Explaining Why Liberals Despise Trump

Why is this important?

I was reading our local weekly, the Durango Telegraph, and came across a letter from an old letter-to-editor sparing mate.  His words hit me at the right moment.  (They were obviously tongue in cheek, yuck yuck fun'n stuff, as they say.  So what?) Since I've been wondering about how that ~35% of Trump believers can justify their steadfast faith in that transparent con-artist.  I decided to spent today's free time trying to enunciate why many of us find Trump so unpalatable. Then I couldn't resist weaving nearly seventy links into the lines.  Stories and resources for the curious - explore those hot links. 

Normally I’d cover the name, but in this case I think he’d feel insulted were I to do that, since he is a local letter writing legend and proud of his wordsmithing.

I am an Earth Centrist.

I've finally found a label I can wholeheartedly embrace and explain and defend.  I am an Earth Centrist !

The reason I'm posting this is because it's some thoughts I've been working on for decades and I'm finally getting close and I want to share even if it's far from finished.  Curious to see if anyone wants to bounce it around.

I am a fiercely independent guy and feeling more like H. Haller all the time so I don't make great internet intros, but feedback and networking is a requirement of life.  It's fine and poetic to be the sound of one hand clapping, but I'm concerned with finding out if any of this resonates with any one of the few who'll read it. Some of you folks know many people within the climate science communication and politics interface, one of them is looking for me.  Please help us connect.  

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated in comments or email.

Thank you.   citizenschallenge at gmail com

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( revisited and revised 7/31/2018 )

I've finally found a label I can wholeheartedly embrace and explain and defend.

I am an Earth Centrist !

Meaning that Earth and her physical processes and the pageant of her evolution are my touchstones.  Understanding evolution and the biosphere I'm part of and how we got here is the foundation of all my reality. 

Religions, God, political beliefs, they are all products of the human mindscape, generations of imaginings built upon previous generations of imaginings, all the way down.  

Something real and to be reckoned with, yet in the end, it's only our mindscapes at work.  While the real creation keeps on unfolding outside of our heads regardless and we're left to hang on for dear life.

In a way that mindscape is a product of Earth's evolution, yet it's certainly distinct and slightly separate from Earth's physical biological processes, something unique, ineffable, yet with the power to manifest personal gods and Earth shattering physical events.  

I suggest most people are unaware of the Map v Territory Problem, thus society commits the same ME FIRST self-destructive errors that it has repeated for thousands of years, never learning a god-damned thing.  

Just as mega-corporations that have grown big enough to destroy governments, so too our mega-species has become big enough to destroy our life sustaining biosphere.  

That evolving creature that has existed since Earth bounced back from the last big comet strike about 65 million years ago.  

The one that had achieved a splendid plateau 8-10 thousand years ago, but that now humanity has reset to something the likes of which Earth has not experienced in hundreds of millions of years.  It’ll take a few decades and centuries to fully blossom, but it is as down to Earth physically certain as tomorrow's sunrise.  Such a tragedy, yet that is where we find ourselves in 2018.  

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Then there's the God v Science question.

Knowledge of God is the ultimate in personal intimate relationship, your experience can not be transferred to, or replicated for, others.  

Religions are human constructs for enabling people to reconcile themselves with the seasons and hardships of their lives and to enable human societies to function in a civil organized manner. 

A God, if there be one, is All Things to All People, well beyond all human* understanding as the Holy Books warn us (* read petty, fearful, greedy, self-serving humans) individuals.  

If you are fortunate enough to be touched by God, that is your gift alone, something for you in your unique life.  It is not a recipe for your neighbors or the world.

Science on the other hand is humanity’s recipe for learning about the physical world and its processes as honestly as possible.

Science is:

Learning is the goal.

Fidelity to physical facts is the gold standard.  

Free Speech doesn’t mean it’s okay to lie and slander with malicious intent.

Informed constructive skepticism is the rule.

Mistakes are for learning.   

Dishonest bluster and bullying is a crime.

Considering a contrarian’s “Global Warming Pathways”

Mikie the Contrarian writes:

What I see is there are (two) separate Global Warming pathways going on at the same time. ...

But first.  Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.  Though I only had a lifetime of self-study regarding our marvelous planet and its processes and history under my belt, I still felt qualified enough to put in hundreds of hours directly confronting contrarian claims with rational arguments, backed by copious links to more authoritative sources for real learning opportunities.  

Various impulses drove this passion, since I’m basically self taught it provided me with great personal learning challenges.  I’ll admit to dreaming of winning over some contrarian, though more important was a desire to produce substantive study guides to help jump start interested students to engage in their own efforts of public debate and standing up to the massive malicious astroturfing going on.  

I’d also hoped to network with like minded citizens who resented the nonstop transparent lies as much as I do and who were likewise motivated to engage in the public “debate.”

I’m aware that with over a decade of blogging all I have to show for my efforts is a good deal of self-education which is satisfaction in itself, but still never any substantive connections that would help me improve my work, nor any sort of organizing a bit of intellectual confrontationalism against all the malicious deception being astroturfed everywhere.  

Seems everyone rather keep it polite and play by the contrarian handbook.  

Yet, it’s 2017, and it seems that despite all that has unfolding in past years and again this year not a damned thing has been learned by so-called conservatives and the GOP in general, heck the Democratic liberals themselves remain stunned and clueless as ever.  

So, what’s the point at this point?  

Calistoga CA and end of The Dream

As I write this the northern California fires continue raging and Calfire doesn’t expect containment for another week.  Santa Rosa the area’s ‘big city’ has been decimated, quite literally.  Major fires in Mendocino County and around Clear Lake (yet again) with Sonoma and Napa valleys being particularly hard hit this past week.

Right now heroic efforts continue to cut fire-lines and other defenses against the huge Tubbs fire in order to save Chateau Montelena Winery of “Bottle Shock” fame and the beautiful little town of Calistoga at the head of the Napa Valley.

All hinges on the weather.  Beyond a certain point, heat and wind will overcome the best defenses, given a few days of favorable winds/temps and the town has a good chance.  (Saturday turned out to be a good day for them and I wish them well these next couple critical days.)

Not that it’s more important than the other catastrophes going down, but this one’s personal, I know the town and the landscape fairly well so this hurts in a way destruction in places I'm not connected with can't. 

Incite Civility and Reason - The Coffee Party

Just doing a little sharing here.  Another group worth becoming acquainted with since they are a sobering anecdote to the Koch's Tea Party.  It's going to take a thousands of points of lights and millions of informed citizens.  Can you join a movement for rationality and critical thinking and patriotic intentions?

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http://www.coffeepartyusa.com/about

Coffee Party USA is a grassroots, non-partisan movement that aims to restore the principles and spirit of our republic and representative democracy in America. It started on Facebook as a popular fan page in January 2010 and has since blossomed into a national non-profit organization with a network of over half a million people and dozens of local chapters.

Our path to restoring America's republic and representative democracy:

• Identifying and advocating for legislative fixes to reform campaign finance laws, Wall Street regulations, and the tax code;
• Promoting cultural changes to address political disengagement, polarization, and widespread misinformation.

Our activities often center around encouraging inclusive, civil, fact-based, solution-oriented dialogue — online and in public places such as coffee houses — in which we meet, talk, become informed and engaged as fellow Americans, rather than as members of political parties.

Profiles in Self-delusion - Dilbert’s Scott Adams

The cartoonist responsible for the “Dilbert” strip has decided to expand his reach into writing on climate science.  His first endeavor is such an excellent example of the self delusional mind doing it’s best to rationalize and embrace an avoidance of fundamental reality that I’ve decide to make a case study of it.

Victor Venema at VariableVariablity.blogspot.com has already written an interesting fairly detailed rebuttal at “Scott Adams: The Non-Expert Problem and Climate Change Science” and I recommend it because Victor, in keeping with his serious scientific sensibilities, offers Scott Adams’ the benefit of the doubt and takes the time to explain why Adams’ claims are misleading.

However, Scott Adams’ words convince me that his is nothing more than another cynical con game utilizing well worn tactics of strategic denial.  His exercise had nothing to do with an honest person trying to constructively explain his misgivings in an effort at better understanding. 

In this review I intent to focus on examining his disingenuous contrivances. 

First off please notice, rather than focusing on reviewing climate science fundamentals and known facts, Adams distracts with ‘slight of phrasing’ to draw the discussion away from where it needs to go, all the while striving to surreptitiously inoculate his audience with distrust and confusion at every turn.

The Non-Expert Problem and Climate Change Science, by Scott Adams

December 5th, 2016 - tagged: #trump, #climate science

It seems to me that a majority of experts could be wrong whenever you have a pattern that looks like this

1. A theory has been “adjusted” in the past to maintain the conclusion even though the data has changed. For example, “Global warming” evolved to “climate change” because the models didn’t show universal warming.

Profiles in Fraud - Nell Hughes: Facts not facts no mo.

I'll let a serious comedian explain this one.

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Donald Trump's False Claims and Foreign Policy Moves: 
A Closer Look

Late Night with Seth Meyers | Published on Dec 5, 2016

Seth takes a closer look at Presidential-elect Trump's willingness to make false claims 

and his shoot-from-the-hip foreign policy approach.

Late Night with Seth Meyers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E791nErkCXY

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5:35 - yup, no such thing as facts, 

they make it all up as they go along, 

bluffing and hoping for the best. 

Why are we handing our government over to such infantile delusionals?

    

~~~   Scary times America   ~~~

Democracy demands an informed 

and engaged citizenry.  

Wake up America.  This is not a drill !
This is for keeps.