Dominionists in the United States

[Icarus]

Mr. Johnson is showing many signs of being a fundamentalist who believes that every word of the bible is true. That includes Genesis, with the snake, and Noah's boat, and all  r of those other dandy fables.

We have some real dimwits in the House and the Senate. Senator Tuberville is a case in point. Surprisingly, he is being chastised by his fellow republicans for being foolishly unrealistic and perhaps politically suicidal. His actions will have alienated a lot of active military personnel, who happen to have voting rights.

I find it amusing that the first five letters in the senators name spell tuber ( Tuber: a potato or other underground tuberous plant characterized by rhizomes) A loose translation of his name can be; "small potato town". He should have kept his football coaching job in Auburn Alabama.
 

[billy rubin]

the problem with america is that fully half the citizens have IQs below the national average.

[Dark Lightning]

the problem with america is that fully half the citizens have IQs below the national average.

...and a lot of them "above average" choose not to use their intelligence in an effective way, and that's not an inconsiderable number. One of my younger brothers is well above average in intelligence, and supported the chump in the 2016 election, and probably in 2020, though I haven't asked. I was astonished to hear of this when I talked to him at the time. My take is that anyone who pretends to any semblance of logical ability would not support this jackass for any public office. I just don't get it. Maybe it's hero worship akin to what the people who support the royalty in England? Plenty of people of that stripe in the US, fwiw.

[billy rubin]

i have found that intelligence is only somewhat correlated with having brains.

some of the smartest people i have ever met were totally unable to see glaring flaws in their beliefs.

an excellent example is henry david thoreau. the guy was a geniuns. he was so smart he was functionally an idiot when it cam to evaluating the moral underpinnings of his beliefs about issues such as slavery and john brown.,

[Tank]

the problem with america is that fully half the citizens have IQs below the national average.

That is problem faced by all humanity.

[Tank]

the problem with america is that fully half the citizens have IQs below the national average.

...and a lot of them "above average" choose not to use their intelligence in an effective way, and that's not an inconsiderable number. One of my younger brothers is well above average in intelligence, and supported the chump in the 2016 election, and probably in 2020, though I haven't asked. I was astonished to hear of this when I talked to him at the time. My take is that anyone who pretends to any semblance of logical ability would not support this jackass for any public office. I just don't get it. Maybe it's hero worship akin to what the people who support the royalty in England? Plenty of people of that stripe in the US, fwiw.

That was terrifying to read.

[Tank]

i have found that intelligence is only somewhat correlated with having brains.

some of the smartest people i have ever met were totally unable to see glaring flaws in their beliefs.

an excellent example is henry david thoreau. the guy was a geniuns. he was so smart he was functionally an idiot when it cam to evaluating the moral underpinnings of his beliefs about issues such as slavery and john brown.,

He looks like a man close to your heart in many ways?

[billy rubin]

thoreau is one of those lettered people that make me angry, like eliot

i pick them up and read them, throw the book down in fury, then go pick it up again

[Dark Lightning]

If you want eyerolling literature, get a copy of "A Study of Man" by Rudolf Steiner. I taught math and physics for two years between aerospace jobs, but the philosophy didn't take.

[Recusant]

Seems to me that Speaker Johnson will continue supplying material for this thread. Displaying the flag adopted by the New Apostolic Reformation movement outside his official government office.

"The Key to Mike Johnson's Christian Extremism Hangs Outside His Office" | Rolling Stone

The American public has had much to learn about Mike Johnson over the past two weeks. Until his surprise elevation to House speaker, the Louisiana representative was an obscure, mild-mannered, and bookish four-term back-bencher. He is a former constitutional lawyer and hardly the type of political figure who jeers during a State of the Union address, or gets caught in a Beetlejuice groping scandal, or shows up on cable news to take a victory lap after ousting the leader of his own party. Johnson is focused, methodical, and up until now was happy to operate behind the scenes.

He's also a dyed-in-the-wool Christian conservative, and there's a flag hanging outside his office that leads into a universe of right-wing religious extremism as unknown to most Americans as Johnson was before he ascended to the speakership.

Johnson slots firmly within the more hardline evangelical wing of the Republican coalition. He holds stringent positions on abortion, thinks homosexuality is a lifestyle choice that should not be recognized under legal protections against discrimination, defends young Earth creationism, blames school shootings on the sexual revolution of the 1960s, and questions the framework of the separation of church and state. "The founders wanted to protect the church from an encroaching state, not the other way around," he has said.

Johnson was also integral to Donald Trump's effort to overturn the 2020 election. As The New York Times has reported, he collected signatures for a brief supporting a Texas lawsuit alleging, without evidence, irregularities in election results; served a key role in the GOP's attempts to prevent the certification of Joe Biden's election; and touted Trump's conspiracy theories about election fraud, even saying, "You know the allegations about these voting machines, some of them being rigged with this software by Dominion, there's a lot of merit to that."

If this was all we knew about Mike Johnson, we could accurately say that he is a full-bore, right-wing Christian and an election denier who dabbles in conspiracy theories — qualities that might give one pause before putting him second in line to the presidency. But there is another angle to Johnson's extremism that has received less scrutiny, and it brings us back to that flag outside his office.

The flag — which Rolling Stone has confirmed hangs outside his district office in the Cannon House Office Building —  is white with a simple evergreen tree in the center and the phrase "An Appeal to Heaven" at the top. Historically, this flag was a Revolutionary War banner, commissioned by George Washington as a naval flag for the colony turned state of Massachusetts. The quote "An Appeal to Heaven" was a slogan from that war, taken from a treatise by the philosopher John Locke. But in the past decade it has come to symbolize a die-hard vision of a hegemonically Christian America.

To understand the contemporary meaning of the Appeal to Heaven flag, it's necessary to enter a world of Christian extremism animated by modern-day apostles, prophets, and apocalyptic visions of Christian triumph that was central to the chaos and violence of Jan. 6. Earlier this year we released an audio-documentary series, rooted in deep historical research and ethnographic interviews, on this sector of Christianity, which is known as the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). The flag hanging outside Johnson's office is a key part of its symbology.

[Continues . . .]

[Icarus]

^ That stuff is scary.

[Tank]

Unbelievable

[Recusant]

In Alabama, the Supreme Court of the state included clear theological "reasoning" to justify ruling that human zygotes (fertilized eggs) are "persons". Meanwhile Donald Trump is encouraging Dominionists to believe that they will have success in a second Trump presidency. But Biden is OLD, and not sufficiently conservative!!!

"Theocratic Trump Tells Right-Wing Christians They Will Have Power at 'Level You've Never Used Before'" | Common Dreams

Just ahead of his headline spot at the CPAC convention in Virginia and the South Carolina primary on Saturday, Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump delivered a speech to right-wing broadcasters Thursday night in which the former president vowed to hand power over to the Christian nationalist movement on an unprecedented scale.

Trump said during his speech at the annual conference of the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) in Nashville, Tennesse that he would defend "pro-God context and content" on the nation's AM radio stations as he told the audience that religion is "the biggest thing missing" in the United States and warned, without evidence, that Christian broadcasters were "under siege" by the left and a "fascist" Biden administration.

"We have to bring back our religion," Trump declared. "We have to bring back Christianity."

Striking a Christ-like pose at one point with his arms outstretched as if on a cross, Trump mentioned his legal struggles, including multiple criminal indictments and civil judgements, and said, "I take all these arrows for you and I'm so proud to take them. I'm being indicted for you."

As Common Dreams reported earlier this week, right-wing Christian Nationalists operating in Trump's inner circle are quietly preparing for the prospect of his possible reelection.

In his speech Thursday, during which he also promised to close the Department of Education so that Christian fundamentalists could take over school policy at the state level, Trump said, "If I get in, you're going to be using that power at a level that you've never used before."

[Continues . . .]

[Tank]

  

Watching this from Europe is horrifying. I can't imagine living through it.

[Asmodean]

the problem with america is that fully half the citizens have IQs below the national average.

...and a lot of them "above average" choose not to use their intelligence in an effective way, and that's not an inconsiderable number. One of my younger brothers is well above average in intelligence, and supported the chump in the 2016 election, and probably in 2020, though I haven't asked. I was astonished to hear of this when I talked to him at the time. My take is that anyone who pretends to any semblance of logical ability would not support this jackass for any public office. I just don't get it. Maybe it's hero worship akin to what the people who support the royalty in England? Plenty of people of that stripe in the US, fwiw.

That was terrifying to read.

I would like to superficially address this in light of the above post.

Intelligence does not speak to a person's priorities - it speaks to their efficiency at problem solving. There are several vectors by which an intelligent and/or smart and/or wise person would support The-Orange-Literally-Worse-Than-Hitler-who-really-is-just-another-old-businessman-turned-politician-only-he-talks-more-shit-on-Twitter-or-whatever-Musk-calls-it-these-days.

One such vector is, "well, so what? His presidency is excellent for my stocks portfolio." Another is, "the integrity of my national borders is by far more important to me than equal access to healthcare."

One would probably not be wrong in assuming that the number of variables being weighed increases with the overall "smartness" and "involvement" of a person, but the end conclusion is still a product of their priorities, which may be completely different from another overall "smart" person's priorities.

Whether you watch it from Europe, Asia or inside the United States, that's what it boils down to. You may think that it is horrifying, and have good and valid reasons for that - I, on the other hand, may think "meh..." for my own good and valid reaasons. (Rhetorical point, in case someone is in doubt; I am not personally in favour of "bringing back religion" or "making Christianity great again" or anything of the sort. That in itself, however, does not mean that I would vote against a candidate wanting to do that. compromise lies at the heart of politics and I would trade that loss in several forms I can think of for certain wins I consider more important in the scope within which I operate.)