Well folks, it seems you are getting two for one today.

I had intended this thread for today but notice our friend Germaine also had a religious theme in mind with his thread..........

The essence and language of Christian nationalism

Mine involves an opinion piece written by a religious person:

Wes McAdams,  Christian Living

https://radicallychristian.com/how-partisan-politics-are-harming-christians/

Christians lately have been taking it on the chin. Our friend who runs this forum at least distinguishes average everyday Christians from Christian nationalists. 

As a rule they still do NOT support abortion rights, one of several reasons I consider myself atheist, my morals would never align with "the church."

Nevertheless, here is how one Christian feels about partisan politics:

How Partisan Politics are Harming Christians

The dictionary defines partisan as, “feeling, showing, or deriving from strong and sometimes blind adherence to a particular party, faction, cause, or person.” Pay special attention to the words, “strong and sometimes blind adherence.” It might be helpful to think about partisanship in terms of loyalty, commitment, or devotion.

Partisan loyalty is often so strong that political affiliation becomes core to a person’s identity. For instance, when we fall into the partisan trap, we do not simply agree with Democrats or Republicans on certain issues, “Democrat” or “Republican” becomes fundamental to how we think of ourselves. Similarly, ideological perspectives, such as “Progressive” or “Conservative,” can also become cornerstones of our identity.

Finally, partisans sometimes become fixated on a political leader. Our loyalty gets directed to the person who leads the party, embodies the party’s values, or seems capable of saving the party from opponents. The “strong and sometimes blind adherence” is concentrated on one particular person.

For Christians, partisanship often begins with genuine Christian motivation. We find that one party seems to align with biblical values on a particular issue or policy. Perhaps it is a concern for the poor or a concern for the unborn. It could be a biblical stance on sexual ethics or justice for people wrongly accused of crime. This desire to support a party that supports biblical values is admirable.

However, political parties are a mixed bag. No political party aligns completely with kingdom interests, values, and priorities. When we develop a “strong and sometimes blind adherence” to a political party, that party begins to shape our values.

Sadly, many of us are towing the party line rather than holding fast to the truth of Scripture. We have abandoned the historic Christian view on war, abortion, wealth, poverty, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, or something else…and we don’t even know it. We have allowed a party platform, rather than the Holy Spirit, to shape our views.

Because we agree with a party on issue X, we blindly assume that party must also be right on issue Y. This is a dangerous and harmful assumption.

This sort of angry, fearful, and outraged partisanship is not only dividing us from our neighbors but also from our brothers and sisters in Christ. It ought to be obvious how many Christian principles this violates:

• “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you” (Luke 6:27)
• “live peaceably with all” (Romans 12:18)
• “put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth” (Colossians 3:8)
• “lead a peaceful and quiet life” (1 Timothy 2:2)
• “speak evil of no one” (Titus 3:2)
• “avoid quarreling” (Titus 3:2)
• “be gentle” (Titus 3:2)
• “show perfect courtesy toward all people” (Titus 3:2)

Our neighbors are not our enemies. 

A quick observation, if I may. You don't have to be a Godly person to understand that last line. We all seem to have fallen into that trap of judging someone by their religion or by how they vote or by what their personal beliefs are. So the biblical quotes applies to all of us. To continue:

We must all recognize that there is a danger when we give our allegiance to a group, a tribe, a party, or a faction. Our values, priorities, and perspectives will be shaped by that allegiance. We can tell ourselves that we “think for ourselves.” However, like it or not, we are social creatures and we are shaped by our group loyalty.

As Christians, our loyalty and allegiance should belong to Jesus and his kingdom. We must remember that our true family, group, and tribe is much bigger than a single nation, political party, ethnic group, or ideological perspective. These other groups will always be competing for our loyalty, but we must resist this temptation.

I hope more Christians feel this way, and that those who put party over their religion will read this and feel some shame.

Amen. 

 

The war against authoritarianism: Whacking pro-tyranny lawyers

An article The Conversation published focuses on the crooked lawyers who attack the rule of law and our system of justice without justification but in league with American radical right authoritarianism:

Trump’s lawyers in lawsuits claiming he won in 2020 are getting punished for 

abusing courts and making unsupported claims and false statements

Over the past four years, U.S. courts and state bar associations have taken action to protect the integrity of the U.S. judicial system by penalizing attorneys who filed meritless lawsuits claiming – without evidence – that the 2020 presidential election results were invalid.

Despite aggressive litigation by attorneys denying wrongdoing, over time the U.S. legal community has exercised the oversight needed to hold most of them accountable for misusing U.S. courts.

Most lawsuits challenging the 2020 presidential election results were filed in federal courts. Federal judges not only dismissed the claims for lack of evidence, but some also penalized the attorneys who filed them.

Judge Linda Parker of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan acted first, ruling in August 2021 that a lawsuit filed by nine lawyers was “a historic and profound abuse of the judicial process.” In a 110-page opinion, she wrote that the abuses included:

“proffering claims not backed by law; proffering claims not backed by evidence (but instead, speculation, conjecture, and unwarranted suspicion); proffering factual allegations and claims without engaging in the required prefiling inquiry; and dragging out these proceedings.”

“Print, television, and social media” are where the attorneys could have made their “protestations” and “conjecture,” Parker wrote. But “such expressions are neither permitted nor welcomed in a court of law.”

In that spirit of defense of democracy and the rule of law, I sent the New York State Bar Association this little reminder of their duty to defend democracy and the rule of law:

Re: Trump's trial attorneys 

To whom it concerns:

During the recent trial before Judge Merchan, Trump's attorneys displayed a shocking level of mendacity, and also a shocking contempt for the court and the rule of law. Given that, it is reasonable to expect that disciplinary hearings for those attorneys will be held. 

As you know, American democracy, civil liberties and the rule of law are now all under a severe, sustained attack from America's powerful radical right authoritarian wealth and power political movement. Holding attorneys who fight on the side of authoritarianism by violating ethics rules and/or laws must be investigated and punished if their behavior warrants punishment. Anything less constitutes unjustifiable capitulation to authoritarianism.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

One can hope that the NYSBA is empowered to do an investigation for New York state ethics violations. If not, someone would have to file a formal complaint.

Democracy & compromise

Rolling Stone reports about comments Sam Alito made that directly indicate he is an anti-democracy authoritarian:

Justice Samuel Alito spoke candidly about the ideological battle between the left and the right — discussing the difficulty of living “peacefully” with ideological opponents in the face of “fundamental” differences that “can’t be compromised.” He endorsed what his interlocutor described as a necessary fight to “return our country to a place of godliness.” And Alito offered a blunt assessment of how America’s polarization will ultimately be resolved: “One side or the other is going to win.”

Alito made these remarks in conversation at the Supreme Court Historical Society’s annual dinner on June 3, a function that is known to right-wing activists as an opportunity to buttonhole Supreme Court justices. His comments were recorded by Lauren Windsor, a liberal documentary filmmaker. Windsor attended the dinner as a dues-paying member of the society under her real name, along with a colleague. She asked questions of the justice as though she were a religious conservative.

The recording, which was provided exclusively to Rolling Stone, captures Windsor approaching Alito at the event and reminding him that they spoke at the same function the year before, when she asked him a question about political polarization. In the intervening year, she tells the justice, her views on the matter had changed. “I don’t know that we can negotiate with the left in the way that needs to happen for the polarization to end,” Windsor says. “I think that it’s a matter of, like, winning.”

 
“I think you’re probably right,” Alito replies. “On one side or the other — one side or the other is going to win. I don’t know. I mean, there can be a way of working — a way of living together peacefully, but it’s difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised. They really can’t be compromised. So it’s not like you are going to split the difference.”

The justice’s unguarded comments highlight the degree to which Alito makes little effort to present himself as a neutral umpire calling judicial balls and strikes, but rather as a partisan member of a hard-right judicial faction that’s empowered to make life-altering decisions for every American.

What Alito clearly does not understand is that (1) democracy demands reasonable compromise, and (2) authoritarianism rejects compromise. Alito's failure to understand this fundamental  difference is obvious. His pro-tyranny sympathies cannot be much clearer.

Let’s spitball here (science minded types only need apply) 😉

Thinking about two phenomena today: Chemistry and the Laws of Physics.

• I’m wondering, what “trumps” (as in, surpasses, beats, is better than, more powerful than, etc.) what; a.) Chemistry (the elements that make up our universe) *or* b.) the Laws of Physics (the processes/fundamental forces that act upon those elements)? 

• Are they equals?  If yes, in what way?  If not, why not?

• Is one more “basic/fundamental” than the other?  If yes, which, and why?

• Can there exist one without the other?  IOW, do they share a mutually inclusive or exclusive existence?

• Is it a symbiotic relationship, necessary for one another's survival?

• Am I asking crazy (meaningless) questions?

Talk about (debate) these two natural phenomena.  Brainstorm away, just for the heck of/conversation of it.

(by PrimalSoup)

If you want to know what a psephologist is.

 

What the science of elections can reveal in this super-election year

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01712-2

Some snippets:

By the end of this year, voters in some 65 countries and regions will have gone to the polls. That means close to half of the global population will have had the chance to cast a ballot of some sort, including almost 360 million people across the European Union. Not all of the world’s political procedures will be free and fair, but this year is still expected to represent the biggest manifestation of the democratic process in history. The geopolitical landscape of 2025 could therefore look very different from that of today, and it will have an impact not just on how science is funded, but also on which international collaborations will flourish or flounder.

In the middle of these swirling democratic processes will be researchers who study public sentiment and voting patterns, known as psephologists. These statistical scientists work both to predict future elections and to understand previous ones.

(Now you know what a psephologist is)

The US presidential election in November is almost certain to be a rematch between President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump. The world’s largest democracy, India, has seen incumbent populist Prime Minister Narendra Modi win a third term in office, albeit in a coalition government. British voters go to the polls next month, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak lagging far behind his opponent Keir Starmer in opinion polls. Member states in the European Union will have elections for the bloc’s parliament this week, and various Australian states and Canadian provinces will hold general elections at some point in 2024.

Research suggests that the voting public in those jurisdictions think that government support for science is important, yet that rarely translates to science policy being a significant issue on the campaign trails.

More than 80% of the polls that track US public opinion are done using online opt-in surveys, according to a 2020 report by the Pew Research Center. In other words, anyone who wants to log on and take part can do so. Not only does that mean that the data are unlikely to be representative, but also it introduces the risk of ‘bogus respondents’ — people who either seek to push their own political narrative or who rush through a survey without paying attention to the questions.

Geopolitical weather

Scientists might also want to take note of psephological predictions, because they offer a glimpse of future government policies relevant to funding and other research interests.

On specific policy issues, the two US presidential candidates differ widely on the environment, with Trump arguing for weaker environmental regulations and Biden pushing renewable energy. Climate change is one of the most divisive topics in the United States; 93% of Democrats agree with the scientific consensus that human activity is warming the world’s climate, compared with just 55% of Republicans, according to a poll carried out by researchers at the University of Maryland in College Park. 

Those numbers could shift if the summer is marked by extreme weathers.

(let's all root for a wild summer marked by extreme weather so climate science gets more support). 

Democracy holds on in Europe; Microplastics update

EU parliamentary elections did not produce the expected authoritarian radical right sweep of power from the center and left. The center and center-right stayed intact. The NYT reports:

Voters in the 27 European Union member states sent a stern warning to mainstream political powers, wreaking havoc on French and, to a lesser degree, German politics and rewarding hard-line nationalist parties in a number of countries.

Even so, the radical right-wing wave dreaded by the European political establishment did not fully materialize; the center of European Union politics held. Here are the most important trends emerging from the elections.

The mainstream center-right group, the European People’s Party, performed strongly and finished first, not only maintaining its dominance in the European Parliament but adding a few seats to boot.

It was a sign that its strategy over the past two years, to integrate more right-leaning policies in order to stop voters from abandoning for further-right rivals, delivered.

The conservatives’ thunder was somewhat stolen by a blockbuster performance by Marine Le Pen’s ultranationalist National Rally in France. They scored twice the support of President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party, prompting him to dissolve the National Assembly and call for snap legislative elections.

The center-right’s strong performance was not replicated in the two other major European Parliament centrist groups. The Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, traditionally the second-biggest power in the house, maintained its strength and, more or less, the number of its seats. But the Liberals lost big, weakening the informal centrist coalition of pro-European Union powers that generally underpins the passage of legislation in the European Parliament, despite their differences.

The Greens were the night’s biggest losers: having performed well in 2019 and emerged as an important progressive power in the Parliament, they lost a quarter of their seats in the new elections.

This was largely foreseen: Voters switched out of the environmentally focused party for two key reasons. Environmentally minded voters found that the Green agenda had been, to a high degree, integrated in other bigger mainstream parties. In a way, the Greens had lost their unique selling point.

But other voters felt that the green agenda in Europe has gone too far, hurting farmers and more broadly rural voters.

This feels somewhat comforting. Maybe democracies can survive the current authoritarian wave. Maybe the Democrats in America should consider integrating more right-leaning policies to stop voters from supporting the authoritarian radical right Republican Party.

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A WaPo article discusses microplastics:

For years, scientists on the hunt for microplastics have found them almost everywhere. First, they spotted tiny pieces of plastic in the ocean, in the bodies of fish and mussels. Then they found them in soft drinks, in tap water, in vegetables and fruits, in burgers.

Now researchers are discovering that microplastics are floating around us.

They are suspended in the air on city streets and inside homes. One study found that people inhale or ingest on average 74,000 to 121,000 microplastic particles per year through breathing, eating and drinking.

“There’s just so much plastic around us,” said Sherri Mason, researcher and sustainability coordinator at Pennsylvania State University at Erie. “We wear synthetic clothes, and those are shedding microplastics. We work on synthetic carpets. We buy food wrapped in plastic.”

Scientists don’t yet know the exact health effects of all those plastic particles — but their concerns are rising. In recent years, research has shown for the first time that humans are breathing, eating and drinking microplastics in much larger quantities than previously thought. And that plastic is burrowing its way into almost every major organ.

Not only can those tiny particles infiltrate many parts of the body, causing inflammation, but plastics also have a laundry list of chemical additives: flame retardants, lubricants, solvents. These chemicals, in turn, can leach out of particles that have reached some of our most vulnerable organs.

Of the more than 10,000 chemicals used in the manufacture of plastic, scientists have identified over 2,400 as potentially toxic.

As plastic production increases, so do the risks to human health. In 1950, the world produced 2 million metric tons of plastic every year; last year, it was over 400 million metric tons.

Plastics, unlike other substances, don’t break down — they simply break up into smaller and smaller pieces. Of the roughly 8 billion tons of plastic that have been produced since 1950, less than 10 percent has been recycled. The rest accumulate in landfills, in the oceans or on beaches, slowly sloughing off into microplastics or even tinier nanoplastics.

For researchers, tracing the impact of microplastics on human health is a daunting task. Each chemical added to plastics, along with each microplastic shape and size, could have a different impact on the body.

“They all have their own little toxic personalities,” Leslie said. “It’s an analytical nightmare.”

But scientists have found some links. In one study in Italy, people with microplastics in the lining of their arteries were more likely to suffer heart attack, stroke or death from any cause. Another report found that people with inflammatory bowel disease had higher concentrations of microplastics in their feces.

In laboratory tests on human cells, microplastics can cause tissue damage, allergic reactions and even cell death. The chemicals in plastics — like phthalates or bisphenol A — have also been shown to cause hormonal imbalances and disrupt the reproductive system. In mice, microplastics can cause behavioral changes and reproductive problems and can inhibit learning and memory. Researchers also recently discovered that certain cancer cells spread at an accelerated rate after exposure to microplastics; they are now looking into whether microplastics could help trigger early-onset cancer.

Kimberly Wise White, vice president of regulatory and scientific affairs for the American Chemistry Council, said in an email that the plastics industry has committed $15 million to research into microplastics. The group is currently investigating inhalation of microplastics and possible toxicities, she added.

Researchers warn that there aren’t yet studies showing a strong causal link between microplastics and a particular disease. People are exposed to myriad chemicals and toxins every day, making it difficult to identify what specific impacts microplastics have on the body. Scientists also still have yet to understand how long microplastics linger in certain organs and the concentration of the chemicals that they carry with them. 

Scientists are most concerned about nanoplastics — tiny microplastics that are less than half the size of PM2.5, a form of air pollution that has been shown to cause lung problems, heart disease and premature death.

And scientists worry that in the meantime, microplastics are infiltrating our bodies with untold effects. There are no U.S. laws or regulations governing microplastics in the air or in food.

“We’re really looking at the Wild West,” Leslie said.

Experts say individuals can avoid some microplastics by steering clear of single-use plastic cups and bottles and avoiding plastic takeout containers. But those actions pale in comparison to the massive quantity of plastics added to the environment every year.

And waiting for certainty on the health effects of microplastics could be dangerous. “By the time we have that full answer, we’ll have already impacted human health,” Mason said. “It’ll be too little, too late.”

The plastics industry commitment of $15 million to microplastics research is puny compared to the scale of the problem. It is an insult. In one key way, the microplastics problem is like the gun violence problem. We are mostly ignorant but by now, we should not be. In the case of gun violence research, the NRA, gun manufacturers and mindless gun freaks in congress passed legislation in 1996 that stopped federal funding for gun violence research. To some extent, gun violence research is still limited by that old law.

With the plastics industry, they did a good job of keeping the microplastics issue quiet and downplayed as long as they could. The plastics industry was no doubt aware of the issue decades ago. But the capitalists did nothing to deal with it for the obvious reasons, profit with no social responsibility or accountability. That is no different than the oil industry knowing about global warming decades ago but doing everything in its vast power to derail dealing with the environmental and human problems that their profit stream causes. This is also not much different than the cigarette industry knowing about lung cancer and fighting for decades to deny and downplay it. People die, but most major brass knuckles capitalists do not care. To them, a pile of consumer corpses is a "public relations" problem for their hired professional liars to deal with. 

These days, it seems to me more than reasonable to force companies to do the research to show how safe their products are. At present, the burden is on consumers and taxpayers to take their chances or pay for research to prove that products are safe. That situation is mostly the result of radical anti-government, anti-regulation political ideology working in tandem with brass knuckles capitalists who do not care about humans, the environment or democracy and the rule of law.

As far as I am concerned, it is long past time for regime change in America. The new regime would not include Democrats or Republicans as major players, preferably not players at all. Their endless streams of failures and betrayals of the public trust and democracy have earned both rotten parties no trust or respect.

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Some memology to lighten the load:

How true, how true

“So, if we lie to the government it’s a felony. 

But if they lie to us its politics.” – falsely attributed to Bill Murray 

Trump Demands Biden Remove Ad of Him Calling Dead Soldiers ‘Suckers’ and ‘Losers’ - The former president said only a “psycho” or a “very stupid person” would’ve made such statements.

(It's real -- You just can't make this stuff up)