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  1. TopTop #1
    Star Man's Avatar
    Star Man
     

    The Freedom to be Stupid

    The Supreme Court has enshrined the Right to be Stupid among the fundamental rights of American citizenship. The Court agreed that the rights of citizens to freely assemble in religious practice outweighed the science based rules that would have limited the rights of citizens to gather in large groups for religious ceremonies in order to protect their health. Citizens will now be able to test for themselves whether belief in God's love can protect them from infection.

    America is at a major choice point. In a conflict between medical science and religious orthodoxy, the SCOTUS has sided with religion. Science says stay home and wear a mask. The Rabbis and priests say come to church, gather in large groups, ignore science, and your faith will protect you. Citizens can choose to stay home and practice their faith there. They may find just as much solace in reading scripture in the family as they would in church.

    The Corona Virus is neither Catholic or Jew, Jehova's Witness or Seventh Day Adventist. We appear poised at the dawn of a new form of herd immunity. Some of the people who attend large religious services will get Covid and will carry it out into the community where they will spread it. Many will die who would not otherwise die. The people who stay home, who observe all safety protocols, who wear masks and avoid large gatherings will for the most part survive. As the others die out, the virus will die with them and in a few years it will be safe to return to an open society because the virus and all its carriers will be dead and along with them the religion that told them the lie that faith would protect them. The only faith that will protect us from infection is faith in medical science. Star Man
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  3. TopTop #2
    wisewomn's Avatar
    wisewomn
     

    Re: The Freedom to be Stupid

    You got that right, Star Man. Instead of herd immunity, we'll be thinning the herd. As H.L. Mencken said:
    "No one ever went broke overestimating the stupidity of the American public."

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  5. TopTop #3
    briahn
     

    Re: The Freedom to be Stupid

    Ah, if it were only that simple!
    Unfortunately, the maskless are not killing themselves, they are killing the elderly, the essential workers, the medical staff, and disproportionately people of color. Not to mention prolonging the economic crises, which also disproportionately affects people of color. And women.
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  7. TopTop #4
    carpet crawler's Avatar
    carpet crawler
     

    Re: The Freedom to be Stupid

    Oh, the placement of just one word...

    H.L. Mencken is attributed with something. This is what he actually wrote at one point:

    "No one in this world, so far as I know ... has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people."

    But the paraphrase that is out there is

    nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public

    Not "overestimating".

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  9. TopTop #5
    wisewomn's Avatar
    wisewomn
     

    Re: The Freedom to be Stupid

    Well, excu-uuse me! :-) Thanks for the correction. Definitely a typo in the heat of the moment and not what I meant to communicate at all.
    Maybe I should have stuck with P.T. Barnum's, "There's a sucker born every minute."

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  10. TopTop #6
    Star Man's Avatar
    Star Man
     

    Re: The Freedom to be Stupid

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    Adolf Hitler was able to organize the Nazi party around his claim that Germany was treated unfairly by the Treaty of Versailles that ended WWI. T**** and the Republicans are trying the same trick. They want to convince Republicans that the election was stolen from them. T**** is no different than Hitler. T**** is able to inflame the Republicans. History shows us what happened when Hitler did this. I fear it will be the same under T****.

    Star Man
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  12. TopTop #7
    Star Man's Avatar
    Star Man
     

    Re: The Freedom to be Stupid

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Star Man: View Post
    Headline from a Washington Post report today: " Pompeo invites hundreds to indoor holiday parties after State Dept. subordinates are warned against hosting ‘non-mission critical events’"

    Hubris was the Greek name for dangerous overconfidence or arrogance. Nemesis was the Greek name for the goddess who exacted retribution for acts of hubris. Pompeo is acting dangerously overconfident when he puts on an indoor party for hundreds in the midst of a pandemic. COVID embodies Nemesis. Will Nemesis take down Pompeo and the arrogant Republican fools who attend a party during a pandemic. We'll soon find out.


    Star Man
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  13. TopTop #8
    Star Man's Avatar
    Star Man
     

    Re: The Freedom to be Stupid

    I have a prediction: In about 10 years a charismatic man or woman will emerge to argue that the Democrats and the Deep state stole the election from T**** and that America was betrayed. This is exactly how Hitler manipulated the German people in the Thirties 10 years after the Treaty of Versailles.

    The early stages of a violent take-over of the United States is already underway as evidenced by the armed mob threatening the Michigan Secretary of State. Betrayal is a very incendiary topic for people like Kyle Rittenhouse who murdered two citizens in Wisconsin and James Fields who murdered Heather Heyer with his car. Thankfully the liberals have not given the right-wing any martyrs for their cause. Star Man
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  14. TopTop #9
    Star Man's Avatar
    Star Man
     

    Re: The Freedom to be Stupid

    I feel disgusted watching the Republicans place party before country. Most recently Michael Pack, the head of Voice of America is refusing to provide information to the Biden transition team. Before that Emily Murphy at the GSA refused to authorize funds for the transition. These people are traitors to America. Allegiance to the nation is more important than allegiance to T****. Imagine if people like these were on a baseball team and the first baseman didn't like the second baseman so he refused to throw him a ball to complete a double play. Adults play by the rules. Children, which Pack and Murphy truly are, allow petty dislikes to affect their actions. The president is a petulant child and so are many in his administration.

    Star Man
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  16. TopTop #10
    Star Man's Avatar
    Star Man
     

    Re: The Freedom to be Stupid

    Back in the Sixties people would set themselves on fire to protest the war in Vietnam. I am waiting for a Republican to set themselves on fire to protest their belief that the election was stolen from T****. C'mon Republicans. Show your bravery and commitment. Here's a can of gasoline and a match.

    Star Man
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  18. TopTop #11
    Star Man's Avatar
    Star Man
     

    Re: The Freedom to be Stupid

    Traitors and Traitor Cells in Pandemic

    America on a ventilator. Gasping for breath. Pain. Terror. Isolated. The fun all coughed away. A thick sputum of anguish clogging its airways. Why? Why us, the greatest nation on the planet? We should have been immune. We certainly acted as if we were. We deserved immunity. The most severely damaged among us refusing to acknowledge the pandemic, refusing to take the precautions our doctors prescribed. What was it about this disease that made us treat it so differently from all the other diseases? After all, if we had pneumonia and the doctor prescribed antibiotics, we took them. What was different about this disease that spread so easily among us. What made us gather by the thousands on beaches, in rallies, in dances, in bars, in celebrations? The epidemiologists told us that we could defeat the disease if we isolated, wore our masks, and sanitized our hands, and yet a significant portion of us refused to take those precautions. It was almost as if we felt and believed that we deserved the infection. This was not a conscious decision. Knowing they will die, people often make a conscious decision to write a will. The decision to refuse to take precautions was not consciously made; it was a decision none the less. An unconscious decision. From whence arose that decision? The refuseniks participated in the infectious process at a social level, just as the human bodies participated in the infectious process at a cellular level. The outer mirrors the inner. The social process of the pandemic mirrors the physiological process of the pandemic.

    Thinking about pneumonia for a moment, there is a significant difference between pneumonia and COVID. Pneumonia is an individual experience. We do not have pneumonia pandemics. At least not in modern times. If a person contracts pneumonia the doctor prescribes an antibiotic and bed rest. No one is told to wear a mask. The house is not quarantined. The social experience of pneumonia is circumscribed. COVID on the other hand is a social experience as well as an individual experience. COVID threatens the entire population. It is so easily transmissible that we have to take social precautions. With pneumonia one calls the office and says I won’t be in for a couple of days, I have a pneumonia. With CORONA society has to limit everyone’s exposure and that involves a change in social behavior. The bars are closed. The gyms are closed and so too the yoga studios. In order to avoid infection, an infection that could well be fatal, one must take precautions, and those precautions do not stop a disease once it’s been acquired, they stop the acquisition of the disease. You don’t get better from taking precautions; you just don’t get sick. The payoff is the absence of something. Unlike with pneumonia, where the reward is the disappearance of symptoms like high fever and congestion. If one contracts pneumonia, one takes the antibiotic. Very few people refuse to take the antibiotic. You’re sick; you take the antibiotic; you get better. There’s a tangible reward for conscientious behavior. With COVID there’s no comparable tangible reward.


    There’s another way in which COVID and pneumonia are different. The pneumonia bacteria grow and reproduce in the airways of the lungs. COVID is different. It does not grow and reproduce in the airways. It grows inside cells in the lungs.Infection by the SARS-COVID virus requires the active participation of the human body. By now most of us recognize the virus in depictions. We are aware of the globular projections that dot the surface of the virus, usually shown in red; these projections are the means by which the virus attaches to a receptor on human cells in the lungs that normally develop into respiratory tract cells. The projections are called “spike proteins.” The spike proteins match proteinscalled receptors—located on all respiratory cells. Once bound to the respiratory cell, the virus injects its genetic material, takes over the metabolic machinery of the host, makes copies of itself, ruptures the host cell, and releases its progeny. The host cell is not easy for the virus to infect; this requires the help of “traitor” cells also located in the lungs. The traitor cells have a normal function in the absence of disease. The CORONA virus makes use of the normal function to perpetuate itself.These traitor cells activate the coronavirus projections (the spike proteins) to allow the virus to more easily enter the target cell. Some people are more vulnerable than others, and once the virus gains entry into their respiratory tract cells, the virus kills the cells and then the person develops acute respiratory distress syndrome in which their lungs fill up with fluid and they are put on a respirator. It is often the last stage before death.

    The COVID disease process in individuals mirrors the COVID disease process in the society. The comparison is worth pursuing. In society one infected individual is analogous to an individual virus particle. Society is analogous to the larger population the infected individual is entering. In the human body, the virus particle attaches via its spike protein to a receptor on a lung cell, gains entry facilitated by the “traitor cells,” and multiplies, eventually destroying the host cell and releasing thousands of copies of the virus. In the same way that a virus-infected cell passes on the infection to other cells, an infected individual passes the virus to other humans, each of which then becomes infected and passes the infection on. Now if the society is protected by a vaccine the infected individual cannot transmit the infection just as the body of an immunized person is protected and the virus cannot infect it. Unlike society, a vulnerable individual who is not immunized cannot protect themselves against infection. That’s where the masks and social distancing and quarantine come in. They can prevent the infected individual from spreading the virus. Now societies have “traitor cells” just like bodies do. In the human body the traitor cell facilitates the entry of the virus into a vulnerable cell. In society the traitor cells are individuals who refuse to wear masks, who refuse to social distance, and who refuse to quarantine. In society the traitor individuals facilitate the spread of the disease.

    It is helpful to compare the COVID disease process in individuals and in society because it gives us insight into the social processes that the virus uses in a pandemic just as the virus uses physiological processes to spread in an individual. Until an effective and safe vaccine is widely available, the only protection society has against COVID is social distancing, masks, and disinfection.

    Star Man

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  20. TopTop #12
    Star Man's Avatar
    Star Man
     

    Re: The Freedom to be Stupid

    What if the American League fans had reacted to the Tampa Bay Rays loss of the World Series with the response of the Republicans are using to Trump's loss to Biden and the Democrats. The AL fans would have made their own trophy and held a separate award ceremony for the Rays. They would have demand a review of every single play in the six games. They would have gone to court to have the entire series thrown out. They would have invaded the offices of MLB with pistols and rifles and automatic rifles. They would have accused commissioner Manfred of being a traitor. They would have threatened the lives of the umpires and driven past their homes in the middle of the night with their horns blaring. They would have insulted and threatened the wives of children of the umpires. They would have called Corey Seager the MVP a traitor and threatened his family. They would have printed hats and T-shirts with the slogan Stop the World Series Steal.

    Star Man
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  22. TopTop #13
    Star Man's Avatar
    Star Man
     

    Re: The Freedom to be Stupid

    Here's a book recommendation that clarifies the people who choose to be stupid.

    Here’s what the back cover says about Murder Chroniclesand about the author
    John Omaha, Ph.D., MFT lives in Northern California. His writing examines the effect of early childhood experience and how it affects adult behavior. Omaha has been a practicing shaman for 30 years and regularly conducts sweat lodges in the Great Mystery Lodge of Humanity Rising. His ceremonies, like his book, emphasize a deep spiritual connection with the natural world, both animate and inanimate.

    Murder Chronicles is a story of brutal murder, transformation, and redemption. Omaha's novel examines human motivations for killing, whether in warfare, in relationships, or against the environment. Using a fast-paced style Omaha brings together psychology, politics, podcasting, and Native American spirituality to tell Peter Dewar's story, which is a metaphor for America's contemporary existential situation. Omaha has published a book of political satire, On Condition Of Anonymity, and a meditation on the environmental apocalypse, Requiem for a Dying World. All three books are available on Amazon.



    Here is what two reviewers say about Murder Chronicles
    5.0 out of 5.0 Stars Quick, Thoughtful Read
    Reviewed in the United States on November 4, 2020
    John Omaha paints a picture that begins very bleak but ends with a much more uplifting ending than to be expected at the start. He has an interesting narrative style that mixes several points-of-view in different mediums. While I am not certain how I feel about the breaking of the "fifth wall," I appreciate the sentiment of the author attempting to break through his own point of view without getting lost in a reader's intent. He has undeniable skill in developing character voice; the chapters have distinct points-of-view that change with each subject. A quick read that's relevant to today's social and political atmosphere.



    5.0 out of 5.0 Stars Fast, Interesting Read
    Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2020
    An interesting read that uses psychology and politics to tell a chilling, dark story. The book is really short; I wish it had been longer. My favorite aspect of the book was the injection of Native American spirituality, and how it is addressed to society's problems and mental viewpoints.



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  23. TopTop #14
    Star Man's Avatar
    Star Man
     

    Re: The Freedom to be Stupid

    Mystery’s Language
    by John Omaha
    Copyright, 2020 by John Omaha All Rights Reserved

    In an essay entitled “God’s Language” in her book The Source of Self-Regard Toni Morrison argues that we Western-lineage humans cannot appreciate heaven directly and can only do so by comparing it to hell. She notes that the bible stresses the awfulness of hell, but strains to provide a compelling image of heaven. The writing of Dante and Milton support her claim. Morrison names the qualities of physical paradise as beauty, plenty, rest, exclusivity, and eternity. She continues, writing that in 1996 beauty resides in the manicured estates of the wealthy; only the wealthy have plenty and rest. She demonstrates that paradise cannot exist without the parallel existence of unworthy and excluded classes. Morrison also notes that the desire is for “earthbound eternity, rather than eternal afterlife.”

    I observe that the fantasy of a paradise that can only be accessed through death—i.e., after life—is what drives people to continue to struggle for paradise on earth in a world thoroughly corrupted by capitalism and driven by greed and exclusivity, a world built on the impossibility for all but 0.1% of people ever attaining plenty or rest during this lifetime. The origins of and the need for a belief in a paradise fantasy reside in the admittedly brutal conditions most humans lived in for the long eons prior to the the last few decades. The harsh and excruciating reality of the conditions of our species’ formative years resides today in our shared unconscious. Our origin experience conceals a fundamental developmental flaw, one that has shaped our culture, and one that only a few fortunate cultures escaped. Those of us in the west, and those cultures shaped by western ways of being never learned to cooperate. Competition drove us descendants of western culture.

    The land mass of North America had been stably occupied by cultures—the many nations of indigenous people—for eons before the Europeans arrived bringing the contaminations of greed, property, exclusivity, and murderous cruelty. The Indigenous people could not survive in the face of the duplicity of the Europeans. Within two hundred years of first contact, the genocide had reduced the Indigenous population from five million to two hundred thousand. Unfortunately the Europeans were unable to learn from the Indigenous people how to cooperate with Nature. The Europeans competed with Nature. They took from Nature. Rather than killing one buffalo, they killed them all. Rather than cooperating with the Indigenous people they invited them to feasts and then slaughtered them.

    The Western beliefs in paradise all derive from competing with Nature rather than cooperating. Start with theism. Western religious belief separates divinity from the natural world. God is in a place called heaven and he demands obedience. Indigenous peoples believe that divinity resides everywhere and in all things—rocks, water, trees, animals, air—everything is sacred, everything is living. Beauty is everywhere. It resides in every living thing, whether animate or inanimate. In a world of cooperation the world is plentiful; scarcity is only found where there is competition. When people collaborate there is plenty of time for rest. In a society of competition rest is commodified and merchandized. Cooperating people do not exclude anyone. The tribe collaborates in the hunt and then the tribe shares the game with all. In a competing society there are homeless people, starving people, excluded people. A competing society absolutely requires for its existence a class of unworthy people, of excluded people.

    Those of us alive today are getting to witness the consequences of our inability to cooperate, of our compulsion to compete. We overpopulated and COVID is a consequence of the compulsion to reproduce. Competition has driven us to melt the polar ice caps and destroy the stable weather patterns. Because we do not see ourselves as one with the natural world we have mined, polluted, and destroyed the environment. Wherever there is beauty—whether with the elephants in Africa or the wolves in Yellowstone or the bears hibernating in Tongass—we murder it. We compete one with another and so we eliminate competition by murdering each other.

    There is no afterlife. There is no heaven. This here now is the only life, the only heaven, the only paradise. If my words resonate for you then find a pool on a stream in the wilderness, sit quietly and contemplate the beauty of that place. Spend a day or three. Get in touch with your anguish at what is being lost, what your grandchildren will never know. Pray your gratitude for the place and for the Mystery that is manifesting itself.


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  25. TopTop #15
    Star Man's Avatar
    Star Man
     

    Re: The Freedom to be Stupid

    The crises facing America can be best understood using a psychological model, rather than a political or historical model. The psychological model encourages us to look at the phenomenon of attachment to understand why some Americans were and still are so committed to T****. Attachment is the name for the bonding that occurs between parents and infants. Infants MUST bond to parents. This is basic biology that has its origins millions of years ago in the evolution of mammals. If children do not bond to parents they will not get fed or protected. The attachment response evolved because without it, offspring got eaten. Attachment is so strong that children will attach to whatever parent fate provides, even an abusive parent. T**** is an abusive parent. People attach to him because he is like the parents they had--emotionally, physically, verbally abusive. It is useless to point out that T**** is a liar, because his supporters were lied to in childhood somehow and they still had to love their lying parent. Their genes tell them they will die if they don't love their abusive parent. Star Man

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  27. TopTop #16
    wisewomn's Avatar
    wisewomn
     

    Re: The Freedom to be Stupid

    Agreed, Star Man. It also occurs to me that another influence could be the stereotype of the bumbling father figure who often screws up or says the wrong thing, but is still loved by the family. This is seen repeatedly in family-style sit-coms on TV.

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  29. TopTop #17
    Star Man's Avatar
    Star Man
     

    Re: The Freedom to be Stupid

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by wisewomn: View Post
    The bumbling clueless father is a major figure in advertising. If you do see commercials take a note of how many feature a strong woman who makes decisions because the husband is too impotent to do so. Star Man
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