They don’t want to raise taxes on the rich. Here’s a massive way to raise taxes that won’t affect the income of rich people unless they want to buy a shit ton of weed.
And yet they’re still against it.
They pretend like a 100% tax free nation is a possibility.
They pretend like a 100% tax free nation is a possibility.
They know this isn’t possible. They want no income tax for the wealthy and increased taxes on goods and services, which will mostly affect the working masses.
I think you’re giving them too much credit. They’re ideologues that think taxes = bad. They just don’t care so much when they hurt the poor because they think the poor deserve to have bad things happen to them.
To prove your point, Colorado has collected over $1.5 billion is cannabis tax since it was legalized. That’s just a single state, and not a huge one at that.
Yup. In MO we've seen not far off of $100mil in state tax revenue and it's only been legal since Feb 2023. At least one city near me was pushed into a surplus because of the extra revenue (admittedly, they were running at a very, very small deficit previously, but still).
Illinois got even more. $1.6 billion in 2020 alone. That’s where I buy from, although I cross the border from Indiana.
Is it expensive because of the tax? Yes it is. But I’m fine with that because legalizing and taxing it should be the model everywhere and I’m happy to support it.
When Kansas under Brownback, (with full control of the statehouse), went all-in on supply side and it was a objective failure that really shoulda been the end of the idea that R’s had any savvy regarding improving the economy.
I think it might happen quicker and I hope it does. Modern communications allow for the whole country to hear what Shawn Fain’s shirt sais shortly after he steps outside. And the police has grown out of the custom to shoot striking or protesting workers.
Establishment is going to run Hillary again. Even if Biden wins 2024 he isn’t going to accomplish anything that’s going to make people feel like things are heading in the right direction. The rail union contract is expiring at the end of this year meaning Biden will call to block the rail strike again in 2025. 2028 is gonna be a mess.
I think Boeing should rethink their strategy. How are their Stockprices not at the bottom of the ocean yet? Cutting so many corners and risking so many lifes should not be legal. This should definitely be prosecuted. Either ban all the current executives or ban the planes.
That’s what I don’t get, their stock goes down for a while but then people think it’s a good time to buy and it goes back up. Like it doesn’t affect them at all. Casually kill 400 people and barely anything happens.
Every time there’s a bad-news dip in Boeing’s stock price, traders are treating that as a discount to buy the stock because they don’t think the US government would ever allow Boeing to fail. Sadly, they’re probably not wrong. If Boeing’s financials get into deep trouble the US government would likely bail them out because they’re a large employer and a strategic component of US economic hegemony.
The stock market is pretty damn efficient at processing all the information related to the stock price. Stock goes up because realistically Boeing isn’t going anywhere.
Because the stock market knows the US government would never let Boeing fail. Ever since the 2008 crisis investors have been acting on the assumption that every company that is too important for the US economy will be bailed out (as in, given low interest loans, not nationalised like a sane government would do).
Boeing doesn’t need to fail. They’re not going to, government assistance or not, they are still a profitable company of their own right. This isn’t a case of bad investments like in 2008. So unless every company buying aircraft cancels their orders, which they won’t, Boeing will continue to be fine. Besides, simple fact is Airbus doesn’t have enough production capacity to replace Boeing.
That said, I would love to see their stock price tank. That doesn’t bankrupt the company. It will fuck up their investors though. And those investors are the ones who would demand new management and, if they act collectively, can actually force new management to happen within a year. Any shareholder can put forward a shareholder resolution. A shareholder resolution could replace any or all of the company management. And if a majority of shareholders vote for it by proxy at the next annual meeting, then that’s what happens.
If I were a Boeing shareholder, I would put a shareholder resolution that upper management must step down within the next 8 months, and the company headquarters must move from Washington DC back to Seattle where they build airplanes. Furthermore, the company charter would be amended to say that only someone with an engineering background may serve as CEO or in certain other upper management roles.
Thinking about it, it’s not just peacetime military contracts, the entire company is a national security asset
I doubt the gov would ever actually let Boeing’s domestic commercial airliner market share decline too far because they need the engineering capabilities and the production capacity left intact just in case we ever suddenly find ourselves at war, they’d just place tariffs on Airbus airframes until production is where they want it
It is one of the annoying side-effects of capitalism. Many companies start in a good place with quality setting them apart from others, and they then experience natural organic growth. Then they go public, go through some merger/takeovers, the original owners are either forced out, retire, or die, and at that point, the focus is shareholder profits and not what got them there.
Their lack of QA eventually catches up with them, people die, bad things happen. They’ll up their quality, hire QA engineers again, claim they are doing the best for quality for a few quarters until the public eye is off them. Then they’ll just start cutting quality back again.
Publicly traded companies eventually never care about quality, or safety, or human lives. It is in their nature.
The prevalence of incompetence in large organizations and institutions is independent of economic and political systems, and is more so from the dilution of talent and accountability as it grows.
So is Airbus also equally bad? Also capitalist economy…
Or is it maybe greed, which exists in any system, and in this case has cough up with Boeing and the drop in share price is exactly what they wanted to prevent?
One of my favorite activities, as someone who had to actually read both Adam Smith and Karl Marx in college, is to ask AnCaps and Tankies (and pretty much every other political and economic pontificator) to strictly define capitalism and socialism. Then I ask them if they think “pure” versions of those systems have ever existed.
This time. Nobody went to prison for killing 400 people with MCAS or for lying about it after. And the documents that have come out prove they knew it was a deathtrap. Their own test pilots reported it was unrecoverable.
No it isn’t. You pointed out that the recent news has zero deaths. But it’s just a matter of time until something critical fails and a Boeing falls out of the sky. If we don’t hold them accountable for previous failures, they will not change.
Just like their bigoted positions on LGBTQ+ rights. Like, nobody is forcing you to identify as one. It’s literally as respecting someone to be called John instead of Johnathan.
LEDs are definitely an improvement on an improvement. But I’ll never get why people got angry at bulbs that were cooler, brighter, and cheaper by life expectancy than their old filament bulb counterparts.
Reactance. They didn’t feel like they had a choice.
Only because they weren’t a sizable market share.
CFLs were different and buzzy and the color was off.
Engineering problems that were solved within a few iterations. But by then LEDs that were better and cheaper were hitting the market and the argument became moot.
Now my biggest problem with modern light bulbs is the absurd market-ups relative to what they cost everywhere else on the planet.
Because of Taylor Swift and her american government ties and legion of adoring fans, she not only personly led the Chiefs to tie in the last 3 seconds of the game, which led to an intense over time where Swift herself came on the field in the last few remaining seconds to score a win for her boyfriends team.
It has brought a tear to my eye from the enjoyment. Now i can not wait untill she leads our president on the campaign trial to finally put an end to Trump and his crazed zealots.
My family was wondering why I was so into the Chiefs this year when I never cared about them before. Their overtime win scored me a future basket of free hot wings and a steady stream of Swiftcentric conspiracy theories. Can’t remember being this jazzed about a Superbowl outcome in the past 20 years.
But she forgot to endorse Biden! The Deep State, Nancy Pelosi and Saul Alinsky must not have gotten to her! She’s definitely going to endorse Trump at her next concert!
Now excuse me, I have to go wait for the next Q drop.
Not true, if you take all the shots of her during the game, splice them together in Star Wars machete order (starting with the fourth shot, then the 5th, then the second, adding in The Clone Wars, and so on) and play them back at 1.35927x speed, you can definitely see her mouth something that looks like “Vote Joe Biden.”
If you can’t see it, try reversing the feed at 0.83461x speed while standing on your head instead.
I don’t even think that article adequately conveys how thoroughly racist the roots of it is. They don’t even quote the awful things Anslinger said to justify cannabis prohibition.
“There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others.”
“…the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.”
“Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality, and death.”
“Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.”
“Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing”
“You smoke a joint and you’re likely to kill your brother.”
“Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.”
And then there’s this from Nixon staffer John Ehrlichman:
“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people,” former Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman told Harper’s writer Dan Baum for the April cover story published Tuesday.
“You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” Ehrlichman said. “We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
Remember that part of the Bible where Jesus was like “forget all the old laws, and just focus on the point, being cool to one another” and then gave a speech about the importance of monogamy? Or when he held the last supper, demonstrating a way to worship without needing a fancy temple, and then said “this is my blood, I’m using a simple cup, but you should always use a gold chalice for this part”. Or how he explained you need a relic of a saint (usually a bit of bone) in every altar or the magic won’t work?
Do you remember the part where Jesus claimed he was the one and only child of a deity? Because when I read it, he called himself “the son of man” and called everyone his brothers and sisters
Jesus was born in July. The Roman sun god had a son, who was sacrificed for the sake of humanity. Want to guess when his birthday was?
There’s a reason why it makes no sense. It’s not the religion you think it is
To put it short, he was a guy who led federal officers on a chase through the desert. They didn’t know who he was, but he was stealing from travelers passing through. It wasn’t far from some US government facilities, and this being not long after 9/11, they’re super worried he’s a terrorist.
Spoiler: he was a Canadian who started growing weed to help his wife’s medical issues. He apparently made some primo bud and started selling it. Naturally, he got caught and was thrown in jail. When he got out, he moved out to the desert and tried to survive on his own.
Jail changed him. He became more paranoid and detached from his family, friends, and society. He wasn’t the least bit dangerous until they threw him in prison.
I’m all for legalized marijuana, but going into another country and breaking their laws is never a good idea. There are places in the world that would be a death sentence.
The guy was clearly mentally unstable after he left prison. He never would have done that in the first place otherwise. And he effectively did get a death sentence for it.
Eventually, the couple left Anarchist Mountain and returned to Prince Edward Island, where Rob Johnston had been born and raised. After the birth of her fourth child, Tommi was diagnosed with leukemia and access to medical care became vital. Johnston began cultivating marijuana, discovered he had a knack for it and turned it into a cash crop.
In 1997, when the crop was discovered by Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Johnston was sentenced to two consecutive four-year prison terms. It was then that the couple was legally married, in what Tommi described as an ultimately futile effort on her part to convince him that she would not abandon him.
Probably said “found”, even though it looks like the F was also hand drawn. The person that decided it didn’t sound right could have been just that bad at image editing that they couldn’t drag the F closer, so they just colored the old F black and drew a new F slightly closer to the right place.
Buying Twitter was never about him making money. It was about giving shithead, likeminded assholes, like him, a place to openly spew their vitriol hate speech without fear of bans or repercussions.
Delete your account if you have one; don’t share links to his site and FFS let’s stop allowing hatred to have an open forum or a place within proper society.
It was disrupting the global left’s only “safe” (quotes because Twitter deserved plenty of criticism for even platforming right-wing voices far before the Musk purchase) platform for discussion. Facebook/Meta made a pretty big showing of aligning themselves with the right in the 2016 elections. Twitter was the only major online space for left-leaning individuals to discuss, except maybe Tumblr or Reddit which had a fraction of the users that Twitter did.
Do you think it’s a coincidence that the left-wing bloc (in the US, at least) has become so fractured since the Twitter takeover? It was all by design, Musk and the Saudis who bankrolled him never cared about making money off the platform. When you’ve got $220b, you can waste $40b without noticing.
Not that I ever cared for the site in the first place, but the loss of Twitter in the leftist community and lack of any majorly-adopted replacement will have tremendous impacts on the left’s ability to coordinate action for years to come.
Leftist movements have been continuously attacked, suppressed, and fractured since the '60s (see also: the assassinations of MLK Jr. and Fred Hampton), if not earlier.
Nevertheless, the subversion of Twitter is particularly significant.
Leftist movements have been kept fractured in the US since the start of the 20th century. The lefts accomplishments peaked in the 1930s and 40s with FDRs new deal. And has been on a steady fractured declined since.
It was all by design, Musk and the Saudis who bankrolled him never cared
Their plans failed and backfired on them. Now everybody is on GNUsocial or mastodon. They now created their WORST nightmare: An uncontrollable, distributed and community owned social media.
LMFreakinAO my man. Mastodon has less than 2 million monthly users total. There were random animal fact Twitter accounts with 10x that before. I can’t even find any numbers for GNUsocial but I have a hard time imagining it’s any higher that Mastadon.
He bought it to make it the christofascist heaven on earth.
Before he bought it Twitter was a pretty lefty friendly place, since he took over there, conspiracy theorists and neo-nazi-fascitoid rethoric has took over all the place.
I’ve got banned like two days after he bought it LMAO.
Tbf, to really believe the things that organized religion tells you, you have to be on the wrong side of the IQ bell curve, so it’s not really something they have the ability to avoid.
IQ has very little to do with this. There are some very intelligent people who are also very religious.
A lot of people confuse intelligence with wisdom. If you considered a human mind like a computer, intelligence would correspond to the CPU and RAM, which determine how fast you think and how much memory you have (and how good it is) whereas wisdom is like the software that runs on the computer.
Install shitty software, and the most powerful, fastest computer will just give you shit. Garbage in, garbage out, as they say.
You take a guy like Elon Musk, for example. Clearly intelligent. Definitely not slow. But he’s spectacularly wrong about many things. Because he was not taught right when he was a kid, and he then learned the wrong lessons in life afterwards. Bad software, bad data. Still very intelligent.
Yeah there’s no good data to back up the idea that IQ is correlated with religiosity. Also any time IQ is used as a broad determining factor like “low IQ people shouldn’t be allowed to x” the next step is basically applying the same logic the Nazis would to determine which humans are suitable.
Correct on The Satanic Temple (TST) being non-theistic. While it did start off as trolling, it has coalesced into a religion of its own (much to the chagrin of the nutty christians here), just without the superstition used to coerce people in abrahamic religions.
I would say far less absurd than most other religions. Looking at their tenets, its basically how descent society should function anyway.
I - One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.
II - The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.
III - One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.
IV - The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one’s own.
V - Beliefs should conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one’s beliefs.
VI - People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one’s best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.
VII - Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.
Yeah thats intentional because they made it up to be this then appropriated Satanic imagery to brand and commodify it, that’s the troll aspect of it. The original Church of Satan and them denounce each other, the Church of Satan claims to be the true representative of Satan and includes a lot of the “bad” things Satan represents as well.
They didn't "appropriate" anything. TST's tenets are based around the Lucifer/Satan depicted in Paradise Lost, The Revolt of the Angels, and other Romantic era literary work. In those works, Satan was a rebel overthrowing the yoke of the tyrant and encouraging people to think for themselves and use compassion for others.
The Church of Satan, on the other hand, was established by a megalomaniac magician who based his philosophy on social-Darwinism. His works reek of sexism and elitism, while trying to convince people magic was real.....
They’ve appropriated Satanic imagery and used that literary identity of Satan yes, because it serves the political mission the church was created for. If Christianity didn’t have political influence in the US this church would not have been formed, or would be of a completely different nature.
I just checked the wikipedia page of the church to make sure I was correct and it actually states exactly what I am here. They use Satanic imagery as a political tool and the literary Satan as a metaphor. IE they don’t actually sincerely believe in an actual Satan, unlike the Church of Satan which is sincerely Satanic.
I think that’s why Satanic Temple members dressed in very over-the-top Satanic/goth aesthetic is cringe, because it’s done in this hyperreal ironic context and not actually sincere. Like it’s not borne of their own agency and preferences but centered around stereotypes that offend Christians, or created by Christians entirely. A lot of what’s associated with Satan and being adopted here are rooted in completely racist and false depictions of Paganism for instance.
I would encourage you to broaden your research beyond Wikipedia. While it is a great jumping off point for many things, it is not a credible source in any academic or judicial sense. Lucien Greaves has some some very on-point statements in the court cases he's been involved in detailing how TST is a genuine religion.
I think you're getting too hung up on your idea that it is "centered around stereotypes that offend Christians," which it is not. There is deliberately no standard for how to practice, and you will find many that identify as Satanist have had past experiences with Wicca, Paganism, and other non-theistic/mono-theistic religions. They bring those past experiences to their personal practices and rituals, which is hardly appropriating or as you said, "cringe."
they don’t actually sincerely believe in an actual Satan, unlike the Church of Satan which is sincerely Satanic.
I don't see why you keep trying to compare the two, they are entirely different religions. In this context then would you say Buddhists are appropriating the image of the Buddha? They do not see him as their "god," yet they use his image and name whenever they refer to themselves.
A lot of western Buddhism is Buddhist in the same way Satanic Temple is Satanist. IE it’s contingent and determined by the hegemonic cultural ideologies that are manufacturing it in to an identity available for consumption in an individualist capitalist context. Appropriated and removed from the context it originated and defined itself within.
It’s similar with certain Pagan groups, because Paganism was absorbed into Christendom, so what’s happening is people are manufacturing this modern notion of what Paganism was, completely removed from the conditions it existed in. And as you say there’s no standard, which is entirely the point I’m making, it’s up to the individual to construct their identity around it and decide “what it means for me.” That’s entirely different than the mode of traditional identity which was fulfilled by your role in the society, handed to you and determined. Now it’s a modern notion of authentic identity where you “discover me” and decide what that is. That’s why these pseudo-religious roles people claim cannot be genuine, the time and context they existed in are gone, and it’s now a form of packaging ideals that already exist in our culture in to a mode of commodification.
The tenants of the Satanic Temple are basically the hegemony of our modern culture, individual liberty etc. Satan as historically depicted provides the iconography, used in an ironic metaphorical sense, appropriated from the context from which it originated, commodified and consumed. That’s why I use the term hyperreal to describe it, because it’s a notion of something reflected back on itself through modes of representation.
It seems like you both basically agree and are just arguing at each other without trying to understand each other.
Church of Satan = Worships a concept of Satan, pretty much invented by "Anton LaVey" to get laid and get paid; by all accounts it worked. He wanted it to be the inverse of Christianity. Largely based on the idealogies of Nietzsche, Rand, and social darwinism with many of the actual rituals inspired by LaVeys love of H.P. Lovecraft.
The Satanic Temple = secular activist group that uses satanic imagery to agitate for civil rights/secularism/separation of church and state/etc. They refer to the literary concept of Satan as opposed to the literal Fallen Angel Lucifer.
Yup that’s exactly it, everything I’ve said about the TST here is what I’ve read from their own “About Us” page so it’s funny to me that I’m getting debate-bro’d and downvoted for it. Someone even called it a “pretend religion” to me which means it wouldn’t even be able to challenge these discrimination laws in court. Calling someone’s religion “pretend” would actually be discrimination.
It’s absurd this is necessary to accomplish that yes. Like in order to challenge religion you have to make up an opposite religion and go through the motions, that’s absolutely absurd.
It’s also hilarious how the original Church of Satan and the Satanic Temple have denounced each other’s legitimacy as the true representation of Satan. The Church of Satan recognizes a bunch of the “bad” ideas associated with Satan and basically calls the Temple pussies. Then the Temple calls them outdated and irrelevant. It’s just like Christian sects but it’s more absurd because the Temple was constructed to oppose Christian political influence, the Satanic branding is supposed to be a troll to shock pearl clutching Christians. I actually agree with the Church of Satan because of this, because the Temple’s appropriation of Satanic imagery is basically done in jest.
Our pasta, who art in a colander, draining be your noodles. Thy noodle come, Thy sauce be yum, on top some grated Parmesan. Give us this day, our garlic bread, …and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trample on our lawns. And lead us not into vegetarianism, but deliver us some pizza, for thine is the meatball, the noodle, and the sauce, forever and ever. R’amen.
Man, I love threads about the TST, because there’s always people like you who absolutely shit themselves over any mention of them, and write small novels about how stupid they are.
Likewise I think it’s ironic that people who are against religion and it’s political influence will flip when there’s a religion exerting a good influence. Within the right moral and political context, a religion is deemed good and shouldn’t be understood critically.
I don’t think it’s ironic, I think it’s fighting fire with fire. People see that religion is afforded a lot of leeway that isn’t afforded to other similar organizations, and they want to use that for a good cause of a change.
Exactly that’s why it can work, the system by design requires this appeal to religion, so religious causes are manufactured ad-hoc like this to fulfill political goals. The idea of religion being a political influence is accepted by people who are against religion if it’s a good cause, as long as it’s in the context of being against a bad religious cause. The irony is they hold secularism as a tenant of the religion yet function the same as a traditional religion does in the political sense, and they’re required to do this because of how the system works.
Yeah well, since the government and society is unfortunately infested by religion, you have two choices: you either do some actual good by pretending to be a religion, or you whine about it online.
You don’t think TST is a real religion… what would a real religion be then? I criticize this whole context of how religion operates in government and the absurdity of religions needing to be purpose-built like this, but I definitely wouldn’t go so far to call them a pretend religion. I suspect a lot of TST members sincerely believe in the tenants, it’s no less manufactured than other religions really. It’s just manufactured in this post-political postmodern neoliberal context vs something like Mormonism or the Adventists that were manufactured in a different context. I think that’s why you’re calling it a pretend religion, but I would say this is maybe more like genuine pretending. To call it pretend like you have is way harsher than anything I’ve said about it, you’re basically saying it’s all a ruse and the adherents are all just knowingly faking it for show, which would mean they couldn’t legitimately challenge laws as a religion. Like you’ve invalidated the whole church by saying that, at least I recognize it’s a legitimate religion.
Well, they’re not trying to manipulate their members for power over them and profit, and/or they’re not trying to get them to believe in the supernatural, so they’re clearly not a real religion.
I suspect a lot of TST members sincerely believe in the tenants
Good, they are very good tenants to live by, I salute them. I try to do so myself.
To call it pretend like you have is way harsher than anything I’ve said about it, you’re basically saying it’s all a ruse and the adherents are all just knowingly faking it for show,
Why would it be harsh? That’s something you inferred, not something I said.
I personally don’t think pretending to be a religion is a bad thing, it’s a necessary thing. You seem to be projecting a lot of you own opinions onto what I actually said.
which would mean they couldn’t legitimately challenge laws as a religion.
How so? What qualifications do you have to decide which religions are allowed to be recognized under law?
What qualifications do you have to decide which religions are allowed to be recognized under law?
A political lobbying organization masquerading as a religion would run in to issues with it’s tax exemption status and potentially not fall under Title VII as a protected religious belief, which is what a lot of challenges to these laws are filed under re: workplace discrimination. This is something that religions are very careful about and intentionally work around. So when you say it’s a “pretend religion” you’re basically saying it’s adherents aren’t really religious. Courts actually do care about whether someone truly believes in a religion, because someone’s supposed religious beliefs are often appealed for why someone is a “good person,” or to establish whether discrimination actually took place. The law doesn’t share the same arbitrary definition of religion you have unfortunately, here’s what has to be appealed to for laws to be challenged in reality:
…religion typically concerns “ultimate ideas” about “life, purpose, and death.” Social, political, or economic philosophies, as well as mere personal preferences, are not “religious” beliefs protected by Title VII.
If you were filing a lawsuit like the one in the article and you professed it was a “pretend religion” your case would be thrown out, that’s why what you said is harsh because the implications of that invalidate it’s validity and effectiveness to challenge these laws.
Well, it doesn’t really matter since my definition of religion is not what the laws use.
So when you say it’s a “pretend religion” you’re basically saying it’s adherents aren’t really religious.
I say it’s a pretend religion because they’re not trying to manipulate their members for power over them and profit, and/or they’re not trying to get them to believe in the supernatural.
This is clearly different from the law’s misunderstanding of what a religion is, as pointed out by yourself:
"Courts actually do care about whether someone truly believes in a religion, because someone’s supposed religious beliefs are often appealed for why someone is a “good person,…”
If you were filing a lawsuit like the one in the article and you professed it was a “pretend religion” your case would be thrown out,
Fortunately for the lawsuit, it wouldn’t because the definition of religion the court uses and mine if different.
If you called someone’s religion “pretend” in the workplace it would count as discrimination under Title VII which is the famous Civil Rights Act of 1964, it doesn’t matter what your personal definition is I’m talking about reality here.
I’ve called the context the religion was formed in absurd (not a judgement because modern culture is absurd), and said the Church of Satan has effectively called them pussies (it has), but have not called the TST or it’s adherent’s stupid. Absurd doesn’t mean stupid. Everything else is just from their own About Us page, which is mostly what people are disagreeing with here, which is funny cause I’m literally just saying what they say about themselves and getting debate-bro’d for it.
Also calling someone’s religion stupid is perfectly fine if you don’t discriminate based on that or harass them in person. I was just surprised you said TST was a pretend religion cause the only way they’re effective in challenging laws is being a real religion, like that’s a harsh way to undermine them. The made up definition to amend that statement having no basis in real law is irrelevant. You can’t defend TST and believe they’re pretending, I merely think it’s absurd they have to sincerely believe a religion to challenge these absurd religious laws, but you think they aren’t even really religious.
I’ve called the context the religion was formed in absurd (not a judgement because modern culture is absurd), and said the Church of Satan has effectively called them pussies (it has), but have not called the TST or it’s adherent’s stupid.
I was just surprised you said TST was a pretend religion cause the only way they’re effective in challenging laws is being a real religion, like that’s a harsh way to undermine them.
Undermine them? What?
Okay. I’ll accept that I’m undermining them if you show me 1 (one) court case I have lost for the TST by saying they are not a real religion. I’ll wait.
The made up definition to amend that statement having no basis in real law is irrelevant.
The definition was from an earlier comment where I explained it. Not my problem you didn’t pay attention.
You can’t defend TST and believe they’re pretending
I can, and will.
But okay. Let’s say you’re correct. Let’s say you can only challenge laws and institutions like these by sincerely help religious beliefs.
Show me the test to determine if a belief is sincerely held.
It doesn’t matter if your belief is sincerely held or not, the courts have to treat religions equally, which is what the TST is here for.
Yeah there’s actually been interesting stuff around this lately because people have claimed to have sincerely held religious beliefs re: mandatory COVID-19 vaccination exceptions. In cases like that the definitions of “sincerely held” are very relevant and questioned by the court.
Here’s some case law where a court found a plaintiff did not hold a religious belief sincerely. I pasted the relevant section here, states actually have definitions around what constitutes religious creeds/religion/sincerely held belief. If you Google these phrases with “case law” you’ll find much examples.
The administrative agency charged with enforcing the FEHA, the Fair Employment and Housing Commission, has also enacted a regulation defining “religious creed.” California Code of Regulations, title 2, section 7293.1 (regulation 7293.1), defines “religious creed” as follows: “ ‘Religious creed’ includes any traditionally recognized religion as well as beliefs, observations, or practices which an individual sincerely holds and which occupy in his or her life a place of importance parallel to that of traditionally recognized religions.” Consistent with regulation 7293.1, plaintiff argues that his commitment to a vegan lifestyle occupies a place in his life parallel to that of traditionally recognized religions. Regulation 7293.1, by its express terms, reflects the notion that religious creed extends beyond traditionally recognized religions to encompass beliefs, observations, or practices occupying a parallel place of importance “to that of traditionally recognized religions” in an individual’s life. As will be discussed later, that concept of religion originates from two United States Supreme Court cases involving conscientious objection to military service-United States v. Seeger (1965) 380 U.S. 163, 164-188, 85 S.Ct. 850, 13 L.Ed.2d 733, and Welsh v. United States (1970) 398 U.S. 333, 335-344, 90 S.Ct. 1792, 26 L.Ed.2d 308.
Like the folks who got a pass to wear a colander on their head for their driver's license photo because they're Pastafarian. It's happened at leasttwice
That’s the Church of Satan, the Satanic Temple and them deny the legitimacy of each other. The Church of Satan accepts all of Satan’s supposed ideology even the “bad” things, and the Satanic Temple was basically constructed as a “good” alternative/challenge to Christian political influence from a logical positivist perspective with individualism and neoliberal ideology commodified and branded with Satanic iconography. It’s all pretty stupid IMO, aside from the way they can mount legal challenges. The fact they need to exist to do this is absurd but it is what it is I guess.
Iirc TST doesn’t deny anything about, or really ever mention CoS. CoS doesn’t like TST because of the same reasons you listed (basically they don’t like being conflated or associated with TST, cus their super cereal).
I personally love the absurdity of TST, and heavily believe in their mission/philosophies. Lucian Graves has some issues, but overall they track overwhelmingly on the side of good. Am also a lifelong gothy metal kid so the aesthetic also pleases me.
TST doesn’t deny anything about, or really ever mention CoS.
It’s right at the top section of their About Us page which provides a link to this long article about the difference, complete with infographics.
And yeah they’ve branded it with those aesthetics as opposed to cottagecore or something soft, so it can have the affect that serves the idea of what the church is the best.
Why would you assume anything? The answer is provided in the article itself. Why can so few people be arsed to read the information provided before leaping to an attempt at pithy commentary?
The group … views Satan not as a supernatural being but as “a literary figure that represents a metaphorical construct of rejecting tyranny over the human mind and spirit.” The club’s programs, they say, focus on “science, critical thinking, creative arts, and good works for the community.”
(Boldface mine. “science” comes to us from Latin’s “scientia”: knowledge)
The irony of assuming something instead of learning/confirming it from the information provided, as regards an article about an organization whose stated focus is on knowledge and critical thinking, is disappointing.
Tbf they’re using one of the internet’s laws to their favour. I forgot the name, so I’ll do the same thing and call it Godwin’s law: when you want to know something you post an incorrect answer (or in this case not knowing the answer, they basically wrote the right answer) and someone will correct you soon enough.
It’s lazy tbh, but it helps in case you don’t know how deep the rabbit hole is gonna be and don’t have the mental capacity or time to invest in it. This is specially relevant to people who have ADHD or other similar attention disorders.
P.S. I did end up looking up the actual name of the law and it’s Cunningham’s law, so I corrected myself in this case.
Godwin’s Law: As an online discussion grows longer (regardless of topic or scope), the probability of a comparison to Nazis or Adolf Hitler approaches 1.
Cunningham’s Law: The best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question, it’s to post the wrong answer.
Similar story in New York. A friend of mine worked for the 911 calling center. Someone would call and claim that there was a murder at the local Planned Parenthood office. By law, police/fire/EMS had to respond every time. The operators would tell the caller that they were diverting resources from actual emergencies, but they kept it up. iirc the DA’s office eventually got involved and they tracked the caller down.
I’m in New York also and a friend had to deal with a fake CPS call. There was another person (let’s call her B) who had an actual issue reported to CPS involving abuse and drug/alcohol abuse around young kids. CPS started to take the kids away from B.
Then my friend had a report filed against her. We’re pretty sure that the report was filed by B as revenge because B thought that my friend was the one who filed the report.
My friend complied with the search of her residence and showed that she wasn’t mistreating her kids in any way. Still, it was frightening because there was still a chance that CPS could walk out saying that they were taking her kids.
And they suck and are stupid. Hate to sound crazy, but I’m tired of their fight fire with fire rhetoric. I just want them to realize how inept they sound.
With all that money they saved not paying people they were able to install those overpriced cooler doors that is supposed to simply display the product behind them! (Which is usually wrong or out of stock at least at my locations)
Those also likely led to an advertisement revenue to help keep stores profitable.
While late stage capitalism is the source of most problems, it isn’t (primarily) the source of this one.
The issue is that healthcare in general is a hellscape. You are at the mercy of whatever tucker carlson and friends said this week. And pharmacists not only have to deal with the opiate problems but also get to add birth control, hormone therapy, and vaccines to that mix.
I was chatting with the one pharmacist at the local CVS a few weeks back when I got my boosters. It already took until an hour after my appointment until he had time to give me my two jabs. In that time he vaccinated three people, got screamed at by one person for “giving kids aids”, had to fix three forms that the counter attendant fucked up, had to get at least two people’s emergency medication, and deal with someone who was insisting that “I am a (f-slur) and cut my dick off five times last year. That is why I have these six different prescriptions and you are a racist if you ask to see my ID”.
He is pretty young so he still interacts with his university a lot. And nobody he knows is going into pharmacy. Because the pay is not that good and it is now the worst of all worlds. you get the customer facing hell of being a nurse coupled with the debt of being a “real” doctor.
Maybe they can get paid more (and they should). But it doesn’t impact the lack of supply. And considering how many people are bailing on “general” medicine as a whole in exchange for specialized fields and practices because of “The Culture War”? You need to pay a WHOLE lot more for that.
I’ve restored to shaming people out loud for treating the pharmacy staff like shit and wasting my time while I wait in line. They just get flustered that someone would talk back to them and shut up.
Having done the service industry shit briefly in the past: Having a bit of support is always nice. But that is also how you escalate a customer who is “venting” into a Waffle House Royale. And considering how chuds have a tendency to be armed and looking for an excuse to unload on everyone…
It’s a shame how many adults can’t show any compassion or empathy to service workers. I’m with you that shaming them risks making things worse. All they need is for someone to report them to corporate because another customer escalated things.
I usually just try to show them I noticed the other person being rude and to let the worker know it’s not their fault. I went to the pharmacy to get the latest Covid booster right after the other branch across town closed. Even though it’s the same company in the same town, they didn’t automatically transfer anyone’s prescriptions, so the people that didn’t know the sure e was closed were all yelling at the workers. They were extremely patient with the customers, much better than I could be.
When I finally got my shot, I thanked the pharmacist and jokingly asked her if she wanted me to yell at her on my way out so I wouldn’t mess up her flow of dealing with rude people. She had a good laugh and was happy to get someone that acknowledged she was busting her butt trying to help as much as she could. I couldn’t make her situation any better, but I at least could recognize her effort.
I’ve thought about them a lot since then, and I hope they get what they need from the walkout. Nobody deserves to get treated like that.
Those doors are seriously the stupidest 'innovation' I've seen, other than the gas pumps that constantly play ads. I have no desire to be forced to open the door to see what is actually in there.
Pro tip- keep a skewer or similar device in your sleeve to poke through the speaker so you don’t have to hear the ads- it will look like you’re pressing buttons
And me, a hospice nurse, waiting on hold on the phone for 20-30 minutes to see if any of those people can tell me if they have any Roxanol in stock for my patient actively dying of bone cancer.
I live in one of the highest population cities in the US, and can confirm that they’re ghost towns most of the time. 1 pharm, maybe 1 tech, and 1-2 cashiers/floaters restocking shelves.
I literally only go there for vaccinations at this point.
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