Drug developers condemn Texas judge’s anti-science abortion ruling

Over 400 biopharma leaders are calling for the ruling to be reversed.

See full article...

 

[Dark Jaguar]

For the record, the judge was appointed by Trump. So probably no training in law either.

In reality, selected by McConnel, who used Trump's tiny hands to stamp into place judges of all sorts to accomplish a conservative agenda, and the frightening thing is how well it's working.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

Yeah, the number of people willing to accept that even that goddamn blatant Odal rune was a “coincidence” is … alarming, and depressing.

At some point, you must be willing to recognize (1) a pattern exists of white supremacists using white supremacist imagery or signals and denying intent, and (2) white supremacists are willing to lie to disguise their true motives, at least while they remain in the political minority.

And once you realize #1 and #2 are both true, the undeniable conclusion is that you cannot excuse as coincidence or ignorance, that which is more easily explained as white supremacy.

You cannot give the benefit of the doubt to people who are trying to exploit your desire to give people the benefit of the doubt. Stop doubting. They’ve proven who they are by now.

I would be willing to accept the rune's use in that stage design as coincidence, if not for how often these "coincidences" keep occurring when it comes to conservative messaging. It's just like the "one bad apple" mindset when it comes to police brutality. Every case gets treated like "just one isolated instance" that has nothing to do with all the others. But, when these isolated instances occur in sufficient numbers, they become evidence. "Anecdote" is not a synonym for data, but a host of hundreds and hundreds of similar anecdotes DO become data. Yes, even for something as outlandish as alien abduction stories. When something like that becomes widespread enough, they merit an explanation. Now, in the case of alien abduction stories, they tie into generations of older stories about demons sitting on people's chests and so on and the explanation turns out to be dream demons, or "dreamons" to use the scientific term, and a circle of salt and clapping your hands three times is the doctor's prescription, but in this case the most parsimonious explanation for all these remarkable coincidences is that there's fascist, sexist, racist leaders sending dog whistles out to voters with a similar mindset. It's just... now that the fascism is becoming more open and "acceptable" in society, they're no longer just whistling.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

Evidence that should, by now, create a default “white supremacy exists and is widespread enough to be the explanation here” assumption amongst rational Americans.

It should be a rebuttable presumption, but instead of making excuses for why something might not be white supremacy, people should force those who do these things to disprove—through action, not just words—a default assumption they’re doing white supremacist things for white supremacist reasons.

I agree, of course to a reasonable extent. Someone raising their arm to shield their eyes from the sun? I don't think either of us would suggest that person's doing a nazi salute. However, if they suddenly do that at the end of a speech where they'd been looking that direction the whole time, and boy they certainly didn't take any steps to correct that misconception WHEN they did it? Yeah, just going to assume they're doing a nazi salute there. Heck I'd go further and say that even if they CAN come up with a plausible explanation, if the propensity of the evidence shows numerous examples over a long period of similarly "explained" instances, we can and should just throw all their explanations out and conclude "nazi".

It's like the white washing of slavery as cause of the civil war, which is still such a common talking point no matter how often historians directly debunk it by pointing to letters of the people who led the confederacy directly stating it was about slavery specifically. They'll come up with their excuses, but even without the direct quotes from those letters, I think we can just look at every individual step, see how it all ties into racism and pro-slavery propaganda, and conclude that it was, in fact, about slavery no matter their excuses.

I'll post two videos here... okay maybe three:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjs68UszPh4



View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQTJgWkHAwI


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dBJIkp7qIg

 

[Dark Jaguar]

There really needs to be an alternative system for the appointment of judges. Remove politics out of the equation altogether.

Something like jury duty selection. All practising lawyers with x experience (x increasing as you go up the hierarchy) go into a selection pool.

When there's an opening, there's a random drawing - that person is asked if they want the position, which is not lifetime, but, say, a 5 year term. If they don't want it - draw again and repeat until the position is filled.

That way, the makeup of each court is, effectively, random, and if there's a lemon candidate, or a controversial one, then they're only in the position for a limited time.

It's fair, it's random, it ensures someone with relevant experience is in the position... No confirmation hearings, no sucking up to selection panels... just random chance and a set pool of experienced candidates.

There is no system that is immune from the desires of the masses, and manipulating popular opinion is the key way these fascists gained power. I assure you, if enough people object to a law, enforcement of it will become impossible, not least because even the people tasked with upholding it will just shirk their duties and ignore violations. Sometimes this is good, sometimes this is bad. The law is... fickle in that way.

My point being that if we want good justices, we need a good populace to draw them from. As ever, the fight for the cultural zeitgeist is the most important fight.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

That's a scenario that doesn't fucking happen unless there's an immediate and severe danger to the mother. No woman anywhere is just, on a whim, deciding to terminate a pregancy at 9 months. Your strawman bullshit is not welcome here.

I'd go further than that. Laws like this INCREASE the odds of such a late term abortion, because it puts women in a position where they need to do so under cover of darkness and make arrangements for it which can take some time, only managing when it's almost too late. Some, since we are talking about such a late term, will choose to go through the birthing process and then abandon the child. Sometimes this will be on a church's doorstep, sometimes it will be better arranged with adoptive services, and sometimes it'll be the worst case of the otherwise viable baby being left to die in a dumpster to avoid either the difficulties someone forced in that situation might not be able to or to avoid a scandal, or both.

If the goal is to reduce late term abortions, or to "save babies", these laws fail. Now, don't misunderstand. The suggestion that difficulties in applying a law should be reason to not bother passing it in the first place is a bad argument, but we're talking about unintended effects causing far more harm than whatever it is one is outlawing in the first place, and this is not speculation nor prophecy, 'tis history! I um... I like Chrono Cross.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

Voting has rarely fixed anything. People who use that as their assertion have missed the point of how democracy works. You will never vote good change into office. Change always comes first - from society itself adapting to new ideas. Once those ideas exist, voting naturally serves to turn ideas already accepted by the majority of society into law. It all stems from society changing first.

What voting can do is to give one ideology legislative advantage over another and serve as proof that ideologies X is obsolete and no longer politically viable as compared to ideology Y, providing incentive for politicians to align their platforms accordingly.

Even in the most corrupt regimes where such platforms are window dressing rarely adhered to, voting still serves to keep out the demonstrably unfit. Trump could never have won if every liberal and democrat had voted for the democrats. The fascist and grifter both rely on voter apathy among the discerning opposition as being what allows them power to the same extent or more than they rely on the energy of their own base.

Voting for democrats isn't the bus that takes you to the end goal. It's the bus which drives you - sometimes at random - away from the rising tide of sewage. People - even picky liberals - have to learn their options are to either hold their noses and vote accordingly, or not vote and drown in something far worse than what they rejected.

Voting is the least effective form of civil engagement, I've heard. I would put it another way. Voting is the minimum entry point in social participation. It's the starting line. Do that, yes, but understand that the votes you get are just where society is standing currently. Heck, in the current environment? It's not even that. It's what the two parties allow you to pick. Progressives have a massive task of pushing that zeitgeist further and further in their direction, in the hope that one day the culture at large object so much to the two party system it gets replaced with a new paradigm.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

If they send a pregnant person to prison, they are also falsely imprisoning an innocent person. If they deport an immigrant that got pregnant in the US, they are deporting a US citizen, too! Ultrasound images are now a picture of a naked child!

All very good points, though on that last one... I think all of us have some embarrassing childhood bath photos stuffed away in our parent's albums somewhere. It'd be interesting if the fascists decided that was a good tac for going after the left, but then again every accusation from them tends to be an admission.

Some day, we'll finalize technology to both allow people to turn their fertility on and off with a thought and to bypass the womb entirely so everyone's basically spending 9 months in a high tech egg. We may even reach a point where that medical tech is free to everyone and even just a standard thing done to babies on birth like numerous other medical procedures, AND might even fund orphanages far better so kids raised in them are not lacking in care and love. At that point we can discuss fetal rights I suppose. Until then, we really do have to make a fundamental choice about whether potential future consciousness is more or less important than the health, well-being and just plain personal choices of a consciousness that already definitely exists in the here and now. The choice I refer to is whether or not that should be left alone as an entirely personal decision to weigh for each person. It's just too complicated for anyone to make a blanket law about, and the numerous horrific situations that have happened already just this time around spell it out. There is no way to write the laws to cover situations in ways that are actually fair.

Plus god's in favor of abortion, so it's got that particular celebrity endorsement if that affects your vote.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

1) Voter apathy is generally the symptom of political apathy. The person who engages in politics can normally be counted on to show at the ballots. In healthy polities the importance of political engagement is taught in grade school. In places where democracy is ailing - like the US - the perception is instead that political engagement does not matter. That engaging is a waste of time. This then leads to flagging numbers at the ballots.
So sure, yes, you need to teach people to vote. Also to nag their congresspeople, engage with local politicians, and find ways to sponsor - with time or resources - your own vested interests. And also bring hoime the lessons of MLK, Gandhi, and everyone else engaging in civil disobedience to make their voices heard.

2) Gerrymandering, disenfranchisement and raising the difficulty bar of actually getting to the voting booth is what has saved the GOP thus far. Quite a few red states would turn purple or blue in a heartbeat if voting districts weren't gerrymandered to the point where the districts on a map resemble actual signatures. The issue right now is that the GOP also relies heavily on ostracism and intimidation. And liberals are as a whole pretty much shit at organizing a meaningful and cohesive defense to that. Something about not being quite as used to obeying a single voice raised in rage and march off in closed ranks...

3) Once the fascists win, all mechanisms save that of violent uprising are off the table to get things fixed. In modern memory the only totalitarian regime to ever change course bloodlessly was when Gorbachev dismantled the USSR he presided over on his own. You had better hope the US isn't far enough gone so as to render democratic means meaningless because if it is then either in 2024 or 2028 there will be a Dear Leader writing himself an ermächtigungsgesetz and the only way back out of that is through a violent revolt and second civil war likely to be orders of magnitude more harmful than the first one.

The US liberal is largely to blame for things getting to this point and MLK's letter from Birmingham jail describes the issue perfectly well - when the chips are down and some minority is facing severe oppression the liberals will talk and may to some extent march but the very second the struggle threatens inconvenience or comes within arms length NIMBY becomes the rallying cry. They've been afraid to punch the nazi, to toss the racist uncle out of the thanksgiving dinner and the bigoted aunt out of family gatherings. They've lent the veneer of respectability to all the worst people through sheer inaction. For all that US liberals have talked a good spiel their favored dance has been the Niemöller Waltz.

I think they're slowly waking up and realizing that the people going after LGBTQ, women and black people will be going after latins, asians...and of course, ze jews. Always, at some point, the jewish. After which anyone cis-male, heterosexual and white as the driven snow will be the victim for not being driven enough in cheering for Dear Leader or loud enough chanting bile at the image of Goldstein. I just hope they get their shit together before it's too late.

Ironically, as some have noted, the almost cartoonish villainy of the GOP is waking a lot of people up who historically haven't been a factor in politics. That may be, as we saw in Georgia, paving the way for change in unexpected places.

I know where I am on the list. Heck those literally "white as the driven snow", that is albinos, are on the purge list as well. Neoliberalism has always been about the comfort of the rich more than it has been liberty of the poor, and that's being exposed bit by bit today. It's good we're realizing that we have an actual fight on our hands and that victory means we have to accept discomfort.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

Anything is better than being the one who gets to reenact Niemöller..."First they came for the communists, but I didn't care - I wasn't a communist...".
At the end of the list of undesirables the fascist will keep adding names.

It's just how fascism is. It only works if there's enemies to fight, and it's not enough for external enemies. There must be INTERNAL enemies. So long as fascism reigns, whoever's left is forced to find new sub-sub-sub-divisions to hate until the one lone "strong man" is left atop a pile of burnt corpses.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

All I have to add is that this anti-fascist propaganda was one of the few good bits of propaganda the U.S. government put out back then. It's depressingly timely now.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8K6-cEAJZlE

 

[Dark Jaguar]

I'm rather fond of the Superman poster:

Ah yes, I remember reading about the fictional character Superman playing an instrumental part in defeating the actual real world KKK's grip on the culture.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

That's a somewhat... unusual view of Revelations. I'm genuinely curious where you got that view. Especially as Revelations is part of the accepted Canon of Scripture.

Especially as it ends in the symbology of resurrection and the return of Christ.

(My personal view - Genesis contains an awful lot of symbology (anyone who believes in a literal 7-day creation probably hasn't studied or thought much about it and is merely regurgitating Bishop Usher's supposition) and then goes onto more historical stuff. Revelation is the mirror of that - the letters to the churches then a highly-symbolic look at history and the events leading up to the return of Christ (and the aftermath). There's lots of competing theories (continuous historic for one) about how to interpret the symbology but I'm not going to bore everyone to tears trying to expound my limited knowledge of them)

Canonized or not, whether Jesus is returning or not, the themes of the gospel and revelation couldn't be more different. In the four books of the gospel, Jesus is largely preaching forgiveness and tolerance as well as the evils of monetizing the faith, and heck even the evils of hierarchies in general. He even begs forgiveness of the people torturing him to death at the end.

Revelation is not about that at all. It's about blood and pain and the black death, and the smell of... rotting gardenias. Revelation is about human suffering. It's worse than the flood of Noah's time. From plagues to starvation to raining meteors down from the heavens at one point, it's full of wailing and the gnashing of teeth. It's very old testament. That Jesus arrives at the end to become the monarch of a paradise for the few "chosen people" really only solidifies it's fascist themes. Jesus, who was always humble and never sought to rule over anyone in the gospels, is turned into the highest authority of a kingdom built on near omnicide. A lot is made of having this kingdom "on earth" as well, which is a weird thing to focus on considering that a kingdom in heaven seems to me like you could just... get rid of the earth at that stage. What's even the point?

Who canonized these things anyway? Let me tell you this, as an "atheist for Jesus" if I were to pick and choose which books to keep or leave out, I'd get rid of revelation entirely. That, and it's become the cornerstone of a lot of powerful religious people's entire political strategy regarding Israel. They "need" the country to exist and as a religious state for Revelation to come true, and so anything done to preserve that is justified in their eyes.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

It's about as relevant to the real world as debates over Star Wars cannon, right?

Well, in that people make decisions that can affect the world based on it, I suppose it's pretty relevant to know the canon. I may be an atheist but I keep a copy of the holly bibble around because I wander around in a land dominated by it's influence, so I should be aware of what it says and be able to refer to it.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

If you ever want to blow repubs minds, casually mention that the (very) early church actually had something that, in practical matters anyway, looked a lot like communism.. But without the atheism obviously!

("Everyone gave what they could and to everyone was given according to their need" - and it wasn't under duress either. One guy gets told off for pretending that he was giving all his money when it was clear he wasn't - Peter (I think) tells him that his money is his own to do what he wants with it but in trying to lie for the sake of appearance he's committed a sin).

Communism implemented by an authoritarian state turned into the soviet union, but socialism implemented from the bottom up instead, democratically and with far fewer hierarchies? That's something I absolutely support. So, I object to "the state" owning major corporations, but I am entirely in favor of the workers owning those companies instead.

When I explain things like this, even if people still don't agree, they at least understand I'm talking about something far different than the Soviet Union.

Meanwhile we have authoritarians who have managed to fleece their entire flock by tricking them into thinking Jesus was actually a devout Objectivist.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

Hey now, at least Star Wars is based on a true story! It tells you right in the opening crawl!

"A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..."

It's kind of telling that somehow this expression has replaced, in the popular consciousness, the original phrase it's lampooning. I was rather disheartened hearing a kid that fully expected the "galaxy far far away" bit when hearing the opening to a basic fairy tale. They honestly thought that the "in a land far far away" was the alteration.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

And something they knew back then that the modern US has completely forgotten. Instead what I see are prominent media figures, normally outspoken liberals, standing in defense of the nazis rather than, as their grandfathers could have told them, punch those people in the face.

Tolerance demands reciprocity. You shall not receive that which you refuse others.

Punch or no punch, we can't tolerate the intolerant. The paradox of tolerance is no more a paradox than us imprisoning kidnappers is some kind of "paradox of kidnapping". Just recently, yet another angry man showed up in a toy store to whine and complain about an employee wearing a rainbow flag pin. He shouted as loud as he could in very graphic terms about how kids don't need to be told about gay sex and wouldn't hear any correction about how homosexuality is not entirely about sex and the flag doesn't represent crude sex acts the man so loved to shout about, but the right to love as one sees fit. Of course, he was the one bringing it up in front of kids, not the man with the pin. He was eventually told to leave, and just like that this aggressive alpha wolf turned into a cowering sheep, now bleating on about how he "thought you were about tolerance but this isn't tolerant!". They don't ACTUALLY care about tolerance, they just want to "turn our own rules against us" because they find it amusing. As amusing as a middle schooler going "I'm not touching you I'm not touching you" or "stop hitting yourself!".

Don't give them a voice. Shout them down and kick them out every time they emerge. Scatter them, arrest them when they violate the law, and if they take things physical, take it physical right back if you can. Don't tolerate the intolerant. I'm not saying we should punch everyone professing these viewpoints of course, but in the very specific case of racists coming to positions of power, yeah go ahead, punch them right back out of it.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

I had a pastor once try to explain that the answer is Jesus. Because of course it is.

But really, the explanation went something like this - it's still the same god, but now in the NT, we have Jesus as our mediator between us and God. Basically Jesus is meant to be our advocate, our mediator, and our conduit to God. We are meant to pray to him for salvation, and he forgives us of our sins, that we may go before God absolved of sin and pure. "Nobody gets to The Father except through me" or some variation of that depending on which translation you read is a line somewhere in the book that's supposed to represent and encapsulate this.

I was told the same thing. In fact I was very religious a few decades ago and knew all the arguments. But, I reject the notion that we are all "born into sin" and that we all "need salvation" in the first place now. I also reject notions that respect for god is the highest virtue, as that seems rather selfish for a deity, and I reject most of all that such a god would be all knowing and all good, because a god that changes it's mind on moral matters depending on the era seems a bit more fickle than those two attributes would allow for. Now I change my mind on moral matters every now and then, but I'm limited and thus have much to learn and so one would expect that.

Anyway, sorry to break into that. Frankly, in the fight against the greatest evils of the world, Christians who don't embrace fascist ideals I count as my allies.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

Here's the perfect analogy of communism - look at or point to the device you're currently using to read and write on these forums with. The chipset allocates memory and power as needed for every component to fulfill its function - from each according to their ability, to each according to their need, as it were. Communism is the description of trying to turn a nation-state into a computer.
Now consider that every actual human being unsatisfied with being anything other than a logic gate is a bug. This is why communism can not work while humans remain human.

Capitalism, otoh, uses those same flaws as engine. The analogy now becomes more organic, like a slime mold or carpet of biofilm, where every individual cell blindly struggles to get to the food and away from the crap they all leave in their wake.

Communism calls on people to discard all human flaws. Capitalism teaches them to let those flaws define all that they are or can become. Neither is really sustainable.

I'm afraid I can't really embrace this analogy, at least not without a good working definition on which version of communism you're describing. I would reject soviet communism entirely, for example, and "national socialism" completely (as it isn't even socialism in anything but a convenient name the nazis latched onto to promote themselves), but a more egalitarian (dare I say, more anarchistic) socialism I'd say no more relies on people fighting human nature than any moral prohibition on stealing or lying or any such thing. If I were to pick one fundamental rule most moral systems try to abide by, it's doing unto others what we'd want done to ourselves. The "platinum rule" of treating others as they wish to be treated plays right into the hands of fascists, so I use that one much more sparingly, but admittedly the golden rule isn't much help when you're dealing with someone who actually does wish to be treated rather terribly (such as those who see life as a constant violent struggle for dominance).

 

[Dark Jaguar]

Or quote 2 Corinthians 13:12 to them ("Greet one another with a holy kiss." - which has been replaced in some modern translations with "Give your brother a hearty handshake"!)

Well it's holy so it's not sexual right? I'm sure that'd be the argument. Gotta love "Two Corinthians"... (walk into a bar)

 

[Dark Jaguar]

Communism fits my example.

Socialism, does not. Social democracy, democratic socialism.
I'd add the various US programs here as well, but the US handles this to some degree by tax excemptions and kickbacks to corporations providing utility services in order to keep prices down...which has the side effect of also enriching those corporations more than it alleviates the burden on the citizens.

I'll accept that definition! I should have guessed that was your point of view considering we often agree quite a bit on things around here, but it helps to clarify since U.S. politics intentionally conflate the two ideas into one.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

To be fair, a Star Wars cannon sounds awesome...
...oh, wait, that was Reagan's old idea, wasn't it?

Cannonanon. Duh duuuh dununu.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

Anyone claiming that hasn't read either the OT or the NT.

The godhead of the old testament frequently calls for the explicit and unambiguous genocide of rival tribes - even those who haven't raised a hand against his "chosen" first. Is all too happy to "testing" their most ardent believer by putting the poor schmuck through shit even Odyssey would stand back in awe over.
And let's not forget personally engaging in outright terrorism, sending plagues over a civilian population and having children assassinated because the local potentate is being stiff-necked.

The OT is one which reads like a how-to guide for terrorists and sociopaths - which goes a long way towards explaining why so many contemporary christians, particularly in the US, turn out to be such morally bereft throwbacks who simply won't grok that human life and dignity has value. They've been taught to believe in a world under the sway of a tyrannical petty and malicious deity where the only way to end up in a place where you don't actively suffer is to live a life of deprivation and misery where you inflict the same on everyone else around you...and then die. It's a death cult.

Meanwhile the NT is about some laissez-faire non-judgmental hippie who thinks greed is bad, you shouldn't judge others, and that you should share what you have with those who don't. Whatever godhead the NT is about has no real connection to the one depicted in the OT. The comparison between the two would be like first reading LOTR and then a ghostwritten sequel where Sauron turns out to be the good guy.

It never really caught on.

Let me add one detail, and it was a sticking point that was something I just couldn't get over. The stubborn Pharaoh was being stubborn because god himself literally hardened his heart. God forced the Pharaoh to be stubborn and then continued to punish the citizens of Egypt for the act he himself made the Pharaoh do.

This one part stuck with me. I had been told that god was good and that obeying god leads to the happiest life, that law and order were the highest virtues because it stems from someone who knows best and that we disobey at our peril. But then there was this, arbitrarily FORCING someone to disobey him so he could continue his numerous punishments doled out to others. I mean it's one thing to say it's about slavery and the whole society took part and share their guilt, but that ONE part makes it clear the slavery wasn't the point in god's eye. It was the pain and suffering. He literally forced Pharaoh to keep holding onto his slaves. I'd read numerous apologists trying to claim other interpretations, like that god didn't literally harden his heart, but more like, Pharaoh hardened his own heart because of god, but that doesn't track. Pharaoh's heart was softening due to all those plagues, he almost let them go, but then he didn't. What changed at that point in the story? Only one thing, the phrase "god hardened his heart". Outside of possible translation issues, the meaning seems clear as crystal to me.

I think the worst thing Jesus did was strike down a fig tree because it didn't bear fruit out of season. While kinda petty, it didn't hurt anything that had an actual mind so it's basically nothing compared to that old testament jealous wrath.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

Well, you've heard what they say: God hates figs.

Is that what Newton was? I'd heard rumors.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

I decline to admit the Fig Newton commercial song is now stuck in my head as an earworm.

You mean this little classical music thing that was in those commercials when I was growing up?


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MY9dTz181I

 

[Dark Jaguar]

I was thinking of the one that ended "the big, fig, Newton! (here's the tricky part)".

Oh I don't remember that one. I'm an 80's kid so advertising before that is a little early for me.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

The info on YT says it's from 1992, but I can't confirm that. But I'm trying to figure out who the actress is. She looks familiar from other things.

This one was from my era:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkmS9tLgjDA

Good god... someone put the concept of cringing into physical form, melted it down into film and recorded this on that didn't they?

 

[Dark Jaguar]

You just called me old, didn't you. You aren't wrong.


View: https://youtu.be/QkmS9tLgjDA

Well, I do appreciate the super-liminal advertising they engaged in at the time:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhRIneQFmHA

 

[Dark Jaguar]

Not what I said so if you'd kindly take your straw man and go home?

Catholic sexual repression is most certainly a thing. This is bad.
Calvinism and puritanism makes that sexual repression - and the oppression of any other form of thought than the sectarian tenets of faith - a mandate to impose on other people. This is worse.

Both are really unacceptable in both short and long term. The length at which the harm they do spreads, however, has clear differences.

The RCC catholic clergy today doesn't shove their faith up your nose. The same is not true for protestant denominations which, again, often mandate this in thousands of small virulent sects with disproportionate access to government.

You being a disingenious asshole trying to repetitively claim I'm giving catholics a pass because I'm context-aware has long approached alt-right troll levels of bullshit.
The vast majority of the world does not live in a religious theocracy whose culture is so rooted in religious oppression no facet of society has escaped it.

What you say may be true where you live. But get this - you're the outlier. The US is damn well unique in the western world for being as close as you can get to being Iran without being a full bona fide theocracy. And irrespective of how bad US catholics are - and they're a lot worse than what the RCC is known for today literally everywhere else - the particular brand of venom which hijacked the entire development of your nation is puritanism and calvinism. There's no factual debate there.

While the catholic church as an institution isn't enforcing their beliefs externally around here, their long history of doing so indicates exactly why. It's merely because they don't think they can get away with it currently. The moment they think they can, they will. The likes of Rushy Rush Limburger make that very clear. The catholics aren't our allies, and the current "friendly pope" is only friendly in so far as he can get away with. It was pretty recent, the previous pope, where they were enforcing their will regarding abortion onto any hospital funded in part by them, and other things besides. The catholic church doesn't have the power over our lives they used to, but the intent is still there. I don't consider them an ally in any meaningful sense, they just aren't the U.S.'s biggest problem denomination at the moment. Southern Baptists and protestant megachurches definitely fit that bill over here a lot more.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

I try to be objective about things, though do have my biases, and admit I do not see the disagreement here. It feels like the two of you are just talking past each other. Can someone fill me in on the beef? I don't pretend to be able to solve it, but knowing the context might allow me to scroll past it without furrowing my brows and pursing my lips.

It seems to be a debate about the nuance of just which denominations of christianity are a bigger threat. I find such a debate not all that useful myself, though I usually find myself agreeing with the scary devil.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

I'm just trying to make sure all religious groups are recognized for the threat they represent. It's nothing but ignorance and bias that thinks there's some philosophical or organizational specialness to Catholicism that mandates a division that separates it from the rest of the religious right.

Alright just to be fair, and or balanced (TM,C,R), I don't think the person you're arguing is saying Catholicism isn't dangerous in it's own right, just that it's worth acknowledging when such organizations change tactics and focus. No one here seems to be saying the pope is a force for good in the world.