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Probably Magic posted:You're going to have provide proof to the negative then. Many who are rightwing Christians routinely mix their nationalist symbolism with their religious symbolism, as if God and America are synonymous. Liberalism is also not immune to this bias - Biden speaks of the country "not going backwards" as if America consistently bends towards good the longer time goes on, mimicking Barack Obama's thoughts on a moral arc of history. But there's no reason for there to be a moral arc of history unless one assumes that evil only comes from ignorance, good from knowledge, as if evil is not perpetuated knowingly. That would itself not be religious thinking, would just be a sort of technocratic fetishism, except the emphasis on campaigning at the moment isn't outreach and education but instead vote shaming those who wish to abstain or vote third party. This lends itself to the notion that voting Democrat is a kind of absolving act, a Day of Atonement, for all the evils of prior American history. Jon Stewart called the Democratic Party the "party of history." The Democratic Party routinely honors the sacrifices of the past while ignoring the sacrifices of today. This type of act can only be framed as religious observance since there's no expectation placed on the Democratic Party to deliver on its promises or indeed to perfect the country - it is only the support of it that matters, a way to show that whatever genocides or civil rights abuses or whatnot cannot be pinned on a voter because they voted for the Lesser Evil and therefore can only be praised, not criticized. You're using the fact that a Democratic politician is trying to get people who are not voting or voting for someone else to vote for his party as your evidence that democratic government is a religion. That's pretty nonsensical. Some of this is also just blatantly counterfactual nonsense: "there's no expectation placed on the Democratic Party to deliver on its promises" How do you define a religion? Unrelated note: paragraph breaks would make your post far more readable.
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Feb 29, 2024 16:58
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Probably Magic posted:It's eight sentences, give me a break. You're using the fact that Biden has promised to cure cancer, and hasn't, among other promises as an example of why "there's no expectation placed on the Democratic Party to deliver on its promises". But this ignores that he has moved towards many of his promises even if he has not fully accomplished them. College debt being a good example. I would argue that when a politician or political party makes a promise the expectation is that they want to do these things and will move towards them. Politicians making grandiose promises they cannot fully fulfill is old news, but I don't think it's reasonable to say there's no expectation to deliver on them at all. I'm not sure what you think you've proven. Do you think when Biden made that claim people gave it no weight at all? If you mean democratic government is a religion in that it is a cause or principle, held to with ardor and faith then I don't think it's controversial and I would agree. The disagreement may be coming from the difficulty in defining it. Your atonement argument doesn't make sense to me as an argument that it's a religion, especially if you have to stick "secular" in front of it.
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Feb 29, 2024 21:20
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Probably Magic posted:Okay, so, from a personal perspective here, what's a promise Biden would break or an act he could do that would make you not vote for him? I don't think I can draw a hard red line on a single thing without picking something unrealistically extreme (i.e. what if he ate a live baby on stage during the debates???), but Biden's administration has made defending transgender people a priority. If that were to reverse I would find it harder to vote for him. I'd still vote for him over Trump if that were the only thing that changed, but I'd be more unhappy about it. You can think of it as cumulative, I guess. If I had no expectation that Biden would deliver on his promises, or at least do everything he can to achieve them, I would not vote for him. DeadlyMuffin fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Mar 1, 2024 |
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Mar 1, 2024 00:10
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Josef bugman posted:The good done does not stop the bad done and the bad done, in this instance, is litterally so bad it's the worst crime we, as people, can commit. That is why people are perhaps a little terse. I object to people arguing that there's little difference between the fascist and non-fascist candidate and to downplaying the insurrection in 2020. I suspect it isn't an uncommon sentiment. Reframing this as "people are perhaps a little terse", especially from someone who would not actually have to live in the country with the fascist leader, comes across as deliberately offensive.
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Mar 4, 2024 00:25
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selec posted:Bar is this an unironic “but at least the trains run on time” argument about funding a genocide or am I reading it wrong? What do you mean by this? Is saying anything positive about a government that also does bad things an "but at least the trains run on time” argument? Or are you just trying to imply that another poster is a Nazi?
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Mar 4, 2024 01:10
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The Sean posted:I did and I maintain my thoughts on the matter. It might not matter to you. It matters to me.
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Mar 10, 2024 10:29
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Halloween Jack posted:I'm trans. Thanks for presuming to speak on my behalf, but my identity isn't a tool for you to whip votes for Racial Jungle Joe. I'm not at all impressed with e.g. a set of Title IX regulations that leave out trans athletes. You seem to have a hard time getting it through your head that a lot of people aren't impressed by promises of incremental change on an absurdly long timeline I'm trans too and you sure as poo poo don't speak for me. The contrast between how governments run by Democrats treat trans people vs how governments run by Republicans treat trans people is night and day. You have Republican governments trying to detransition kids, force people to have the wrong gender on their identifying documents. You have the Biden administration trying to use the affordable care act to force states like Florida to knock some of that poo poo off, but somehow their title 9 support for trans athletes is the hill to die on?
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May 9, 2024 21:05
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