Rally to restore sanity (Stewart) / keep fear alive (Colbert)

How about "This sign is spelled corectly" if you're with the Keep Fear Alive crowd.

 

What are tea party members trying to force on you? I don't know what you mean by "family values". The application of force to push a moral opinion on others would be the opposite of conservatism/libertarianism.

 

Projecting your own unrealistic expectations on to people sets you up for the let down. Understanding the reality of people allows you to be occasionally surprised.

One of the realities of being President is being the focal point for every criticism of every social condition, when in fact, the Executive branch has very little influence on any of them.

 

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But...but.. but they're still telling me not to trust them. I mean, wouldn't you much rather have someone say, "Look, I may make some mistakes, not every decision I make is going to be popular, but you can trust that what I do I am going to try to do for the best of the country."

You may not AGREE with Obama's stance on the issues, but you can't say he's not trying to do things that he feels are the best for the country. You take health care reform- what's the purpose? To ensure that more Americans receive better health care. The INTENT is to help more people- how can that be construed as not wanting to help people? You see, this is the problem with both sides- they can't leave the stupid stuff alone and get caught up in all this ridiculous hoopla about "he wasn't born in the U.S.," "He's a Muslim," "he didn't say 'Creator' when quoting the Declaration," etc. Utter f**king nonsense that ruins the argument for us moderates, IMHO.

Why is it so hard for people to say, "I respect President Obama as the leader of my country. I disagree with his policies and feel that there are better ways to improve our economy. Come 2012, if our country has not improved, I will vote for someone other than him." Why? Because many people out there are a bunch of soap opera-craving, conspiracy-spinning, brainwash-absorbing fools that feed off the crap. Who do very little research and bi**h about government involvement when they directly benefit.

 

How about this: not everyone fits into the "family values" picture. What about single people? What about homosexuals? They're excluding a huge segment of the population based on this. You know, not everyone is all jazzed up about being married and having kids. Some people, several whom are good friends of mine, are just not into this lifestyle- and they're straight, BTW. They do not "fit" in this definition and therefore, if the party puts "family values" at the forefront of their agenda, by nature force others to accept that.

 

I don't think you have to be a socialist to see the truth in that banner.

 

You shouldn't trust any politician. Watch their every move like they are a pedophile living in your neighborhood.

That sentences is meaningless and stupid to me. When I hear somebody say that in a debate or speech, I change the channel. What else are they gonna say " I am perfect and I am trying to get all of you killed".

Hitler thought he was doing what's best for his country and the world by slaughtering Jews (I am not trying to say Obama is like Hitler). I could care less if somebody thinks they are doing what's best for the country. Everyone thinks that.

 

How is the tea party forcing "family values" on people? It is liberals who believe the government should define marriage. A conservative would tell you the government should not define marriage and it is nobodies business but the two (or more) people getting married and their religion (I realize not all tea party members are conservative but a good portion are). I just don't see how the tea party forces "family values" on people.

 

im not trying to say obamas hitler but u kinds just did why go to extremeties like that
come on grow up practice what u preach u talk about morals and ethics but yet u compare obama to hitler oh no but its ok because i said im not trying to compare them
stop it hes done more in these two years tha bush did in 8 sure he might make mistakes but his intente in doing good is there unlike the elephants in the room

 

I also wrote "Everyone thinks like that" so apparently I think everyone is Hitler

 

I noticed exactly the same thing and wanted to ask Commodore, what is wrong with funding jobs and education instead of war and Wall Street?

 

no u just think everyone thinks like him

 

I wouldn't use the term "family values," but the TEA Party does have some values that it would like to see implemented even though these changes would adversely affect a great many people. I have seen long debate threads about whether Social Security should be axed, there is a thread with nearly 4,400 posts about whether there should be a national strike if the HCR bill was done through reconciliation. What about that is NOT forcing their values on other people?

Psst! The government has already defined marriage, very specifically in the cases of the states (like Texas) that have amended their Constitutions to define marriage as a union of one man and one woman. Are you claiming it is liberals who get these things passed?

This is a very reasonable point of view and I agree that "the government should not define marriage and it is nobodies business but the two (or more) people getting married and their religion," but saying that conservatives hold this belief as a general rule is a laughable claim.

Christine O'Donnell will attempt to legislate her values, which are so far from mainstream America that it isn't even funny.

 

preach on bro

 

What is being forced? You are the one claiming morals are being forced, so tell me what morals? Nothing you listed above is forcing a moral opinion on another.

Why is it laughable? The government getting involved in marriages is certainly not on par with the social position of this country's founding or the Constitution. Also the government recognizing marriages equals bigger government then if they didn't. Seems like a conservative ideal to me.

What morals is Christine O'Donnell going to force on others?

 

You really can't see it? Seriously?

Maybe you're right, maybe they aren't trying to force their morals on other people, just their greed. You see, they don't feel that the they should have to pay the taxes for Social Security or Medicaid or Welfare. There are plenty that don't believe they should have to pay taxes for education either, and there are many in the TEA Party sure do think it is immoral for the government to tax them.

What? I have no idea what you meant by this.

Then they sure do the opposite in practice, don't they?

The woman thinks (or thought, not sure which) that masturbation is cheating. Let's just say I'm confident that her morals and mine differ significantly and I can imagine a number of policies she could put forth based on her values that I would feel were "forced" on me.

 

Your prejudice is showing. How do you know why conservatives believe what they believe. I have told you plenty of times that it is because they don't believe in forcing morals upon others and you just put your fingers in your ears and say "It's greed. It's greed".

But you can't name one?

 

If you think all politicians s**k, why do you even post in this forum? Why should you even care? Your statement above, with all due respect, is one of the stupidest things I've ever read and basically makes nearly everything to rail against with regards to Obama a total sham.

Your statement above says, "You shouldn't trust any politician." There's your defining statement right there. If you don't trust any politician regardless, then you shouldn't vote and you really have no business debating, because as soon as you tout someone from your preferred "party," all I have to do is whip out the "But you can't say he/she is better than Obama- remember, all politicians are untrustworthy."

 

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your heart it will creep



Rick Hanson, Ph.D.Neuropsychologist, Author of Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love and Wisdom
Posted: October 3, 2010 08:00 AM

Stephen Colbert: We Don't Need To 'Keep Fear Alive'


Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have dueling rallies in DC coming soon. Stewart's is "Bring Back Sanity" and Colbert's is "Keep Fear Alive!"

But Colbert doesn't need a rally to keep fear alive. Alarming messages are all around us, like the news about global warming or the "Threat Level Orange" announcements every few minutes in the airport.

Some of those messages are true and worth heeding. For example, dumping carbon into the atmosphere must inevitably make the planet hotter; it's basic physics.

But others are wildly exaggerated: the actual odds of a bad event on your airplane flight are "Threat Level Chartreuse" -- a bucket of green paint with a drop of yellow.

How do we tell the difference between real threats and bogus ones? (This is important for many reasons; for one, chasing fake threats takes away resources from real issues.)

But it's tough to do, since evolution has given us a brain with what scientists call a "negativity bias" that makes it prone to feeling threatened. This bias developed because the ancient mammals, primates, and early humans that were all mellow and fearless did not notice the shadow overhead or slither nearby that CHOMP! killed them. The ones that survived to pass on their genes were nervous and cranky, and we are their great-grandchildren, sitting atop the food chain, armed with nuclear weapons.

Stephen Colbert, relax: Mother Nature is on your side, already working hard to keep fear alive.

Your brain is continually looking for bad news. As soon as it finds some, it fixates on it with tunnel vision, fast-tracks it into memory storage, and then reactivates it at the least hint of anything even vaguely similar. But good news gets a kind of neural shrug: "uh, whatever."

In effect, the brain is like Velcro for negative experiences but Teflon for positive ones.

All this makes human beings super-sensitive to apparent threats. Basically, in evolution, there are two kinds of mistakes: (1) You think there is a tiger in the bushes but there isn't one, and (2) You think the coast is clear, no tiger in the bushes, but there really is one about to pounce.

These mistakes have very different consequences. The first one will make you anxious, but the second one will kill you. That's why Mother Nature wants you to make the first mistake a thousand times over in order to avoid making the second mistake even once.

This hard-wired tendency toward fear affects individuals, groups (from couples to multinational corporations), and nations. It makes them overestimate threats, underestimate opportunities, and underestimate resources.

Of course we need to deal with real tigers, real threats, ranging from leaky roofs to the shaky economy, national debt, terrorism, and global warming. But "keeping fear alive" for tigers that are nonexistent, manageably small, or made out of paper has huge costs.

At the personal level, fear feels bad, wears down physical and mental health, and makes people duck for cover in life and play small. (These individual costs also drag down the economy.)

Nationally, feeling threatened gets intensified by the classic drumbeat of alarms about inner and outer enemies from people who are good at trumping hope with fear. The result? Paper tiger paranoia - which makes us over-invest in threat protection, under-invest in infrastructure, miss real tigers because we're flooded with warnings about illusory or exaggerated ones, and over-react in ways that create new real tigers (like America's longest war, in Iraq).

The solution? It's to have the courage to see real tigers clearly and to deal with them effectively - and to refuse to be frightened and cowed by boys and girls crying tiger.

It also helps to get more skillful with your own brain: to understand how it makes you needlessly afraid, whether you're talking with a family member, doing a project at work, or watching the news - and most importantly, what you can do about that by using your mind alone to change your brain for the better.

Which is what I'll be exploring in my upcoming posts, including how to calm down threat reactivity, feel stronger and safer, recognize both real tigers and paper ones, and realize that in most situations most of the time, it is not "Threat Level Orange."

Meanwhile, let's not do anything more to keep fear alive. Mother Nature and Fox News are already doing a very good job there. Instead, let's do more to keep courage alive.

A great first step is to laugh at paper tigers.

So this PHD does understand that that is exactly what Colbert is doing, right?