This sort of naiveté can be dangerous for the general public.
They didn’t come back because they changed their minds about radicalism, they’re coming back because they’ve had their butts handed to them on the battlefield and their caliphate has been decimated. Can he be this clueless?
Justin Trudeau On Returning ISIS Fighters: They'll Be An 'Extraordinarily Powerful Voice' For Canada🤦♂️ pic.twitter.com/cRIuQSSTWw
A few thoughts on the Trump/Charlottesville discussion between Solar P and HRW last night:
1. HRW and I disagree on most issues. If we were both in Congress, we would vote against each other over 90% of the time. However, he is very rational and cares about facts. I appreciate that.
2. I think Trump made an honest mistake when he called the right wing people in Charlottesville “very fine people”. The reason I say that is I made the same mistake. When you hear people are protesting to preserve a statue of General Lee, you assume they are Sons of Confederate Veterans or Southern Heritage types. That was my first thought. I know many Southern Heritage types. I am related to many of them. I am one of them. When I saw the videos, heard the chants, and read who organized the protests, I knew the marchers in Charlottesville were not Southern Heritage types. They were neo-Nazi weirdos and most were not from the South.
Ricky, who and what they were is not relevant.t
They wanted an issue to stir up trouble.
Next year it will be something else.
There is never “not and issue”.
Chas, I agree that they (the Neo-Nazis) wanted to stir up trouble, but who and what they were is very important. Southern Heritage proponents must disassociate themselves from Neo-Nazis even as orthodox Christians must disassociate themselves from “health and wealth” heretics.
Good luck with that Ricky. Whether you like it or not, you are considered one of them.
You’re pro-Southern heritage, to the media and left, that makes you a racist.
You are all about the South and still bitter over the Civil War, again, to them that makes you
a racist.
Sons of Confederate Veterans? Racist.
Standing up for monuments to Old South leaders? Racist.
You make a distinction as a reasonable person would, and Trump did too. But to the media, SPLC, Democrats, and the left, you are no better. You are the same. You get painted a racist by the same broad brush. It sucks, but it is reality.
It may well be the case Trump was mistaken about some part or other about the complete makeup of all the groups in Charlottesville, but you’re intentionally mischaracterizing his words if you ascribe sympathy with white supremacists and neonazis to Trump. How do we know this? Because of Trump’s condemning those groups in the very same speech. I still don’t like Trump, but you’re just lazy and angry if you say he sympathized with the Nazi ilk. How stupid.
And the same goes for Christians. You know this. You’ve seen it demonstrated time and time again. To them, we’re all the same, there is no distinction. It’s false and unfair, but perception is reality to them, and we are perceived as the same despite numerous differences in theology and outreach. It’s more convenient for them this way. Makes it easier for them to dismiss you and your opinion..
Solar’s right. Your dislike for all things Trump has clouded your judgement. You are in a sense doing to him what the left does to devout Christians and southern heritage types. Lumping them in with unsavory characters. You’re intentionally mislabeling. You’re playing their game now. You’re better than that.
I wouldn’t hold it against a church/denomination/whatever if it didn’t speak a single word against prosperity doctrine, perhaps unless asked about it. Neither is some movement obligated, imo, to speak against another movement that may have some degree of similarities. We may think it’s *advisable* to do that, but it’s not an absolute moral obligation. I don’t have to announce to everyone I talk to that I disagree with my uncle cohabiting with his male lover. That onus isn’t on me.
“2. I think Trump made an honest mistake when he called the right wing people in Charlottesville “very fine people”. The reason I say that is I made the same mistake. When you hear people are protesting to preserve a statue of General Lee, you assume they are Sons of Confederate Veterans or Southern Heritage types. That was my first thought. I know many Southern Heritage types. I am related to many of them. I am one of them. When I saw the videos, heard the chants, and read who organized the protests, I knew the marchers in Charlottesville were not Southern Heritage types. They were neo-Nazi weirdos and most were not from the South.”
None of that matters to the left. You are them. It’s unfair and inaccurate, but truth isn’t their goal.
@7:32 Speaking of ‘bad religion’, Husband and I were driving 2 days ago and we were listening to our usual Moody radio station. The message for a full 15 or 20 minutes was the Church as a corporation—not a body—but a big corporation. The Bible is our company manual, etc. But my jaw dropped when he referred to salvation as the Father and Son’s product. Apparently we’re selling the Father and Son’s product when we witness the gospel to a lost and dying world. The only thing lacking was our role as consumers of salvation. But that may have been lacking only because I turned the radio. It reeked of Republican, big business ideology.
The world has many pimps and prostitutes, and they’re inside the church too. I hope Ross Douthat can do better than that in his book. I suspect he does; it would be hard to do worse.
Well, he’s sort of wrong. The media, which is normally chest-deep in the tank for Democrats at election time, will be nose-deep in 2020. Their own self-regard as Protectors of Enlightenment is the most important thing to them and they’ve already come to see Trump as the embodiment of all things unenlightened. Everyone worries about their bottom line but a Brahmin caste worries about its holy duties first.
But their bottom line will be hurt by Trump’s defeat. Badly. And POTUS knows it.
Mr. Trump said he believes members of the news media will eventually cover him more favorably because they are profiting from the interest in his presidency and thus will want him re-elected.
“Another reason that I’m going to win another four years is because newspapers, television, all forms of media will tank if I’m not there because without me, their ratings are going down the tubes,” Mr. Trump said, then invoked one of his preferred insults. “Without me, The New York Times will indeed be not the failing New York Times, but the failed New York Times.”
He added: “So they basically have to let me win. And eventually, probably six months before the election, they’ll be loving me because they’re saying, ‘Please, please, don’t lose Donald Trump.’ O.K.”
There’ll certainly be some “Has Trump gotten a bad rap?” reassessments come election time but that has less to due with propping him up for their own sake than with trying to make the election more interesting and competitive for maximum drama. Plus, it earns them impartiality points. When they’re inevitably accused by righties of having savaged Trump for his entire presidency, they can point to the “bad rap?” story and say, “Nuh uh. See?”
Still, he makes a good point. How the hell are they, and we, going to go back to traditional presidential news consumption after four years of Trump? Reporters will need to be retrained to learn how to cover a dull presidency, where there are no tweets to drive the cycle, no Russia investigations, no weekly reports of some cabinet staffer or another being close to quitting or getting fired. More than anything, we’ll all need to learn again how to slow down. Right now we’re riding a roller coaster at full tilt whose track is getting built while the ride is in progress.”
———————–
This is his Colonel Jessup moment, but without all the anger and cussing. 🙂
Note that it is a mixture of orthodox preachers and health and wealth charlatans with a few wildcards like Huckabee thrown in for good measure. The average American can’t distinguish between the wheat and the chaff, and the wheat is voluntarily mixing with the chaff.
2. Look at Trumps’s board of religious advisers. There are solid pastors and leaders mixed in with charlatans like Paula White. It makes me feel sorry for Trump. Supposedly, White presented the “gospel” to Trump. How is Trump supposed to know that White is a heretic and a snake oil salesman when Christians such as Jeffress, James Dobson and Jack Graham treat her as a fellow Christian leader.
I know some would say that one snake oil salesman can always spot someone else in the same line of work, but as AJ indicated, today I am giving Trump the benefit of the doubt.
Cheryl, I didn’t catch the name, and I turned the radio down before he signed off. I don’t think I’ve heard him before, at least not that I’m aware of, but I don’t listen at regular times any more. When I worked at Amazon I used to listen to Allistar Begg just about every day at lunch and James McDonald (I think that’s his name)- I have found both edifying. It wasn’t either of those I’m very sure.
As noted here, Rich Lowry and a few other conservatives have given Trump decent marks for his first year. Has Kevin D. Williamson changed his view? Not one bit.
I’m not sure how hate clouds my judgement. Who or what am i hating to cloud my judgement? I’m not a social justice warrior so i have very little emotional investment. I’m on the left for economic reasons. I like western civ and happen to think based on economic history the Anglo-American model is detrimental to its future. I’m a white middle class male, why would i hate or be angry?
I’m not sure how hate clouds my judgement.8 Who or what am i hating to cloud my judgement? I’m not a social justice warrior so i have very little emotional investment. I’m on the left for economic reasons. I like western civ and happen to think based on economic history the Anglo-American model is detrimental to its future. I’m a white middle class male, why would i hate or be angry?
Humans generalize and see patterns. Thus the left conflates southern pride with racism and the right sees a conspiracy at every turn. Admittedly i think the south should get over it; they lost. And similarly, the Germans don’t build statutes of Rommel despite the fact he was a gentleman soldier. They lost and you don’t commerate anybody even remotely connected to an evil.
And yes the non-religious do generalize the evangelical right. And its been difficult to point out the error of their ways when evangelical leaders continue to associate with Trump. As some of you note some leaders are charlatans and some are genuine. Where Ricky and I agree is its long past the time for genuine evangelicals to cut their losses. Yet many on the religious right continue to support people such as Moore and Trump. Short term gain perhaps but at what cost.
You may think why would I care. I’m not sure I do care but I am genuinely puzzled by evangelical support for Trump. Call it intellectual curiosity. And yes I do see Trump’s incompentence although amusing at times as a threat to western cultural dominance.
And finally I do care because I believe the increased empowerment of women is important for western stability and if as a value it is exported to non western cultures we will diminish the current violence directed our way. Empowered women will diminish the honor code based societies in favor of rule of law. Honor code societies and cultures are far more violent then cultures based on rule of law. And obviously I don’t see Trump as friendly to female empowerment.
nobody said you don’t care
calling you out on the silly nazi thing doesn’t mean I (or whoever disagrees with you on a trump point) am an evengelical who supports trump
trump didn’t do what you said he did and your language calling him out has been hostile
not hard to read in the hatred
Wandering Views 
This sort of naiveté can be dangerous for the general public.
They didn’t come back because they changed their minds about radicalism, they’re coming back because they’ve had their butts handed to them on the battlefield and their caliphate has been decimated. Can he be this clueless?
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FLASH!
Breaking News
Drop everything!
Trump had a truck blocking the view of TV cameras at the Golf course.
Maybe itg was a Russian truck.
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Aj’s link wouldn’t open.
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Highlights of the year in Biblical Archaeology:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2017/december/biblical-archaeology-top-10-discoveries-2017-israel.html
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If I get tired of reading about Lee, Jackson, Stuart and Cleburne, this book looks interesting:
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/may/18/book-review-bad-religion/
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Here is the transcript of Trump’s interview yesterday with The New York Times. There are lots of funny parts, but he saved the best for last.
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A few thoughts on the Trump/Charlottesville discussion between Solar P and HRW last night:
1. HRW and I disagree on most issues. If we were both in Congress, we would vote against each other over 90% of the time. However, he is very rational and cares about facts. I appreciate that.
2. I think Trump made an honest mistake when he called the right wing people in Charlottesville “very fine people”. The reason I say that is I made the same mistake. When you hear people are protesting to preserve a statue of General Lee, you assume they are Sons of Confederate Veterans or Southern Heritage types. That was my first thought. I know many Southern Heritage types. I am related to many of them. I am one of them. When I saw the videos, heard the chants, and read who organized the protests, I knew the marchers in Charlottesville were not Southern Heritage types. They were neo-Nazi weirdos and most were not from the South.
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Ricky, who and what they were is not relevant.t
They wanted an issue to stir up trouble.
Next year it will be something else.
There is never “not and issue”.
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Chas, I agree that they (the Neo-Nazis) wanted to stir up trouble, but who and what they were is very important. Southern Heritage proponents must disassociate themselves from Neo-Nazis even as orthodox Christians must disassociate themselves from “health and wealth” heretics.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Good luck with that Ricky. Whether you like it or not, you are considered one of them.
You’re pro-Southern heritage, to the media and left, that makes you a racist.
You are all about the South and still bitter over the Civil War, again, to them that makes you
a racist.
Sons of Confederate Veterans? Racist.
Standing up for monuments to Old South leaders? Racist.
You make a distinction as a reasonable person would, and Trump did too. But to the media, SPLC, Democrats, and the left, you are no better. You are the same. You get painted a racist by the same broad brush. It sucks, but it is reality.
LikeLike
It may well be the case Trump was mistaken about some part or other about the complete makeup of all the groups in Charlottesville, but you’re intentionally mischaracterizing his words if you ascribe sympathy with white supremacists and neonazis to Trump. How do we know this? Because of Trump’s condemning those groups in the very same speech. I still don’t like Trump, but you’re just lazy and angry if you say he sympathized with the Nazi ilk. How stupid.
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And the same goes for Christians. You know this. You’ve seen it demonstrated time and time again. To them, we’re all the same, there is no distinction. It’s false and unfair, but perception is reality to them, and we are perceived as the same despite numerous differences in theology and outreach. It’s more convenient for them this way. Makes it easier for them to dismiss you and your opinion..
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Solar’s right. Your dislike for all things Trump has clouded your judgement. You are in a sense doing to him what the left does to devout Christians and southern heritage types. Lumping them in with unsavory characters. You’re intentionally mislabeling. You’re playing their game now. You’re better than that.
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AJ @ 11:15 Are you talking to me?
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I wouldn’t hold it against a church/denomination/whatever if it didn’t speak a single word against prosperity doctrine, perhaps unless asked about it. Neither is some movement obligated, imo, to speak against another movement that may have some degree of similarities. We may think it’s *advisable* to do that, but it’s not an absolute moral obligation. I don’t have to announce to everyone I talk to that I disagree with my uncle cohabiting with his male lover. That onus isn’t on me.
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Ricky,
Yes.
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And specifically to this…..
“2. I think Trump made an honest mistake when he called the right wing people in Charlottesville “very fine people”. The reason I say that is I made the same mistake. When you hear people are protesting to preserve a statue of General Lee, you assume they are Sons of Confederate Veterans or Southern Heritage types. That was my first thought. I know many Southern Heritage types. I am related to many of them. I am one of them. When I saw the videos, heard the chants, and read who organized the protests, I knew the marchers in Charlottesville were not Southern Heritage types. They were neo-Nazi weirdos and most were not from the South.”
None of that matters to the left. You are them. It’s unfair and inaccurate, but truth isn’t their goal.
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@7:32 Speaking of ‘bad religion’, Husband and I were driving 2 days ago and we were listening to our usual Moody radio station. The message for a full 15 or 20 minutes was the Church as a corporation—not a body—but a big corporation. The Bible is our company manual, etc. But my jaw dropped when he referred to salvation as the Father and Son’s product. Apparently we’re selling the Father and Son’s product when we witness the gospel to a lost and dying world. The only thing lacking was our role as consumers of salvation. But that may have been lacking only because I turned the radio. It reeked of Republican, big business ideology.
The world has many pimps and prostitutes, and they’re inside the church too. I hope Ross Douthat can do better than that in his book. I suspect he does; it would be hard to do worse.
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AJ, Did my “hatred” my Trump inspire me to accuse Trump of making an honest mistake at 8:26?
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Specicifically when I said I made the same mistake. Do you think I hate myself?
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Debra, 11:40, do you know who the speaker was?
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Ricky,
No. In that case, you clearly gave him the benefit of the doubt.
That’s one. It’s a start. 🙂
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I probably wouldn’t find this amusing if it weren’t true.
https://hotair.com/archives/2017/12/29/trump-lets-face-media-let-win-2020-sake-survival/
“He’s not wrong.
Well, he’s sort of wrong. The media, which is normally chest-deep in the tank for Democrats at election time, will be nose-deep in 2020. Their own self-regard as Protectors of Enlightenment is the most important thing to them and they’ve already come to see Trump as the embodiment of all things unenlightened. Everyone worries about their bottom line but a Brahmin caste worries about its holy duties first.
But their bottom line will be hurt by Trump’s defeat. Badly. And POTUS knows it.
Mr. Trump said he believes members of the news media will eventually cover him more favorably because they are profiting from the interest in his presidency and thus will want him re-elected.
“Another reason that I’m going to win another four years is because newspapers, television, all forms of media will tank if I’m not there because without me, their ratings are going down the tubes,” Mr. Trump said, then invoked one of his preferred insults. “Without me, The New York Times will indeed be not the failing New York Times, but the failed New York Times.”
He added: “So they basically have to let me win. And eventually, probably six months before the election, they’ll be loving me because they’re saying, ‘Please, please, don’t lose Donald Trump.’ O.K.”
There’ll certainly be some “Has Trump gotten a bad rap?” reassessments come election time but that has less to due with propping him up for their own sake than with trying to make the election more interesting and competitive for maximum drama. Plus, it earns them impartiality points. When they’re inevitably accused by righties of having savaged Trump for his entire presidency, they can point to the “bad rap?” story and say, “Nuh uh. See?”
Still, he makes a good point. How the hell are they, and we, going to go back to traditional presidential news consumption after four years of Trump? Reporters will need to be retrained to learn how to cover a dull presidency, where there are no tweets to drive the cycle, no Russia investigations, no weekly reports of some cabinet staffer or another being close to quitting or getting fired. More than anything, we’ll all need to learn again how to slow down. Right now we’re riding a roller coaster at full tilt whose track is getting built while the ride is in progress.”
———————–
This is his Colonel Jessup moment, but without all the anger and cussing. 🙂
LANGUAGE WARNING!!
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SolarP, This is why I think it is important that orthodox Christian leaders speak out against health and wealth heretics:
1. Here is the TBN broadcast schedule:
https://www.tbn.org/watch/schedules
Note that it is a mixture of orthodox preachers and health and wealth charlatans with a few wildcards like Huckabee thrown in for good measure. The average American can’t distinguish between the wheat and the chaff, and the wheat is voluntarily mixing with the chaff.
2. Look at Trumps’s board of religious advisers. There are solid pastors and leaders mixed in with charlatans like Paula White. It makes me feel sorry for Trump. Supposedly, White presented the “gospel” to Trump. How is Trump supposed to know that White is a heretic and a snake oil salesman when Christians such as Jeffress, James Dobson and Jack Graham treat her as a fellow Christian leader.
I know some would say that one snake oil salesman can always spot someone else in the same line of work, but as AJ indicated, today I am giving Trump the benefit of the doubt.
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Cheryl, I didn’t catch the name, and I turned the radio down before he signed off. I don’t think I’ve heard him before, at least not that I’m aware of, but I don’t listen at regular times any more. When I worked at Amazon I used to listen to Allistar Begg just about every day at lunch and James McDonald (I think that’s his name)- I have found both edifying. It wasn’t either of those I’m very sure.
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As noted here, Rich Lowry and a few other conservatives have given Trump decent marks for his first year. Has Kevin D. Williamson changed his view? Not one bit.
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I’m not sure how hate clouds my judgement. Who or what am i hating to cloud my judgement? I’m not a social justice warrior so i have very little emotional investment. I’m on the left for economic reasons. I like western civ and happen to think based on economic history the Anglo-American model is detrimental to its future. I’m a white middle class male, why would i hate or be angry?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m not sure how hate clouds my judgement.8 Who or what am i hating to cloud my judgement? I’m not a social justice warrior so i have very little emotional investment. I’m on the left for economic reasons. I like western civ and happen to think based on economic history the Anglo-American model is detrimental to its future. I’m a white middle class male, why would i hate or be angry?
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Weird double post….
Humans generalize and see patterns. Thus the left conflates southern pride with racism and the right sees a conspiracy at every turn. Admittedly i think the south should get over it; they lost. And similarly, the Germans don’t build statutes of Rommel despite the fact he was a gentleman soldier. They lost and you don’t commerate anybody even remotely connected to an evil.
And yes the non-religious do generalize the evangelical right. And its been difficult to point out the error of their ways when evangelical leaders continue to associate with Trump. As some of you note some leaders are charlatans and some are genuine. Where Ricky and I agree is its long past the time for genuine evangelicals to cut their losses. Yet many on the religious right continue to support people such as Moore and Trump. Short term gain perhaps but at what cost.
You may think why would I care. I’m not sure I do care but I am genuinely puzzled by evangelical support for Trump. Call it intellectual curiosity. And yes I do see Trump’s incompentence although amusing at times as a threat to western cultural dominance.
And finally I do care because I believe the increased empowerment of women is important for western stability and if as a value it is exported to non western cultures we will diminish the current violence directed our way. Empowered women will diminish the honor code based societies in favor of rule of law. Honor code societies and cultures are far more violent then cultures based on rule of law. And obviously I don’t see Trump as friendly to female empowerment.
LikeLiked by 2 people
nobody said you don’t care
calling you out on the silly nazi thing doesn’t mean I (or whoever disagrees with you on a trump point) am an evengelical who supports trump
trump didn’t do what you said he did and your language calling him out has been hostile
not hard to read in the hatred
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