Quote of the day—Sherry Bodin

There is no doubt in my mind that President Trump was appointed by God to clean up all the corruption that we have endured throughout the United States of America for the past 40 to 50 years. President Trump offers hope for us all, so we, our children and grandchildren will live better lives once the corruption is cleaned up. We will then endure a more peaceful, loving and kind world.

Sherry Bodin
November 16, 2020
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[Video link via brother Doug.

I have a strong interest in psychology. I took a bunch of psych classes in college and I think I got straight A’s on them. I find the whole Trump as president thing extremely interesting. We have such an extreme division in this country about his character. From “racist, fascist, criminal, and all supporters and enablers must be ‘dealt with’ so our country can heal” to “appointed by God”.

How can two sets of people, all working with access to the same dataset, arrive at such different conclusions? Some, perhaps even most, are living in an alternate universes.

Reality is really, really tough. I get that. But still, it’s such a wide range of reactions that I find it difficult to imagine that I could intentionally create a data set such that some group of people could examine the data and divide into such an extreme range of opinions on what the data means.

If it weren’t for the deadly seriousness of our situation I would stock up on popcorn. Then, every night I would sit down with a full bowl and have myself a good laugh at the absurdity of human nature.—Joe]

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17 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Sherry Bodin

  1. This is not inconsistent with how people interpret their realities.

    What has opened my eyes recently to better understand this phenomenon are as follows:

    1) The musings of Scott Adams (the creator of the Dilbert cartoon) on Periscope , who describes himself as “to the left, a bit, of Bernie Sanders” (at least on nationalized health care) and he has also stated in effect that more gun regulations are OK if they can be represented as making people more safe. He also has called Joe Biden a lying *expletive* for promoting the Charlottesville “good folks” lie against Trump. Adams correctly predicted Trump’s win in 2016 due to his persuasion skills. He is not a fan of Trump as a person, but his views have resulted in him apparently receiving death threats, and I suspect based on his long-running commentary he is one of the few people in California able to get a concealed weapons permit.

    Scott talks about two people watching a movie, and coming away with two interpretations of the same content — i.e. two realities. I have used a similar aphorism of reading the Holy Bible in my discussions with people who cannot understand why people come to diametrically opposite conclusions.

    2) Mark Manson’s epistle on cognitive biases . WARNING: Language. Mark looked at the two choices for President, and divulged he voted for Biden, and received much visceral blow-back for revealing his vote. He has useful insight into how people perceive reality.

    3) Dr. Morris Massey from the Univ. of Colorado Golden had a thesis I saw at a seminar at Fort Bliss TX in the early 1970’s stating “Who you are is Where you were When you were Value Imprinted.” He makes superb points in his presentation.

    I would add that we no longer teach critical thinking in primary and secondary school. Classical republican Civics is not well taught either, and I do not know of any debate teams locally that would showcase proper classical debating skills.

    I was taught to vet and establish facts, apply logic, develop conclusion(s), and temper conclusions with reason, knowing how culture and human nature influence and affect outcomes. Yet, my conclusions are often at odds with my spouse, who I get along with swimmingly.

    This ‘fuzzy-thinking’ has been worsened by the advent of hand-held social media in the last 15 years or so, and has metastasized with now politically-aligned corporatism of TwitterFacebookInstagramGoogleYoutubeSnapchat.

    • Thanks Travis! You were talking about being influenced by the musings of Scott Adams.
      I realized most of my problems in life! MAD magazine, and Gary Larson! That and falling asleep listening to the Dr. Demento show. Throw in some LSD and the Firesign Theatre. And I was lost.
      Wow. It’s really not my fault after all!
      I think we pretty much are, how were brainwashed? It’s just a matter of who does it, with what intent?
      Imagine being raised by Charlie Manson. It’s not that one wouldn’t have critical thinking skills. As much as not being able to see those things that one needs to think about.

  2. Mr. Huffman:

    I worked for almost 40 years as a design engineer and I’ve had to put up with the sales end of business for that time. I’ve seen idiots with zero technical knowledge attempting to sell highly technical products with the easily foreseen results, either horrific or comedic. I’ve seen it from both sides of the coin; from the idiot sales-twits trying to sell my company a product, and the idiot sales-twits in my company trying to sell our product to our customers.

    In 2016 my opinion of DJT was that he was a bloviating sales-twit, constitutionally-illiterate, and with no real conception of just how evil our current federal government is and can be. But I also decided that he was an almost infinitely better choice than Felonia VonPantsuit since she was clearly determined to take us down the path to socialism.

    The last four years of Trump’s administration have not changed my opinion of him as a constitutionally-illiterate sales-twit. And yet once again I voted for him since the doddering, corrupt, gropey old man that the Dem-wing had nominated was so obviously incapable of actually holding the office that the Dem-nominated VP would soon be holding the office. If anything, even more corrupt and evil than Biden.

    It baffles me that people can watch the actions and follow the words of either of these sets of politicians regardless of which wing of the DemoPublican vulture they (claim to) represent and think that they’re either a devil, or a savior. They’ve just politicians, and not very good ones at that. Both sets tend to be statist, authoritarian, and collectivist.

    I suppose I could insert the standard joke about “Vote Cthulhu…why choose the lesser of two evils”, but this last election was a stunningly clear choice between a blatantly socialist/communist take-over of our federal government, and a much less collectivist (although still authoritarian) choice. It was an intelligence test for the US, and at least half the country failed it.

    • It seems quite easy. Take a large portion of society and make them spend 6/8 hours a day working on problems you’ve designed the answer to. From age 5-6, to the time their in their 20’s? On top of that. Throw in electronic, mental, centrifugal-bumble-puppy devices. And you can talk people into cutting off their own gender parts. And they will think it’s their own idea!
      It’s actually a marvel that we don’t, all think and see things the same way.
      I asked a very learned person once why they home schooled. He said it was not so much for education. As much as training his children to be adults.
      His reasoning was that rising them around adults, they would basically grow up acting like adults. It worked.
      I can’t help but think the opposite is true.

    • I see that you have made a common mistake in your categorization of the players. Trump is not a politician. He has had to work around them most of his life, so he understands them very well, but he never learned to think like they do himself. This difference seems to frustrate the hell out of his opponents, since they have little to no contact with people who think like he does. Add in the fact that he has more wealth than most any of them and therefore can’t be bought in the typical political arena fashion.

  3. I got in a Facebook tussle with a young social worker who lamented a news photo of looters was racist. She said everyone in the picture was black.

    I said, I hadn’t noticed anyone’s color, I only saw looters. So who is the racist?
    That went over like a turd in the punch bowl.

    Two people seeing the same picture coming away with two different views.

    I do believe there is a percentage of people who just fawn over celebrities, elected officials and athletes in blind worship. That is lost on me.

  4. What I think of when I see this behavior is the ‘The True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature Of Mass Movements” by Eric Hoffer (1951).

    He describes his thesis as “A movement is pioneered by men of words, materialized by fanatics and consolidated by men of actions.”

    “A mass movement attracts and holds a following not because it can satisfy the desire for self-advancement, but because it can satisfy the passion for self-renunciation.”

    For the “true believer,” he argues that particular beliefs are less important than escaping from the burden of the autonomous self.

    And as his title suggests the true believer is also a religious fanatic intent on converting the world. The experience is exhilarating and very addictive. In reality they are mad men that will fight with little fear of their own life for the good of their religion.

    In history, I tend to think of the Islamic conquest of much of the known world known for its conversion via the sword. It also applies to much more recent movements including BLM and ANTIFA.

    • It also applies to fundental attribution error, blame shifting, rationalizing, all behaviors externalizing the causes of personal negative behavior.
      For the Marxist, it’s the justification for class warfare. You’re not poor due to combinations of random circumstance, luck, and hard work. You’re poor because other people with different combinations of these factors, those greedy pie-making capitilsts, took all the pie!
      For the abuser in a relationship, it’s not their fault they yelled, hit, threatened, manipulated–you see, all those behaviors well within the domain of self-control were really things that simply could not be helped.
      For the religious it’s the response to original sin. Adam didn’t eat the forbidden fruit, it was God’s fault, providing the woman who gave it to him!

  5. Recently had a go-round with someone(among others) I thought pretty solidly grounded, who
    Thinks Trump is a racist who treats women horribly,
    yet
    Thinks Biden is better despite a history of both, let’s say, racially-improper statements and a history of actually laying unwanted hands on both women and underage girls. Because ‘That’s different!’, though she couldn’t say how.

    • As I pointed out to someone, the Dems do not get to play the ‘morality’ card any more. They tossed that one out when they nominated Bill Clinton.

      The fact they are trying to do so (while simultaneously maligning Mike Pence for being so cautious) says volumes about their hypocrisy. Too bad they’re immune to being shamed with it.

      • They may be immune from media criticism. But 434 million guns,(and climbing), can’t be all wrong. Nor their owners.
        A lot more notice and understand than are given credit.

        • That sounds impressive, but is there a will to use them in significant numbers?

          In any case, from what we’re seeing now, the left does not seem threaten. I suspect they would even welcome overt threats or use of force because that would be all the justification they would need to crack down using the unfettered power of the state. After-like all other mob ideas, once it pops into their head and it is blessed, it become an unquestionable path. And we are seeing more suggestions along these lines.

          “No seriously…how *do* you deprogram 75 million people? Where do you start? Fox? Facebook?

          We have to start thinking in terms of post-WWII Germany or Japan. Or the failures of Reconstruction in the South.” – David Atkins.

          There is even a hash tag for this: “david atkins deprogram”

          • I think it was Bill Ayers that talked about having to get rid of 25 million die hard capitalists?
            If one throws out 5 million as unable to resist. That still leaves an army 8 times larger than the largest standing army in the world. (The Chinese, at 2.25 million if memory serves.) And were probably better armed.
            We should never doubt the communist penchant for bold, rash lies and behavior.
            But there’s no way in hell their going to re-educate 70 million people.(their number with vote fraud). Or do away with 20 million armed ones.
            Communism lasted what, 60-70 years in Russia.( And we had saved it from Hitler.) If Nixon wouldn’t have saved Mao. It wouldn’t have lasted 40 in China.
            It won’t make it 10 in the US.
            No matter what smelly hippies, or billionaire control-freaks dream about.
            I just don’t see that many American getting in the cattle cars. Nor enough communists to herd them in.

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