Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => Politics => Topic started by: ArfinGreebly on September 28, 2012, 03:03:21 PM
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Anyone else watch this two-part documentary?
I was doing a mental review of this while driving to work, and it occurred to me, how does one discuss something like this as a "purely political" topic?
It has religion squarely embedded in it -- unavoidably so -- and thus I find that there are a plurality -- even a majority -- of forums where one can't really launch a meaningful discussion, given that religion is a proscribed topic, even when politics is permitted.
And then it further occurred to me that the religion taboo is one of the reasons these subversive bastards have been allowed to make as much progress as they have.
So, just wondering, how does one approach something like this in "polite" society?
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Maybe by talking about the values that make civilization possible and social life worth living.
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Didnt Beck claim that Goonswarm were a CIA front operation last week?
ps: the above may make no sense to anyone who doesnt play Eve
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You know, I get the usual ration of "Beck's just insane" from a portion of "the usual suspects" among my acquaintances, so I'm pretty used to the dismissive thing.
Harder to be dismissive when the people interviewed include sitting congressmen, current and former FBI dudes, and folks like that.
Boggles that the DoJ has totally stonewalled on the documents from the Holy Land Foundation case.
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Glenn Beck ???
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Glenn Beck ???
Yeah. The crazy guy. The off-his-nut ranting dude. The OMG-he's-insane fellow.
That guy.
I learned a long time ago that truth is where you find it.
Beck pretty much turns me off with the heavy gawd-and-faith rants, the biblical-paradigm-for-current-events thing, and some other stuff that I'm sure people see and find cringeworthy.
However, his investigative reporting and exposés have been uniformly on target. Van Jones, Cass Sunstein, the assortment of radical Obama associates and mentors.
And now "The Project," which held few surprises for my wife (who spends hours and hours every week up to her knees in research) but which raised my eyebrows more than once with little revelations, like government agencies embracing hostile "experts" for guidance and training of law enforcement and military operations.
He's developed an unnerving habit of being right, so as much as I would rather not watch, I nonetheless do when the issue seems to warrant it.
I learned some time ago that turning your back on truth because you don't like the source can end badly.
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Beck's been right for years, on many things, but it's easier to ridicule him for crying on tv than give him any actual credit for his work.
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The man connected dots no one else wanted to do or dared to. That doesn't mean he's right about everything, by any means. Personally I think he's much too sanguine.
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Beck's been right for years, on many things, but it's easier to ridicule him for crying on tv than give him any actual credit for his work.
I got talked into attending a couple of local "9-12" events, until I actually read all his points including the religious stuff :facepalm:
Can't we agree that the fed.gov is off the reservation without have to believe the same creed ??? ;/
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I got talked into attending a couple of local "9-12" events, until I actually read all his points including the religious stuff :facepalm:
Can't we agree that the fed.gov is off the reservation without have to believe the same creed ??? ;/
The answer is no according to Beck. I avoid him because of it.
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I got talked into attending a couple of local "9-12" events, until I actually read all his points including the religious stuff :facepalm:
Can't we agree that the fed.gov is off the reservation without have to believe the same creed ??? ;/
I tolerate the religious stuff.
In a former life I was a data analyst. It's something I pretty much can't escape as a habit. Once you tune your thinking to look for specific types of data inconsistency, it becomes a way of life.
Someone tells you a story, leaves out the date and/or time. First response? When did that happen?
Someone tells you a story, gives events a timeline that seems . . . "off." Response? What was the actual sequence of those events?
Someone tells you a story, includes "facts" which contradict each other or which contradict other already-known facts. What's the "normal" response? "Well, there must be a reason it's like that." What's the correct response? Explain to me how THIS can be true if THAT is also true.
Watching the "news" will give you a serious case of the squints if you're a data analyst.
There is a type of data inconsistency that I can tolerate better than others, as long as I can filter it out, and that is the "added inapplicable datum" type. I can learn what I need to know about a situation in spite of the reportage being salted with a religious overlay, as long as the data itself is properly sourced, internally consistent, and doesn't conflict with other observable data or stuff I already know.
Beck believes that what he does has implications in the context of his faith, and to me this is "internally consistent" for him. I'm able to decouple the faith-based aspect of his reportage from the facts themselves. It can be tiresome, but I deem it worth the effort.
Imagine, if you will, that some reporter, in the process of bringing forth a series of facts, reveals that he finds them troubling because of some personal bogeyman he has. You observe that his bogeyman is not your bogeyman, and examine the facts anyway. In the process of this, you discover that the facts are troubling -- to you -- because of your own personal bogeyman, and so you bring these facts to my attention.
So . . . do you just give me the facts? Do you give them to me in the context of the first guy's bogeyman, or do you use the context of your own personal bogeyman? Do you gauge how you will relay these facts to me based on what you know of my own bogeymen? Or do you just grit your teeth and try to deliver just the facts, ma'am, despite your own misgivings or those of the person from whom you first heard it?
And, finally, do the facts matter enough to you that you will set side your disregard/disinterest/contempt for the bogeymen of the guy doing the research so that you can have enough information to plan for yourself?
I listen to Beck, not because I'm Mormon (I'm not) and not because I'm a big fan of "biblical interpretations," but because he looks in places others will not look, obtains and reports results that others will not report, and will bring to light data that others will actively try to obscure/obfuscate/suppress.
I "get" where he's coming from, and I'm satisfied that, whatever his belief framework, he is operating from a position of personal morality along a vector of truth, and the result of that is data I can trust for the most part. Happily, I have a wife who does massive amounts of research, and I can generally verify anything I find questionable in fairly short order.
We find that Beck is right way more often than he is wrong.
If he happens to be right because of some kind of inspiration, I can live with that.
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Beck performs a service Big Media avoids, that being research into inconvenient societal trends. He did commendable work on Van Jones and George Soros and then failed to connect when he took a swing at the FED and whiffed it. No batter hits the ball every time he steps to the plate. Where I get edgy about Beck is when he engages in deification of some historical figures (Washington and Lincoln) and vilification of others (most notably Andrew Jackson). It seems his allegiance to "The Truth" doesn't extend to everyone of note. So when he launches another breaking story purporting to expose the truth of whatever, what blind spot will we be presented with as "The Truth". I deal with Beck just like I deal with everyone in the media (and I mean EVERYONE). They lie. Full stop. It is up to me to sort through "facts" and construct a reality I can believe.
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I tolerate the religious stuff.
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It's not so much a matter of tolerance, but the 9-12 group wanted you to sign an agreement with all the belief stuff. [barf]
So they automatically exclude all the supporters that they might have had otherwise :facepalm:
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This might be a more productive conversation if you told us what the hell you're talking about instead of bunch of disclaimers and vague referrences to something that it appears most of us are unfamiliar with.
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This might be a more productive conversation if you told us what the hell you're talking about instead of bunch of disclaimers and vague referrences to something that it appears most of us are unfamiliar with.
"The Project" is a two-part series on Islamist infiltration.
The two parts may be found here (http://noisyroom.net/blog/2012/09/28/welcome-to-the-project/), or individually on YouTube here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwd4aVa3EMU&feature=player_embedded), and here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mp4a03aBig&feature=player_embedded).
Yes, there's a certain amount of "faith stuff" sprinkled on it, but the interviews with government figures, a sitting congress-dude, and an assortment of other credible sources pretty much stand on their own in terms of content.
The essence of the threat is that of a political takeover using the vehicle of "religious tolerance" and squelching free speech to eliminate "hateful and offensive" references, observations, and characterizations from the training of law enforcement and soldiers.
The model used to silence observation and reporting is the "I get to choose what offends me, and I say that your statements that our efforts to take over the country might be subversive, are offensive, and we must classify such assertions as a crime."
"Frankly I find the idea of [insert badness here] offensive! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKk4Cq56d1Y)"
(And, as it happens, there are proposals before the UN even now to criminalize "anti-Muslim hate speech.")
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"anti-Muslim hate speech."
Bacon! :P
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It's not so much a matter of tolerance, but the 9-12 group wanted you to sign an agreement with all the belief stuff. [barf]
So they automatically exclude all the supporters that they might have had otherwise :facepalm:
That does seem seems a bit shortsighted of them, and I'm a member of the same religion as Beck. I imagine it's a reaction to the rabid secularism of the left, but still a tad shortsighted and needlessly exclusionary.
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That does seem seems a bit shortsighted of them, and I'm a member of the same religion as Beck. I imagine it's a reaction to the rabid secularism of the left, but still a tad shortsighted and needlessly exclusionary.
Meh. The Constitution Party has done (maybe still does) similar.
No different than so many Libertarians who go out of their way to offend religious folk who are simpatico.
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Meh. The Constitution Party has done (maybe still does) similar.
No different than so many Libertarians who go out of their way to offend religious folk who are simpatico.
No, no different and, depending on your goals still a terrible idea. If religious faith/creed (or lack thereof) is an important part of your organizations goals/aims, then religious exclusion is by design and helpful to your ends. If however, your aims are purely political then demanding expression of theism, athiesm, or antitheism is going to alienate some of those who share your political views and potentially reduce participation in your organization.
I can't speak to this 9-12 organization as my knowledge of it is limited entirely to the information provided in this thread. If some of its goals are faith-based, then religious exclusion is a natural result, but if it's purely political then that exclusion is pointless.
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Marnoot wrote what I might have, despite my not being a merman(1).
(1) A while back, back when Beck was on the air locally, an acquaintance brought him up and the detail that he is a Morman. My acquaintance's pronunciation, however, came out "merr-mann," so my response was something to the effect of, "He thinks he can breathe underwater?! That Beck fellow sure is crazy!"
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Oh, and, I would heartily agree with the description of the show given above. Not as to its alignment with the show (which I have not seen), but to reality. How many times does the FBI or some other gov't agency have to hire as consultants known to be sympathetic to the Muslim b-hood or some such before it becomes a pattern? Same with the other practices listed.
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No, no different and, depending on your goals still a terrible idea. If religious faith/creed (or lack thereof) is an important part of your organizations goals/aims, then religious exclusion is by design and helpful to your ends. If however, your aims are purely political then demanding expression of theism, athiesm, or antitheism is going to alienate some of those who share your political views and potentially reduce participation in your organization.
I can't speak to this 9-12 organization as my knowledge of it is limited entirely to the information provided in this thread. If some of its goals are faith-based, then religious exclusion is a natural result, but if it's purely political then that exclusion is pointless.
Oh, I agree it's not such a good idea for a political party. I continue to maintain the pipe dream that, one day, the secularist libertarians might stop being so suspicious of the religionists, and the religionists might stop being so suspicious of the secularist libertarians. And then we could work together to put the religious and secular statists back on their heels.
Probably naive of me.
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Oh, I agree it's not such a good idea for a political party. I continue to maintain the pipe dream that, one day, the secularist libertarians might stop being so suspicious of the religionists, and the religionists might stop being so suspicious of the secularist libertarians. And then we could work together to put the religious and secular statists back on their heels.
Probably naive of me.
They did work together once, you know ;)
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Oh, I agree it's not such a good idea for a political party. I continue to maintain the pipe dream that, one day, the secularist libertarians might stop being so suspicious of the religionists, and the religionists might stop being so suspicious of the secularist libertarians. And then we could work together to put the religious and secular statists back on their heels.
Probably naive of me.
I share the dream. The only way we can defeat the statists is to band together. Time will tell how naive it is, I suppose.
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I might, one of these days, subscribe to the Beck dotcom thing, I really miss his Fox News show.
I will hear his radio show once in awhile - on that he does a lot of humor - as well as analysis .
There was something on a religious channel the other day - I have it on DVR but I couldn't get past the tele vangelist stuff, I've never liked TV Preachers ... My Grandma used to have on Catholic Mass on TV and when we kids were there we were expected to participate as if we were in Church, I remember Praying to God and asking him that if I ever start praying to TV sets when I'm older to please remove me from earth.
Beck is awesome, I do not always agree 100% with his views on people but I have found him to be correct 99% of the time.
Years ago, he wasn't as pro gun as he is now, I said to ( the high road at the time ) that if we wrote to him and presented facts I bet he would listen....and he did!
I cant afford to subscribe, I get by on the same amount or less by the month most ( lower income ) folks earn in a week.
I hope that changes with a Mitt economy, then I'll subscribe to Beck and maybe even get off the ranch.
I have not felt very Christian lately, I hardly ever pray and actually read the Bible even less.
I could easily pass for an atheist right now, except for if asked I will say I'm pro-life - even as a young anarchist punk rocker I was pro life, I just kept the opinion to myself because it made getting in the sack with hot NYC girls a lot more difficult.
I've been surrounded by hard drinking Nevadans for a few yrs now, they don't believe in anything except minding their own biz and expect the same from everyone else.
It would be awesome for Beck to unite atheist/hardly believers conservatives with the Religious Conservatives and we could finally get
NATIONAL RECIPROCITY!
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NATIONAL RECIPROCITY!
I'd like them to pass a law that says something like: "the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
;)
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They did work together once, you know ;)
Such as?
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Such as?
1776 through 1789?