[News] Post a Political News Story

Ongoing discussion of the political news of the day. This thread is for 'smaller' stories that don't call for their own thread. If a story blows up, please start a new thread for it.

If you think about it, we're in the End Times. Flooding, droughts, wildfires, and even a worldwide plague. Maybe that's why people are leaving - they realize if God really was coming to save them, he probably would have been here by now.

Keldar wrote:

If you think about it, we're in the End Times. Flooding, droughts, wildfires, and even a worldwide plague.

And people worshiping the antichrist.

OG_slinger wrote:
Seth wrote:

I’ve been using the analogy of the cornered animal to describe the political and religious right since 2016, and while I acknowledge the analogy isn’t perfect (unlike a desperate raccoon, the religious right will probably never die), I still maintain that the ferocity and lunacy driving post-trump Protestantism stems from that same panicked desperation. It’s why you see them beginning to dabble in dark magic - evil incantations like “[marginalized group] will not replace us” become more mainstream - and betrayals of their own morals as they seek to find refuge in fascism.

White evangelicals aren't dabbling in dark magic. They're simply re-embracing their roots of being white nationalists.

White evangelicals, after all, used Christianity to defend slavery. White evangelicalism was a major driver behind the idea of Manifest Destiny: that God wanted whites to settle all of America, original inhabitants be damned (along with huge whiffs of the idea that America was a country founded by--and for--white Christians and white Christians only). White evangelicals were key to developing and spreading the Lost Cause myth of the Confederacy after the Civil War. White evangelicals fought the Civil Rights movement tooth and nail. And in modern history white evangelicals first sought to expand and flex their political power because its leaders at the time *really* didn't want their little Christian colleges desegregated.

They're just rallying around their core principles and that just doesn't look as good in 2021 as it did in the 1850s, 1890s, 1920s, or 1960s because who makes up America has changed quite a bit.

And don't seek solace in the fact that white evangelicals only make up 14% of the population now. They're still 25% of the electorate and virtually all of them vote Republican. Not to mention practically every Republican politician in office--at the local, state, and national level--is one. And that at least three "news" networks and essentially every conservative media outlet and pundit is devoted to spreading their worldview.

These are the type of people who are very likely to look at what they think their religion is commanding--that political and social structures be remade to reflect their religious beliefs--and decide that democracy is just getting in the way.

You missed the 100% wholesale projection of the Satanic Panic in the 80s!

Still, given that I’m prone to using religious and magical rhetoric to describe things, I stand by my assertion that 2021 evangelicals are so desperate and panicked that they’ve once again opened their book of incantations like “they will not replace us” and “liberalism is a disease” as their tried and true last ditch effort to maintain power. They sold themselves to their own definition of Satan in every era you mention above, and they’re doing it again. They wipe their asses with the gospel of Christ.

Keldar wrote:

If you think about it, we're in the End Times. Flooding, droughts, wildfires, and even a worldwide plague. Maybe that's why people are leaving - they realize if God really was coming to save them, he probably would have been here by now.

Not to get all religious-y in here, but wouldn't the Christians want all the above to happen since that means the End Times (tm) are here? I would imagine people would be joining Christianity in this case.

Vrikk wrote:
Keldar wrote:

If you think about it, we're in the End Times. Flooding, droughts, wildfires, and even a worldwide plague. Maybe that's why people are leaving - they realize if God really was coming to save them, he probably would have been here by now.

Not to get all religious-y in here, but wouldn't the Christians want all the above to happen since that means the End Times (tm) are here? I would imagine people would be joining Christianity in this case.

Yes, "True" Christians seek the rapture, because they know they will be brought up from the misery on earth (that they caused).

Do you think smartphones and the internet could be playing a role in the decline of fundamentalist Christianity?

Practically every adult and most teens own one regardless of income. Most people will turn to the internet to gain knowledge about things that interest or puzzle them.

Of course, that saw cuts both ways.

Possibly. I don't think think it's because they're seeking out knowledge on their own that leads them away from religion though. Having easy access to so many stories about how unchristian so many Christians are isn't helping the general image of religious people, especially when so many of the religious people in real life are quick to excuse it.

Also having easy access to people and cultural ephemera that Christians have labeled as unchristian. People can overlook or equivocate about things nonchristians say about christians but it’s harder to square when things told them by other christians don’t fit with reality. Nothing creates disillusion faster than discovering someone or something that you’ve been told is evil all your life is actually pretty good.

ruhk wrote:

Nothing creates disillusion faster than discovering someone or something that you’ve been told is evil all your life is actually pretty good.

Wait, you mean Occasio-Cortez isn't some Hell-spawned satyr/succubus hybrid?!

I was raised to have some pretty regressive ideas about gay folks. Then I grew up, went to college, moved into a college apartment with a bunch of other college guys, and our next door neighbors were a gay couple. Good folks, had us over for dinner a bunch of times, seemed pretty normal. At first it was weird watching two dudes kiss, but I wasn't about to be rude about it when they'd just given me a free meal.

Of course, I was also primed to get over it relatively quickly. My Sunday school teacher was, in retrospect, really progressive for, y'know, a Sunday school teacher. Every week she used to teach us two things: the Official Stance of the Roman Catholic Church, and then The Way We Do It In the Real World.

OSotRCC: Be fruitful and multiply, also sex is for procreation only.

TWWDIItRW: Sex feels really good. Also we all use condoms, it's not a big deal.

OSotRCC: Having gay thoughts, or being gay, is not a sin, because even Jesus was tempted, but acting on it is a sin.

TWWDIItRW: Kids, my sister's gay and she lives with her partner and they're just normal folks.

And so on. Growing up, I thought that was how it was everywhere. Maybe in a couple far-away places like Rome people took "the rules" more seriously, but most of us did it how we did it in the real world and eventually Rome will catch up with the rest of us.

It was a real surprise to me to grow up and meet other Catholics and realize that my experience growing up Catholic was VERY different than theirs, and a lot more people than a few dudes in funny hats in Rome took the rules seriously.

Harry Potter ftw!

Well, to be fair, I DID read those books right before I got really into sacrificing babies to Lord Satan. I know, I know, could be a coincidence, but still....

The 14% is terrifying imo. If they can control so much now imagine if they actually grow more.

hbi2k wrote:

It was a real surprise to me to grow up and meet other Catholics and realize that my experience growing up Catholic was VERY different than theirs, and a lot more people than a few dudes in funny hats in Rome took the rules seriously.

I was raised Catholic and ditched it as soon as I possibly could. My extended family is filled with people who think that Vatican 2 was absolutely terrible and who deeply believe Pope Francis is destroying the church (they long for the days of Benedict).

Yeah, I never had any big moment of disillusionment, I just got tired of being a Catholic Butt.

"I'm Catholic Butt I don't see what's so wrong with gay people."

"I'm Catholic Butt if a priest wanted to get married I don't see why we shouldn't let him."

"I'm Catholic Butt I don't see how the Pope can possibly be infallible, I mean, he's just a guy, right?"

Eventually all the Butts added up until it didn't make sense to describe myself as Catholic any more.

hbi2k wrote:

Yeah, I never had any big moment of disillusionment, I just got tired of being a Catholic Butt.

"I'm Catholic Butt I don't see what's so wrong with gay people."

"I'm Catholic Butt if a priest wanted to get married I don't see why we shouldn't let him."

"I'm Catholic Butt I don't see how the Pope can possibly be infallible, I mean, he's just a guy, right?"

Eventually all the Butts added up until it didn't make sense to describe myself as Catholic any more.

My wife's extended family are hardcore conservative Catholics from a farm community. The priest preaches Trumpian politics from the pulpit. Except for the robes and rituals it's hard to tell them apart from white evangelicals.

Many American Catholics have rejected Rome in their daily lives. I wonder when they'll have the courage to announce it openly.

Yeah, that's being a Catholic Butt from the other side, I suppose.

No Black parents, teachers or scholars invited to Missouri hearing on teaching race

Kansas City Star wrote:

A Missouri legislative committee on Monday held a hearing on how educators teach K-12 students about race and racism without hearing from any Black Missourians.

No Black parents, teachers or scholars testified to the Joint Committee on Education during the invite-only hearing on critical race theory.

Aside from an official from Missouri’s education department, the only people who testified Monday were critics of critical race theory, which is a way of thinking about America’s history through the lens of racism.

Missouri NAACP President Rod Chapel called it “ridiculous” to have a conversation about inequity while “excluding the very people who are saying we’ve been treated inequitably.”

“That talks more to the kind of hearing that they wanted to have than the information that they wanted to gather,” Chapel told reporters after the hearing. “They wanted to hear from their friends who were going to support their political talking points.”

Republican Sen. Cindy O’Laughlin, who leads the committee, said she wanted to use the hearing to highlight voices of parents upset about critical race theory who have said local school officials ignored their complaints.

“I felt today it was important to hear from people who have tried to go through the official cycle of authority within their districts and have basically been turned away,” she told committee members.

I wonder why those people suddenly decided to complain to their local school districts about CRT...

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/JvJ0Ii4.png)

And boy howdy how "responsive" is O'Laughlin being to the concerns of her constituents? School officials not immediately getting back to parents about something that's not actually taught outside of law school at the same time those officials are focused on the end of a difficult school year is certainly cause to hold a legislative hearing.

OG_slinger wrote:

No Black parents, teachers or scholars invited to Missouri hearing on teaching race

Kansas City Star wrote:

A Missouri legislative committee on Monday held a hearing on how educators teach K-12 students about race and racism without hearing from any Black Missourians.

No Black parents, teachers or scholars testified to the Joint Committee on Education during the invite-only hearing on critical race theory.

Aside from an official from Missouri’s education department, the only people who testified Monday were critics of critical race theory, which is a way of thinking about America’s history through the lens of racism.

Missouri NAACP President Rod Chapel called it “ridiculous” to have a conversation about inequity while “excluding the very people who are saying we’ve been treated inequitably.”

“That talks more to the kind of hearing that they wanted to have than the information that they wanted to gather,” Chapel told reporters after the hearing. “They wanted to hear from their friends who were going to support their political talking points.”

Republican Sen. Cindy O’Laughlin, who leads the committee, said she wanted to use the hearing to highlight voices of parents upset about critical race theory who have said local school officials ignored their complaints.

“I felt today it was important to hear from people who have tried to go through the official cycle of authority within their districts and have basically been turned away,” she told committee members.

I wonder why those people suddenly decided to complain to their local school districts about CRT...

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/JvJ0Ii4.png)

And boy howdy how "responsive" is O'Laughlin being to the concerns of her constituents? School officials not immediately getting back to parents about something that's not actually taught outside of law school at the same time those officials are focused on the end of a difficult school year is certainly cause to hold a legislative hearing.

We spent 20% of my recent school board retreat strategizing about how to react to CRT and disruptive community members. The superintendent showed the same Media Matters slide you posted here, and it was promptly panned by the arch-conservative member on the board for being from an unreliable source, though he never refuted the facts, and admitted it was all manufactured outrage over nothing.

The mental gymnastics conservatives who support public schools must engage in would be entertaining if it didn't directly harm our children.

I feel for you, JLS. Very glad you're in the trenches fighting this bullsh*t.

Remember, when it's about evolution or climate change it's important to invite people on "both sides" to have a debate regardless of whether those positions actually have equal merit, but when it's about race theory we're good just hearing from white folks who are again' it.

This one's quite the roller coaster ride.

So remember the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops? A couple of weeks ago this conservative Catholic group--in spite of a warning from the Vatican--voted to draft a position paper on the “meaning of the Eucharist” in a move some bishops hoped would end with Biden being denied communion because of his support of abortion.

That vote was organized by Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill. Burrill was the General Secretary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, a position that made him the highest ranking clergy member in American Catholicism who isn't a bishop (and more powerful than some bishops). As the Associate General Secretary, Burrill was charged with helping to coordinate the U.S. bishops’ response to the Church’s 2018 sexual abuse and coercion scandals.

So the first big drop of this roller coaster is that yesterday the USCCB put out a statement saying Burrill had "resigned effective immediately" because of "impending media reports alleging possible improper behavior." (You know you work for a f*cked up organization when preemptive crisis press release you put out specifically mentions that the 'improper behavior' "did not include allegations of misconduct with minors.")

It was The Pillar, a Catholic media project that focuses on investigative journalism who wrote the 'impending media reports.' Their investigation had uncovered that Burrill was involved in a pattern of "serial sexual misconduct," used the hookup app Grindr daily, and had visited numerous gay bars and bathhouses over the course of years.

The second big drop of this roller coaster is that The Pillar didn't discover this by having a team of reporters and private investigators track Burrill or from sources within the USCCB. They discovered it by purchasing signal data--which tracks the time, location, and a unique ID of mobile devices collected from apps like Grindr--from a data vendor and analyzing it.

The Pillar was able to filter through the unique device IDs and determine which one came from Burrill's phone by comparing the data with Burrill's official schedule. The phone suspected of being Burrill's emitted hookup app signals at the USCCB staff residence in Washington (ironically on the same day that the archdiocese of New York announced that allegations that then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick had sexually molested a minor were credible) and then from a street in a nearby residential neighborhood. A few days later Burrill traveled to Las Vegas. While Burrill was there the phone suspected of being his emitted signals from Entourage Spa, which bills itself as "Las Vegas' only gay and bi bathhouse."

The Pillar was then able to see all the times and locations Burrill's phone broadcast data from Grindr and found that they correlated to Burrill's USCCB office, his USCCB residence, his family lake house, near the residences of his family members, and at a Wisconsin apartment in Burrill’s hometown where he was listed as a resident.

Wow. Rollercoaster was right. First, I was like "Yay!" then "Oh sh*t, that's terrifying."

Thing is. If you are familiar with some of the more horrific sh*t that the catholic church has perpetrated over the past 100 years or so, this is not surprising. It’s par for the course. And frankly, a priest having lots of anonymous gay sex with CONSENTING partners is tame compared to the true atrocities that the church has committed.

Yeah, like, he's a hypocrite, but what else is new? I don't think anyone in this story comes across very well, whether it's the closeted gay priest or the privacy-invading dating app or the "media project" that put his private sh*t on blast.

hbi2k wrote:

Yeah, like, he's a hypocrite, but what else is new? I don't think anyone in this story comes across very well, whether it's the closeted gay priest or the privacy-invading dating app or the "media project" that put his private sh*t on blast.

Exactly. If it weren’t for his literal “holier than thou” act and eagerness to punish Biden, I wouldn’t care a lick if he was doing this. Good for him — it’s pretty unhealthy to deny yourself intimate contact. But shame on him for the way he has treated others.

And then, the implications of how the group came to this information…holy sh*t.

Yeah the story is that a person in power denounces and vilifies an action they do constantly. It is not judging the action.

karmajay wrote:

Yeah the story is that a person in power denounces and vilifies an action they do constantly. It is not judging the action.

Has he, personally, been denouncing and vilifying homosexuality / hookup apps?

Catholic birth control nearly destroyed my marriage amoung other negative outcomes. I wasn't Catholic myself but respected my wife and families beliefs.

Ask me how rage inducing it was years later when I heard thousands of Catholics on line say "Lol no we don't actually do that we just pretend we do when we are at mass". Never have I hated a group of people I've never met so much in all my life.

Anyway I'm an atheist now so f*ck em.