Well, you know what they say: The Atlantic started going down hill ever since Ralph Waldo Emerson stopped writing for it.
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Big tent thinking bothers me at its roots anyway. We’re not all the same if you try to understand each other. Not everyone has good faith. Not everyone is a decent person deep down. Some people are horrible. The conservatives have that part about humanity right. Yet for some reason they’re the only group allowed to say that openly. The whole idea is flawed. It reminds me of what a therapist said to a family member about her abusive husband (who eventually killed himself when evidence of his abuse of the young people who came his way through CPS and his spreading of HIV was about to cost him face and his job on the State board of psychologists just so you guys know how bad it was to be anywhere near this man)… the words stick with me even though because they work “I hear a lot about how XXXX could change, I haven’t ever heard you say how much XXXX WANTS to change though…”
Some people are fucking evil, put them in your big tent and it’s their big tent forever after.
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Does the jerk literally believe the things he wrote?
It’s plausible that he does not. It’s plausible that what he really believes in is causing pain. He will say or do whatever he can to cause pain to out-groups, and therefore pleasure to his sadistic in-group. It’s even plausible that he just has found feeding the hatred of the right to be an easy job.
That is the modern ‘conservative’.
And, it would appear, that the editor of the Atlantic is at least on board for that last bit of feeding the hatred for money.
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Have these people not seen Star Wars? You can’t bring balance to the force by bringing in more Sith. You have to center yourself rather than trying to counter extremism with extremism.
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Just look at this prime example of a human being standing before you ladies and gentleman. I’ll bet this guy’s IQ is about 60. He only has any kind of public presence because his irrational and deluded hatred and fearmongering is championed by the far right, which like him borders on being subhuman. Also, note that he is a prime physical specimen following all the most effective health eating regimens available and obviously he has the physical strength, stamina and rigor to match. I’m sure if this guy was not propped up financially by fine journalistic institutions such as the Atlantic he would be in his mom’s basement screaming about all the things that makes his tiny dick hard.
These are 100% compatible motives.
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I was thinking this. If you want a “second chance” then don’t just delete your twitter, apologize for it. Say you were wrong.
I’m going to stand up for observing projection, since it’s very real.
That said, you are totally right. People project to a lesser or greater degree, it’s not like we all do it all the time. I found that paragraph compelling, but your alternative of people don’t believe bigots because they can’t understand bigots probably captures more people than the projection explanation does.
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I feel fhe same way. Seeing this trend is heartbreaking. I am open to alternative views but the verdict on fascist, reactionary speech has long been out. Is now the time to take these folks literally but not seriously?
Liberals, he wrote, tend to think conservatives and Christians don’t really believe what they say.
@beschizza Perhaps not what you were thinking of, but the Atlantic itself published a piece including this insight: “The press takes [Trump] literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.”
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Let’s be fair, as much as I hate IQ I would guess his is from 80-120 well within “normal” ranges. To be able to string together any kind of justification for one’s hate speech you have to have a decent level of cognitive functioning. It’s not intelligence he lacks, it’s empathy and human decency. Without a platform he would be… a perfectly average bigot going about his life making sure he never encounters the kind of internal thought that might make him a better person. Why we keep pandering to this demographic beats me. If I believed in God I think my daily prayer would just be screaming “WHY” into the sky.
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I already did this too. You don’t have to subscribe to do so. If enough people do this, perhaps they’ll fire the fools who thought hiring this guy was a good thing.
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Lost me at Megan McArgleBargle
Well, people like this do exist.
I’ve known folks on both sides of the left-right political spectrum of whom it is true, but, not one progressive.
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this is exactly what i mean: morality does not mean “religious authority”. you made the assumption which i think betrays your anxieties about “morality”. i—neither racially nor culturally european—am in no way am referring to christianity.
i refer to how liberalism define justice. liberalism would define justice as a “just process that treats everyone the same,” which sounds nice on the surface. and yet looking at our criminal justice system—is it just? are black americans treated the same? a small-c “conservative” would say, yes, everyone is treated the same. they have a trial, and a lawyer, and a judge hearing. so then we ask whether racialized mass incarcerations a betrayal of liberal values, or is simply that liberal insistence on focusing on “just process” created a blindspot in their ideology and practice? that a system of thought created by white european “enlightenment”/imperialism, cannot systematically account for how racist and sexist european society is? i often think it’s the latter—and that some liberalist individuals don’t actually care if their “just” process leads to actual reduction in unnecessary human suffering.
that because they are allergic to even using the moral arguments in how they think about politics (perhaps because christianity seemingly subsumes morality), it fosters a toxic “neutrality is the best” attitude, where you get “compromise-ism” and “hear-all-side-isms.”
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there are moral systems other than the bible 
for example, a materialist, marxist critique of capital is also a moral one. see my reply to @GulliverFoyle for what i mean.
She’s just a run-of-the-mill Reason-able-sounding Libertarian, transparent in her real motives with arguments that are easily knocked down. Like Bo-Bo Brooks at the NYT, she’s there as a token free-market extremist masquerading as a polite conservative punching bag for the readership.
This dude, on the other hand, is a misogynist hatemonger.
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At least he can write himself out of a wet paper bag.
That said, stuffing him into a wet paper bag is a good start.
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Yeah well 60 was a nice round number so I went with it. And I won’t be fair with this guy. He deserves all the karma he gets.
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