This is what 'fundamental change' looks like...

Our enemies within

The whole DNC should be labeled as a terrorist organization

I've had this debate with family members who think people are mostly good, I think they are mostly evil, because it's easier to be evil than good. It's easier to steal what you want than work for it, it's easier to cheat on a test than study for it, etc. The gaurdrails we place (laws) force people to take the harder path because they dont want to do time, and they are only in place because so many people took the easier path before the gaurdrail was placed. But laws against murder dont keep it from happening, just fewer people do it because most people dont like the idea of inhaling cyanide gas or getting strapped in the chair over it. The human race is inherently evil, we have to work at being good.

Interesting take and some very thoughtful ideas in there, Frankenvoter!

I have raised our two kids to believe that people are good and are to be trusted until they disappoint you and show you otherwise. I told them years ago that those people no longer deserve your energy or attention (exceptions, of course, including it was done unintentionally, etc.).

I have seen so many good people in this world with great hearts. I base my assessment that most are good on those I have met throughout my life and the other people I've read about or seen their biographies on TV. I think the 'bad people' are the aberrations, often mentally ill, or driven to greed while not allowing their consciences to be their guide.

You raised interesting facts and I can understand why you would think this way ESPECIALLY in light of our current political situation. We now have an understanding of the number of government employees (up to the very top of the chain of command) who have lied, cheated, stolen, and worse! AND, much to my dismay, many Doctors have aligned with easy money over their patients' health. This is unconscionable behavior by people sworn to 'do no harm'.

There are some Republicans who have aligned with the evil side, but the number of Democrats is by FAR the overwhelming number in a system fully supportive of criminals, drugs, trafficking, open borders, and UNAmerican behavior. Heck, Dems still are encouraging it as they reject DOGE and now don't want DC to be cleaned up & functional. Could it be any more obvious? 🤔

In this particular meme, I specifically made it about Barack Obama. This man came to us as an unknown person, yet someone I had seen give a lengthy, very impressive speech. So, initially I was ready to accept him. But upon investigation, I could not get past where he had gone to church for many years with a pastor espousing hatred. In fact, I can still see the video in my mind where Reverend Wright exclaimed, "Go***amn America!" I thought, what an ungrateful and horrible man. After that, the facts just lined themselves up and I did not vote for Obama for either of his terms.

If you will, the "red flags" just kept appearing one after the other when he was dividing our country into groups (blacks/whites, rich/poor, men/women), and asserting that there is a systemic racism in America. I became convinced that he was nothing but a wolf in sheep's clothing.

I think in alot of cases our life experiences cause us to make choices as to how we want to live our lives long term, for instance I drive alot in my line of work and do get road rage from time to time.

I'm convinced 9 times out of 10 times the end result of those things isn't the person acting out the rage but the person who caused it, like driving 3 miles under in the left lane, people who wont turn right at an intersection until they have 25 car lengths of clearance coming at them etc.

But one day it occured to me (and Ive been in my biz 35 years so this was a while ago) that when a person cuts me off and I get mad, so now I cut someone else off, so now they're mad and do something stupid, passing that down the line until someone gets home and gets in a fight with the wife or kicks the dog, the anger got passed down the line.

But I can also wave someone into heavy traffic and make thier day. Even though someone pissed me off, I can make someones day, now they're happy and maybe they do the same for someone else, passing the good down the line instead of the bad. I can do one or the other and try hard to do the other, I'd rather pass good down the line than bad.

But someone somewhere has to be the one to suck it up, take the bad and do some good anyway despite of it. I'm pretty sure that's what Jesus would want me to do, and I am Christian even though Im not a church goer, but with the influences in this world I still err on the side of saying it's easier for us to do bad, we have to work at being good, and that is work, especially when someone cuts in front of me because they needed over then brake checks me because it's so stop and go to begin with.

Again, interesting comment. I also find it easier to compromise and be a better person than to confront someone and aggravate them when they may be having a bad day already.

People today have a lot on their plates and honestly, I have a fabulous life so why should I make it any harder on them? You obviously agree with that as you said you go ahead and wave someone in heavy traffic to go ahead as you feel that is the right thing to do. ✅

It is a 'pay It forward' attitude. Everybody benefits and that is a great thing. You obviously understand that as well as other common sense conservatives do...

Glad to see you are 'adulting'. I also see it as a 'conscience' issue. In my opinion, I feel that people who have strong consciences, treat others as they would like to be treated. I was raised by the Golden Rule and I still believe in it.

We may somewhat disagree on whether there are more good people than bad people in the world, but I am the eternal optimist so I will side with 'there are more good people'. :) I hope I am right.

I've had you on my follow list so we obviously have similar outlooks, but your comments today have confirmed that as well, Frankenvoter.

Said unironically, no less, as if you were really that totally unaware.

We are currently in the process of watching the collapse, or implosion, of what once had called itself the Moral Majority back in the 1980s. That exercise in over-the-top hypocrisy came crashing down like molten sulfur-infused uranium when one by one its Fundamentalist Evangelical Protestant Pastors got caught with their literal pants down in seedy hotels in Louisiana. I don't know what is it with Louisiana, nor do I know what's with preachers who for some reason take Polaroids of themselves with painted ladies of the night to keep in their top drawer for their wives to find. But it's something they did. A lot. One by one, until there were none.

They literally became millionaires as Televangelists, and their supporters kept sending in their Welfare dollars to them. Remember when The 300 Club changed its name to The 500 Club? Good grief, what is it with people? $500 so they can tell the grandkids they saved their soul by selling it to some TV huckster selling pleather binded Bibles and vials of 'holy' tap water.

And they had the audacity to act like they were shocked.

We weren't. It was just them as usual, acting out tropes they just can't bring themselves to get away from. I don't want to get into stereotypes, but let's just say people who are hellbent on turning Deliverance into a documentary pretty much sums it up. We used to look at them that way, but between the snickering we deep down inside figured that they really couldn't be that way, not really, because nobody is, right? But some people just can't help themselves.

So what we see from the outside are certain procreational activities that these folks actually think are normal, no matter how rancid. Trailer Park culture which is sown completely out of criminality and other personal leisure habits best not mentioned. Widespread Meth addiction to levels that have turned it into norms. Calling themselves flag waving patriots and asking why it that them Northies don't have the flag planted in their front yard when the fact is we don't have Confederate flags planted in our front yards like they do because we don't like Confederate flags - excuse me, the Tennessee Rebel Militia Battle Flag that lasted a whole 2 months flag. I don't want to disrespect anybody by being imprecise about that little tidbit of info.
People who call themselves Conservative because they think wanting to bring back segregation and stopping women from voting and working is conservatism.

Bunch of phony hypocritics.

Nice justification for which way your moral compass spins.

Ever notice how honest people, simple-minded people, children, pet dogs... tend to be of a natural inclination to be honest, kind, and selfless? I mean, yeah, sure, some might grab a cookie that's on the table when nobody else is looking, but lying, cheating, and stealing take effort. Doing harm and killing takes even more effort than that.

If the threat of a painful execution is all that's keeping you from killing people, then you're kind of missing the point. Most people tend to reach to level of moral and psychological development where they see killing others just isn't exactly an exceedingly nice thing to do.

Now this all may seem a bit naive, but that's the whole point. Not everything is about outscheming everyone else because we believe that they are just as corrupt and conniving as we are.

Your comments are always somewhere around 3 on the Ph scale, very acidic. The only reason kids, or dogs, or people with an extra chromosone are so trusting is because they havent been screwed over yet by the world or the people in it.

What happens to a dog who's been fought or beaten alot? They learn not to trust humans. What happens to girls who get abused early in life? They learn not to trust men. Why do cops get indifferent to anything you have to say after you've been found to have lied to them?

We may start out trusting and kind but every time a hurt gets inflicted we start to grow scar tissue that insulates us and puts a barrier between what someone says to us and what thier true intentions are. One of the differences between humans and animals is that animals function on instinct, kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, humans function on motive, what can I get out of this? How can I manipulate this situation to be of benefit to me.

Humans lie steal and cheat because it's easier than working for something. That is our baseline, we have to work at being good.

Your comment that I had replied to said that humans are inherently evil. I didn't see your follow-up till now because I had left this tab open and just went elsewhere for a few hours. When I returned, I didn't bother to refresh the page and so didn't see it.

Inherently evil and learning to be evil are two different things.

Humans do not differ from animals because the latter functions on instinct. Humans function on instinct all the time. That's why they do the evil things you say they do. That's why this world is a mess.

Women who are abused when young do not grow up to have trust issues - at least not all around. They may fear men, but they also seek the ones that strike up the fear most in them. They had no problems trusting somebody with that look in their eye that anybody else can tell is a wife beater from a mile away. Fact is there attracted to it. The only thing they don't trust are those that don't have that look. Too good to be true, or some other excuse to be willfully naive.

This is imprinting, an acquired instinct, if you will. Humans function on base impulses far more than they care to admit. They like to think that when they cut someone off on the road and scream at them that somehow they're being the smart one, but the fact that they sound just like their parents who in turn sounded like their parents and so on is kind of a clue where such impulses come from. When you hear somebody yelling at their kid... or spouse, "You see what you did, see what you made me do?" you can see their parent's face right before they smacked them upside their head 20 years prior. Same exact expression, and I'm not talking on account of genetic-derived morphology.

Humans lie, she, cheat, steel, and kill because that's what all creatures do. Life is deception, Life is theft, life is murder. We sneak up to something and then we eat it so that we can live. Necessity and selfish interest is how we justify it. That chicken died so I can eat it fried. But I don't go around shooting chickens randomly just for kicks and leave them there to rot, so therefore that somehow supposed to make me good. Because I do it for a reason. Because I'm justified.
Well Charles Manson felt justified also.

That doesn't mean I should go around stopping everything I see to death because things die so I can eat or wear them.

"Humans do not differ from animals because the latter functions on instinct. Humans function on instinct all the time. That's why they do the evil things you say they do. That's why this world is a mess."

Sounds like you're agreeing with me then, other than I believe we are set apart from the animals by God, animals operate on instinct, humans operate on motive. But your quote agrees with me that we are inherently evil, we have to work at being good.

But I believe we are set apart from the animals, you can see it in how the weak and crippled get eaten first in the animal world, we make set asides for the weak and the crippled, whether thats wheelchair ramps at the grocery store or subsidies to help buy the groceries, or having a roof over the head with a fridge to put them in.

Animals kill to survive, we work to survive, even though we pay the farmers to do the killing we dont want to do

Animals operate in herds where the dominant male spreads his seed around, humans (for the most part) practice monogamy.

Theres lots of ways the human race operates against the grain of the animal kingdom, but we are born with animal instincts we have to be taught not to indulge in and have to work at staying within the boundaries of society. It's easier to be evil, we have to work at being good.

I do not trust anyone and believe everybody is being deceptive because they are. But I take that as the base, and (generally) approach them as if they were being honest, because that's the only way we can function and get on with our lives without wasting too much time analyzing how evil they are and what their evil motivations may be so I can screw them first and my chest in victory.

My approach to religion when I had one was pretty simple. I didn't go around jumping on something Leviticus said or John said or Paul said that has nothing to do with what I do. Love thy neighbor, do onto others.... I figure if I don't like it, other people might not like it as well, so maybe I shouldn't do it to them. Do no harm (or at least keep that as minimal as possible so I can keep my selfish life going). It's a pretty good rule,,,

aye

Obammunism

Fun fact Obama wasn’t president during the Soviet Unions time