Polyticks: Bob Butler's Perspective

[John]

** 07-Mar-2021 World View: Evaluating the evidence

There is a massive amount of evidence, but nobody has authorized you
to be judge and jury to decide whether the evidence proves the case of
voter fraud beyond a reasonable doubt. No court has ever evaluated
the evidence, and if and when a court finally does, then we'll have
the answer.

[Bob Butler]

No one as anointed you either, and yet you express a fairly worthless opinion. When the courts looked at such evidence that the lawyers dared present, under the limitation that if they lied to a judge they would be disbarred, the rulings went 50 to 1 against Trump. The lawyers didn't dare lie to the judge by backing Trump's public claims. When Trump was inciting violence to prevent the legislative branch from performing its constitutional duty, he told one side of the story, without the balanced presentation that explains how he lost 50 to 1 court cases when both sides presented what they dared.

Georgia is trying to recover expenses for Trump's false frivolous lawsuits. We will see how those cases go.

Trump lied. There is no evidence. The January 6 speech is a one sided presentation that is worthless on examination. If you wish to hang yourself on the insurrection speech, that's your option, but if you value what limited reputation you have, you shouldn't.

[John]

Once again, you have absolutely no clue what's going on, since you
only listen to heavily censored Stalinist news sources that purposely
prevent you from knowing what's going on. And of course, your brain
is so obsessed with your hatred of Trump and his 75 million
supporters, you can barely see straight.

[Bob Butler]

I'd say you were the Stalinist if anyone. You seem unable to defend your views with reason, therefore you censor any who contradicts you. Who am I censoring?

All recent presidents have been thoroughly disliked by the opposition, so I don't see what is different this time.

You are the one into news sources that don't do well with the fact checkers.

If you want to stick a little longer with the Big Lie, go ahead, but the conservative cause is going to have to move on from it someday. If you go away from this site it is not about the war of the week and impending imaginary collapse.

I really hope that the leftover Trump followers don't fall in love with another racist, but that seems to be their goal in too many cases. If you want to hang on to the old values you have to hold on to racism, or do you call it domestic xenophobia? Same difference.

I can root for the true conservatives. In the long term they may come up on top, but neither of us are likely to make it to the next unraveling. More likely we will have a racist majority of a minority gnashing their teeth in a restored progressive time.

Again, the conservative values generally fall apart in the crisis heart. If you delay dealing with what will become the crisis problems, the problems will get worse and the crisis will eventually come. It sure did this time around. Don't claim that you are a true believer in S&H turning theory if you disregard that.

If one closes one's eyes one can always pretend not to see?

[John]

I didn't say you were censoring anyone. I said that you were
being censored, so that you have no idea what's going on.
You only say what your puppetmasters tell you.

[Bob Butler]

Each crisis pits a faction that wants to stay the same, keep the same power structure, and one faction that wants to move on, that wants to solve the greatest problems facing the culture. I spotted early on that the side that wants to solve the problems 'wins'. The side that is trying to hold the old values has their values collapse.

Mind you, there was a time when I was wondering if we would have a prophet - nomad - civic alignment of active generations without a trigger happening. Given that crisis war triggers are rare to nonexistent among major powers in the information Age, what happens if a crisis alignment of generation goes by without a trigger?

Not that that is a problem anymore.

Who is my hypothetical puppet master? There are a few newspaper people and politicians that I respect, but I am more into the theory than into contemporary politics. Thing is, I am not slaved to a contemporary politician as most people here are to Trump.

But that doesn't mean I didn't foresee the collapse of conservative values decades ago, way before the Big Lie was first told. When the trigger comes, the new solutions of the crisis problems become the basis for a new America, a basis that is driven home in the high. Those that wanted the old culture, the old power structure, the old values... Well, too bad.

If you want to cling to the Big Lie a few more months, I can't stop you. You will look more and more silly as the months and years progress.

[John]

** 08-Mar-2021 World View: Bob Butler = David Livingstone

I'd like to make a suggestion. We know that you have a superior
intellect, and that you're enlightened, and that the rest of us are
deplorable Neanderthal tribal thinkers who refuse to accept your
enlightened views.

So I'd like to suggest that you become an explorer, a kind of modern
day David Livingston of the "red tribes." And I suggest that you do
this by watching Fox News for 2 hours a day.

Just as David Livingstone gathered valuable information about the
African tribes, you would be gathering valuable information about the
"red tribes." You could even publish a book about it, and you could
appear on CNN or MSNBC promoting your book. In fact, if you do a good
job, then Fox News might even help you promote it.

So that's my suggestion -- that you watch Fox News for two hours a
day, collect the information about the red tribes, and publish a book
about it. That will make you a lot of money and make you famous.

[Bob Butler]

Again, the idea that reds or blues are more or less intelligent I consider bogus. If one plotted political affiliation against IQ I would expect something fairly neutral. I would argue much more strongly that whatever worldview and values you hold you will cling to. People seldom if ever change their perspective. It takes a complete failure for it to change at the individual level. To change a culture, a whole bunch of individuals must come to change their perspective. This generally only happens in a crisis.

You will take your news from a source that supports that worldview and values, and find reason to ignore a source that presents the opposite. The mind defends its shortcut on how it perceives and values things, thus slanting what information it considers important in order to justify its perspective.

I don’t think it takes a particular genius to notice, if you are into S&H turning theory, that when the crisis hits you step forward, not back. If you are into turnings, ages and civilizations it is even more obvious. Civilization address the most serious problems facing the culture in a crisis. This generally means stepping further away from the prior age’s pattern.

Except there are always people who benefit from the status quo. There are always some who want the old pattern to continue.

It has long been a thing to fight for your own culture, to oppress other cultures, to practice xenophobia, to seek advantage of one group over another through methods up to and including violence. This mode of thinking is still dominant in many parts of the world. Even in the US, it is a significant way of thinking.

Not hating people? Treating all folks well? Equality? Democracy? Human rights? Not particularly new ideas. It does not take genius to embrace them or advocate them.

But the blue are not the only subculture. There has long been a culture that believes America is only for them, that they should hate and oppress the other. Tribal thinking. Domestic xenophobia. Racism. And, again, that hatred and oppression are considered undesirable by some does not depend on intelligence. One can very easily fall into the trap of xenophobia no matter how much or little one is intelligent.

I find myself using the word 'again' a lot. I repeat myself a lot. That is because you don't hear what is said the first time, the second time, however many times. This is not due to a lack of intelligence. It is because of worldview. If something does not mesh with how one perceives the world, it is a trend to ignore it. IQ or intelligence has little to do with it. If what is said is not consistent with what one wants to hear, it just doesn't register.

***

In my own youth, the question of what worldview and values would be important was between a scientific system and a religious one. At college I was an electronic engineering student and member of the Christian Fellowship. Under what conditions would God override physics? Eventually, the scientific worldview won, but after debating between a scientific and a religious worldview, a political one was sort of a non starter for me. I became much more centered on the S&H theory of turnings than a particular political party’s platform.

If you want to meaningfully have a discussion with me, you might take that difference into account.

***

At one point I made a point of visiting opposition new sources to see what delusions they are embracing, what excuses they are currently using for hatred and oppression. I got a little tired of it. Perhaps I ought to try it again for a while. If you believe the blue sources, Fox is currently focused on Dr. Seuss. They are trying to turn a decision by the family publisher into a conspiracy by some mythical cancel culture or Democratic censorship.

But perhaps they have something that makes sense.

[Bob Butler]

CNN reports on an alleged genocide in western China directed at the Uyghur. This is an area where Muslim culture is strong but they are near the dominant Chinese controlled area. The genocide seems more about stepping on a culture than killing people. I suppose this is not the most evil form of genocide, but it still conflicts with international law.

Anyway, it sticks out as it confirms that the Chinese have an upper dominate hand against the Uyghur, no matter that this might have been different long ago.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/09/asia/chi ... index.html

[John]

** 09-Mar-2021 World View: CNN Reports

Wow! So the Biden administration decided to permit CNN to report that
there was a Uighur genocide in China. That must be embarrassing.
I've been writing about that for years.

So let me know when CNN is being permitted to report on the
"imaginary" crisis on the southern border. Trump made the southern
border the most secure in history, but Biden has thrown all that away
in a few days. Hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied kids are
pouring across the border, and Biden is cramming them into shipping
crates with small windows with bars on the windows, with no social
spacing and no regard to spreading Covid, in situations that are far
worse than "kids in cages." Tens of thousands of adults, even those
who test positive for Covid, are being put on buses to other cities,
with no social spacing and no regard for spreading Covid.

I know I'm just a tribal Neanderthal, but when CNN starts reporting on
that, let me know.

**** Team Biden offers alternative reality on border crisis with no
**** plan to fix it
https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration ... no-plan-to