That’s interesting and worth thinking about. I think that is why everyone accuses the other side of being a cult. We can’t imagine these broad groups actually are full of real people. A broad group like “maga” or “socialists” is a shallow box. Individual, actual people, are deep and too complex for such gross generalizations. But we get to feel better than millions of people if we allow ourselves to hate these groups. Viewing them as sheep in a cult lets us not look past the shallow boxes at the real people. — Fire Ologist

You speak of coping skills that are necessary because we are limited and have pushed way beyond our limits. Our brains and energy levels are being overtaxed. Desmond Morris, a zoologist, explains the problem in his book "The Naked Ape".

Religion isn’t opposed to science. It can be if you want. But science doesn’t know very much either. And morality is an utter mess. Religion of sorts goes all the way back to the beginning of human history. Religion is literally what you make of it. It can be, and has been, a force for good. Like science can be, and has been, but is often wrong, and can be used to make life worse for many. — Fire Ologist

Here, I think we need to be more specific. The belief that a God made a man from mud and a woman from his rib, goes against science, and what good can come out of anything that is that far from science?
This involves morals and justice, so it really matters to me.

I would like to discuss socialist and capitalist and your objection to classifying people and generalizing discriptions of " what those people do". Maybe if I say the capitalists are the immoral people and the socialists are the moral people, you can see what is wrong with those generalizations. You generalize and find fault with groups of people but defend the actions of the German Gestapo and that is worrisome.

I feel sorry for the people used by ICE and those sent to war. Recently, the moral crisis faced by military personnel has come up in public discussion. I am sure the moral crisis also comes with ICE.

You generalize and find fault with groups of people but defend the actions of the German Gestapo and that is worrisome. — Athena

I don't think this is anything but disingenuous and inflammatory.

I note you do not engage any criticism of your position, consistently.

You speak of coping skills — Athena

I do? I spoke of the shallowness of identity politics.

You … defend the actions of the German Gestapo — Athena

Really??

Where did I do that? You seem to say things like the above so easily. You come off as divisive and extreme, as you bemoan the division in America.

Anyone who breaks the law deserves punishment, including ICE employees. Period. But that goes for immigrants too. All people who immigrate to the US without honoring our due process of immigration law should expect a visit from ICE. Period. Time for everyone to take some responsibility for the mess that is US immigration. ICE are just doing what we all hired them to do.

Work to change the law if you don’t like what ICE has to do to enforce the law. Yell at the leadership and the legislators. But leave the boots on the ground out of your fantasies about what the Gestapo was.

I feel sorry for the people used by ICE and those sent to war. — Athena

Then don’t call them Gestapo to make some political point. Would you say “Gestapo!” to their spouses and children? As they leave in the morning to go off to work?

I think we need to be more specific. — Athena

Please do.

The belief that a God made a man from mud and a woman from his rib, goes against science, and what good can come out of anything that is that far from science?
This involves morals and justice, so it really matters to me. — Athena

So I heard someone explain that the religious person sees her new baby as a gift from God, while the scientific person sees her new baby as the wondrous workings of cellular biology. But that is stupid. The religious person can see her new baby as the wondrous workings of cellular biology AND a gift from God. And it’s the same thing with creation. Life evolved from primordial soup into men and women over billions of years AND, God created man and woman, male and female, to complement and complete one another, and be as one flesh in marriage…... Thousands of years of good have followed from that story (and I venture to say, always will).

People who think the earth is 6000 years old, or that there was an actual adult male rib involved in the birth of the first woman, on day 6… - that’s weird stuff. The Bible isn’t a science book. But you thinking science can replace religion is missing the point of both science and religion if you ask me. How about the Broadway play Wicked - can any good come out of that being as it is so far from science? Or when someone says “Broadway has to be banned because nothing good can come from something so far from science,” do they maybe not understand what Broadway is for people? Or science?

You sound authoritarian about all religion. Some of us religious folks can walk and chew gum at the same time.

Look at the problem of Islamists taking over European and North American cities. Who cares what Muslims all believe about God, and what their religion says is truth. Just like who cares what any religion says. It’s not the religious beliefs that actually cause the problems for anyone who doesn’t agree with them. It’s when religions try to enforce their religious law in secular, shared society. It’s when political leaders use religion to spark emotion to bolster political action and law. We only have to care if politicians tell us to wear face coverings, stone people for not being Muslim, yell out their prayer calls in front of a Christian Church stopping traffic while banning public Christmas celebrations (or crashing cars into them) etc. We don’t have to care what religious leaders think and say (remember free speech? Freedom of religion and assembly?) - we only have to care about the politics and the criminality - are these lawful in our society or not? Do Islamist takeovers of Western cities allow for freedom and equal rights and prosperity for anyone? Or not.

I agree with you that religion masquerading in politics needs to tamp itself down. I hate hearing politicians sound like they are preaching, under any religion. It’s shitty marketing - of religion AND whatever stupid political point they are failing to make as they bring in “God” and “evil” to turn the conversation emotional.

The closest religion should get to politics is in a way that is utterly non-sectarian. Government leaders should not appear to favor this faith over that one, nor favor atheists over theists.

Yes, native and indigenous peoples knew the importance of living in harmony and balance with their ecosystem. We can learn a lot from them. — Punshhh

Our public broadcasting station is doing many shows about native Americans, and usually their spirituality is brought up as a driving force for them. For them, we are in a spiritual battle to save the very life of our planet. I don't think that spirituality goes well with our major religions. What do you think?

The left. The not-‘MAGA’. (MAGA, that pejorative expression that helps “progressives” own the fascist/authoritarian haters). Maybe “wokeness” triggers a shut-down of communication, but so does just saying MAGA is the easy example of “not-thinking”. (Although it didn’t shut me down apparently.) — Fire Ologist

I had to do a lot of work to track down an apparent disagreement about ICE. I don't know which side you think is the right one. :groan: We shouldn't have sides in the first place because now we have an argument against sides rather than the issues. It was Trump who created MAGA. Somehow this is tangled up with "that pejorative expression that helps 'progressives' own the fascist/authoritarian haters".

Anyway, it appears you were the one who brought up fascist/authoritarian, which today is expressed through ICE, but in the past, it was the German Gestapo. Our rule by law is being shredded, and that puts the democracy of the US in as much danger as the Germans were when Hilter and his chosen people consolidated power in their hands, making it possible for the Gestapo to have poorly restricted power. This leds to terrible things being done to people who lost all legal protections.

I don't know, do we agree or disagree on this?

I do? I spoke of the shallowness of identity politics. — Fire Ologist

Yes, generalizing, categorizing, and the framework of prejudice are coping skills that become essential when the population is so large that we become strangers.

AI first goes into panic about "prejudice", but eventually explains how it improves our survival. What is important here is recognizing our limits and the need to get real about them, instead of denying our limits and beating ourselves and others up for not being better human beings.

The reality of unnaturally large populations makes prejudice necessary not only to protect ourselves, but also to conserve energy. Our brains do many things to help us conserve energy.

The way to cope with prejudice is by learning good manners and taking responsibility for acting on them. This is something @AmadeusD refuses to do, so I chose to avoid him. Rules greatly improve how we live on this planet with far more people than we can possibly know.
1. We respect everyone. It doesn't matter if the other is the mayor of a bum, or looks different.
2. We protect the dignity of others. (That is why social security is based on age, not need).
3. We do everything with integrity.
With those rules, what can go wrong?

ICE are just doing what we all hired them to do. — Fire Ologist

So was the Gestapo just following orders. There are some good stories and movies coming out of that time in history. A fiction movie I really like is "The Reader". A woman who can not read is accused of a war crime. She could have proven she was not guilty but she was too ashamed to let people know she couldn't read so she kept that hidden. She became a good Nazi because that was the only way to get a good job. She obeyed orders without question because, like most Germans, she believed that her nation was in the right and a good nation, just as Americans believe in America. Also, she had no reason to question until a young man began reading to her and exposed her to a classical education. While this is fiction it is based on facts of the nature of things in that time in history, and I think we are in big trouble now because of replacing our education with the German model of education for technology.
We are now technologically smart but not wise.

There are important points here. Number 1, I do not see America as better than Germany. Humans are only human, and they want to believe their nation or their tribe is the best. We welcome news that makes us feel good and makes us think we are doing the right thing, and a small backward nation on the other side of the world is a threat to the US and must be bombed, destroying the lives of millions of people. Or so the Germans believed, and so do the Russians today.

If you all want to throw tomatoes at me for what I am saying, go ahead. So were the Germans only following orders, and what ICE is doing is not better than the Gestapo? We made it law so people opposed to war are not forced to fight in them. Vietnam and the following wars were wrong. Men and women are coming home from these wars traumatized and sometimes committing suicide in part because what they had to do was immoral.

I am not saying we should ignore immigration laws. I am saying we should be decent human beings and treat everyone decently. NEVER, EVER SHOULD CHILDREN BE TRAUMATIZED. NEVER SHOULD A HUMAN BEING BE HUMILATED BY FORCING THEM TO BE NUDE IN PUBLIC. LOOK AT OUR MORALS, AND WHEN ORDERS VIOLATE MORALITY, THAT IS A PROBLEM TO BE CORRECTED. The behavior of ICE is worthy of a country run by thugs, not a civilized nation. And for crying out loud, the US is not the only country with an immigration problem. This is a global problem, and it will require a global solution.

Who remembers the Peace Corps? John Kennedy was a wonderful leader, and I would do all in my power to get another leader like him.

Then don’t call them Gestapo to make some political point. Would you say “Gestapo!” to their spouses and children? As they leave in the morning to go off to work? — Fire Ologist

Would you please address the issues instead of attacking me? Here is a presentation of the Gestapo issue. Know I am passionate about the wrongs that have led up to this moment in history, and my thoughts on this subject come from knowledge of the history of education. My grandmother defended democracy in the classroom. My mother sang for USO shows, and my father dealt with the piles of bodies in the death camps. If you want to argue the issues fine, but I expect you to do that respectfully and with honor for all those who died defending our democracy.


What the military oath of enlistment says about legal and ...

ABC News
https://abcnews.go.com › Politics › story
4 days ago — The call from Democratic veterans in Congress highlights the federal law that dictates the conduct of members of the military.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/pentagon-launching-review-democratic-sen-mark-kelly/story?id=127827953

If we focus on history, philosophy, and the concerns some people have today, the discussion could be much more interesting the pointing out my faults. :lol:

I want to expand the understanding of the gestapo problem. I can't use AI, but I hope I can link to it.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Hitler+and+the+gestapo&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS990US990&oq=Hitler+and+the+gestapo&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRiPAjIHCAIQIRiPAjIHCAMQIRiPAtIBCTEwMzUwajBqN6gCCLACAfEFwzIOWqMQGCLxBcMyDlqjEBgi&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

The words that jump out at me are "without legal constraint". And "placing the secret police outside the traditional state and judicial oversight." I think that can be effectively done by firing everyone who disagrees with a leader, and putting in people who are 100% pleasing to the leader and are also unfit for the job. Like they are not opposed to the leader because they know enough to have good judgment.

Does anyone want to argue that Trump is not ruling as though he is above the law, and that he is not protecting his power by taking down everyone who opposes him? Is there any doubt he incited the attempt to take over the Capitol Building, and that he pardoned everyone found guilty of a crime and serving time that he could?

For some of us, the Athenian system of getting rid of tyrants was an important part of defending democracy.

The creation of the institution of ostracism, whereby the people decided collectively whether to banish a single citizen for ten years, provided not only a mechanism for the symbolic expression of democratic power, but also a means for the practical and ideological distinction between oligarchic and democratic rule. https://online.ucpress.edu/ca/article-abstract/19/2/232/25458/Exile-Ostracism-and-the-Athenian-Democracy?redirectedFrom=fulltext

A discussion of the difference between an oligarchic and democratic rule could be interesting.

ICE are just doing what we all hired them to do. — Fire Ologist

We did not hire ICE to shoot people in the leg. In fact, some states what ICE to stay out and respect state sovereignty. Shooting people in the leg is against the law, and if our young people in ICE follow orders that should not be made, they can be charged with a crime. Trump's brutality was on display many years ago....

Esper: Trump asked about shooting protesters

NPR
https://www.npr.org › 2022/05/09 › trump-esper-book-...
May 9, 2022 — Former Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said President Donald Trump inquired about shooting protesters amid the unrest that took place after George Floyd's ...
Donald Trump 'suggested shooting migrants in the legs'

BBC
https://www.bbc.com › world-us-canada-49901878
Oct 2, 2019 — He pushed aides towards extreme methods of deterring crossings at the southern border, a book says.

That is against the law, and so we come to arguing about if ICE and the Gestapo are that different. Forcing someone into the public nude, is wrong. Traumatizing children is wrong. What is the problem causing nice and civilized people to not see the wrong? How is this different from what happened in Germany?

I am not saying we should ignore immigration laws. I am saying we should be decent human beings and treat everyone decently. NEVER, EVER SHOULD CHILDREN BE TRAUMATIZED. NEVER SHOULD A HUMAN BEING BE HUMILATED BY FORCING THEM TO BE NUDE IN PUBLIC. LOOK AT OUR MORALS, AND WHEN ORDERS VIOLATE MORALITY, THAT IS A PROBLEM TO BE CORRECTED. The behavior of ICE is worthy of a country run by thugs, not a civilized nation. And for crying out loud, the US is not the only country with an immigration problem. This is a global problem, and it will require a global solution. — Athena

You are a good person. I can see that. I don’t mean to sound like I am attacking anyone else, except maybe when I am atracking all of us, me included (if “attack” is even the right word).

I may disagree with your analysis, and your appraisal of certain facts.

But I do agree that we can no longer ignore immigration laws (totally agree). The world of civilized people (which is everyone who wants to join) can, if we want, settle our borders, and protect all our cultures.

We need to ignore those who want to destroy each other, make the peace, and then enforce it against those who keep destroying. Right?

Instead of picking on ICE agents, shouldn’t we figure out what their job should be, by writing better immigration laws, clarifying reasonable suspicion, facilitating due process, whatever we must to make borders and immigration rational? We don’t simultaneously fight our own law enforcement. Quite the opposite, local police should be working really closely with ICE, not against them, because they know where trouble is in their towns, and more importantly, where it isn’t. There are so many things we could do better.

No one wants to harm children or terrorize otherwise law abiding, hard working people - that is not anyone’s goal!.

And yes, this is a global problem. We do not know how to walk and chew gum. We don’t know how to protect our beloved cultures without hating someone else’s. That is the main struggle of history, both inside the tribe and among the many tribes. Muslims don’t know how to be Muslim in a liberal democracy of free men and women. Christians don’t know how to be saved without damning everyone else. Americans don’t know how to be proud and “first” without judging all others “third world” and over-exploiting opportunity. Poor people don’t know how to be grateful and content. Rich people don’t known how to be humble and charitable and sacrificial. Trump doesn’t know how to be strong, but not a bully. Righties don’t know how to be absolute, yet merciful and vulnerable. Lefties don’t know how to stand with the oppressed without oppressing and moralizing the “bad people” (or this group or that group….).

It is because all of us are too content to be divided up into our safe groups of victims, blaming the other groups for our own self-inflicted wounds. We love our precious misery. It feeds our cathartic anger, that we take out on our own brothers, who we should love, and instead allow ourselves to stomp on the immigrant or stomp on ICE.

And we refuse to learn anything.

Well, we’ve learned a lot, but that is just for yelling against each other - we haven’t learned how to actually do better, to build a true civilization, where justice is present for at least most of us.

I still don’t mean to attack anyone.

Many countries need to almost stop new immigration for some time, figure out how to offer amnesty even to millions of migrants who are currently in those countries illegally, find out if they want to stay, and be done with the framework. But even rich America can’t assume responsibility for the world’s poor indefinitely, so as borders open up again on solid ground the border can never look like Biden’s border ever again. This will cost everyone a lot (so we will wallow in hell and Hope shit works out….)

We need all countries to love their own identities and take responsibility for their own identities, clarify where the lines are, and clean this shit up. This means there are different laws in all of the different countries and when in Rome, we all assimilate as the Roman’s do. We don’t go somewhere to change it. It will change if it’s own, just like each who immigrates will be changed. Everyone, of course keeps their own heart and culture and religion, but everyone also makes room to find goodness and inspiration in the culture that welcomes you home, your country, or if an immigrant, your new country.

There are as many reasons for all of us to love each other as there are to hate each other.

We choose to find the reasons to hate. We don’t have to, but we do. Hating the other tribe is the easiest way to escape our own guilt for hating in the first place (“they are the haters and the evil ones!”) - we only hate other people and cultures out of our own weaknesses, and no one wants to admit they are weak.

We have made a complex problem for ourselves. We keep handing it down to the next generation. When will there be enough people who are brave enough to forgive past injustice, and heal, and claim justice instead for an actually better future we might participate in? The solution is not whether left or right is wrong; It’s in how both are inadequate without each other - something new, that carries with it the same good that was and is always there.

You are a good person. I can see that. I don’t mean to sound like I am attacking anyone else, except maybe when I am atracking all of us, me included (if “attack” is even the right word). — Fire Ologist

Thank goodness! I was wondering what in hell went wrong with a great discussion. I will get back to you as soon as I can. I think I have a broken foot, and I just learned that an urgent care place can X-ray my foot. I hope to get this done before washing dishes for a huge holiday crowd at a community center. If I don't get back soon, give me a holler.

How is this different from what happened in Germany? — Athena

Because, if you read a summary of what happened - they are totally different stories. This weird need to align Trump with Hitler is pathological (not you, specifically).