians or the polities they court are sometimes venal, dumb, and/or somehow still able to tap into the "yes I want more of this" well in millions of people.

I hate it, yet it's the world we live in right now.

[QuickTidal]

Azath Vitr (D, on 04 October 2023 - 08:00 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 04 October 2023 - 07:37 PM, said:

Huh, I certainly didn't have "a forum member tries the 'Jesus really probably WAS white by this strict definition' tactic in the USA politics thread" on my bingo card for today, but here we are....

Also a paper by three sociologists and ZERO historians...yeah, okay, that's clearly well vetted /s.

If you're going to try to be non-biased on any topic concerning humans in our history, then you need both since they OFTEN, OFTEN wildly disagree....like to the point it's a meme that historians and sociologists disagree. Having three sociologists is just a one-sided paper I can disregard.

You obviously didn't bother reading much of it. Anyway, that paper was incidental to the main point. TL;DR: going by historical and genetic evidence, he would have had olive skin and typical modern-day Levantine features. In the present day United States, if he had a recognizably Jewish name, he'd most likely be considered 'white'. If he had a Muslim name, he'd probably be considered 'non-white', especially post-9/11.

I'm not really willing to participate in your "I'm just asking questions" nonsense or your "posts links to shit in lieu of conversation and debate". It matters not whether I read it when it was written by 3 sociologists... I GET TO IGNORE IT as the clear clickbait pablum it is.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

If it's any consolation, it's still accurate to say that, if he existed, the historical Jesus was certainly Middle-Eastern (more specifically Levantine and Judean), and most likely had Levantine features and olive skin---very likely some shade of brown, especially if he spent significant time out in the sun. And he definitely wouldn't have been considered 'white' in the United States a hundred years ago.

And no one was 'white' in ancient times.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 05 October 2023 - 02:50 PM

[Lady Bliss]

Please. Let’s not argue. It upsets the children.

[Macros]

Joe Biden is white, he's from ancient times
Badum tish

[worry]

Lady Bliss, on 05 October 2023 - 04:27 PM, said:

Cut the malarkey!

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Jesus probably would have looked like many Syrian or Palestinian refugees. If he were perceived as being Muslim (whether because of clothing, country of origin, or name), he would be discriminated against.

Of course, in most contexts (and especially Twitter, where any critique of progressive slogans is assumed to be in bad faith, and nuanced political discussion has largely given way to meme-war) it's best to just let people say, 'Jesus wasn't white'. Since no one was white, it's technically true. (Reminds of one time I was walking past a large group of marching protestors chanting 'No justice, no peace' and 'Hands up, don't shoot'---after the latter had been debunked---and part me was tempted to say, 'Well, actually...')


More on topic... perhaps I shouldn't be shocked by anything anymore, but it seems like the far right contingent in the House might actually be trying to make Trump Speaker, at least temporarily (they'd have to change GOP conference rules that forbid anyone under indictment from being Speaker, but they already changed conference rules to oust McCarthy)... and he's now indicating he might do it. I think it's probably still just a publicity stunt, or at most wouldn't last very long (Trump did say he wants the government to shut down... ugh with Trump as 'Speaker' it could stay shut down for a long time). But if Trump threatens to back their opponents in upcoming primaries... he could easily pressure the Republicans into electing him Speaker.

Quote

"If Trump becomes Speaker of the House, the House chamber will be like a Trump rally everyday!!" Greene wrote [...] "It would be the House of MAGA!!!"

[...] "We only have one choice for Speaker: President Donald J. Trump," [...]

Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) announced he would nominate him.

Greene says GOP could have 'a Trump rally everyday' at Capitol if he's Speaker | The Hill

Quote

"A lot of people have been calling me about speaker. All I can say is we'll do whatever is best for the country and the Republican Party," Trump told reporters outside the courthouse

Trump floats serving as House speaker for 'short period of time' if needed until GOP settles on leader | CNN Politics

Does he think he wouldn't have to show up every day the House is in session? I guess he could have let a temporary speaker take over when he's not there.

Some people have suggested that the Speech and Debate clause might allow Trump, as Speaker, to get away with speech that would otherwise be illegal---and thereby get around the judge's recent gag order.

One of the worst case scenarios would be if Trump believes his only chance of staying out of prison is to become president before the election---by being Speaker when Biden and Harris are murdered. Extremely unlikely---and hopefully they'd have more security than just about ever before---but I'll bet Trump has considered it....

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 06 October 2023 - 01:46 AM

[Nicodimas]

MODGOD NOTICE OF NO.
TAKE YOUR CONSPIRACY CRAP ELSEWHERE.
THIS IS YOUR ONE AND ONLY WARNING

This post has been edited by Abyss: 10 October 2023 - 02:23 AM

[worry]

We done with this dude’s alt-light “I just care about the economy and the Constitution” schtick yet or does he have to go full mask off before we ‘see’ what he’s selling?

[QuickTidal]

I’ve been done with his shit for a while. He doesn’t contribute to any other areas of the site, he just runs by this thread every few weeks and smears his alt-right conspiracy shit all over it and then runs the fuck away. It’s pretty insufferable.

[Nicodimas]

@ QT: I have never been unsufferable. I post good articles about the stuff that actual has true real impact. That was all backed by government articles and support too. Why are you ignoring this?? It's not even right wing! It's posting truths we are facing right now and nobody here wants to discuss it. I actually come here mostly to hear your viewpoints as I find your counterpoints fascinating and will try to always encourage your supportive counterpoints. So thank you.

I get the overall impact is rough as at the current time if we took 50 percent of all government support off the table. it would take 16+ years to equalize out..read the graphs..it's all public government given information too.


@Abyss its not conspiracy? We are really spending too much 275! billion in a single day . I don't get why we can't discuss the writing on the wall. Each thing was supported by facts. We only take in 18% of medicare revenue. Not one thing in that post wasnt backed up by actual government sites ! I would be truly engrossed if you can show how the government driven graphs and public information are conspiracy laden, like the government says how's it spends money and how it takes it in.

Why are people here so unwilling to face truths and facts. There is literal substance on each post I make. I get its not fun to think about.

Anyhow this is a political thread ..why are we trying to ignore the problems faced by modern society ? Confusing as it's right there on the table. We should be able to freely talk about it from different angles.

The true death comes from when we suppress knowledge.

This post has been edited by Nicodimas: 12 October 2023 - 01:15 AM

[Nicodimas]

Anyhow I'll continue to be here for you all and post my supportive articles and logic backed articles. You can definitely block them if your not willing to read and respond. That's on you.

I will always encourage and support well thought out counterpoints that aren't aimed at mocking me personally. Sometimes the amount of hate is quite hurtful..when your just trying to help others at the end of the day.

I've said for your years now I'm independent who has one right issue and leans left on social support.

People all have the right to their own thought politically. Each person and by no means should my thoughts hurt your political feelings as adults we should know our belief structures well enough.

I don't think I have ever posted out out hate, but love of America and the goal is to get through this together.

(@ Abyss Don't let hate divide us all for sure.)

This post has been edited by Nicodimas: 12 October 2023 - 01:21 AM