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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: August 24th, 2023

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  • I think what you and many others here are hovering around is the American Civil Religion. A blend of quasi religious dogma and beliefs sold to us at a young age to form a foundation for the shared delusion of American exceptionalism.

    Might sound crazy but check out the precepts below and then keep them in mind when you hear politicians and observe the rituals that reinforce American propaganda.

    The next time you are asked to stand and put your hand over your heart for the pledge of allegiance… the moments of silence for first responders… or you hear someone say “thank you for your service”’ to some dude who at best rode a desk and at worse tortured people at a black site like gitmo. Nowadays there is less overt mention of god but the ideals themselves take the place. When I hear someone grateful for freedom I ask to do what? And if there is not more context its probably just a little prayer to uncle sam.

    In a survey of more than fifty years of American civil religion scholarship, Squiers identifies fourteen principal tenets:

    Filial piety (veneration of founding fathers in context)
    Reverence to certain sacred texts and symbols such as the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the flag
    The sanctity of American institutions
    The belief in God or a deity
    The idea that rights are divinely given
    The notion that freedom comes from God through government
    Governmental authority comes from God or a higher transcendent authority
    The conviction that God can be known through the American experience
    God is the supreme judge
    God is sovereign
    America's prosperity results from God's providence
    **America is a "city on a hill" or a beacon of hope and righteousness**
    The principle of sacrificial death and rebirth
    America serves a higher purpose than self-interests (AKA spreading democracy, liberating any county that nationalizes their resources [or has very good bananas)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat)
    

    He further found that there are no statistically significant differences in the amount of American civil religious language between Democrats and Republicans, incumbents and non-incumbents nor Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates.[5]: 51–74

    Rotted everyones brains out


  • Yeah I absolutely relate to this, but challenging people yo be objective and showing them a new perspective* that is outside of the norm is not gaslighting. Asking someone to question their behavior is not gaslighting. Especially when you are here applying the same reasoning to yourself.

    Gaslighting is intentionally making somebody question their perceivable reality with the intent to manipulate for your own gain. I don’t think this applies to philosophical questions of morality unless you are contradicting and forcing your beliefs on them through some type of moral absolutism. I also don’t think it applies if you convince someone the closed down shop was a hot dog stand and it was actually a Burger stand so long as you were honestly mistaken. If you keep them in the dark intentionally after learning the truth that would probably be though.

    It is possible also that your definition of truth is too broad and you need to interject some self doubt, since we’ve all been wrong before, and maybe in that invitation to discuss both possibilities your approach will be refined.

    In line with what others here are saying, I have the same thoughts as you and i got diagnosed with ADHD late, the psychiatrist mentioned I fit multiple criteria for ASD but that ADHD correctly captures most symptoms so we go with that. If possible taking assessments and talking to a profrssional should help cut down on these instances where you assume the worst of yourself.









  • Very true, thats why its great to check out primary sources. Note this yahoo article never out right says the translation is from MEMRI. The author listed by yahoo is actually a different newspaper Ukrainska Pravda. They attribute quotes to The Times of Israel, which does actually disclose the source of translation as MEMRI. The author on pravda.UA is listed as editor Iryna Balachukwho very clearly spun the original article. The times of Israel actually shows the headline itself is paraphrasing a tweet by MEMRI. The whole chain of plagiarism is to legitimize propaganda by getting it over to yahoo while hiding the source of the quotes knowing most people wont dig so deeply into it.

    If you do happen to dig a little for sources and havent heard of the “Middle East Media Research Institute”, the name itself doesnt betray any bias. It is a psy-op and it has been since its inception, which is very easily gleaned by reading the sources in Wikipedia if you havent yet seen their works over the years showcasing the absolute craziest moments in Arab TV.



  • Go to the Wikipedia, click on Reception, load the archived sources 40 thru 45 and then ask yourself how credible MEMRI is.

    How Memri translates is here in the debate on source 45:

    In your Special Dispatch 151, for instance, you translated an interview given by the mufti of Jerusalem to al-Ahram al-Arabi, shortly after the start of the Palestinian uprising.

    One question the interviewer asked was: “How do you deal with the Jews who are besieging al-Aqsa and are scattered around it?” Memri translated this as: “How do you feel about the Jews?” - which is a different question. That left you with a reply in Arabic which didn’t fit your newly-concocted question. So you cut out the first part of the mufti’s reply and combined what was left with part of his answer to another question.