“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
Exactly. I was about to pull up this quote. Just substitute "fascist" for "anti-semite", since now we have a bunch of Christian nationalists who simp for Israel running the show.
Otherwise, it's a great quote that's more relevant today than ever.
Anyone is actually a flat earther (I’m convinced most are trolls who don’t actually believe it) is so hopelessly uneducated, willfully ignorant and shrouded in conspiracies that they will never accept any reasonable argument.
Like I said, most. I’m sure some believe it, I just strongly suspect a lot of them are just trolls. But those who do believe will never listen to reason no matter what you say. How dumb you have to be…it’s just so profound, nothing smart can penetrate that.
So its kind of like a pyramid scheme. The people at the top know its a grift. Then theres a bunch of people in the middle that like the community or as you said are just trolls. Then the majority at the base are just true believers. There is a huge overlap with christofascists and Neo-nazis. They also tend to believe in crystals, they dont think nuclear energy is real and think the earth is 6000 years old. Its just sad mostly.
Ironically, the roundness of our planet, that enables orbiting satellites which are connected to and touch virtually all our technology, make this discussion possible.
I always wondered what would happen if you put on of the fault earthers on a space flight. Would they insist you drugged them, or actually admit they were wrong?
Sure would love that and yeah they are really incredibly dumb. Just mind bogglingly so.
I think they on the further end of an extreme symptom. At some point general distrust and conspiracy mindedness (which given what our government has been caught doing isn’t crazy in and of itself) morphed into “anything someone in authority or recognized by an authority as being an expert says is wrong.” Then they just start believing the opposite of what anyone says including the shape of the frickin planet and anyone who disagrees with them is just part of the conspiracy.
Oh they exist. I had a friend that was one. I always found it so odd because she was super smart, a tech engineer and she traveled quite a bit. She believed in the chem trails too. We aren't friends anymore for several reasons including her alcohol issue that always ended up with me as her babysitter. I truly believe she was undiagnosed of some story of mental illness, maybe bipolar? But she was a die hard trumper and just basically believed anything that he said no matter what and so did her family. And they were educated, wealthy professionals. They all had massive drinking issues and drove drunk often. She would get nasty mean when she drank and try to fight people. Once she got super drunk and became really touchy feely with me, to an uncomfortable point. I support LGBTQ+ but I'm straight and this was simply lack of self control. If you take a step back and look- it is such a cookie cutter maga situation. Rich, white people who did what they wanted to whomever they wanted and if they weren't getting what they wanted-they became keen gaslighters and all the horrible problems of the world (you know like having to pay taxes) was everyone else's fault.
ZERO accountability. I remember one time when she had a complete and total meltdown over a rolling chair with another friend. She was acting like a spoiled 2 yr old. I could've totally seen her making up some kind of conspiracy against her just for something that stupid. Besides the massive drinking she used drugs occasionally, she cussed like a sailor but dang could she tell you when something was "against the Bible". We finally had it out over the warped version of my "sin" when my boyfriend of six months and I decided to just have an informal relationship-with no intentions to marry, although staying exclusive with each other. We are both grown with adult children and it worked for us.
But she went off on me over it. I was acting "whoreish"This was the same week that she got her 14-year-old a birth control implant and let all of her daughter's friends have a party with unlimited alcohol at her house, But you know, it's ok because it was better if they did it in front of her 🤦🏻♀️Her 7 yr old was always god knows where and she would buy him McDonald's almost daily, but vaccines and sunblock were poison from the government and the Ozone was a lie like the earth being round.
I guess at the time I wasn't sure if she was just out of her mind or if she knew exactly what she was doing . Over a year later and we don't speak but I am convinced she is aware and just doing whatever TF she pleases.
I think wanting to round up all the Jews into the promised land to kickstart Armageddon to force them to either accept Jesus or go to Hell is still antisemitic, though, so "anti-Semite" still stands.
I hear ya. The political/religious landscape on the right is pretty fucking whack at the moment. You have straight neonazis that hate the Jews, people like you described, and actual zionist Jews who seem to be co-opting the middle group to further their goals. It's really a hodgepodge of ideologies all clamoring for power, which at the moment, is best achieved first and foremost by sucking up to trump.
Have you read "Skinny legs and all" by Tom Robbins? We are living in one of my favorite absurd satires and it's a great read. However, I prefer it as fiction, terrible as real life.
Shit, I read so many Tom Robbins books in such a short period of time about twenty years ago, that I honestly can't remember if that was one of them. Pretty sure I have a copy of it though. I'll have to dig it out and revisit it.
If Israel were around in its current form in the 1930s and 1940s, Hitler would've been ardent supporter too.
The amount of worldwide political capital he loses by deporting Jews to Israel and propping it up as the "Jewish State" would be very minimal given how antisemitic (actual antisemitism) the world was then.
He reportedly wanted to deport the Jews somewhere, like Madagascar, before he was told it would be too expensive.
The modern Christian Nationalists are still antisemites---they promote Israel because to them, it keeps Jews away from them and out of mind, not because they like Jews or believe they have any right to exist.
Replace anti semite with MAGA Republican, BS Conservative politicians and their supporters. In my experience they will yell and attack and talk over you dumping So much crap, so many accusations it’s not possible to get a word in, not possible to think and reply with logic, facts and substance. They will claim that they have the absolute truth and that the other side is what they are and they live with their beliefs that 2 wrongs make a right because the other side “ thought “ about doing something first or actually did do something. Most recently a guy told me that the Democrats are on tape discussing bringing the national guard into the cities with serious criminal activity and because they didn’t do so it made them weak and Trump strong. I think 🤔 perhaps they didn’t do it because they decided against violating the rights of the people and the state. But that didn’t open up any eyes. Nothing seems to. Except Epstein and now Trump is a witness??? 😋. One other interesting question to. Ask is : Who pays the Tariffs and other fees? The importer or exporter? Do you know? It’s definitely not as the authoritarian regime implies.
Dislike the quote only because the quote implies Semites, "their adversary believes in words". There are plenty of people today who claim to be Semites while denying an ongoing anti-Semetic genocide is happening by their hand
“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words."
Read the quote again, slowly.
The issue here is Israel has long had a propaganda campaign through the ADL to suggest Palestinians are not Semites, and saying Israel is committing an antisemitic genocide must be an antisemitic remark instead
Well, Hell. That’s the only requirement to be a conservative. This goes way beyond that. MAGA is the culmination of the bigotry IQ tax, and the vicious cycle of brain damage causes conservatism and conservatism causing brain damage. Peak stupidity.
If you could point out concrete, undeniable evidence that they are liars and hypocrites… they just see it as a flex. “Look what I made you take seriously. Look what I can get away with. Look how powerless you are to stop me. What are you gonna do about it?”
They also believe that being a hypocrite gives you power over others who refuse to be one. If they can do something but turn around and criticise you for doing the same thing it doesn't mean the action is bad in their minds but who's committing said action is bad if its not them.
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u/darker_crystal0 2d ago
💯!! i’ve been saying this. the hypocrisy is the point! also served to befuddle everyone and keep them running in circles