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I find it interesting how both religious and right-wing or conservative dogmatic "true believers" behave so similarly when they encounter hard facts and data-driven conclusions which they find uncomfortable, behave so similarly. They both resort to labeling the conclusions "theory." In so doing they they are trying to discount the truth and make it look less evident and proven. Examples are how evangelicals try to discount evolution, and how conservatives use "racism theory" as terms to deal with real phenomena that they do not want to admit are true.

They also show that they do not even understand what a theory is. A theory is a set of interwoven conclusions drawn from a strong body of supporting evidence, to try to describe and explain a phenomenon. A theory is not wild conjecture drawn from thin air.

wordywalt 9 May 25
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9 comments

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3

They seem to have a sliding scale as to what they consider being honest or dishonest. The advantage of valuing belief over evidence is the mobility of one's goal posts.

Deb57 Level 8 May 26, 2021
1

Both groups are driven by anxiety, may be the same group, in a wider definition, but each found a different manner of allaying that anxiety. Conservatives tend to fear change, like the status quo, and often wrap this fear in religious dogma, which, by definition, harkens back to some ancient "Good old days."

0

When you define "racism theory" I'll know what you mean.

I don't use thre term. Many conservatives do.

@wordywalt You did use the term in your original post. What did you mean when you used it?

Probably close or the same as CRT. Per Wiki: ...two common themes: first, that white supremacy (societal racism) exists and maintains power through the law and second, that transforming the relationship between law and racial power, and also achieving racial emancipation and anti-subordination more broadly, is possible.

@racocn8 Perhaps, but since Wordywalt used the expression I need to hear what he was referring to.

5

I find it frustrating when religious people attempt to dismiss scientific theory in the way you describe. Their own belief doesn't even raise to the level of being a theory, but rather only an idea that lots of people have been taught. The evidence - or rather the lack of any evidence - to support their idea is little more than fairy tales written in a book that most of them don't even read much less study. To dismiss scientific theory the way they do is actually laughable if one were to compare what is behind the scientific theory and behind religious belief.

3

This is a human thinking problem and it is not limited to conservatives or even evangelical conservatives.

Consider for a moment there is a left "social history" narrative that goes something like this:

All white people are evil.
All white people are guilty of constructing a structurally racist society.
All white people owe everyone else reparations
All white people need to be told boldly and loudly that black lives matter too!
All white guys suppress women's rights.

Ignoring, for a moment, the inherent retaliatory racism, these thoughts are not even supported by the most shallow understanding of our history.

The vast majority of white people in the 1600's-1800's did not own slaves. The few people who did were indeed overwhelmingly white, but they were the "ultra-rich" of the time, the plantation owners. The glaring fact is during a time when only white guys could vote, the nation went into a civil war where more US white guys died determining this nation does not condone slavery, than have died in any war before or since.

Yes, since then there have been blue laws, systemic racism, .... but again, this was not necessarily a majority of whites doing this. It was the few that held important banking positions and government positions who championed these outrages. I'm not saying this was a pleasant time in America for People of Color. But I am saying they were not alone in their struggle for equality. There were plenty of white faces marching in Selma and at the lunch counter in Greensboro.

In the 1920's when women's suffrage was the topic of the day, Women's suffrage was won, but it was not achieved through a midnight conspiracy to suddenly rise up and make the men vote their way at knife point. It may come as a shock, but most white (and by then black) guys love their wives, sisters and daughters and wanted to include them in the running of our society!!

I do agree there is much in our history that should be made right. But I don't think we begin by vilifying a group of people who weren't even born yet ...... That kind of thinking smacks of ... RELIGION!!!

Until this national church of minority self pity runs it's course, I'm afraid All White People will continue to be scape goated and

Bullshit
I'm genetically to the "LEFT" and at no time have I ever said:
All white people are evil.
All white people are guilty of constructing a structurally racist society.
All white people owe everyone else reparations
All white people need to be told boldly and loudly that black lives matter too!
All white guys suppress women's rights.

However as a fish belly white person raised in Alabama during the George C. Wallace period of that Confederate countries history I assure you that white people do owe everyone else some hard answers.

You didn't have to own a slave to be guilty of slavery so long as you condoned the practice and most Southerners went so far as to take up arms against the United States government to defend that racist institution.

This sorry argument is like claiming that the German people weren't responsible for the Holocausts, after all that was the SS and only one in 10,000 or fewer Germans were SS and the rest didn't even know the extermination was going on. Yet German citizens jeered at Jews and reported neighbors and friends that were Jewish to German authorities, much like Karens on their cell phones calling 911 because a black kid bumped into them.

So if you're white and you see white people doing immoral racist shit and you just mind your own business you're guilty of being precisely like the average German citizen during the reign of Adolph Hitler. It's so easy to condemn such color blindness in other cultures because you can be objective about the "others" but it's our job to be objective about everyone, including ourselves as best we can.

When the "LEFT" raises this argument that things need to be fixed, that someone has to answer for injustice and someone like you steps up to defend the system then you have made yourself part of that immoral system.

Your strenuous argument to separate yourself from the "LEFT" while arguing that white people aren't racist because many white people participate in anti-racist protest clearly identifies you as one of the white people that doesn't support anti-racist policy.
You sound like one of the people that make it sound as if our biggest problem as a nation is discrimination against white people. I'll argue white America has and always has had every advantage and we've abused the privilege to an extent that's objectively criminal.

@Willow_Wisp

So you were alive during the times of Slavery or are you just assuming I was?

I agree, If I see moral atrocities occurring, I have an obligation to stop it if I am able. But again, I wasn't there!!! AND MOST PEOPLE BORN SINCE THE 80's WEREN'T EITHER!!!

I was born well before the 80's but I wasn't in the south and was not witness to and was far too young to take part in or stop it.

Again, you are scape goating people that weren't even there!! Not only that, you are completely disregarding the people who weren't the minority of focus, but contributed to the resistance anyway. What reparations do they or their descendants "owe"?

You've got a big broad paint brush loaded with "guilt" and are trying to paint every one you can with it, which will accomplish exactly NOTHING!! If something needs fixed, then set about fixing it!! This mutual finger pointing serves no good purpose I can discern! And I challenge you to point it out to me if you think it does!!

THIS IS WHAT RELIGION DOES!!!

That's "why" the Israelis are each responsible for all Palestinian deaths and vice versa. Scape goating each other for atrocities of the past.

In their case and in the case of the US as I stated in the original posts, sure there are inequities that need to be righted. But assigning guilt to people who weren't even there is both

USELESS
and
STUPID!!!

And please by all means, show me how being born into a given skin color automagically makes you guilty of anything!! Please! If you do, I hope you discover how it is that you are being racist in your claims.

Welcome to the the throngs of non-thinking religious people!!

@Normanbites Thanks for identifying yourself as the sort of person I typically block. I'll let it stew awhile since I obviously hit a nerve that required hitting. You are the sort of person that has made America what it is instead of what it could be. However freethought is a new trick and you're an old dog, so I hold little hope that you'll even slightly understand all the shit wrong in your response.
You're just another foolish old bigot.

@Willow_Wisp Now, the last I knew, bigotry involves applying attributes of choice or morals to people because of their skin color or some other attribute fixed at birth ..... Reviewing the comments, I believe you have done that far more than I.

Please point out how that isn't correct.

OH!!! And just for your edification, ad hominems are not valid arguments.

@Normanbites Failure, you should be accustomed to that by now.

Not sure where you are getting your info, but I don't know anyone who has ever said these things:
All white people are evil.
All white people are guilty of constructing a structurally racist society.
All white people owe everyone else reparations
All white people need to be told boldly and loudly that black lives matter too!
All white guys suppress women's rights.

@itsmedammit You live a charmed life, good for you....

1

I’m a conservative and I don’t find that assessment clear at all. We’re not all like that.

It's just a theory.

6

We can never underestimate the human capacity for self-delusion!

13

They pretend to be of different tribes but they’re both from the same tribe of dumb ass luddites driven by the same white supremacist cultural values found in the anti intellectual southern rebels that called themselves the Confederacy which in turn inspired European fascism in the mid twentieth century whether actually religious or not. They worship authority and will forever agree with any tyrant they believe to be strong enough to keep down those they deem sub human.
They are dangerous, ruthless, and profoundly anti intellectual because they can’t deal with the truth that they are not better than any minority or queer that they’re more than happy to victimize.
I’m capable of diatribes that I could pontificate on and on for hours about how these anti humanist have harmed society with countless examples over the last four years alone and thousands of examples going back over the last 121 years like Tulsa and the Tuskegee experiments and I still wouldn’t be started good.
It’s a miracle we even have the civilization we do have, and these bastards want to take credit for it when WE built it DESPITE those fucking animals.

10

Such people are psychologically incapable of separating facts from personal desires.

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