Which is more fun: social science and politics, or brain scanners and politics? You decide.
In a paper published online today in Current Biology, [cognitive neuroscientist Ryota Kanai and colleagues at University College London] report
stwo main findings: political conservatives tend to have a larger right amygdala, a region involved in detecting threats and responding to fearful stimuli, whereas liberals tend to have a larger anterior cingulate cortex, an area that becomes active in situations involving conflict or uncertainty.
In fact, the two disciplines work even better when you take them together. In a sense you could say that the new study corroborates what an earlier group found without using any expensive brain scanners.
The whiny kids tended to grow up conservative, and turned into rigid young adults who hewed closely to traditional gender roles and were uncomfortable with ambiguity.
The confident kids turned out liberal and were still hanging loose, turning into bright, non-conforming adults with wide interests. The girls were still outgoing, but the young men tended to turn a little introspective.
Block admits in his paper that liberal Berkeley is not representative of the whole country. But within his sample, he says, the results hold. He reasons that insecure kids look for the reassurance provided by tradition and authority, and find it in conservative politics. The more confident kids are eager to explore alternatives to the way things are, and find liberal politics more congenial.
To sum: uncertainty is frightening, and if you’re especially prone to get scared of things then you can cope by building a comfortable shell of certainty around yourself. Though the comfy shell makes you reactionary and resentful of change or new ideas, you do tend to sleep better.
It fits with what I already think so it must be true! YMMV.
Steve LaBonne
Conservatives are WATBs, and WATBs are conservatives- that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
Poopyman
Hmmm. Well, this may explain why I’m such a shitty sleeper….
cermet
There you go again using scientific facts, which we all know have a liberal bias … .
greennotGreen
But how about nature vs. nurture? I vote for nurture. My parents are both conservative – father deeply affected by the depression and family instability, mother socially insecure possibly due to a very critical father. But my sister and I grew up in the comfortable suburbs in an intact family. We’re both very liberal. Her kids have grown up in an intact family of sufficient means, and they’re very liberal. Minute sample size, I know; wonder if it bears out?
Villago Delenda Est
I don’t care much for uncertainty, but it’s better than the abject serfdom that the teatards aspire to.
What wretched creatures they are.
Brachiator
Must be a slow news day. If brain scans were available during the 16th century, someone would no doubt used this nonsense in an attempt to prove something about Catholics and Protestants.
Juicetard (FKA Liberty60)
The words we use to describe political movements are murky and don’t really align with the meanings of “Conservative” or “Liberal” in any meaningful sense.
For example, I am a Reagan conservative-turned liberal Democrat.
Except when you look closer, my basic personality has remained the same thoughout my life- I was a conservative in the classic sense- cautious, careful, skeptical of radical changes and seeing value in tradition and societal norms.
Today I am the same, except instead of defending some Burkean tradition, I am defending things that are empricially proven to work- Social Security, Medicare, anking regulation, labor unions. I embrace new social norms that have proven themselves to be positive, such as gay marriage.
Its part of my thesis that the American political movements have switch sides- todays “conservatives” are actually radical social engineers, while the “liberals” are stout defenders of tradition.
Bottom line, I am skeptical of these “studies” that have the happy coincidence of making one side or the other look good.
Mandramas
The notion of a neurological experiment to analyze political alignment is an insult to the scientific method.
ppcli
Yeah, where I grew up the people who spoke French at home tended to be the most liberal. But you guys all speak English and most of you tend to the liberal side (by American standards). Drawing from my extensive experience I can only conclude that you’re all pretty weird.
Yutsano
@Brachiator:
Yeah. News about the Cogresscritters not getting their shit together, especially when facts start running counter to teh Narrative (hallowed be its name) means the MSM has to scramble for filler.
Joel
This stuff is fun and all, but I have a hard time taking this kind of science very seriously.
Villago Delenda Est
@Juicetard (FKA Liberty60):
Traditionally, conservatives have been about maintaining stability, and “cautious, careful, skeptical of radical changes and seeing value in tradition and societal norms” definitely was consistent with that.
Yet modern “conservatives” embrace contradictions without the slightest hesitation; the dynamics of the unrestrained free market, which is great at several things, to include destroying old societal norms (think about what the mobility of the automobile does to them, for example). If they were actually conservative, they’d understand why their economic philosophy is incompatible with their social philosophy, but critical thinking skills are a hallmark of those appalling liberals…
Modern “conservatives” seem to be desperate to return to a mythological past sometime prior to all that “liberalism” that cropped up during the Renaissance…
kdaug
Brain scanners, bar none.
ETA: “Bewooyeewooyeewoo. Scan completed, doctor”
Chris
Odd, because I seem to have gone from one to the other (over time growing more comfortable with the ambiguities and shades of gray more or less at the same time as I was making the transition from Republican to Democrat).
Joel
@Joel: I have to add; Current Biology? That’s right outside the S-N-C big three. Are they just trolling for hits or something?
greennotGreen
Perhaps it’s better to look at this study as predictive of where a person might fall on an authoritarian scale. There *are* authoritarian people who are politically liberal. I think they all voted for Nader in 2000 because Gore was insufficiently pure.
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
Isn’t that just passing from “conservative” to “reactionary” – as in, from a person who seeks to preserve the status quo because he’s skeptical of change, to a person who seeks to bring back a long-dead status quo that never really existed outside of his own mind?
tkogrumpy
That’s two in a row to toss into the making our tribe feel good file. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Linnaeus
Count me in as a skeptic of attempts to “biologize” socially constructed categories.
Mandramas
An american liberal is center-right in any other country, but maybe Germany or Chile.
Asshole
Why is this kind of marginal, question-begging pseudoscience any more respectable than the kind of crap Dinesh D’Souza spouts about IQ tests, again?
I was a shy, insecure kid who grew up to be liberal. Most of the kids I knew who were confident grew up to be conservative. By these groups’ “findings,” I guess none of my childhood should even exist.
Juicetard (FKA Liberty60)
@Villago Delenda Est:
I believe plenty of people have pointed out that the free market, left completely unfettered, is at war with the other pillar of traditional conservative thought, Tradition and Morality.
Put bluntly, the market demands porn as easily as Pepsi.
beltane
Speaking of conservatives, here is an interesting study demonstrating the difference in brain wiring between bonobos and chimpanzees: http://forwhattheywereweare.blogspot.com/2011/04/bonobo-and-chimpanzee-brains-differ-in.html
freelancer
Jeez, Tim, why don’t you trot out some Evolutionary Psychology to add to this discussion?
Linnaeus
@Juicetard (FKA Liberty60):
Yeah, it’s funny; when conservative free-market loving acquaintances of mine sometimes express surprise at what people try to buy and sell in our economy, I sometimes point out to them that in a capitalist economy, anything can be commodified. Hell, we used to buy and sell human beings in this country, so it shouldn’t be surprising that we’d buy and sell any number of other things.
Chris
@Juicetard (FKA Liberty60):
“”No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.”
Yet that is precisely what this culture’s been trying to do for quite some time.
Of course. And yet they find ways to blame The Liberals for what happens when their own economics are applied.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
shukran jazakallah Tim.
I bin sayin’ this for a while.
so has Jay Rosen.
"Serious" Superluminar
I was going to praise there being two posts in a row not mentioning you know who, but then I saw the rotating tag was “The Math Demands It!” and realised there was no escape.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@greennotGreen: well….i was nurtured conservative, but eventually natured liberal….does that answer your question?
;)
alsotoo
94% of scientists are NOT-conservative. 75% of post-baccs are NOT-conservative.
correlation is not causation but jeeezus…..
Tyro
@Juicetard (FKA Liberty60):
I’m the same– temperamentally conservative, but I was not old enough to go though a republican phase: they’ve always been crazy during my adulthood. I can’t claim to be someone who likes radical change; it’s not a philosophical position as much as a personality type. But that puts me in the democratic party: favoring tried and true working solutions to our problems rather than dismantling our country in service to my ideology.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Superluminar.
who the fuck are you talking about? Lord Voldemort?
Sentient Puddle
That was not my life at all. By that measure, I should be a fucking teabagger today.
At least this part turned out to be true.
Paul in KY
@Asshole: Maybe instead of ‘confident’, they were just smug jerks & you mischaracterized them?
Asshole
Well, if I refer to a sample of my 15 most confident childhood friends, and I find that 10 of them are politically conservative now, then that must prove something about the non-Berkeley parts of the country, right? Or at least within my sample group, which is every bit as meaningful or interesting as his.
Villago Delenda Est
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
No, that would be a reference to the previous Vice President of the United States. The one who dines on the livers of Iraqi children, with a nice chianti and some fava beans.
No, I believe that was a reference to the Daily Dish dude.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Chris:
that is why all libertarians/liberaltarians in America are whores.
For the atheists.
Asshole
@Paul in KY:
No idea. I should concede, though, that in my experience, the two are usually difficult for me to distinguish.
Paul in KY
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Feeel your anger! The Dark Side demands it…Oh, wrong genre ;-)
Er, expelarmisisis him!
Asshole
Also, too, though, I really think this is pretty shitty “science.” The phrenology of our times.
Paul in KY
@Asshole: I think for Berkeley, a ‘confident’ Liberal kid is sorta easy going & not afraid to go their own way, etc. etc.
Brachiator
@beltane:
Oh, noes, another, bonobos are just like us,
so let’s overpraise stuff about them.
There was a time, when Jane Goodall was doing her first studies of chimps, when people thought that these primates were gentle and like hippies. Then, when they turned out to be more complex, some addicted to pseudo science jumped off that bandwagon and desperately looked for another species that could be used to “prove” dubious dreams about “human nature.”
The sad thing is that human encroachments may result in the extinction of chimps, bonobos and other primates, and we will all be the lesser for it, and not just because of what these wonderful creatures might tell us about ourselves.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Brachiator: bobobos are also really into single partner consensual sex. chimps like rape and harams.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
Tim F
I am ecstatic that you are suddenly making more FP posts.
Your post on A Call to Arms is what initially brought me to BJ.
It came right in the middle of my Palin-horror reversion to liberalism.
<3
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Juicetard (FKA Liberty60):
Well, thank Bog for the market, then!
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Paul in KY: wrong thread, Paulie D.
this is a psycho-anatomy thread.
i lurve the biological basis of behavior.
cermet
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: So what you are saying is liberals are like Bonobos (great name, huh?) and repub-a-thigs are the chimps (like ray-gun or bush the puppet king.)
Asshole
@Paul in KY:
You’re probably right. You always have to wonder about socioeconomics and other factors, though. How does one even control for that sort of thing, here?
I also know there are plenty of politically “liberal” parts of the country with very conservative cultural values. And I doubt those Berkeley kids would be quite so easy-going if you plopped them down in another part of the country, in a blue county in a blue state (for argument’s sake, why not?), a couple of income brackets below where they were in Berkeley, and where they got to spend all of their middle school and high school years dealing with other kids beating the shit out of them or calling them “faggot.” (You know, sort of like my childhood went. Not that I’m bitter or anything, mind you…)
Nothing takes that self-confidence out of a kid quite like the first 4 or 5 times they’ve had the shit kicked out of them in a public middle school. They might still grow up to be liberal, but does this sort of personality test prove anything about their burgeoning ideology or their intelligence or much of anything else?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Asshole: anecdote is not data, retard.
;)
Brachiator
@Chris:
Sure you can. Consider scientist Martin Rees, who has whored himself out since “winning” the Templeton Prize.
Rees now makes mealy mouth comments about religion and unfairly knocks people like Richard Dawkins and Stephen Hawking.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@cermet: no….im saying there is a biological basis for all behavior. Behavior can correlate with either the genome(nature) or phenome(nurtured nature).
i bet Cole didn’t understand that.
>:(
Villago Delenda Est
I recall some made for TV movie about the principle Nuremberg trials, where Alec Baldwin portrayed Robert Jackson, in which one of the characters stated, after interviews with dozens of Nazis, both the principles and the underlings, that “evil is the absence of empathy”.
We’re seeing that in spades in the modern “conservative” movement.
Asshole
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Go fuck yourself, m.c. Is it still okay to rape the shit out of women who happen to be Christians, in your book?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Brachiator: You cannot HONESTLY serve both God and Money.
like american libertarians and liberaltarians are all lying intellectual whores.
;)
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Asshole: of course not. But if they are stupid enough to walk down your metaphorical dark alley on a missionary mission their christianity will not protect them.
My shiny new hypoth is that christianity, not conservatism, is selection for stupid.
;)
Citizen Alan
In other words, they’re lizard people. Which was pretty much my theory all along.
Brachiator
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
What? Some researchers, probably prudish, have described bonobos as “hypersexual.” Some of their activity is like an orgy without the need for mood-altering chemicals.
They also engage in a lot of same sex genital rubbing.
But this ain’t simplistically “single partner consensual sex.” And bonobos have been observed for too short a time for anyone to make definitive remarks about their behavior. For the longest time, they were considered to be just an offshoot of regular chimps and not a separate species.
Gorillas form harams, not chimps. This is consistent with some basic primate morphology. High degree of sexual dimorphism in gorillas (males much larger than females) and you get harems. Mild degree of sexual dimorphism (humans and chimps) and you get some degree of polyamory with a degree of male dominance. There is less sexual dimorphism in bonobos, so less dominance of either males or females. Male orangs are solitary and larger than females, so you get males mating with multiple females who live within their territories.
And “rape” goes too far in using human-centric terms for primate behavior.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Brachiator: umm sorry, but I have read quite a bit about how female bobonos use monogamous sex pairing to manipulate males.
You are however correct that they have not been studied as thoroughly as chimps.
And chimp behavior is closer to gorillas than bobonos, because chimps have more sexual dimorphism than bobobos although less than gorillas.
My interest has been primarily in waterfall display and evolutionary theory of religion, dance and language, so you may be better versed in bobono culture than i am.
;)
Asshole
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
How does brain chemistry explain the evolution of your views from a month ago, then, when you thought running around raping Christians was completely fair game? Also, do you still support killing other Balloon Juice commenters’ parents, or has some change in your brain chemistry caused you to abandon that idea too?
If anyone in the world gave a fuck what you think about anything, this might matter. But you’re a moral pustule with the intellectual capacity of a gnat, so your views are of scant consequence.
Dennis SGMM
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
My goodness, aren’t we full of ourselves. This hypoth of yours is in no way coincidental with turning yourself into a sofa, or was it a sufi, maybe a suffragette, right? In any case, your stream-of-consciousness perseveration provides some much needed humor in these dark times.
greennotGreen
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: No, Anecdotes are data.
Villago Delenda Est
John Calvin solved the “God vs. Money” problem. Just make Money your God.
Thus, the rampant Mammon worship that you see amongst the Jeebofascist fundies.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Asshole: I said the same thing about the noble rich white american christian missionaries killed by evil poor black somali muslim pirates and cdragons dad if you recall.
Its not christianity that gets missionaries killed in the act of proselytizing people that don’t want it–it is stupidity.
Plain old survival of the fittest.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@greennotGreen: not in any stat class i ever took.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Dennis SGMM: je m’amuse. Why shouldn’t you?
ABT.
Omnes Omnibus
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Barack Obama. You are refuted.
Asshole
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Yes, I know. All Christians are equally repugnant beings who can be hunted down, raped, and killed in your view.
Who were the fucking Christians on the high seas proselytizing to when they got attacked by pirates, you fucking lunatic? Moby Dick?
99.999% of missionaries survive, you know. Even the proselytizing ones. Even if we suspend disbelief and basic human decency long enough to enter your worldview and take it on its own terms, it’s proven to be complete bullshit by the facts in evidence.
I have about as much interest in your views on morality, intelligence, or much of anything else as I do those of some redneck in a KKK outfit who burns crosses for shits and giggles. You’re both dangerously insane, just differing brands of crazy.
Dennis SGMM
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Ooooo, Tish, you spoke French at me. Keep on posting. I am betting that by December you will have decided that you’re either a Zoroastrian or a cherrystone clam.
Omnes Omnibus
@Dennis SGMM: She could be both.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Asshole: i think you should write Cole about it.
;)
Who were the fucking Christians on the high seas proselytizing to when they got attacked by pirates, you fucking lunatic?
dude, they had a cargo hold full of bibles.
again, simple survival of the fittest.
Asshole
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
And you have a head full of bat turds, but yet you’re still somehow permitted to walk the streets.
Again, 99.999% of missionaries survive, even the ones who proselytize and hand out Bibles. So you’re refuted by empirical reality. Come visit it sometime.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Asshole: the cargo of bibles put them in the pirates reach. But the pirates were simple capitalists. They killed the missionaries when the warships started in pursuit, so’s to get some return to value on their investment.
;)
Brachiator
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Much of the observations of primates, especially bonobos, has been tainted by scientists not making observations, but interpreting behavior in terms of actions and behavior of which they approve. And the biggest problem is the lack of long term observations in the wild. Also, I discount most observations of any animals held in captivity, especially bonobos, chimps and orangs.
Uh, no. The male gorilla typically monopolizes the sexual reproduction of all the females in his troop, and directs the activities of the group. This is not the case with chimpanzees. The behavior of male gorillas is more like that of lions, which again is suggested by the degree of sexual dimorphism.
If you ever see a bonobo dance, it may be a sign that they are going to overtake us in evolution.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Brachiator: hmm…you could be right, but waterfall display is postualted to be a precursor to both dance and worship.
And both bobonos and chimps do waterfall display.
Not gorillas.
Chris
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Bitch was asking for it, man.
Asshole
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
This is one of the stupidest things ever written in the English language. Are you asserting that the only reasons the pirates caught them was that they had Bibles in their hold? If they’d had cookbooks, would their ship somehow have outraced the pirates?
Oh, so I guess proselytizing had fuck-all to do with it. So you’re full of shit, and your views lack anything even approaching internal consistency. So you can shut the fuck up any time, now, because talking to you is about as interesting as talking to a room-full of parrots that have each been trained to say one moronic thing by several dozen different morons holding several dozen conflicting yet equally-moronic viewpoints.
Social outcast
I’m pretty whiny and still am pretty liberal. Outlier!
Asshole
@Chris:
That’s pretty much the moral and intellectual level we’re dealing with, here.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Asshole: yet defense against proselytization is the most successful CSS on the planet right now, and the USA has spent over a trillion dollars with a remarkable lack of success against it in A-stan and Iraq.
;)
look dude. i simply do not care what christians believe.
Christians are people of the book.
But it is both rude and impossible to push it on other humans that don’t want it.
Tony J
@Juicetard (FKA Liberty60):
It’s a good thesis.
I’d just add that, looking at America from outside, it boils down to this.
Democrats since FDR have had a run of Governments that changed America for the better. Lots of flaws, but a lot of important, long-lasting successes that they can feel proud looking back on. Defending it doesn’t require radical action, just an appreciation of what works and what doesn’t, and how you can improve it.
Republicans.. don’t. They have a litany of failures, grifers and crooks to look back on, and stark proof that whenever their preferred policy options are put into action they don’t work. Everything goes to shit and Democrats have to come in and clean the mess off the walls.
Faced with that, you either conclude that you were wrong to oppose the policies that have been proven to work, or you double down by convincing yourself that the system has been rigged by ‘Them’ to make your polices look bad, so that system has to be torn down and replaced with the last ‘uncorrupted copy of the original’. For some that’s ‘Back to Reagan’, for others it’s ‘Back to Hoover’, while for some it’s ‘Back to Whoever the hell was in power before that N—–rlover Lincoln wrecked the country’.
One of those things is ‘conservative’, the other is not. But YMMV.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Chris: yup. profound lack of survival skills.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Tony J:
Free market solutions are PROVEN to fail. Yet the conservative/libertarians still just want one. more. chance.
It is anti-empirical.
Im gobsmacked by how many on the right AND the left want to bend over for another freemarket assraping.
Asshole
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
What the fuck does that have to do with telling a Balloon Juice commenter that it’s too bad her father wasn’t murdered, or with supporting pirates killing random people on the high seas? What the fuck is wrong with you?
Stop winking at me, you sick fuck. I’m not flirting with you.
I don’t care what they believe either. But I do care that dangerous serial killers and serial rapists are off the streets, and morally you’re on par with both.
You’re one to talk. Nobody around here wants to hear shit from you. You’ve even been banned from this fucking blog. And yet here you are again, peddling your bullshit on a wholly-uninterested and deeply hostile commentariat.
A Christian proselytizer would’ve stopped harassing this blog a long time ago. So if anything, from a blogging-trolling point of view you’re 500 times worse than the most obnoxious missionary on the planet.
Dennis SGMM
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
I must have missed all those videos of the troops singing “Onward Christian Soldiers.” Your definition of proselytizing seems to consist of “Not being a Muslim in an Islamic country.” Rather simplistic, even for someone with your multiple personalty disorders.
How it must gall you to live in the midst of a few hundred million Christians. You could move to, say, Saudi Arabia and be surrounded by your co-religionists. Not only would you hear the call to prayer several times a day, you wouldn’t need a car, would you? Because women can’t drive in Saudi Arabia, can they? What an enlightened place.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Asshole:
not to mention stupid.
;)
Chris
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Whenever someone gets raped, you can always expect there to be some asshole, somewhere, who goes up to the victims and tsk tsks them because they really shouldn’t have worn such a short skirt.
When it’s murder, however, these assholes can stay home. Makoto’s got their back.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Dennis SGMM:
bothers me not a wit.
In America we have freedom of religion.
The Founders actually designed their quasi-secular utopia for people like me.
Americans.
Chris
@Asshole:
It’s not sick. But it’s very Palin-esque. Methinks.
Dennis SGMM
@Asshole:
That’s not a wink, it’s facial tic.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Chris: lawl. sorry if i offend.
i will abstain the emoticons.
Asshole
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Yes, you have every right to be a complete amoral fucking asshole. And the rest of us have every right to call you out on that. And John Cole has the right to ban you from his blog again and again and again, which is probably what will end up happening unless and until you’re arrested on some felony charge or committed to a mental health institution for your own safety and the safety of others.
Still, though, you do have to admit that if America were run by people even half as sociopathic as you, you’d be in a lot of trouble by now.
Chris
@Tony J:
But in the process, they’ve made enemies. Every important, long-lasting success has pissed off a certain number of people, and the Nixon years are when these guys all just kind of coalesced together.
Now you’re facing Wall Street robber barons angry at the New Deal, and the religious puritans who’ve been angry at every “sin” from Prohibition to gayness, and racists who’re mad at the civil rights movement, and neocons and nationalists of the kind that got us into Vietnam and Iraq and are pissed that people get soured on those things after a while… list goes on.
Not saying the changes shouldn’t have happened. (As Churchill said, “You’ve made enemies. Good. That means you’ve fought for something along the way.”) Just that what we’re going through now is a logical consequence of all that progress.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Chris: oh quit with false equivalence.
this is what i said.
you keep trying to frame this as if the xian missionary girls would get raped for their beliefs you retard. They would get raped for being stupid and putting themselves in danger and low survival skills. fucking martyr complex.
People don’t like proselytizers. get over it.
Asshole
Starbursts leave the room. If only winky left with them.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Asshole: again, i think it is wunnerful that christians believe in the jesus godhead. Issa is one of my favorite prophets. But many people do not want to hear about it, including me.
yours is better for you, mine is better for me.
The cargo hold of bibles put the rich white christian missionaries in the pirates grasp. Other wise they could have been enjoying a nice safe booze cruise off of Paradise Island.
Please write Cole and tell him how awful I am. He loves mail.
Brachiator
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Not convinced. People have taken an observation made by Jane Goodall and others and jumped to all kinds of conclusions about it, including a supposed “reverence for nature.”
Although I would not jump to any facile conclusions about it, the behavior of lemurs is equally fascinating:
Asshole
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
What happened to “cudlip”? That used to be your special name for us all. Or has your brain chemistry changed and affected your vocabulary?
Yes, dangerous situations like being in boats in the middle of the ocean. Or walking the public streets in a city. Or just generally being alive, and drawing breath. Those fucking whiny martyrs, always expecting special treatment!
Once again, 99.999% of missionaries survive. Can you please drill that into your head or address it in some way, even if it’s just to quibble with me over my percentages and prove that it’s actually only 99.879% of missionaries or something? You’re likelier to die from a fucking traffic accident than some missionary is from getting murdered in-country. So your original premise is complete horseshit.
Then why don’t you SHUT THE FUCK UP?
opie_jeanne
@greennotGreen: Then there’s myself and my husband, who started out conservatives and discovered in our late 50s that we had gradually converted ourselves to liberals. I blame education and the availability of information, as we get more and more liberal the more information we have access to.
Chris
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
No, I didn’t frame it as “they would get raped because of their beliefs.” I framed it as “it is wrong for them to get raped, and only a sack of shit worthless beyond words would come up and tsk tsk them over low survival skills or some bullshit.”
Oh believe me, I know. I can’t fucking stand them most of the time. But if I picked up a gun and shot the next Jehovah’s Witness or God knows what who came to my house, I’d be arrested and locked up for murder, and I damn well ought to be.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Asshole: /sigh
again
Asshole
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Obviously you lack reading comprehension skills. Or maybe you only read every other thing I say. So I’ll say it again: this has fuck-all to do with what Christians believe. This has everything to do with you being a deranged sociopathic asshole who belongs locked up in some kind of facility. Piss off.
They were travelling the high seas. If they’d had a cargo full of booze they still would’ve been captured. International shipping lanes do not exist at the convenience or whim of Somali pirates. If you disagree, fuck off and go join a Somali pirate ship. Your loathsome presence here will not be missed.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Chris:
yup, its a hypothetical situ. Why are you raging? Your point?
…in America, right? But in Syria or Indonesia they would be arrested and you wouldn’t have to shoot them. Do you see the difference?
I just tell them im a muslim, and they run like scalded cats. But my friend Marie tried to stick one of them with a carving fork through her screen door. And she is a catholic.
Chris
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
And in international waters, apparently, they get killed. Do you see the difference?
If you or one of your friends ever get raped, let me know. I’ll send the local pastor up so he can lecture you on how your skirt was too short, you shouldn’t have smiled just then, or God knows what. At that point, you will not need to ask “why you raging.”
Asshole
@Chris:
Part of me thinks this creepy Hermione-chan lunatic is just trolling, because if she actually lived by her beliefs she would’ve been locked up a long time ago. Our nation’s prisons are chock-full of convicted felons whose actions and beliefs are rarely anywhere near as odious as the crap she advocates. I can’t imagine someone would survive into early adulthood believing even a fraction of her shit. Not without an armed entourage or something.
Of course, the possibility that she’s 14 years old can’t be ruled out, either.
Chris
@Asshole:
Frankly, that’s because not everyone in our prisons deserves to be… but that’s a whole nother story. I know what you meant.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Chris:
none of my friends would ever be stupid enough to go into that metaphorical dark alley.
I dont understand what you are saying.
Those international waters are not very safe either. They got killed because they were stupid. They were there because they were on a “mission” to bring bibles somewhere instead of cruising around the Bahamas or somewhere safer.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Chris: @Asshole: You are both about to stroke out over a hypothetical dark alley that doesn’t even exist.
Get a grip.
I think both of you should mail Cole about how awful I am.
He lurves commenter feedback.
shortstop
@Mandramas: But surely you can see the fun of throwing this study at the right and munching popcorn as their scientific illiteracy prevents them from coherently explaining why it’s bullshit?
Chris
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
And if you ever met a woman who was, you’d be the person gloating “bitch deserved it.”
Not surprising.
Chris
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
There is no such thing as a “safe” area. In recent times, DC’s had murders in reputedly “safe” areas like Bethesda or Georgetown. The Caribbean has crime too, not to mention the natural disasters.
The reason the “metaphorical dark alley” comments irritate people is because the alley doesn’t exist – rape can and does literally happen everywhere. Murder works the same way.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Mandramas:
bzzzzzzt Wrong!
that is fMRI….functional magnetic resonance imaging.
It rawks.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Chris: okfine. you win.
send Cole a mail and try to get me banned.
I completely deserve it for arguing with sub-sapients.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
Does this prove Mandramas is not my sock puppet?
uptown
Another reason why democrats need to work on messaging. Not for themselves, but for those otherwise conservative leaning folks who need to see all the pieces in their place.
opie_jeanne
@Villago Delenda Est: I think you’ve just explained part of the reason we starting voting for Democrats around the time that Reagan first ran for President. We haven’t voted for a Republican for president since, either.
It pained us for a long time, we kept voting for rational Republicans in primaries (when a rational one was actually available) and watched the primaries won by total Neanderthals. I mean Bruce Hershensohn? Really? California has that many idiots, and that was 1992, nearly 20 years ago. Things have not improved as far as the GOP in California since then. The ones who get elected seem to all be crooked, not to mention heartless.
However, since M_C has hijacked this entired thread, I suppose I’m talking to myself.
Hob
Hermione(*), you did get fucking banned. You just chose to ignore it and make up a new name for yourself. If you had any goddamn respect for this blog or for Cole, as you sometimes claim to, you would’ve stayed off of it after you got banned. So you’re now asking us to help you with your harassment and trolling, by bothering Cole about you again.
(* btw, fuck you very much for appropriating the name of a character I like, who has nothing to do with any of the bullshit you espouse.)
opie_jeanne
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Bitch. You can DIAF as far as I’m concerned, and I’ve never said that to anyone ever before, not even online where I’m relatively anonymous, and here is why I said that:
I was raped when I was in college, and I was no child such as yourself. AT 26 I was a married woman and a mother, and the attack was shocking to me and still is. There were other people in the building but they couldn’t hear me because it was the Music building. Good insulation for sound. I had locked myself in a lab, he had gotten a master key somewhere.
I was and am very cautious about not making myself vulnerable but why bother to tell you this? I know you have no compassion, no understanding outside of your own very small experience.
Go on believing that you can anticipate EVERY FUCKING DETAIL, the it will never be you, because you are oh-so-fucking smart.
You need to grow a heart.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@opie_jeanne: not at all.
the day is coming soon when we be able prove correlation of religiosity with lower cognitive ability by using fMRI….because of the same dogmatic doctrinal belief systems and reliance on authoritarian control structures observed in conservatism.
Won’t that be interesting?
opie_jeanne
@uptown: It helps. My sister, of all people, is coming around. Slowly, because she really can’t be bothered by details, but she has noticed that Palin is an idiot. I find this hysterically funny.
opie_jeanne
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Fuck off. Again I say it. I was talking to someone else.
opie_jeanne
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Fuck off. Again I say it. I was talking to someone else.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@opie_jeanne: wallah
that was a purely hypothetical situ and you are all ready to stroke out.
sry, I believe the survival of the non-incredibly-stupid is privileged over that of suicide seekers.
opie_jeanne
@Hob: Amen.
opie_jeanne
@Hermione Granger-Weasley You said you and your buds would never be stupid enough to enter “the dark alley”. The dark alley is everywhere and is not hypothetical, you stupid bitch. T
Fuck off.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@opie_jeanne: your situ has ABSOLUTELY NO RELEVENCE to what Asshole described.
You took every precaution and I am very sorry you were raped. You DID NOT deserve it.
The HYPOTHETICAL situ Asshole is referring to involved christian missionary girls deliberately placing themselves in danger in order to spread the good word. Which is an entirely different scenario.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Hob: certainly Cole can ban this nic too. He knows its me.
I realize that this is way too subtle for most of the juicers, but that Mailme clip and the trainjump are from Suicide Club, Sono’s horror classic. Listening to the mailme song in the movie is supposed to make you want to kill yourself.
alwhite
Not that it means anything but I grew up scared. THere was a rock in my life I knew would always be there but the rest was uncertainty yet I am liberal bordering on commie. I think we would like simple answers to so many things that are complex and, at least at our current level of knowledge, unknowable.
Joel
Here’s the abstract from a recent behavioral study that I actually find fairly intriguing:
Coping with Chaos: How Disordered Contexts Promote Stereotyping and Discrimination
Asshole
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Nope, actually the hypothetical was originally by John Cole. He was talking about Christian girls walking through a bad neighborhood on their way to another neighborhood- no mention of a dark alley at all, just a neighborhood. You took that as an opportunity to assert that Christians everywhere should be raped.
Specifically, I asked (sarcastically):
And you responded:
You also told celticdragonchick, in the same thread:
So go fuck yourself, you lying sack of shit. As far as we all know, you’re still banned. You’re more than unwelcome around here.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Asshole: Im not the threadjacker here.
You are.
And everything i said is true. Proselytizing muslims is dumb and can result in death. Proselytize other religions if you must, its much safer.
Tim, I apologize for letting myself be drawn into thread jacking.
Ima drop safe on Asshole right now.
buh-bye
Asshole
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
I was originally discussing the post, until you chimed in by (wrongly) asserting that anecdote is not data. You then called me a “retard,” which was certainly charming of you.
Fuck off and DIAF.
lllphd
update on other WI counties tallies coming in:
bottom line is that they are now in canvassing phase, and the numbers will be changing over the next few days.
from the numbers in that kos piece, it looks like so far joklo has increased by 258 and prosser by 272. so he’s now up by 54, but this could shift again, and likely will.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
Tim, grant me one last indulgence.
I apolo again to opie_jean, she only got one half of the convo.
I do not want anyone to die or be raped. I am a sufi humanist, i believe in wahdat al wudjud (unity of existance) and wahdat al shuhud(unity of consciousness). And especially I do not want more muslims to die in A-stan and Iraq. three quarters of million so far. 4.5 million orphans in Iraq alone.
I have tried here to explain why it is bad for christians to try to proselytize muslims.
It doesn’t work, and it can result in death.
I have quoted theology and science, I have quoted the Quran and Maynard-Smith.
For ten years America has tried to proselytize western democracy in A-stan and Iraq at a simply horrific cost.
This effort can never succeed, and can only result in more death and more hatred and more terrorism.
Altho islamic resistance to proselytization evolved to protect against christianity, it also renders islamic cultures immune to other kinds of proselytizing. like standingup/installing westernstyle democracy with freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
I would just like the death to stop.
Asshole
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
“Unless your father was a missionary. Or we’re talking about Christians walking through a bad neighborhood. In which case, rape and kill away.”
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Asshole: oh yes.
because a couple of PRETEND deaths THAT NEVER HAPPENED outweigh the deaths of three-quarters of a million muslims and seven thousand DEAD american soldiers and a trillion fucking dollars FOR FUCKING NOTHING.
Sorry if im just a little dazed by all that horror.
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Oh, thank you so much for telling me I didn’t deserve to be raped. It will help me sleep tonight.
That was sarcasm.
NO ONE DESERVES TO BE RAPED, YOU IDIOT.
Apology not accepted because I did read the entire discussion. You posted to various people who did not answer you, all with the little winky emoticon even when you were discussing people who were murdered which is beyond creepy, and no one took the bait for the loooongest time.
What I’ve noticed is that your various posts do not add up to either your proclaimed religious beliefs nor your political ones. The way you post about people deserving what they get, as well as that total non sequitur you aimed at me here:
.”..the day is coming soon when we be able prove correlation of religiosity with lower cognitive ability by using fMRI…” makes me think that you are having trouble focusing on your personna. You can’t keep the story straight and about half the time you sound like a total Neo-con.
Regardless of what you claim to be, I would bet even money that you’re really a thirteen-year-old boy with acne and Cheetos stains on his fingers, trolling various websites. I hear that Portal 2 is coming out on the 19th. I expect we will hear little of you for a few days.
The adults were talking. Go play with yourself for a while.
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@Asshole: I think you and I were separated at birth.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland: Oh really. a hypothetical death and a hypothetical rape don’t balance 750000 muslim deaths for me. The topic was not rape but why PROSELYTIZATION IS FUCKING STUPID.
Maybe ill just spam atrocities that are the direct result of America and other western nations trying to impose judeochristian democracy on muslims. I bet I can come up with one per day. at least.
Lets start with the Kill Squad.
What is the Fucking Mission, Opie?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland: i am sorry you got raped but your personal rape HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE TOPIC OF THE STUPIDITY OF PROSELYTIZATION.
I have written quite a bit about the emergent IQ gap between liberals and conservatives, and while all christians are not conservative, pretty much all conservatives are christians.
Its teh science.
:)
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: The fucking mission is to ignore you, troll-boy.
I’m going to make dinner now, something useful.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland: what is the mission?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland: wouldnt want you to miss this one.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland: And yes, and you and Asshole are the same person. You both want to get to all puffed up with false outrage and pretend I’m advocating rape.
So you can pretend that missionariism and proselytizing are not the great horrific bloody evil that has caused death and agony to millions.
Yeah, we will go back to the conquistadores and the crusaders.
The difference IS proselytizing doesnt work against muslims.
Here is another thing you can hate on me for.
You forgot to count these missionaries, Asshole.
Operation Iraqi Freedom 4,674 dead missionaries.
Operation Enduring Freedom 2,397 dead missionaries.
What is the mission, again?
Paul in KY
@Asshole: Know what you mean, dude. I had my share of teasing back then. Short & a smartass can get you into trouble with the bigger & stupider :-)
Paul in KY
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: It is a pretty bad song, but (IMO) not ‘kill yourself’ bad.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Paul in KY: no, it sends a sublimal message that makes you kill yourself.
Like this.
In happier news, Human Centipede the Musical.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland: yes you should ignore me. i wasn’t talking about rape, you selfrighteous puffed up poisontoad. I was talking about ten years and a trillion dollars of missionariism that has left 7000 dead missionary soldiers and 750000 dead muslims and 5 fucking million muslim orphans.
FOR NOTHING.
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Inability to stay on subject, which you can see if you look at the top of the page. Brave New World was not intended as a primer.
But you only have one message that you revert to, and when that is the title of a thread I’ll talk to you about it. Until then, have some Cheetos, troll-boy. ;-)
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland: I have many messages. You are fucking faking poutrage over a rape that never happened. I was talking about how missionariism is evil and stupid. Here is a rape that did happen you unserious pearlclutching fucktard.
The Iraq Rape Squad.
Do you understand why our soldiers are turning into sadistic torture rapist killers?
Because they don’t know what the fuck the mission is either.
/spit
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Already saw it. Moving on.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland: that was a new link you unserious poutraged pearlclutching fucktard.
Asshole
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
“I’m only a crazed shitstain excuse for a human being who cheerleads the murder of people on the high seas because Americans killed a bunch of people in Iraq.”
Good excuse you’ve got there. Tell it to the judge at your next sentencing hearing.
Asshole
@opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland:
Thank you. I should probably leave this thread alone, because part of me knows that no matter what I do, m.c. will have the last word in it. But it’s hard to see that happen.
Oh, well. At least m.c. has proven zero ability to argue actual empirical evidence.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Asshole: no, i obviously said those missionaries died because they were stupid, not because they were missionaries. I repeated that several times.
Missionariism is stupid and evil, but the rich american couple became targets of opportunity for capitalists (pirates).
You and opie are just puffing yourselves up with fake poutrage so you can ignore my point.
Missionariism is stupid because it doesn’t work against muslims.
What is the mission?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Asshole: keep coming back and i will keep linking horrific atrocities and deathcounts that have resulted from America’s moronic attempt to proselytize judeochristian democracy in MENA.
Every friday is now a day of rage.
Asshole
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
You said it was “poetic justice” to rape and murder Christians everywhere.
What happens in Iraq has fuck-all to do with this. Do you fucking understand me? For purposes of this discussion, it wouldn’t matter if American soldiers were shooting every single Iraqi man, woman, and child in the head. This is about YOU, advocating rape and murder of every Christian in the world; and about YOU cheerleading Somali pirates capturing people on the high seas and brutally murdering them, just because the people they killed happened to be Christian.
Get this through your fucking skull. Crimes committed by other people have NOTHING to do with the issue of YOU, PERSONALLY, being a DEGENERATE, WORTHLESS PIECE OF SHIT.
Can those Americans you’re bitching about justify their actions by talking about what a fucking asshole Hitler was? No? Same FUCKING THING you’re doing, you worthless hypocritical piece of lying dogshit.
Fuck off.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Asshole:
No I didnt. I said IFF some proselytizer got raped or murdered it was poetic justice and/or selction for stupid.
nice. Did you really say that? Teh internetz is forevah.
False. Again, I just said missionariism is stupid and it might get one killed in A-stan or other majority muslims nations (like the toothbrush doctors). I dont want anyone to be killed.
Christians are safe in America. They should stay there.
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@Asshole: Hi, yeah, you should probably move on. She can’t conceive that I might have seen her precious linky somewhere else, she is incapable of reading for content, and she is precocious, yes, but not smart.
I still think she’s a thirteen-year-old troll, possibly male.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Asshole:
no, it is not the same thing at all. I explained why it is useless to proselytize muslims. I used science and islamic theology. I quoted the Quran, I quoted Maynard-Smith and Dawkins.
I explained why freedom of speech is incompatible with al-Islam.
I gave examples of missionariism NOT WORKING.
It is not the same thing at all.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland: and you are a “christian”.
The world makes sense again.
;)
Asshole
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
No you didn’t. You also told someone it was too bad her father didn’t get “what he deserved.” You’ve also never addressed that the number of proselytizing missionaries who survive so outnumber the ones who die that you’re as likely to die by having your head explode from the cognitive dissonance.
Yes, and I also put the words “For purposes of this discussion” in front of it. Your dishonesty is matched only by your illiteracy.
You advocated raping and killing American Christians walking on American city streets. Fuck off and DIAF, you worthless sack of shit.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland: oh, and what is the mission?
almost forgot.
;)
Asshole
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
You justifying your complete and utter assholitude by whining about what some people do to some other people in some other fucking country is EXACTLY the same thing, you fucking moron.
Can you even read, or are you just some sort of pie-filter like program that spouts off random bits of blather in automated response to reply-posts?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Asshole:
missed this?
You forgot to count these missionaries, Asshole.
Operation Iraqi Freedom 4,674 dead missionaries.
Operation Enduring Freedom 2,397 dead missionaries.
What is the mission, again?
Asshole
@opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland:
You’re right. I don’t know why I’m bothering. It’s like trying to convince a schizophrenic that they’re not actually Napoleon.
Maybe someday, this m.c. person will get the medication and treatment they need. Until then, we’re probably all stuck suffering through this horseshit on this blog. Well, unless John Cole permanently IP bans every computer associated with her/him.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Asshole: but no one is dead in your example. not your hypothetical missionary girls, not cdragons father.
Missionariism is stupid and evil.
That is my opinion. This is America. I can say that.
Americans dont own the world, and should not expect other cultures to welcome proselytization.
They won’t.
And im sorry, but those numbers make me a little crazy. 750000 dead muslims. 5 million muslim orphans. For what? What happened there besides death and atrocity?
I just can’t get all poutraged about thought experiments involving missionary girls in allys or something that didnt happen to cdragons dad.
Asshole
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
I’m sure the non-Christians (including Muslim-Americans) who’ve died fighting would appreciate that they gave their lives so that you could shit all over their legacy.
You’re too despicable for words.
Asshole
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
First of all, in context pirates had killed people. Also, you’re the FUCKING ASSHOLE who just said that EVERY SINGLE SOLDIER WHO’S DIED was a “missionary.”
So FUCK OFF.
Mandramas
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Why it is wrong? My point is, how could you know, in a scientific experiment, what is the political view of a given person?
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@Mandramas: She can’t. You’re playing with one of the trolls right now, but you don’t recognize it yet.
Everything she says is “ME! ME! LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT HOW SMART I AM!”
Like I said, Brave New World was not a primer.
Mandramas
@opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland: Yeah. But that was the fun. A thread with no trolls is like a pacman with no ghosts. Of course, this particular thread was derailed out of any kind of fun.
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: *shrug* Most of the people here were probably self-identified Christians at one point in their lives, as were you before you became an atheist, simply because that is the majority religion in this country. And so what? To be a Christian is to strive to be Christ-like. Not a bad goal and not an insult. Too bad more people who self-identify this way don’t live it, but it’s hard. Very hard.
Just as hard as a science whose objective is the reparation of the heart and turning it away from all else but God. Is it an insult if I said, “Oh, you’re a Muslim. The world makes sense again.” That makes no sense as an insult, if you actually are on the path to turn away from all else but God.
Ok, you have my undivided attention for a few minutes because the baseball game is finished, I finished cooking and cleaning up supper.
I notice that when you first join a thread you talk about your religion within a post or two, even when it’s unrelated to anything in the thread. You can’t not talk about it. I think that’s great, but it does get a bit tedious after a few hundred posts like this. I understand that new converts are always far more enthusiastic, shall we say, than people who are born to it, not that they are any less a believer, just that the fire has been banked (I think that’s the right term) so that it will last. It’s there among all true-believers of any religion, it’s just not a raging inferno right now for most of them.
You behave like a child in that you have this tendency to call people names when they disagree with you, even that guy with an Arabic name who really had done you no harm. he didn’t insult you, but you felt it was your right to accuse him of being “charmed” and asked if he was a … I forget the name, but I got the message. I hope he wasn’t offended because what we need here is a bit more diversity and I was curious to see what else he had to say.
You use childish terms as insults which would be amusing if you had actually invented them and if they weren’t pretty stale by now. Poutrage? Pearl-clutcher? Please. If you’re going to insult people, wait for them to give offense first and that doesn’t mean just disagreeing with you. It makes you look like a brat, stamping your feet and screaming because your little brother is getting all the attention. Reverting to your favorite point and screaming at us about how many are dead, etc. isn’t winning any arguments. You think we don’t want the soldiers back home? You think we aren’t appalled by the horrors committed by both sides?
We hold conversations to exchange ideas. That doesn’t mean we have to agree with each other on every single one, nor even on any, but you need to be ready to back up any claims that you make, especially the ones that seem to suffer from inflated numbers. It’s the way adults are supposed to behave.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Asshole:
What is the mission then?
Not just christians practice missionariism. My point is consistantly that COIN and the BD are missionariism of judeochristian democracy. It can’t be done. Islam is immunized against proselytization and Iraq is 97% muslim and A-stan is 99% muslim.
And for the 50th time, the american christian missionaries died because they were rich targets of opportunity, not because they were americans or missionaries or christians.
@opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland: I have repeatedly tried to explain why Islam is DIFFERENT than christianity. I absolutely do not give a fuck what you believe, but all muslims care, sometimes VIOLENTLY, about being forced to believe what you do…It is hardwired into their faith, because of EGT and evo theory of culture and the Quran and islamic jurisprudence (shariah)
I think you absolutely refuse to admit that the horrors committed on the muslim side ARE RESPONSES TO MISSIONARIISM. WE invaded, we occupied. Not them.
Of course the troops don’t think they are missionaries. Of course muslims think they are. Some troops believe they are armed social workers there to build girl schools. Some troops don’t know what the fuck they are there for, thus the Kill Squad.
I am not screaming just about how many are dead….I am screaming about how many are dead FOR NOTHING.
750000 dead iraqi muslims, 7000 dead american soldiers, a trillion in treasure, my numbers are ACCURATE.
Just tell me what the mission is? Why are americans still there? The mini-surge has failed, there is no exit strategy, there are more Taliban than ever, Iraq has shariah in its constitution and is growing closer to Iran every day. Qom and Karbala will merge someday. Is that in the US’s interest? absolutely no, but in 10 years the US has totally failed in installing/standingup/imposing/implanting westernstyle democracy with freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
I am saying it cannot be done.
There are more atrocities every day. Why? Because our soldiers are in a meatgrinder with no end in sight. And some of them cannot take it.
How can you not be horrified at all that death? Three-quarters of million muslims. 4.5 million orphans in Iraq alone.
What is the mission?
I want some self examination. I want you to ask yourselves what the fuck we are doing there 10 years after 911. I know all the ostensible reasons that we went there. But I also know what COIN doctrine says.
I know what the mission is.
I want you to ask yourselves.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland:
….maftoon. It is my right to accuse him of being a maftoon just as is your right to accuse your fellow religionists of not being “real” christians when they do not act like followers of Christ.
I apologized to you twice for failing to make it clear that I do not advocate rape. Yet you persisted in willfully misundertanding after several attempts at explanation…. Like Asshole, you seemed entirely involved in fake poutrage.
/shrug
bi la kayfah
Asshole
The mission is to find out your real name and address, so that local mental health officials can be notified as to your condition.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland:
and that is quite simply, a lie. I never talk about my religion on warcraft threads or free marketeer threads or women’s rights threads.
I do talk about it on threads about American foreign policy in MENA.
Because Islam is highly relevant to the Judeochristian Nations Epic Fail Foreign Policy..
Asshole
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Your previous posts did, though. And your current posts are gloating at the deaths of American soldiers. So fuck you.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Asshole:
stalker.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Asshole: i am not gloating. I am filled with great sorrow for all the death. But I have said all along that proselytizing muslims can lead to death for the percieved proselytizer, and that it rarely leads to conversion.
I think missionariism is stupid and evil. And I can say that because America has freedom of speech.
I personally think it would be great if islamic jurisprudence could incorporate freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
But that cannot happen by force, and it cannot happen now with 150000 missionaries with guns (as most muslims see them) in A-stan and Iraq. And it especially cannot happen with atrocities being showcased on social media in realtime.
There were Kill Squads in Vietnam. We just didnt find out about them until 20 years later.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Mandramas: with functional MRI brain state changes in function and differences in morphology can be measured and associated with political views, because of how the science works. fMRI associates quantitative hemodynamic changes with responses elicited from the human subject with aural questions.
Those questions might be on political views or on orgasm response or on learning a language. …essentially on anything.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland:
just not from me. You dont like what I say.
There are terrible things about all religions. But I think what really offends you is that I dont see any benefit to “interfaith discussion”. Yours is better for you, mine is better for me. I do not want you in my faith, I think it would be horrible for you to attempt it. If Al-lah wanted you to be Sufi, it would appear in your path, like it did in mine.
I understand the science of how religions work. And Islam is resistant to proselytization because of evo theory of culture and EGT.
Proselytization is christianity’s main way of increasing reps. Resistance to proselytization is Islam’s way of retaining reps.
Mandramas
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: My disagreement is not about the tech they are using. Simply, you can’t apply it to “everything” scientifically. In a scientific experiment, you need to isolate variants. How the hell you can define how is a “liberal” or a “conservative” to make two different groups? Asking them? Political views are not simply defined to simple label it in two groups, or n groups; can’t be precisely determined.
You can’t simple discover a correlation and try to explain it with some psichobable. Science don’t works this way; you need a functional theory, not try to guess something checking some raw data or performing a improvised test with forty dudes from Berkerley recruited from the streets. This experiment is not science, it is a bunch of amateurs with a neuroscan willing to get financed by some think tank, and willing to explain politics views due bad parenting, or genetics, or sleep patterns.
This kind of research is crap. Politics, like a lots of high evolved culture areas, can’t be explained by nurture or phenotype; in your terms, it could be explained by memetics. Doing this kind of correlations can be dangerous, like Lombroso’s works, not by himself but because common people can think it is true. (Fortunately, people is a lot more cynical in this century). What are the consequences of this correlation? People on Cuba tends to be more confident that in Mexico? GWB was as willing and insecure as Ronald Reagan?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Mandramas: ah, but this is a part of an emergent body of research in different domains.
That is how science works.
the savannah principle
backfire effect
There is plenty more, but i can only link 2 in one comment.
The fMRI studies are part of an accumulation of evidence that will eventually result in documentation of a biological basis of behavior for political affiliation.
I agree all we have are pieces so far.
But the pieces are adding up.
That is science. The gradual emergence of a model of how things work that is superior to the last one.
;)
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Mandramas: this U Toronto study is also good.
Personality predicts political preference.
Mandramas
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: I’m still feeling that you are missing things with your analysis. In my view, America is not trying to really change the islam. They only want submission, oil and money; and as far as they are loyal and obedient, they can do any thing they want. In fact, America has a large historical of prevent democracy in countries when they think that a popular elected government can’t be adequate for the national interest (of the US companies). Even in the islam, America always has chooses a Mubarak’s style of puppet government that a armed invasion. This was also a invasion due to internal politics motivation. GWB needs a couple of wars to change the status of the national politics, giving him a excuse to do things that could be impossible in peace times. They are targeting islam countries part because the oil, part because islam is a easy target to be used a scapegoat. They could have invaded grenada, any African country, or singapur, or whatever. But is always easy to cheat american people to believe that islam are the bad guys. Because american people needs bad guys, and even more, the Defense budget needs bad guys. Islam are a exceptional enemy since they are distinctive, common, extended, speak other languages and don’t have a strong country that could defends them. Also, Islam is present in US enough to be known but not so much as latinos, asians or afroamericans. Bush can’t simply invade Mexico or Venezuela because it could trigger a latinophobya in all the country and this could affect the availability of cheap workforce. Islam was the easier target, and of course, they have oil.
The proselytizing resistance is not a trait of Islam. Latin America common people really hates US (of course, except the ones that are directly beneficiaries from American intervention). Also are most of the Asian people. All invaded nations in the history resisted when a lousy invasion army attacks the country. All they always have a nationalistic and religious fervor when the invader is a different nation. Only they can subsume those effects by the rule of fear.
Proselytizing is done by more subtle ways. Television, commercial dumping, propaganda. Not with an army. An army can conquer, subjugate, spoil and destroy, not to educate people. America just want the islam to be afraid and submissive.
This means, those wars are not defined by religions. Almost no war in the history where defined by religions only. This is, as always, a matter of politics, money and resources.
Mandramas
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Acumulation of evidence is only valid when you are following the scientific method. You can´t simply takes any imaginable experiment and perform it, and expect that the results are valid in the science’s facts pools. Why don’t take genetics sampling to see if some kind of people are more propense to be killed by a tsunami, and then wait a couple of years and check the correlations? Probably you will find that japanese stock phenotype are more propense to die in a tsunami that caucasian. That is not science, that is wild fact collecting with not scientific guide.
The other part of the problem is that, in order to perform that experiment, you have to understand politics in a scientific framework, in only to scale and catalogue each question and responses in a measued, defined ways. What happens if another researches takes the questions and says “I disagree, your questions have a liberal bias”. What scientific theory or science you can have to reach an consensus?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Mandramas: oh sure. But the COIN doctrine is what I am referring to as missionariism. It is not christian missionariism, but missionariism of a particular brand of democracy.
Hellenic democracy is in the Quran, the consent of the governed.
But freedom of speech and freedom of religion are incompatible with shariah.
Take this part of the Bush Doctrine (COIN is the BD cut down for villages)
Proselytizing westernstyle democracy.
It can never happen, because when muslims are democratically empowered to vote, they vote for shariah and islamic democracy.
And terrorism is a defense against proselytization reflex.
It cannot be turned off.
yes it is. defense against proselytization is encoded in shariah.
I just think that if Americans asked themselves “what is the mission” everyday, and actually saw the horrifying death count and the blood and treasure expensed so far, that we would leave.
We CAN’T win.
But instead Petraeus and co are negotiating for PERMANENT BASES.
fucking retarded.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Mandramas:
read the links. those are all peer reviewed papers.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Mandramas: Are you muslim? In the interest of opie’s lust for diversity.
if so i forgot to say
salaamu aleykum brother.
my adab is not much about manners, but more about knowledge and truth.
Like Zunnun
there is that arrogance again. ;)
my nafs will keep me forever from faana.
:(
Mandramas
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Those COIN doctrines are not more that weasel words, hiding real motivations beneath. It simply don’t have validity. Discuss it as it were the real motivation of a war is to lie yourself.
Mandramas
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
aleyki salaamu, sister
your greetings are well received.
But i’m not muslin, i’m kind of atheist.
I’m not the person to judge your adab but I personally am comfortable with your way of search the knowledge and expose your truth. That said, I’m not a manner’s person in any case.
I’m sure that faana can be achieved by thousand ways, as far as you are faithful to yours beliefs.
:)
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Mandramas: assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh ;)
but they are implemented in practice, in the A-stan theater. That is the whole problem.
The COIN doctrine must fail, no matter how much blood and treasure are poured into it.
Here is whole site devoted to it.
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: I’ts not a lie but I’m too busy today to go and find the examples. The reason I noticed it is that you did it on your second post in a thread yesterday. You scream “liar” at anyone who points out your weaknesses, and then you just continue to scream at them when they back it up. I won’t bother.
You have an annoying fixation on ED. I forgot about that.
That’s three things you do. You proselytize for your religion, something you accuse all of Christianity of doing, which not all of us do. I find it repulsive no matter who is doing it, and I find it annoying coming from you because you rant about it ALL THE FUCKING TIME.
You rant about ED Kain even when he’s not here.
And you change the subject to “THE TROOPS DID THIS OMFG!!!” as if the rest of us weren’t just as angry about the exact same thing, but no, you’re the only one who feels it. You self-identify with this one group of people, which would not be bad, except for the way you do it.
There is a difference between what I said about Christians and what you said about “Maftoon”: yours was an attack on an individual who had done you no harm other than not seeing things your exact way. Mine was a fairly common lament. I suppose I should mention that I lost interest in religion a long time ago; have no enthusiasm for activities that serve to separate people, divide them.
Too bad you don’t actually practice nor understand the science whose objective is the reparation of the heart and turning it away from all else but God.
As for objecting to you personally, I wouldn’t mind you at all if you’d just simmer down a bit and stop changing the subject, stop screaming at people who disagree with you and stop proselytizing for your own religion.
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@Asshole: I am not coming back to this thread. It’s not easy to find any more, not on this computer, and I think I should take my own advice to you. :-)
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland: 1. I do not proselytize. I am a universalist. I am explaining why proselytizing does not work on muslims. I dont give a flying fuck what other people believe. I object to to other people trying to make me believe what they do.
Sufi’s are forbidden from proselytizing.
I DON’T WANT YOU IN MY FAITH.
Yours is better for you, mine is better for me.
2. WTF has EDK got to do with any of this?
3. You are not “just as angry” until you admit that OIF and OEF were efforts to proselytize western democracy in muslim nations, that those efforts were for nothing, and that both efforts have resulted in a ginormously disproportionate amount of muslim death and an enormous amount of atrocities and civilian death.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland: and two more things. I can’t proselytize you. We both believe in the same Al-lah. Be sure I will remind you of that the next time you accuse me.
and I think Asshole took a powder after he threatened to stalk me.
I bet I could get him in trouble over that.
;)
Asshole
@opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland:
Yeah, I’ll have to take that advice. :) One thing to address first, though.
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
I didn’t threaten to stalk you, I threatened to report you. Bit of a difference, lawyer-chan.
Yeah, send your Somali pirate buddies over to my house to cut my head off, you fucking degenerate.