Journal JustAnotherOldGuy's Journal: I lost a good friend today 5
I lost a good friend today. No, he didn't die.
He's white, he votes Republican, he's an evangelical, and he supports Trump. I should stress that he's not a dumb guy- he's highly educated, speaks multiple languages, has traveled the world and he's lived abroad. He's married to a Taiwanese woman. He's not your typical uneducated Trump supporter.
In fact, I respect him quite a bit (or used to, anyway).
Due to all the Trump inspired-nonsense the last 4 years, I've distanced myself and withdrawn from him in the last year. I finally decided it was time to talk with him and see where we both stood. To make a long story short it was a total disaster. TOTAL. FUCKING. DISASTER.
I asked him if he was going to get the vaccine. He said no, and I asked why. Here's where the conversation went. The following are all things he told me:
1) The vaccines are fake, none of them are real and none of them work. He "knows" this because his dad used to be a doctor. (Apparently he inherited the doctor gene and knows all about stuff like this without having to go to med school. Plus there's "lots of stuff on Youtube" that proves it.)
2) There's no racism in America, just maybe a few "isolated incidents". Basically his position boiled down to, "If Black people just listened to the cops and complied...."
3) The election was stolen. Dominion stole it, Smartmatic stole it, Communists stole it, democrats stole it, there was "widespread fraud everywhere", etc etc etc, and Joe Biden is not the legitimately elected president.
4) The earth is only a few thousand years old, not billions of years. He knows this because he researched it.
5) Evolution is completely false, and he knows this "because he checked."
6) Hilary Clinton sold all our uranium to the Russians. (She didn't, even Fox News debunked this.)
7) The people who stormed the Capitol were antifa/BLM/socialists etc etc. "Only a few" Trump supporters were there and they were "helping the police" to keep order. All the crazy, violent people there were pretending to be Trump supporters "but we know who they really were."
8) Everyone's DNA traces back to one woman in Bethlehem. (No, it doesn't.)
9) The pandemic was "mostly fake", and it was totally "planned" by the democrats, the Chinese, and the Deep State. Sure, some people died but not 570,000.
10) Trump never lied about anything. Maybe he exaggerated "a few times" but he never lied.
11) He voted for Trump twice. He voted for Trump this time because "the last 4 years went pretty well" and he didn't see any problems with Trump's presidency. None, zero, zip. "Everything went great under Trump."
12) Universal healthcare is "a communist/socialist plot to destroy the country." If we get universal healthcare, no one will become a doctor because they won't be able to make any money and healthcare will become virtually non-existent.
13) Despite what it says in Exodus 21 and all the other pro-slavery passages, the Bible doesn't actually advocate for slavery because "in the old days some of the Hebrew words meant something different" than what they mean now. Yes, that was his explanation.
14) Kids in cages? It their fault or their parent's fault and Obama started it anyway. It's too bad but if they have to be put in cages, so be it.
There was more, but the sad fact is that he and I don't share enough reality to be friends anymore. Honestly, I was gobsmacked. I wouldn't have been a bit surprised if he had said the Earth was flat. I thought I knew him, but obviously I didn't.
He wants to still be friends but I would have to just ignore allllllllllllll the crazy shit he believes, and not contradict him on any of it or push back. That's not something I can agree to, sorry, no fuckin' way.
It would be okay if he didn't vote (and thereby affect public policy), but he does and I can't be okay with that. In the end, political differences are moral differences, and despite his claiming the moral high ground as a believer and an evangelical, he's a monster. A friendly, well-educated monster who would put your kids in cages if Donald Trump told him to.
So, we're done. I don't hate him, I'm repulsed and disappointed in him. I can't hang out with someone like this, I just can't. It's like you know a guy for years, and then one day you show up unannounced and find him wearing a Klan uniform while raping a little kid.
He traded his country (and my friendship) for a red hat. I hope it was worth it.
Can you steel man his arguments? (Score:2)
What would his arguments sound like if you gave him the benefit of the doubt, and made the strongest case for what he really means, versus semantically what he said?
Not saying he's right on anything or everything, but it really doesn't seem like you have spent any time trying to deeply understand his positions.
Do you think there are things you believe that he thinks is "crazy shit"?
What if you're the baddie?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
What would his arguments sound like if you gave him the benefit of the doubt, and made the strongest case for what he really means, versus semantically what he said?
What he really means (in many cases) would directly contradict every bit of science I've learned in the last 60 years. For example, no science anywhere indicates the Earth is 6000 years old, and I can't ignore enough reality to make that seem reasonable. I just can't. But show me some proof and I'll change my mind.
Not saying he's right on anything or everything, but it really doesn't seem like you have spent any time trying to deeply understand his positions.
I have literally spent decades and decades listing to people like him 'reason' their way into believing in fallacious beliefs, beliefs that would overturn every scientific field there is. I examin
Re: (Score:2)
Thank you for your reply, I appreciate it.
I've got just a few comments.
1) I'll note that religions are non-falsifiable. This means that any evidence that might be seen as contradictory (say, million year old fossils in a 6000 year old world), can be explained by some omnipotent being fabricating evidence.
If you'd like to think about this in more technical terms, imagine for a moment instead of a magic man in the sky, what he's really representing is another non-falsifiable hypothesis - the simulation theor
Re: (Score:2)
1) I'll note that religions are non-falsifiable. This means that any evidence that might be seen as contradictory (say, million year old fossils in a 6000 year old world), can be explained by some omnipotent being fabricating evidence.
Yes, and this is what's so infuriating about arguing with people who believe in religion. Everything is a parable when it's convenient, but not when they use it to 'prove' a point. Anything that's unexplainable (to them) is just a "mystery of god and beyond our ability to understand" yada yada yada. It's a get-out-of-jail-free card. It's an excuse to stop thinking and/or to avoid admitting something that they don't want to admit.
For example, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't claim the following:
- Joe Biden won the 2020 election with zero cheating by anyone, anywhere, and election systems can never be compromised;
- Every single person who stormed the Capitol was a Trump supporter, and all of them were violent;
- Every single thing Trump ever said was a lie;
- Every precaution taken for the pandemic had more benefits than costs;
- There are no communists or socialists who want universal health care;
- The fact that the Earth is greater than 6000 years old means every moral supposition narrated in the Bible is wrong.
Nope, I don't believe any of those things. I would say that in general, most of
It's a funny rabbit hole. Not? (Score:2)
Interesting and I really don't know what to make of such things. Reminds me of a old friend I lost, too. Why did he go down the rabbit hole of Trumpism?
Just reading some Chomsky, and he provoked a couple of interesting new thoughts on related topics. The one that seems to fit to that sad story is that America changed a lot when the corporations took over. American workers used to be proud and free, not wage slaves enamored of their serfdom. Chomsky emphasized that the transition took decades and was mostly