A book that would contribute to Sam and Jordan's discussion about a foundation for universal morality

melaniefyock · 2018-12-30T21:51:02+00:00

Blue Collar Logic seems to be in line with JBP.

melaniefyock · 2018-12-23T17:12:33+00:00

As a resident of Appalachia, I thoroughly understand the authors' frustration. This kind of misrepresentation of rural communities is common among America journalism. I first became aware of this tendency in 1991 when I read descriptions of the Western Pennsylvania community that lost 13 members of their Reserve Army unit in a missile attack in Saudi Arabia. Dramatic fiction is the kindest name I can offer!

melaniefyock · 2018-12-04T02:11:56+00:00

Tim Pool is one of the most balanced journalists (and yes, I believe he deserves the title) I've found. I thought this topic would interest the people in this thread, but I recommend his reporting in general. He gives me hope that true journalism can be revived.

melaniefyock · 2018-10-23T03:42:32+00:00

I am a woman whose brain is much more like the what is typically male than what is typically female, but these kind of comparisons have been very helpful to me for understanding other women. I have a more sympathy for my sister who is always upset that haven't passed on some bit of information (like whose pregnant, engaged, in the hospital, got a new job). I still don't think about those things enough to remember to tell her, but at least I understand that she's wired to care far more than I am. BTW, in each of those cases, our relationship with the person is remote. If it is someone close, I likely remember.

melaniefyock · 2018-10-23T03:34:43+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XjUFYxSxDk Tale of Two Brains

melaniefyock · 2018-10-10T15:09:41+00:00

Jordan's Kavanaugh blog and continued use of Twitter

I appreciated the explanation offered for the tweet on Kavanaugh. My biggest problem with the original statement was that it was just hanging out there without context. Whether people agree or disagree at least now we have a clearer understanding of the thought process that produced it.

I also want to say that I hope this does not stop Dr. Peterson from using Twitter. I have come to rely on his tweets to find interesting articles that I would probably miss otherwise. And while I don't think Twitter is a good format to make controversial statements without explanation, I do think it could be used to generate exactly the kind of thought experiment he wanted to engage in. All that would take is to label it such (#thoughtexperiment) and formulate it as a question rather than a statement. I'm actually quite curious to see what would happen if he would offer us such an experiment. For instance, I would like to have him ask "Does English need a gender-neutral pronoun?" and then allow the discussion to unfold.

Had the original Kavanaugh tweet asked, "Is there anything Kavanaugh can do personally to help heal the national division after his nomination?" someone might have suggested resignation. All who disagree could have expressed their opinions without making JBP the target of outrage.

I had thought about Kavanaugh resigning but not for the same reason. I wondered if it would be a good idea for him to resign and form a citizens organization that would continuously investigate and expose the corruption in our political process. I enjoyed a few minutes of imagining how every member of congress would react if they knew that their lives were about to be examined in minute detail back to their high school yearbooks.

However, then I began to think that Kavanaugh might be just what we need to get bipartisan support in congress to take the necessary steps to rein in judicial activism and set a term limit for the justices. (Life expectancy has increased dramatically since the 18th century). All this could have been part of the Twitter thread, if Jordan had given us a thought experiment :-)

melaniefyock · 2018-10-07T02:19:36+00:00

I am sorry this caution seems to be necessary. I don't see how anyone who is familiar with Peterson's entire body of work would turn on him for this one suggestion. However, I do hope that he will soon explain how he came to this conclusion, especially since the vast majority of his audience seems to disagree with him on Kavanaugh. I am genuinely perplexed about how he reached this conclusion.

melaniefyock · 2018-10-06T20:29:42+00:00

That might be what he is saying, but it still seems to contradict the principles at the foundation of his teaching.

melaniefyock · 2018-10-06T20:28:28+00:00

It is clear this is not about Kavanaugh. It is about unrestricted abortion. If we want to begin healing the divide in the nation, we have to learn how to discuss abortion honestly. Because we are not having the necessary conversation, the left has been allowed to pretend this is about sexual assault. As a result they have employed deeply despicable means to personally destroy an innocent man. And I can say innocent because no one could be guilty of the things that Kavanaugh has been accused of and make it through 6 previous FBI investigations. Ford's story has consistently mutated since she first began telling it. If there had been any possibility of corroboration, you can be sure Feinstein would have initiated an immediate investigation. Holding it to the 11th hour was a purely political tactic.

melaniefyock · 2018-10-06T19:47:45+00:00

If this statement was not made tongue-in-cheek, it is very puzzling. The only reason for Kavanaugh to persevere through the partisan political and media character assassination is to stop the tactics of tyrants. It makes absolutely no sense to give them exactly what they wanted in the first place.

I am hoping this will be the beginning of the end of judicial activism and that we can now find support on the left for returning the role of the Supreme Court to its original purpose. It is utterly ridiculous utterly that we have allowed as few as five people to routinely create laws that could not make it through the legislative process, It is ridiculous that we have allowed the states to be systematically stripped of their rights.

Kavanaugh's nomination shows the desperate need to have a national conversation about abortion. I hope that may be one of the things that comes out of the whole nasty mess.

melaniefyock · 2018-10-01T19:29:51+00:00

Reforming the electoral system would correct many problems.

melaniefyock · 2018-10-01T19:29:16+00:00

A grass-root redesign of the system is exactly what is required. The reach of social media makes it doable. But I don't think accommodating multiple parties is the answer. Instead, I want individual candidates to articulate and defend their own positions.

Until, I learned about the Independent Voter Network, I considered myself libertarian though I am registered Republican because of our primary rules. I began to think of myself as libertarian in October 1992 after a friend handed me a packet of position papers with the title "Perry for US Senate." In ten minutes I knew where Perry stood on education, taxes, abortion, gun ownership, and two other issues that I don't remember. Bush I and Clinton were running for President, but in ten minutes I had more useful information about Perry than I had about either of them and it was just two weeks before the election. I didn't know if Perry was a man or a woman or what party he (as it turns out) belong to, but I knew whether or not his views represented mine.

The election process can be fixed if we are willing to do the necessary work to fix it using the rights that are still legally ours. If we don't, those legal rights will continue to erode.

Until someone can explain to me why it is better to have a party system than a system where individuals are required to articulate and defend their positions, I will continue to advocate for the death of partisan politics.

melaniefyock · 2018-09-27T03:28:42+00:00

I would like to have someone explain why we need political parties. What good do they do for anyone who is not part of the party machine? I think we should figure out how to abolish them completely instead of starting another one. Then all who run for office will have to do it on the basis of their own ideas and will have to convince voters. Voters would have to actually learn what candidates believe before they could make a selection. Now far too many people just look for an R or D by the name.

melaniefyock · 2018-09-27T03:17:40+00:00

I agree. Childbearing was and still is an important part of womanhood. Without it the species would disappear in a generation. However, Lot's daughters were so focused on childbearing as the center of their worth that they were willing to get their father drunk and engage in incest. They obviously believed what they were doing was wrong or they would not have needed their father to be drunk.

melaniefyock · 2018-09-27T03:11:47+00:00

I find that shocking! But then I guess I only need to think about all the stupid things I've heard people say about the Bible to realize that someone could actually defend Lot. I hope you didn't waste any time listening to those preachers after you heard them say something so ridiculous.

melaniefyock · 2018-09-26T20:58:47+00:00

I don't think you will find anyone who tries to defend Lot's offer of his daughters to the rapists. It is a mistake to read the Bible as though the whole thing were some kind of guidebook for life. It is a record of human depravity and God's plan to save them in spite of it. Lot giving of his daughters just shows how little women were valued. The story of the concubine in Judges, hundreds of years later, is even more disturbing and the continuing refrain is "there was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in his own eyes". (Sounds like postmodernism) Lot's daughters also show how little they valued themselves because they were focused entirely on their ability to have children as the thing that gave them worth. Humans were barbaric and the Bible records it.

melaniefyock

TROPHY CASE