Watering Hole: Monday, February 13, 2012 – Emphatic Civilization (updated) OR Empathic Civilization

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This is our Open Thread.  What do you think?  Is it possible for us to further evolve?  Speak Up!

164 thoughts on “Watering Hole: Monday, February 13, 2012 – Emphatic Civilization (updated) OR Empathic Civilization”

  1. I found this late last night. If you click through to Youtube, it says that the video is ‘unlisted’. I saw a clip on Raw Story, and the address was at the top of the clip. By not using the name of the show, they are making it difficult to search and have removed.

    http://realtimecomedy.blogspot.com/

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  2. Phenomenal post Cat’s. This underscores and broadens my scope of awareness. Some parts of this concept, learned through experience, I have employed over the years, this adds much more. Thanks!

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    • Raven

      Forgive me if you’ve been using that avatar for a while, but I just noticed it this morning. I take it the bird at the beginning is an Auk? Which would make your avatar say “Auk-u-pi” (Occupy)?

      I’m testing my puzzle skills out. 🙂

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      • You are highly skilled Wayne! I just put it on this morning, I’m working on a “work safe” T-shirt design for the summer.
        I can make a statement without the average left-brained right-tard having a clue.

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  3. Geeez… Are Republicans actually representatives of a separate alien species deriving their genes from the corporate people? Was/is there any cross species breeding going on?

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  4. I do have a question Cat’s, do you mean to use the word emphatic in the title?
    It works, in that we need emphasis on the concept of empathy…

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    • And that’s why we need to rethink our gun laws. The first step might be to dispense with the term “accidental shooting” and replace it with “negligent shooting”. Said negligent shootings should be treated at least as seriously as a DUI. This guy should have his permit yanked pending investigation and, if he sticks by his claims that he didn’t know the weapon was loaded, he should never get it back or be allowed to own guns again. Period!

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    • When Fox News anchor Eric Shawn said that “many would say that they need to be protected,” Trotta replied: “That’s funny, I thought the mission of the” armed forces “was to defend and protect us, not the people who were fighting the war.”

      Yeah, fuck the troops — especially the girl troops.

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    • Well, the answer to this is a draft. The armed services need more “moral conservatives” who are underrepresented in the enlisted ranks.

      I’d lay odds that sexual assaults would go up proportionally to any increase of conservative leaning soldiers..

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      • Trotta says:

        And the sexual abuse report says that there has been, since 2006, a 64% increase in violent sexual assaults. Now, what did they expect?

        Huh!? I expect the men in the military to keep their pants on and their hands to themselves just like in every other part of society. What gives military men the right to rape and go uncharged?

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  9. Some interesting “facts” that I learned from my mother, the fox news watcher, upon my last visit to her:

    George Soros is behind the Occupy movement… those DFH’s are being fed by Soros.
    Bill O’Reilly is a god.
    That all of this hoopla about “condoms and such” (meaning the latest contraception dustup) is just a distraction to keep people from seeing the real Obama and the bad job that he is doing.

    I told mom that if she liked the care she received while she was in the hospital and if she wanted her kids to have the same care when we got old, then she should vote for Democrats, because Republican policies will destroy Medicare and none of her kids will have it when they are old since we are all under 55. Her stay at the hospital and now at the rehab hospital has costs upwards of $100K. This lady is a former school teacher. No way would she be alive today without Medicare.

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    • From LGF:

      Update:Fox News Makes Racist Comment Thread Disappear
      What right wing racism?
      Charles Johnson
      WINGNUTS • Mon Feb 13, 2012 at 11:30 am PST • Views: 4,356
      I’m not surprised to see this; Fox News has now made the entire comment thread for their Whitney Houston article disappear: Singer Whitney Houston Dies at 48 | Fox News.

      It was probably easier to just trash the whole thing than try to moderate 5000 comments full of racial slurs. I’ll bet somebody at Fox News is pretty pissed off at me today.

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  11. Excellent video, Cats. It gives me a certain amount of hope.

    On the other hand, this video demonstrates clearly how things went wrong in a religious nutcase/teabagger sort of way.

    It boils down to this: We learn what we live — but we are teachable. I hope.

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  12. Sweet Jebus. Some freak was on Ed Schulz making the case that Sanitarium is the only “conservative” left in the race and that the GOP can’t “make the same mistake they made in 2008” by nominating a “moderate”. I guess he missed the part about Sanitarium being stark, raving, mad.

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      • When my 2nd wife and I took my two daughters from my 1st marriage to a drive in movie (1972!) the girls got into and argument over some candy. When the 3 year old yelled her 5 year old sister’s name and said “you cocksucker, give me my candy back” I knew there was only one place they were getting it from – a coal miner’s daughter from southwestern Pennsylvania, their mother.

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    • The likes of Willard, Neut and pRick don’t really care what happens to women. They should read, no should be made to observe the saving of her life.

      Thanks for that link, Outstanding.

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  15. Thanks for the video, Cats. I am trying to absorb everything I’ve been learning about the conservative brain and how/why it thinks the way it does.

    We know that kindergarten kids who act as bullies toward their classmates tend to grow up to be conservative, while those that enjoyed sharing their toys with others grew p to be liberals.

    We know that there are physiological differences in the brains of liberals and conservatives.

    We know that because of these differences, conservatives are more afraid of people who are different, while liberals tend to be more open to new things and new people.

    We know that people who are less intelligent tend to gravitate toward a conservative point of view while people who are smarter than average tend to be liberal adults.

    It’s unclear to scientists if the political orientation causes the physiological differences, or of the physiological differences account for the political ones. (My guess is the latter.)

    And now we know that Empathy is needed if our species is to continue to survive, and we’ve always observed that conservatives tend to be less empathetic than liberals.

    So, we have a lot of teaching to do if we are ever going to win the struggle for survival.

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    • Your comment made me think of the movie Gran Torino. Clint Eastwood begins the movie as a hateful bigot and then does a turn around and gives his life for the very people that he once hated. It appears that his character learned to care for others. A similar change occurred to the main character in Million Dollar Baby which was based on a true story.

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  16. Repubs cave on payroll tax extension and blame everything on the “stonewalling and obstructionism” of the Democrats. That’s just so convincing, guys. h/t TP

    “Because the president and Senate Democratic leaders have not allowed their conferees to support a responsible bipartisan agreement, today House Republicans will introduce a backup plan that would simply extend the payroll tax holiday for the remainder of the year while the conference negotiations continue regarding offsets, unemployment insurance, and the ‘doc fix.’ If Democrats continue to refuse to negotiate in good faith, Republicans may schedule this measure for House consideration later this week pending a conversation with our members. Democrats’ refusal to agree to any spending cuts in the conference committee has made it necessary for us to prepare this fallback option to protect small business job creators and ensure taxes don’t go up on middle class workers.

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    • But did you notice that they’re giving President Obama exactly what he asked for – a clean bill extending the payroll tax cut with no strings attached? They just can’t bring themselves to admit that Obama was right and they were wrong.

      Besides holding some other bill hostage to Keystone XL , I wonder what other shit they’ll pull?

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        • Part of the deal, I think, was that they were going to work out the “pay fors” later. Somewhere along the line, they’ll find something else to hold hostage so they can push their ill-advised ideology.

          Remember, they don’t care about truth and their followers are too unintelligent to know if what they say is true anyway. But they can sure make it sound like it is. Too many people on the right are too willing to accept what their leaders tell them, and to not question it. (Like pete (?) (I’m using the WP feature of replying from the bar at the top and not going to the post; my own WP blog is up right now) said above, they’re Authoritarians, so they won’t question Mitch McTurtle.) THAT is probably going to be our biggest challenge in winning elections in the future.

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  19. Oh why don’t you get off my f***ing lawn Gramps.

    Yes you and Bloody Bill Kristol deposited the pustule that is Bible Spice into the body politic. I know that she has flown her true colours now and is trying to eek every last dollar from any remaining Teabagger rube there is willing to fork over dosh to her, but still, the legacy of her vapid, rabid, bigoted idiocy will long outlive her ’15 minutes’.

    ‘No regrets’ ? – really? You’ve cashed in on your ’15 mins’ for the last 30 years – get yourself a golf cart and pair of ugly pants and farm yourself out to Sun City for good please John.

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      • That’s right – time to ‘render unto Caesar’ – or the IRS, whoever comes first.

        Again: doesn’t allowing exemption from certain laws on religious grounds establish religion as much as legislating for religion?

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        • Yes! I still think that we need a Constitutional Amendment that would forbid anyone who cites their Faith, as justification for policy, from holding public office. And it just makes me crazy that the same people who demanded a proclamation from JFK, that he reassure everyone he wouldn’t rule by faith, are now demanding that a POTUS allow the Catholic church to dictate policy.

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    • I remember when both politics and religion were not considered appropriate topics for polite casual conversation and were considered private matters.

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      • Exactly! Those are the days that I miss. Our family didn’t attend church but the only time anyone even asked me about it was a gal in my junior year of high school who invited me to attend a Bible study group. I politely declined and the subject never came up again. By the time I was managing a restaurant in the 1990’s I actually had parents force their kids to quit rather than work for an atheist.

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        • And just where are these “kids” today? I have a cousin that was or maybe still is an evangelical christian. He and his wife would leave their 3 children at home in the evening while they went to bible studies and learned how to “speak in tongues”. The oldest child was about 9 years old. Needless to say, there was massive rebellion when these children reached the age of 17.

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          • If my Old Man and Old Lady left me every night to go play ‘tonsil hockey’ at ‘church’ (yeah right?)…. I’d have taken to a life of crime and substance experimentation…

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            • My old man would periodically say he was going to choir practice, and instead go meet his mistress at The Elbow Room. The choir would always give him a pass for missing practice, and Sundays he’d be up there all righteous like.

      • Mitt hasn’t had to really go negative on Rick yet. The last three (or so) races were more beauty contests and Mitt didn’t spend much on them.

        Will be interesting to see how bad it gets once Mitt goes full GOP (negative) on Ricky. Negative ads work, unfortunately.

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          • And, just like when he was with Bain, he’ll do anything in his power to get what he wants. Back in the Bain days, he wanted money. So he didn’t care who had to lose their job (or their investments) for that to happen. As long as Mitt won.

            Same here. He doesn’t care how much he has to spend or how negative he has to go. He wants to bury his opponents. First Newt, and now Rick.

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        • I’ve read a number of blog pieces that suggest going negative on Sanitorium won’t be as simple as it was with Newter. For one thing, he’s not as instantly unlikeable as Newter and he doesn’t have the same track record of readily-identifiable bad behavior. He’s also the last real hope for the Far Right alternative to Rmoney. Much of what we would consider extremely negative ideas and opinions is stuff they lap up. Rmoney has claimed that Rick is the ultimate Washington insider, but the jerk has been out of office for quite a few years and he hasn’t been tied to the high finance/lobbying jobs that might tick off the Tea Potty.

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          • I think we just need to highlight the shit that comes out of his mouth in connection with his belief system. At some point, even moderates toward the conservative side will back off of him.

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        • Did you let out more than you intended?
          I was going to say something about abstinence educated children left alone at home, but I didn’t.

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  22. Pardon me a moment, I need a safe place. My niece, the 35 y.o. Leukemia survivor who has (effectively) never worked a day in her life, always lived at home, enjoys medical coverage only because both of her parents are State of CA employees, has rather tipped the balance of what I can patiently endure by “Liking” Focus on the Family on FB.

    FB is a critical avenue of communication between myself and my family. However

    AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    I appreciate your patience and understanding.

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    • Tell her somebody must have hacked into her account and “Liked” Fukus as a Family (or whatever they call themselves that has nothing to do with reality). Tell her you know this because no intelligent person would ever do such a thing knowingly. Tell her you’re sure that either she accidentally did it or she was hacked. No other explanation can possibly explain why someone would like a bunch of lying bastards who think they know what’s best for you.

      Either she’ll justify her decision and never speak to you again, or she’ll Unlike it.

      Hey, I never claimed to be helpful 🙂

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      • She’ll never unlike it. She’d have to be capable of something which might — by some reckless stretch of the imagination — be recognizable as intelligence or integrity in the first place. And were that actually there, even as a potential (there’s a metaphysical joke there, by the bye) she wouldn’t have liked it in the first place.

        For the time, I keep narrowing the number of her infantile spews that show up on my FB newsfeed.

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      • Yeah, per above, I just try to limit her inputs into my world, since nothing I do will ever influence hers. (Yet I do need to maintain contact with my family, most especially her mother — my sister — and father.)

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  26. It’s kinda weird. EVERYBODY is talking about Whitney Houston and everybody is assuming that she was killed by drugs. I haven’t heard a single person opine that she may have just suffered a heat attack. She was found in a hot tub and they can kill. She could have had a heart condition that may or may not have been exacerbated by substance abuse. She could have been suffering from pneumonia or any number of other cardiac and/or respiratory ailments.

    Lord knows that far too many great talents have, indeed, been killed by their excesses but I can’t recall an instance where every person discussing the death of a celebrity doesn’t even consider that there may have been another cause.

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    • Well, it is pretty safe assumption, but I’d prefer to wait for the coroner’s report. The 24 hour news cycle just has to have SOMETHING to say about EVERYTHING.

      The sad thing is, if it turns out that she had a brain hemorrhage or a sudden heart attack, no one will ever remember that cause of death. They’ll remember what’s being said now.

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      • Agreed. It’s hardly a stretch to assume that someone with a documented history of substance abuse was killed by substances. What I’m talking about is that no one is even bothering qualifying their proclamations. This case seems a bit different. There just doesn’t seem to be a camp, as there was when Michael Jackson and Amy Winehouse died, that is even holding out a hope that there may be some other explanation. Then there’s the hot tub angle.

        When one looks at the history of hot tubs there’s some reason for doubt. Perfectly healthy people, and those with undiagnosed medical conditions, have suddenly died in hot tubs.

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    • Trust me, don’t look at this unless you have a strong stomach. There are a couple of follow-ups above this. All about the racist assholes at Fox News website, the subsequent attacks on LGF for daring to expose them and to accuse him and other liberals of planting them, and finally Fox News removing all the vile shit they had previously ignored.

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      • I’ve seen some of them and they are truly nauseating. That’s part of the reason for my original post. It just seems like the racist Reichwhiners have seized upon her death as an opportunity to denigrate anyone who has suffered from substance abuse, except Reichwhiners, and “libruls” in general.

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  28. My dog is so silly, and her eyesight is failing quickly. She started going nuts when she saw my upstairs neighbor walking something with a leash. Then she realized it was a big orange CAT, and abruptly turned around and started sniffing the grass. It was like turning off a switch!

    Cats simply do not exist for my Honeybump…well, as soon as she realizes it’s a cat. 😉

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