It’s not that we had enough power to guarantee we would make an impact. It’s that we had enough power that we should have tried.

Sure, there are shills for both parties all over.

Fair enough. Expect those folks to put up a fight.

Simply because it’s a commons, and I like that, I’m going to use definitions from Wikipedia.

I think we differ on what a world view is. Secular Humanism is, to me, more accurately described as Wikipedia describes it - a philosophy, belief, or life stance. These have to do with what you identify with, or values and ideologies you live by. And yes, secular humanists need not be atheist.

A world view is much more broad than a philosophy, belief, or stance, or the having or not having of any particular belief.

So yes, atheism is not a world view. But one can have an atheistic world view, without atheism being a world view. The world view and the individual who holds it are not defined in total by any particular facet of that world view, any more than “a brown-haired person” or “a person who has no cats” are complete descriptors for any single individual.

So “an atheistic world view” simply references one of a large number of world views, all of which fundamentally lack a belief in gods.

Yes, lacking in a particular belief does not define you as a whole person. I would not expect that it did, even if you held atheism as a belief, as in the less broad senses of atheism as defined on Wikipedia.

If I don’t believe in unicorns, it totally makes me a non-unicornist, which is clearly only relevant when discussion or actions come up that involve unicorns, like when I’m posting in a non-unicornist or unicornist context. But it doesn’t necessarily make me an anti-unicornist.

Zealotry comes in many forms. Of course you wouldn’t use anything that smacked of what the Republicans use, and vice versa. Different teams, and all.

Really, it’s not so much the current taking points that make sense - although there are underlying truths and values that are being denied, that show up in current taking points.

And honestly, although things will be okay, I don’t have anything you’ll like to hear about the current situation.

In general, the biggest issue with the Republican Party is that it depends on good leadership. Like a monarchy, that’s great when you have a reasonable leader, and really shitty when you don’t.

Currently, the Republican corpus is having to come to terms with the failure of it’s leadership, and the loss of it’s underlying moral fortitude. A very large part of this is because the party has been effectively hacked, and has become a Straussian cult. The Democratic party is not immune to the spread of the underlying ideology, nor of the cult itself, but is impacted in less obvious (but no less problematic) ways.

While Strauss himself may have had some reasonable ideals, the consequences of the intersection of his methodology of teaching and his ideologies, by nature, create a kind of “you get it or you don’t” state of affairs, where much is implicit. He intentionally did this, because he wanted people to be capable of reading between the lines, and to be able to stand for true and valuable things that you can’t fully justify or comprehend analytically. Although some things must be implicit and be stood for even if they cannot be articulated, the consequences of intentionally creating a scenario where much is left to subtext in an environment (politics) where power is a main focus creates a problematic circumstance that is malignant and difficult to pin down in real-world conflict.

Not only is this complex of interactions difficult to pin down in real-world interactions, it is difficult to pin down internally, once you’ve genuinely been impacted by it. And so it can spread. And it has spread, in the Republican leadership. And they spread the discordant mixture of implicit behaviors to their constituents.

All of this is to say:

Republicans depend on good leadership, and their leadership is fucked right now. But that doesn’t mean the corpus of Republicans in general is actually fucky. They are being fucked too, and their fuckyness will right itself when a mentality comes about that is:

A: communicable implicitly and explicitly B: capable if seeing through the morass of the Straussian cult.

Meanwhile, many of the things that the Republican corpus actually cares about manifest in problematic ways, because their needs are no longer met by their leadership.

So if you’re looking to feel good about Republicans, don’t look at their leadership, or the maga asshats. Look at the very large body of people who has lost representation, and never has been good at having a public voice. Look at the fundamental Republican philosophies, which are, by and large, good. When they act out, tie it back to those philosophies and beliefs, and try to understand how it led to this, now.

One of the primary things the Republican party doesn’t do is look away from the fundamental necessity for power. This isn’t (generally) out of a desire for power, though that may be what manifests. Instead, it’s from a willingness to deal honestly in realities other people find distasteful. This is why they consider the Democratic corpus “weak” at times. But currently, that’s kinda fucking them, because they also can’t see an answer to the Straussian cult situation. They know, on some level, that something fundamentally important is being left out, but can’t find a way to get back to the moral foundation they had - the power has them. Their leadership knows how to point that unease at the wrong things.

The good thing is - getting to know your local Republican, and sorting through the emotions it brings up in you can help, because the fundamental issue is deeply psychological.

The bad thing is, nobody wants to do that, because it’s lots easier to just say “those guys suck” and “we’ll best them at the polls”. But unless the underlying issue is addressed, you’ll lose again. And then time will pass, and you’ll win, maybe, and then lose again. And each time, it will be shocking, and each time, a worse leader, and each time, the mentality and it’s supporting antithetical mentalities spread.

But, once people realize they can’t escape a thing, and it needs to be faced, they face it.

You could say this whole thing is a battle between (or a lack of capacity for mutual understanding by) the explicit and the implicit motivators.

My experience with both parties (and centrists) is that there are some (more rare) people who have solid reasons for their positions, and that so very much of the rest is chaff and regurgitation.

And yes, Lemmy is not reality. But there is a decent fraction of Republicans who aren’t morons, but Republicans are, by and large (with some notable exceptions), terrible at taking something they grasp intuitively, reasoning it out, and communicating that in a way that Democrats will understand.

I can get how people view this as being moronic. But the underlying intuitions are solid, and not prioritizing analytical thought over intuition allows them to hold to those intuitions well. Unfortunately, their entire party was hacked by mongers of Straussian philosophy. Strauss did a lot of “read between the lines and see the dark shit I’m actually saying”, and honestly, both parties suck at handling that, but the Republicans are way more susceptible, because they depend on viable leadership. The Republican leadership is basically a Straussian cult at this point. So despite the underlying intuitions that drive the Republican party being pretty solid, they are not really capable of dealing with a hacked leadership. Disinfo from their leadership fucks them.

In any case, while Democrats have their own issues that I believe to be just as fundamental, I can’t fault you for thinking Republicans are morons (though I strongly disagree).

Using Wikipedia’s article on atheism, I concede that atheism in the broadest sense is not a world view. But atheism in any narrower sense is a world view, at least inasmuch as theism is.

However, the term “atheistic world view” is perfectly valid, as it references any one of the set of world views that have atheism as a general state or facet.

Then, in conversation regarding atheists, I shall heretofore say “atheistic world view”, rather than calling atheism a world view.

Perhaps (as i mentioned before) or can be called merely a fundamental aspect of a world view, as in “an atheistic world view”.

I suppose I so tend to say “an atheistic world view” or “a theistic world view” when talking about the matter. That indicates more that it’s a fundamental characteristic of the world view, when compared to other world views, and not necessarily the world view itself.

By nature of the subject (gods being, in general, vast entities fundamental to the structure of the world), atheism is at least a fundamental aspect of an atheistic world view. That is, like magical unicorns, one couldn’t simply drop a god into an atheistic world view and have the people who hold that world view accept it without some serious issues.

I think being non-unicornian is also a fundamental facet of most atheistic world views.

Of course, ”non-unicornian" is a bit tongue-in-cheek. A somewhat better term might be “non-fantastical world views,” but whatever.

I did say “or are deeply rooted on a world view.”

world view: a particular philosophy of life or conception of the world. “I have broadened my worldview by experiencing a whole new culture”

Atheism: disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.

Disbelief is a conception. By nature of the topic, it’s a conception of the world. If someone were to say “I don’t believe in black holes,” that is by nature a conception of the world. One might reference it as merely an aspect of the world view, but it’s still an atheistic (or theistic, or black-holist or anti blackholist) world view.

An atheistic world view doesn’t mean atheism is what the world view is about, it means that by nature, the view excludes gods. Most people, for example, adhere to a non-unicornist world view.

Yeah. Stories exist for a reason, but people can be like “this is my favorite story!” while straight up missing the cues.

It’s almost as if being so single-minded makes them incredibly manipulable.

Surprise surprise, the Democrat thinks I was being neutral to the Republicans.

Buried in extremism.

I bow to your superior insight. I stand corrected.

This is absolute hogwash. Actual centrists bring up some Republican talking points (at least, the valid ones) when talking to a Democrat, because democrats don’t seem to understand them.

Surprise surprise, Republicans think centrists bring up Democratic talking points.

Centrists get the same bullshit demonization from both parties, because both parties are insanely convinced that getting rid of the dissenter makes the issue go away.

It would have been nice if he issue was just something simple, like a religion. But no, demonization is too convenient - an easy argument for pawns to make. Step on someone else, make yourself feel better. Classic.

This is literally nostupidquestions.

OK, be annoyed with me then.

What I’m saying is “if the state is going to execute people, then nitrogen asphyxiation is an excellent and humane choice, provided that the state performs the execution properly.”

I am not saying anything beyond that. I’m not saying that this specific execution was performed properly. I wouldn’t really trust the state to say it was done right, or a reporter to day it was done wrong.

People (and animals) can jerk and twitch when they die. They can gasp and breathe heavily even, sometimes. They are unconscious by that point if asphyxiation is done right. Look into hypoxia, there’s a ton of documentation on it, video and otherwise, including direct accounts.

The only thing we can do to make it more humane is a: ensure the method is implemented correctly, and b: provide a choice of methods to the person to be executed.

Of course, that’s aside from the question of whether the state is capable of correctly evaluating who should be killed in the first place.

Firstly, death causes twitching. And it’s not fucking pretty. Most animals, humans included, have a very wide array of stuff that their body does even after they are fully unconscious. It’s not at all surprising that bystanders were freaked out, even in ideal circumstances.

You should really look into apoxia. When done right (and I’m not arguing that the execution in the article was done right), it’s a minute, maybe two. And that’s probably less time than you’d spend on a firing line.

The reality is that there simply is no “perfect” way to kill someone who doesn’t want to die. We could give them a choice, possibly, but will they even choose?

Nitrogen asphyxiation, done right, is humane. There is no pain. But one way or the other, the person’s gonna know it’s happening, no matter the method used to execute them.

Again, none of this is to condone execution as a consequence of crime. I don’t think the state is qualified to make the call.

Ah. Bad title, then.