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The more I explore sociology and politics it has now become abundantly clear that Calvinism has won against the old Catholic order. Even among Catholic countries and The Church today, Calvinism and its ideas has been so so thoroughly cemented that genuine Catholicism is hard to find. The main idea behind Calvinism that drives all of its theology is the Elected-the idea that ONLY certain people are allowed life after death and there is nothing you can do about the fact that you are condemned. Extend this exclusionary nature out to other ideas in life-wealth, sex, self-esteem, etc and the idea is that in Calvinist world, only the "elected" are allowed to actually live whereas the rest are perpetually unsatisfied and told that that a regular life us actually bad for you while being brazenly hypocritical.
Take sex for example, The Scarlet Letter is a perfect example in showing the Calvinist idea that sex is something inherently scandalous but the "elected" are still allowed to do so. Arthur Dimmesdale may preach about Puritan purity but fathers an illegitimate child anyway. The idea is that Arthur is the "elected" one allowed to have sex whereas the rest of populace are stuck in a gloomy hell completely devoid of good sexuality and merriment. (Christmas was banned by Cromwell ffs) This is the rationale behind pornography as stated by the Jewish Dane Jens Theander:
"Making porn is about being sexually repressive. What we do is not entertainment, it is sexual control-and-repression politics. We are a Lutheran country, with the legalization of pornography we follow the Puritan agenda, why? because with pornographic material we do not liberate sex, but thanks to pornographic material we can repress it more effectively. Pornography is about sex by inciting desires that can never be fulfilled. That's the idea of being a pornographer. We do not offer or facilitate sexual contact, we do not help or will help anyone have real sex with anyone, but we incite cravings that have no chance of ever being consummated. This is how we suppress...The idea is to create an elite of actors with the exclusive right to sexual performance so that viewers that are not part of it give up and, in the long run, become dependent on our merchandise, shocking them"
It's all right there-scandalizing/repressing sex into the hands of the "elected" and associating shock to it.
Another aspect of this is alcohol. Alcohol was long scandalized/suppressed by Calvinism and its offshoots in America. Prohibition comes, and now normal people do not have access to alcohol and social cornerstones of the Western world such as pubs are destroyed. However all Prohibition ACTUALLY did was put the hands of alcohol production, selling, and usage into the hands of an "elected" who ran underground bars and criminal syndicates. In this way alcohol no longer was the domain of regular people and tavern owners but now criminals and bootleggers who still enjoyed it, all while Puritan moralizers yelled at the normal people. One of the most treasured and liked commodity in Western Civilization was completely scandalized and shocked by Calvinists, rendering consumption of it into the hands of the "elected". It's like those parents who never give their kids a beer at a Christmas party so now their first exposure to alcohol is at a college rave and they don't know their limit and get alcohol poisoning. Prohibition was that but on a national scale thanks to Protestantism. One of the reasons why I drink actually is to pay homage to my Catholic culture as a triumph against Protestant prohibitionists.
The exact same idea can be seen in the Northern Irish Conflict and is actually a great indication of Catholic VS Protestant culture. Actually look at the details between violent incidents committed by the IRA and Protestant paramilitaries and you will see that protestants added much more shock to their violent campaigns. The end goal of this was to scandalize/suppress(a common theme) violence itself and make it outside the realm of normal people, but rather reserve it for sadistic criminals. It is no wonder that Republican prisoners spent their time reading books on Irish history and political thought while Loyalist prisoners did nothing but weightlift. Because for Republicans, smart and educated and otherwise normal people were still allowed to participate in violence because under Catholic countries these things are not suppressed and reserved for the "elected". But that wasn't the case for Northern Irish Protestants. Normal/Smart Protestants were not seen in paramilitaries because it had become outside their domain. It's the same reason why America is uniquely obsessed with serial killers or why bar fights are not "lower-class coded", because the entire idea of violence is now scandalized/shocking.
The last element I want to discuss is music. The 70's and 80's in rock music was dominated by hair metal bands. KISS, motley crue, Poison, etc who exercised this Protestant idea of scandalizing life and putting into the hands of disgusting and shocking people and outfits. Then the 90s came with grunge and Oasis and can be seen as a counter-revolutionary Catholic revolt-it put music BACK into the domain of normal people. Is it any wonder why the 5 Oasis boys were all second generation Irish Catholics and Kurt and Chris were ex-Protestants? Gene Simmons and Nikki Sixx were pagans and jews alike, much more in tuned with the calvinism than Catholicism.
Unfortunately those rockers are either dead(thanks to the CIA operation to keep the calvinist operation in good form and give grunge rockers heroin, Courtney Love's dad was in the CIA) or remnants of an England that doesn't exist anymore (Oasis). Ok that last sentence may be a bit of a conspiracy theory but the reality is that there needs to be a bulwark against this Calvinist philosophy again, because it is America today and it needs to be combatted.
There's literally dozens of more examples ranging from economics to holiday celebrations but the gist is there.
Let me know what you think.
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HE DID ITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
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For some reason no one gives a shit that demographics in sports are so skewed but every single other area of society must have affirmative action. Sports is the one area where winning and performance is still all that matters. Obviously that's a good team for the sports team but it's interesting to see why have we all given sports a collective pass in this regard?
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I am absolutely sick and tired of all these westerners spreading liberal values to non-western and non-liberal countries. The West is not the spokesperson for the rest of the world and Qatar has the absolute right to enforce their own laws and values in THIER OWN COUNTRY.
This is the modern version of the white man's burden. When will the west stop their nonsense?
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If you study Rome you can quickly realize that the parallels to America are uncanny.
Rome was founded semi-mythically with grand stories. Now, America doesn't have founding myths per se, but it's grand stories of exploration into the new world is more than enough to grant itself a central founding ethos, one that establishes the country as a "shining city on a hill" created on the chosen land by the chosen people. Which is exactly what the puritans believed. Even today, Christian sects that originated in America continue to say that the country is "God's country", thinking that it is ordained for a special mission. Rome also became a hotbed of expelled religious groups, criminals, and others. America also experienced the same phenomenon.
And then, Rome overthrew their monarchy. The Senate was established, and the patrician elite ascended to power. Obviously, America did the same, and even the founding fathers and English Whigs recognize this connection. The OG Brutus who was mostly involved in the overthrow became a hero in English and American circles that were in favor of the '76 revolution. Publius, another aristocrat involved in the Roman revolution was invoked by the founding fathers and used as a pen name by the Federalists.
But of course, the republic of Rome didn't last. It expanded it's territory, but became hopelessly divided. The patricians had to compromise over and over again with the plebeians, but over time a two-sided divide became clear: The Optimates, which held the senate in high regard, and the Populares, which represented the non-traditional aristocracy class-notably the military and the new rich.
However, it is important to note that the populares were never a coordinated group unlike the optimate oligarchy. They simply relied on other means of political power than the senate. But it is clear that they were two distinct populare groups: reformers and reactionaries. Reformers include figures like Vicellinus, Cassius, and the Graccchi brothers. All 4 were executed, and the Optimate supremacy stayed.
On the other hand, reactionaries rejected Optimate power and regarded it as corrupted and morally evil. They focused on the influence of the army and the religion. The most well-known and by far successful of these reactionaries were Augustus. He destroyed the traditional Optimate power, curbed the senate, and established the empire. But, he did it under a veil of reactionary patriotism (He was the first citizen). He promoted the traditional values of "chastity, monogamy, piety" that formed the basis of the roman founding centuries prior, made divorce harder, and went to war with mark Anthony on the basis that he was a foreign traitor that had an affair with his wife. If you pay attention, this seems like pretty right-wing stuff, which is the basis for my next point.
In America, we also have a government that is also hopelessly corrupt, divided, and opposed by the vast majority of Americans. There is CERTAINLY a moral absence among the population. And even the unpopular and costly wars in Spain spearheaded by the optimates are similar to the never-ending ME wars facilitated by the MIC. So, naturally America has responded in the same fashion-Reformers(leftists) have come and gone, some have been successful, but even still they aren't close to debilitating the powerful elite that continues to rule the country. It's obvious that the two-sided GOP-DEM divide is bullshit, as both sides protect their pockets above all else. But, the most interesting aspect comes from the reactionary side-the right.
Donald Trump was one of the first reactionaries we have seen-promising to return the power of America. But he isn't even close to reaching the prowess of Augustus. So, I do believe that over time the right will begin to lose faith in the current system of American government, and new tools will be available to them. The January 6th attack is one example of this-The congressional building used to be immortalized in the ethos of America-and yet all it took was one glaring stolen election for the right to completely let go of these preconceived notions. The police was also immortalized in American society and especially conservative circles, but they FINALLY realized that the police will be the ones who take the guns(as well as the shitshow in Ulvade) to recognize that the police are not a respectable institution. I believe that more and more dominoes will fall, and that previously untouchable facets of American culture will begin to be rejected in favor of archaeon reactionary beliefs. Augustus was great as a statesman, but he was also ruthless, cunning, and bloody-best exemplified in his conquest of Egypt that drove MA and Cleopatra to suicide. He didn't romanticize his role, he got the job fucking done. He was also unapologetically reactionary and socially conservative. He defiled anyone who didn't have children, and made divorce harder. He also held the religion in high regard, and became one of the most central figures in it.(son of apollo) This is something that we haven't found yet in the right-someone who doesn't shift the overton window to please the left, nor have we found someone who recognized the central issues that America is facing socially: porn, suicide, delayed marriages, fewer children, worsening economic situation, etc.
That is my historical analysis of it anyway. And there are PLENTLY of more examples of this throughout history. The whole notion of a "strongman ruler destroys a oligarchical elite" is found in every nation's history, well except in America's. But with the current issues plaguing the nation, I believe that the motif is coming sooner than later.
To summarize the history of the two nations:
Courageous explorers establish a small country----------------> Revolution occurs drastically changing the government of the country-------------> cultural exhaustion and an unpopular elite takes a toll on the nation, and a populist reactionary strongman takes power.
Feel free to comment, and if you see an inconsistency in my description of roman history-please say it
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"WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court has overturned the monumental Roe v. Wade case that legalized abortion across the America.
The 6-3 decision on Friday followed the early May leak of a draft opinion indicating which way the justices would rule. That leak prompted protesting across the nation, particularly in Washington, D.C. as well as dozens of attacks and vandalism of pro-life organizations, centers, and churches.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote that Roe and a subsequent case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which upheld Roe, both must be overturned, and the right to allow, deny, or restrict the right to an abortion must reside with states.
“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” the opinion states. “We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled. The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision.”"
I never thought it would happen to be honest. But a W nonetheless
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I probably have more cultural and ideological ties to the average Russian than the average American. Which is why I am supporting Russia.
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I clock in at only 65 WPM. What about the DART community?
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"In the early 1960s, fewer than 14 percent of the individuals possessed a body mass index (BMI) of over 30. Today, the figure collected by the CDCs National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHNES) is closer to 40 percent."
This country is fat. What can we do about it?
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The fact that 9 men in robes can pull some bullshit reason and claim it to "constitutional" in order to enact their own agenda means that the Constitution is utterly worthless.
Heres another example- in 1994 the people of California VOTED to stop the massive immigration and demographic change that was present there BUT a judge pulled some bullshit reason and declared it "unconstitutional", meaning it was voided, thats right in the United States of America a judge can declare something VIA THE CONSTITUTION to shut down something that WAS DEMOCRATICALLY DECIDED ON. This means that in effect-the Constitution actively worked against the will of the American people.
Something needs to change. The judges have too much power.
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Science and Nature
How Science lost the Publics Trust
"‘Science” has become a political catchword. “I believe in science,” Joe Bidentweeted six days before he was elected president. “Donald Trump doesn’t. It’s that simple, folks.”
"But what does it mean to believe in science? The British science writer Matt Ridley draws a pointed distinction between “science as a philosophy” and “science as an institution.” The former grows out of the Enlightenment, which Mr. Ridley defines as “the primacy of rational and objective reasoning.” The latter, like all human institutions, is erratic, prone to falling well short of its stated principles. Mr. Ridley says the Covid pandemic has “thrown into sharp relief the disconnect between science as a philosophy and science as an institution.”
i have to agree with the WSJ here
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Science and Nature
"In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action."
"All large-scale, multi-user communities and online social networks that rely on users to contribute content or build services share one property: most users don't participate very much. Often, they simply lurk in the background.
In contrast, a tiny minority of users usually accounts for a disproportionately large amount of the content and other system activity. This phenomenon of participation inequality was first studied in depth by Will Hill in the early '90s, when he worked down the hall from me at Bell Communications Research.
When you plot the amount of activity for each user, the result is a Zipf curve, which shows as a straight line in a log-log diagram.
User participation often more or less follows a 90–9–1 rule:
- 90% of users are lurkers (i.e., read or observe, but don't contribute).
- 9% of users contribute from time to time, but other priorities dominate their time.
- 1% of users participate a lot and account for most contributions: it can seem as if they don't have lives because they often post just minutes after whatever event they're commenting on occurs."
do you think that this applies to DART?
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lakers, mavs, jazz, knicks, pelicans, warriors, celtics,
what place?
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https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/07/19/report-philadelphias-electric-bus-fleet-in-complete-shambles/
"Philadelphia’s Proterra buses were first rolled out for the 2016 DNC convention with a promise that the city was 'plugging into an emissions free future.'"
"More than two dozen electric Proterra buses first unveiled by the city of Philadelphia in 2016 are already out of operation, according to a WHYY investigation.
The entire fleet of Proterra buses was removed from the roads by SEPTA, the city’s transit authority, in February 2020 due to both structural and logistical problems—the weight of the powerful battery was cracking the vehicles’ chassis, and the battery life was insufficient for the city’s bus routes. The city raised the issues with Proterra, which failed to adequately address the city’s concerns."
so what are your thoughts on this, to me its just more evidence that electric vehicles are just not viable, not only has it been proven to be worse for the environment but the vehicles itself are in lower quality.
although i would love to do more research on this
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So New England is in the "high" category for pollen so the allergies have been realllly bad, I cant stand itching my eye 24/7. IT SUCKS
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“Excess of liberty, whether it lies in state or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery.”
Quote by Plato.
Thoughts?
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looks like trump was right again
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Did anybody see the news about this?
this event is also the only time where the right and left have been united in a looooooooooong time
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2020 is a crucial year as it is the election year at the beginning of the decade, this means state legislatures determine congress seats and they can gerrymander
dems did not have a good showing-michigan, wisconsin, PA, all went to GOP and GOP even flipped NH-https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/11/2020-was-a-disaster-for-dem-trying-to-take-over-state-houses.html
it also means they can appoint electors for trump in the contested seats
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even though obama won it twice, the state has been trending more and more red over the years and now the margin is 8% for trump, thats a greater margin than texas and minnesota
granted iowa is showing the same trend but the soon-to-be 17 elecotal votes is a much bigger prize
so is Ohio lost for Dems?
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In Senate testimony last week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed that the United States had approved a deal between the Syrian Kurds and the American company Delta Crescent Energy to develop oil fields in northern Syria. There are many problems with this deal, but the most troubling for Americans is that it increases the risk to our national security while providing no tangible benefit.
The oil deal, Pompeo told the senators, had taken longer to finalize than he expected, but “now we’re in implementation, and it can be very powerful.” He did not offer examples of any “powerful” benefits to the United States — and indeed, the deal saddles the United States with potentially major problems.
A Syrian Foreign Ministry statement said Damascus “condemns in the strongest terms” the agreement between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, “and an American oil company to steal Syria's oil under the sponsorship and support of the American administration."
this is ridiculous, american troops are now defending oil plants by PRIVATE COMPANIES
and this isnt american assets, this isnt our country
let me be clear: the kurds are probably are only reliable ally in both iraq and Syria and to enter a private oil company in the mess and to keep 500 troops to defend it is not a good idea
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are the worst politicians in all of the USA
change my mind
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they are legitimately trained marxists, they just admitted it!
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what do you guys think?overblown or super real?
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Science and Nature
unmarked cars have been used for decades but its only bad when its arresting the goody two shoes protestors in Portland!
oh and if the car was marked, it would have been engulfed in flames 20 minutes later...
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wow, how many of these mistakes are there?
now im not saying to dstrust all of the data, but it seems officals are in a void spehre where all bad things that happen come from covid which is skrewing up some data, if that makes sense
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the cases are risisng because of the hot temperatures and people need to be inside to avoid the sweltering heat being more susceptible to it.
that is the true reason why, nothing trump did affected it
why do you think it is now hitting South America,middle east,africa,and southern europe now, all hot places where people need to be inside while other countries liek the rest of europe not so much
SPAIN has seen an increase recently, name any country and its easy to prove it with this general rule
its not political
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there is no way you can convince independents of gun confiscation after riots and looting
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Justice for floyd by...looting the neighborhood and black zones
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it is obvious that the coalition were the aggressors
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there is an add for me in the bottom left corner
good, it is not distracting and clearly and cleanly shows the advertisement
disbale your adblokcer for this site
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DebateArt.com
Between 2016 and 2018, the temperature dropped.
Solar Cycle 24 is responsible
so the sun has a good role in the climate
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Science and Nature
Germany said it will carry police raids on Hezbollah in Lebanon soon.
What is the US doing? This is blatant war tensions, Iran is unstable too, at any time they can just snap and send all of their militias to attack israel
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Flash Games are going to be shut down as the policies with the browser companies
SO GOODBYE TO SOME OF of my favorite games including happy wheels :(
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"After having his initial lawsuit in 2013 thrown out, a Kenyan lawyer, Dola Indidis has taken the Israeli government to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), over the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
According to Kenya Daily, Indidis intends to use the Bible as evidence in his pursuit of justice over the death of Jesus Christ who was killed by the Jews over 2000 years ago and is confident of winning the case."
LOL
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