My wife jokes about our DNA facial patterns showing up not only with our adult children and now our teenage grandkids.
I have a photo of my Dad when he was 3 years old. One of our grandsons at three looked like a clone of his great grandfather.
Posted on 07/28/2016 9:05:59 PM PDT by pissant
Conservative blogger and broadcaster Erick Erickson joined Glenn’s radio program Wednesday to discuss the political landscape and the upcoming 2016 RedState Gathering in Denver, Colorado. When Glenn asked Erickson how we could put the fractured alliance between conservatives and libertarians back together, Erickson expressed his doubts on this happening anytime soon.
“All the people who supported Trump in the primary are mad at the establishment. They hate the Republicans in Washington,” Erickson said. “Whether Trump wins or loses, these are going to be the Republicans still in charge, and Donald Trump has already said he’s perfectly happy cutting deals with those people, because he likes them.”
In an effort to help bridge this gap, Erickson said an invitation had gone out for libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson
(Excerpt) Read more at glennbeck.com ...
Social aspects of cult-like behavior
For a group to be a cult in the social sense, many of the following characteristics would have to be present. For a group to be a cult in the doctrinal sense, essentials (in this case of the Christian faith) would have to be violated. Some of the characteristics are listed below.
Submission:
Complete, almost unquestioned trust in the leadership. Leaders are often seen as prophets, apostles, or special individuals with unusual connections to God. This helps a person give themselves over psychologically to trusting someone else for their spiritual welfare. Increased submission to the leadership is rewarded with additional responsibilities and/or roles, and/or praises, increasing the importance of the person within the group.
Exclusivity
Their group is the only true religious system, or one of the few true remnants of God’s people.
Persecution complex
Us against them mentality. Therefore, when someone (inside or outside of the group) corrects the group in doctrine and/or behavior, it is interpreted as persecution, which then is interpreted as validation.
Control
Control of members’ actions and thinking through repeated indoctrination and/or threats of loss of salvation, or a place to live, or receiving curses from God, etc.
Isolation
Minimizing contact of church members with those outside the group. This facilitates a further control over the thinking and practices of the members by the leadership.
Love Bombing
Showing great attention and love to a person in the group by others in the group, to help transfer emotional dependence to the group.
Special Knowledge
Instructions and/or knowledge are sometimes said to be received by a leader(s) from God. This leader then informs the members. The Special Knowledge can be received through visions, dreams, or new interpretations of sacred scriptures such as the Bible.
Indoctrination
The teachings of the group are repeatedly drilled into the members, but the indoctrination usually occurs around Special Knowledge.
Salvation
Salvation from the judgment of God is maintained through association and/or submission with the group, its authority, and/or its Special Knowledge.
Group Think
The group’s coherence is maintained by the observance to policies handed down from those in authority.
There is an internal enforcement of policies by members who reward “proper” behavior, and those who perform properly are rewarded with further inclusion and acceptance by the group.
Cognitive Dissonance
Avoidance of critical thinking and/or maintaining logically impossible beliefs and/or beliefs that are inconsistent with other beliefs held by the group.
Avoidance of and/or denial of any facts that might contradict the group’s belief system.
Shunning
Those who do not keep in step with group policies are shunned and/or expelled.
Gender Roles
Control of gender roles and definitions.
Severe control of gender roles sometimes leads to sexual exploitation.
Appearance Standards
Often a common appearance is required and maintained. For instance, women might wear prairie dresses, and/or their hair in buns, and/or no makeup, and/or the men might all wear white short-sleeved shirts, and/or without beards, or all wear beards.
https://carm.org/signs-practices-of-a-cult
That made me laugh, well turned.
My wife jokes about our DNA facial patterns showing up not only with our adult children and now our teenage grandkids.
I have a photo of my Dad when he was 3 years old. One of our grandsons at three looked like a clone of his great grandfather.
“I done sneaked back in through the basement window!”
We will put the back door key under the mat where our pit bull, Killer, sleeps/rests!
What a winky-tink. How old is he, 14?
Still a long way to go until the election and a whole lot can happen between now and then.
I also think those 4 un-nameables you mentioned are past being relevant. Thank God!
Boy, our language has come in for a real battering this election cycle. “True conservatism” now means working hard to see a hard-left activist Supreme Court and all that entails, open borders, a weakened military, higher taxes, more government regulations, retention of Obamacare and Common Core, a gradual abolition of the Second Amendment, and a soft stance on ISIS and terrorism. Who would have thought?
If these globalist NeverTrumpers on the right love the libertarians, I hope they go ahead and join the Libertarian Party and leave us alone. The moderate neo-conconservative globalists in the party can go ahead and join the no borders globalist one-worlders in the Dem party too, while they’re at it. Patriotic, pro-America, hardworking, reasonable Dems and Indies can replace them.
Not even crazy Glenn Beck can be that delusional, could he? It’s probably just cover. They don’t want to lose their listeners/readers by outing themselves as sellouts who want Hillary Clinton as president, so they have to pretend they aren’t really trying to get her elected, while still making absurd attacks constantly against her opponent.
(Of course, I could be wrong, though. Maybe Beck et al. really are just full-on nuts who hate the idea of the American people having a fair election. As the Cruz delegate revolt showed at the convention, some people simply have contempt for regular people having a say in their governance and believe that leaders should be appointed rather than elected. If they are really anti-freedom, though, why do they keep harping on the Constitution, as if they care?)
I disagree with the populist vs conservative argument.
I certainly do not consider either Nixon, Ford, Dole, McCain, GHWB, GWB, or (especially) Romney to be conservatives. Republicans, yes, bot not conservatives. I consider Calvin Coolidge, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan each to be conservative. And each stuck out like a throbbing, sore thumb amongst their (mostly) liberal, fellow republicans.
In today’s Senate, Jeff Sessions, Tom Cotton, Jim Inhofe, & Lee and Cruz are about the only conservatives - of different hues to be sure. The reason you see others with high “conservative” ratings from various organizations (ACU, National Journal, Levin’s rag, etc) is that they use very selective criteria to weigh the scores. In the case of the ACU, for example, they love the destructive, sovereignty usurping, so-called free trade. If you support these boondoggles, you get high marks.
There is no doubt that Trump has a populist streak a mile wide, especially in his stump speech rhetoric. But examined in detail, he has the most conservative platform of any candidate for POTUS in decades. Instead of acting like the distinctly non-conservative capons at National Review, who like to pick apart his speeches and press conferences to for clues that Trump is a closet liberal, just look at his platform:
Select ONLY Originalist Judges - (Compare that to the “no litmus test” GOP presidents who have given us, at best, a mixed bag of court appointees).
Tax plan - if implemented, as a whole, it will be the most aggressive tax cuts in US history.
Immigration - the best of the best. And for once, it isn’t the meanigless, bullsh*t phrase “secure the border”. Rather it is build the wall. And he just re-iterated two days ago his stance to get rid of the phony anchor baby scam.
Reform the VA: Allowing private competition.
Healthcare Reform: HSAs and borderless competition for insurance are indeed free market remedies. Despite how many times Mark Levin or Jonah Goldberg repeat that Trump wants “single payer”, it is flat out false, something Trump has repeatedly disowned in multiple interviews.
Stay out of ME quagmires. Drives the neocons crazy, but it is definitely the more conservative course.
Rebuild the Military. Something all Republicans agree with.
Get rid of “gun free zones”. Very few GOPers have had the balls to call for this.
Gut the EPA and the Dept of Ed. Hope he dumps the ashes of these liberal creatures on the graves of Nixon and GWB, respectively.
And perhaps the greatest contribution to the country is his willingness to smash political correctness with a sledgehammer. PC is a fascist concept, is strangling our nation, and that deserves to die a quick, painful death.
yeah, just a few years. But I’ve been back a couple of months now. Cheers
Gee thanks, Grampa D!
Thanks. Good to see you still kickin’
It was my only characteristic, according to (more than a) few freepers!
spot on!
So you redefine the word conservative just as the word gay was redefined.
Dubya ran much more conservative than he governed (NCLB and Part D). But especially he campaigned against nation-building and was quite Pat Buchanan on that. Then the neo-cons changed his mind post-911.
What worries many Cruzers is Trump will pull a Bush and not govern as he campaigned. Whether right or wrong, the Cruzers believed Cruz would govern as he campaigned.
I didn’t redefine conservative, the RINOs tried to.
Yes, Bush ran like a Reaganite in 2000. He governed like a Nixonian.
The worry of many Cruz types is that Trump will govern to the left of where he campaigns. Given Trump erratic behavior (as portrayed in the media) the hesitation of Cruz types is understandable.
If Trump carries through on any two of his following campaign promises, he’ll be considered a successful president:
1. Cut the corporate tax from 39 to 15%
2. Build the wall and stop illegal immigration
3. Balance the budget
4. Renegotiate trade on a bilateral basis with an eye toward re-industrialization of the US.
5. Pick 2-4 new Scalias for the SCOTUS
6. Kill Obamacare and replace it with competition and HSAs
7. Gut federal regs, including the EPA and the Dept of Ed.
If he gets 3 of these done, he’ll be considered great. If he gets 4 or more accomplished, he’ll be chiseled into Mt Rushmore.
Agreed. The big word is IF.
Undecided Cruz types fear that he is less trustworthy that Bush I, Dole, Bush II, McCain and Romney in actually going this direction.
The Trump image is that he likes to centralize power in himself...that it is all about him.
If he could show that operation of his businesses is decentralized that would ease the worries of the Cruz types.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.