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This is why conservativism is just not compatible with democracy. You can't have a society that adapts to a changing world and growing understanding of reality if people's political ideology boils down to "We need to ignore new information and instead keep trying the failed ideas of the past."
This is why when the Democratic party talk about the need for "balance" between the two parties it's so toxic.
I don't know if this is conservatism anymore. My Grandfather was conservative, and he was an engineer. He would have loathed the amount of misinformation and straight up lies being flung around these days. As much as his views were disagreeable, he never tried to manipulate or lie to anybody and always wanted to get to the truth of things. This is something else.
It's still the end result, and while your grandfather might've been an engineer and accepted some science as an individual, his political ideology is what has contributed to the slow creep of increasing ignorance because his conservative views are what prompt him to vote for conservative politicians who obstruct attempts to improve society for all of us. Conservativism degrades a society's ability to access the truth.
There actually is no reasonable form of conservativism. You're either looking for ways to improve and integrate new understanding about the world based on the best information available to you at the time, or you're trying to preserve ideas simply because they existed beforehand.
It would be like if someone brought a newer, safer design to your grandfather and he rejected it simply in the interest of preserving the old design because its old. He couldn't function as an engineer if he applied his conservative thinking to his work, so I don't see how people expect that philosophy to work in politics either. There is no effective scientist who, upon recieving new information, rejects it because it doesn't fit with what they already believe, they try to adapt their model to fit the new facts.
We accept conservativism as some kind of immutable facet of politics, but we don't actually need to. Making itself seem intrinsic is how the ideology survives, but really all it is is the remnant ideology leftover ftom the death of monarchy, it was injected into our politics early on in order to protect an aristocratic class, allowing it to continue on in a new form (corporate oligarchy).
Very well said.
I think it's also worth mentioning that conservatism is an inherently reactionary and counter-revolutionary ideology: it is primarily concerned with protecting the powerful by entrenching privilege and maintaining the structural oppression of the underclasses.
It's regressivism now
Capitalism was always destined to progress to an advanced terminal stage.
Sounds like your grandpa might have been conservative as in slow to change.
Nowadays, conservative in politics means deepthroating fascism.
Conservatism isn't compatible with a lot of things in the modern age: social programs, military industrial complex during arms races spanning decades, late-stage capitalism in a social Republic...etc. I wouldn't say Democracy in general though.
Also, these whack jobs are not Conservatives with a capital 'C', they are Radicalized Religious Zealots at a minimum. They think their way is the "right way", and are on some mission to ensure everyone else gets on board, or else. It's how they approach everything.
The nutty thing about Candace Owens is that as much as she is a liar and scammer, she's just jumping into the deep end with all these people who are working against her own best interests. She's not completely stupid, so she must realize this, but refuses to be deterred because she thinks she will somehow benefit in the end. To what end that is for her, who knows. She's working hard to enable a bunch of racist, misogynistic, assholes though, but she's also profiting from it and couldn't care less about who she's impacting elsewhere with her vitriolic bullshit.
Also, these whack jobs are not Conservatives with a capital ‘C’, they are Radicalized Religious Zealots at a minimum
Yes, there are degrees of commitment, but the normie conservatives are still enabling the extremists and play a key part in the progression from democracy to fascism, you can't just flip from democracy to a fascist state, you need "respectable" conservatives to start to ease people towards the notion. There's still no value in their conservative leanings, even if it's watered down.
I don't want any lead in my water ideally, even if slight amounts aren't immediately harmful, the lead traces in the water has no benefit regardless of the degree.
Science is a religion in the same sense as not playing golf is a hobby.
Science is a religion in the same way that golf is a religion. It's not, but it's easy to see how one might get the wrong idea by listening to the rhetoric of its most enthusiastic admirers and not looking too closely at the actual thing they're talking about.
An oxymoron. The principals of science are provable through repetition. Faith implies lack of proof. An oxymoron.
I'm unable to articulate the natural reaction that I have when somebody tries to sell me garbage. I can't articulate it when somebody explains to me, 'Well, the moon landings definitely happened.'"
Owens continued: "I'm just like, no, I don't know. Instinctually, it just doesn't register to me. Just feels like that is a lie. And I've realized that I've been thinking deeply about this, this pagan cult that we exist in. It is backed by a false science deity. That is what it is. It is the science. This is the new god."
So she just "instinctively" doesn't believe stuff that "feels" like a lie, and this proof that everyone else worships the "science deity." No mention of the giant rocket that left the surface of the earth and the video footage of both that and the surface of the moon itself?
This is the fundamental problem with this type of thinking. Sure you have some aspect of faith (I wasn't there, can't 100% confirm the authenticity of the footage myself), but it's clearly based on quite a solid piece of evidence. Dismissing that, on the other hand, is literally based on faith, her faith that this footage is fake based on no evidence whatsoever.
I contribute that, maybe, to coming from the school of hard knocks," she said, adding, "I am grateful for having gone through the school of hard knocks because you are required to have an element of common sense in order to survive."
The "school of hard knocks" apparently does not have a good science program.
I only read this article to work out why she specified "pagan" and I still have no idea.
I'm unable to articulate the natural reaction that I have when somebody tries to sell me garbage. I can't articulate it when somebody explains to me, 'Well, the moon landings definitely happened.'"
Owens continued: "I'm just like, no, I don't know. Instinctually, it just doesn't register to me. Just feels like that is a lie. And I've realized that I've been thinking deeply about this, this pagan cult that we exist in. It is backed by a false science deity. That is what it is. It is the science. This is the new god."
Oh, so what she's saying is she's stupid and is admitting to being stupid.
Sure you have some aspect of faith (I wasn't there, can't 100% confirm the authenticity of the footage myself), but it's clearly based on quite a solid piece of evidence.
Except that you don't need to have "faith" that this happened, you are able to verify it yourself!! There were reflectors left on the moon that you can shine a significantly strong laser to and have it reflected back if you have a sensor that can pick it back up.
THAT is the point of peer review. To prove that the results in the experiments are reproducible by those using the same equipment, and that faith isn't a requirement - that anyone can verify it and reproduce it.
How would those man-made reflectors have gotten there if not for man going to the moon and placing them there?
There were reflectors left on the moon that you can shine a significantly strong laser to and have it reflected back if you have a sensor that can pick it back up.
Yeah this is the huge issue for moon landing deniers. Also they have pictures of the landing site from the lunar reconnaissance orbiter, not that "school of hard knocks" alumni would believe that anyway (I tried once, did not convince them).
I was mainly using it as an example of how you could argue there was an element of "faith" at play, being generous. But of course you are right.
No mention of the giant rocket that left the surface of the earth and the video footage of both that and the surface of the moon itself?
This is why conservatism and conspiracy go hand-in-hand. You can't believe the things that "feel" true if the "true" truths keep interfering with this pesky reality.
"The longer people stay in school, it seems the dumber they become,"
What she means is that exposure to new ideas usually makes people change their beliefs, and this is a bad, bad thing because that usually involves ditching their parents failed conservative ideas. Right wingers hate education because it shrinks their base. Science = bad is a scream of frustration.
Christofascists fuck off. Not only is she obviously wrong about science being pagan, most pagans trust and follow the scientific method as the basis of our reality.
The Satanic Temple even has it as one of its tenets (not that they necessarily represent pagans, but it illustrates the idea)
V. Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs.
Sure okay then show me the proof that your faith has that God exists and then it'll be comparable to science.
Oh what's that? You don't have any fucking proof at all because it's make believe bullshit made up by ignoramuses from thousands of years ago?
Go fuck yourself Candace you dumb fucking cunt.
Who?
Actually, never mind. I don't want to know.
LOL. She converted to Catholicism? Wait until she finds out the originator of the big bang theory was a scientist who was also a Catholic priest. Then again she probably knows more about being Catholic than the Holy See (which she probably thinks is a body of water in Rome)
A broadly educated population is toxic to conservative ideologies.
holy hell she is an insufferable grifter. fits right into that party.
We need to figure out a way to actually deplatform idiots like her
I want a script that adds "Crisis Actor" before her name to every article. With a link sharing her Explore Talent profile that was taken down after people caught onto Clandice, Tami, Bobo the clown, and a couple others potentially being hired by the GOP.
I can tell you the plain, clear answer but you're not gonna like it. Nobody does when I tell them.
Hold some yard sales.
For real. Assuming you live in a neighborhood and there are people around and it's safe to do so, this is one of the best ways to get to know the people who live around you. People go to yard sales to talk about shit and gossip, so it's a great way to know who's doing what, how everyone feels about their current neighborhood policies, who is running the school and who the local police or sheriff are, who is running for what position in local city, county and eventually state seats.
Having a grasp of your local political landscape gives you the power to get involved and educate people and get to know who is representing you, what the values of your area are, and you can influence elections or even challenge incumbents who often run uncontested. Any kind of local community organization and involvement is a pushback against the powers that be.
This is all because a lot of the people we have in seats of power in the USA did not earn their power fairly, they often have run without competition or were placed there by political organizations. These are the people who support the larger governmental powers. These are the people who cut checks, who receive checks, who write the bills that let the companies do the things they want to do to make more money.
Candace Owens is a product of this system that wants you to turn away from science and follow an authoritarian, because this is good for business. If you want maximum profits, get you a population that has no time, education or capital to change anything and get them angry at people who look different than themselves instead of their own government leaders.
If we purge the nobodies and clowns and paper-tigers who uphold this vision of America, we also get rid of their mouthpieces like Owens. She is not some passionate thought-leader, she's just a spokesperson for a bunch of rich fucks who want to keep squeezing blood from the population.
Edit: they want you to be less social. They want you to retreat to your discord friend-groups and social-media safe-spaces. They want to keep you from organizing, from connecting, from uniting and forming groups with a shared voice. This is how you beat them, with shared voice.
"But I'm not sooooooooooooociaaaaal!" You cry.
I don't fucking care. Adapt. It won't be the hardest thing you ever do.
First off, Candeath Omens can go fuck herself.
I do think however that there is a weird technology faith in that people believe technology will fix all issues long term or improve or all aspects of our lives. Like when people say AI will fix global warming / climate change... dude, it can't even properly take orders at a McDonald's, which is traditionally one of the least qualified jobs. And if you ask an AI how to stop it, it'll just tell you what we already know, which people haven't been doing for years. Because that's what am AI does.
It's mostly the people neither actually engineering the technology nor studying the actual issue that believe this. But it's a huge driver in the discussion.
Technology and science are not the same thing.
Laser is also not describing faith in the proper context.
Believing tech will make your life better and believing in supernatural beings are not even close to the same thing. One is an ethos one is not.
Guess I'm just a filthy pagan then.
I'm rather a pagan than christian.
There's only one rule: say the most flippant thing possible to get platformed. Why are we still platforming this amoeba
De-platforming has proven ineffective. The best thing to happen to Trump was getting kicked off Twitter. Now he gets to spout all his bullshit and radicalize his fanbase with minimal pushback and reduced awareness from the public at large.
If de-platforming genuinely worked, then anti-semitism would have died out by now. But it won't so long as people can form their own communities and recruit under-the-radar.
Interesting. Faith is belief without the need for evidence while science is evidence based where belief its not needed. So "pagan faith" is ...um...
That's ok, I describe conservative as pig fucker.
If we're just making up meanings for words, they may as well be more descriptive.
"Hey, look at me, I need attention"
~ Candace and Kim Jung Un
Oh OK next time she or one of her loved ones(does she have any? lol) gets sick they can just "thoughts and pray" their way to recovery, n pagan hospitals medicine or doctors allowed right? Fcuk these people
[rant] How can we explain to a pitiful, helpless person that a concept is above their mental capacities without triggering stupid bickering ? That's mission impossible already ... but if on top, we are in front of a popular, rich and young person, then, even "god" if she(he) existed, would abdicate.
I describe Candace Owens as a smelly goblin, so we've all got opinions today.
She looks pretty modern there for someone who views science as faith. All those clothes natural fibers and not made with electricity?
The article never describes who she is? Is she important? Why is she newsworthy?
There is a market for token black people in the right wing movement. They serve as convenient mascots for racists to point at defensively whenever someone points out their racism. To maintain such a position, the black person must continuously prove their bonafides by saying stupid shit like this . Candice Owens is one of those people.
She continued: "And I said to him: 'Listen. I'm not a flat-earther. I'm not a round-earther.' Actually, what I am is, I am somebody who has left the cult of science. I have left the megachurch of science because what I have now realized is that science—what it is actually, if you think about it—is a pagan faith."
interesting points about Israel, though.
Whelp if science is a religion, at least our pastors aren't covering up for child-molestation.
But seriously though, even when not being grifters, it's like as though conservatives just never developed a theory of mind - they can't process the idea of people who don't possess some kind of dogmatic faith.
Some people prefer to follow where the evidence leads, rather than what the pastor says.