Trump claims Americans say 'under God' and 'merry Christmas' more since he won - Polidicks

It's more like an acute stabbing pain but yeah

look at this agnostic fucker! how dare you not insist on a worldview where everybody are exactly the same kind of christian as you.

I worked customer service and saw quite the opposite. Infact, we were told to stay away from saying “Merry Christmas.” Therefore everywhere in the US said it less! Moral of the story? Its anecdotal as fuck and using some moron on twitter as a source doesn’t prove it

Holy shit the parodies write themselves.

Under his eye. Blessed day.

Anecdotes really aren't worth shit unless you're disproving a universal assertion.

Lol obama was so evil that christians forgot how to pray. One time i prayed to a relative being sick, and obama's hitmen beat me with batons.

Well, I've definitely been invoking God more often since Trump took office; as in, "oh, God," "God, why," and "Please, God, no."

"Happy holidays!" "Say Merry Christmas, you unAmerican scum!" "Okay, have a shitty holiday, then, suit yourself." That's what I think of when I think of people being anal about saying Merry Christmas as if it's a cultural litmus test.

I always tell my dad happy holidays cause it's one of his buttons when people don't say Merry Christmas My war on Christmas is going quite well

I wonder if this song causes them to convulse in agony... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz7FYPQp7v0

Things that are Not Important according to GOP: Education Healthcare Fair justice system Peace Things that are IMPORTANT according to GOP: Saying "MERRY CHRISTMAS AND THANK GOD AND JESUS OUR SAVIOUR" to store workers during the festive period

Are you trying to pick up Tudd's slack or something?

Seano's been around long before Tudd was spotted IIRC. At any rate, I guess Trump's half right. I've certainly been saying "God dammit" a lot more these days.

Nothing edgy about it, and all the proof you need can be had by...well... https://www.google.com/search?q=black+friday+fight&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 If christmas was about anything remotely like what it used to be about that search would have fuck all in it, if it returned results at all. As it is, that google search pulls up countless cases of people brawling, killing, maiming each other over random electronics. https://www.google.com/search?q=black+friday+trample&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 And this is the non-malicious body count of 21st century Christmas. Even when people aren't getting into gunfights in the toy department or stabbing people over blenders they're still killing/maiming/wounding other people. Door greeters, store staff usually, but often enough it's fellow customers. Someone trips trying to come in the door they're fucked, getting trampled, the people behind them are moving forward whether they want to or not because the people behind them are doing so, and so on and so on. Black Friday Death Count The mere existence of this site is even more proof that there's zero edge to my post. It's just fact. That's what Christmas has been twisted into. That's what Christmas is to the Western world: A consumerist hell where the only thing that matters is who can buy the best gift. There's no room for love-for-all, peace, companionship, spending time with family, none of that. There's nothing religious left in it, nothing nice, nothing pleasant. It's just 'SPEND SPEND SPEND BUY BUY BUY'. The whole crux of your post is 'Merry Christmas isn't inclusive enough.' I'm countering that point by saying it's the most inclusive thing we have on account of the meaning of it being twisted into a deformed consumerist monster that welcomes any and all regardless of race, creed, belief system, whatever. The big corporations don't care about your religion or your skin color, all they care about is that you're in those massive crowds buying gifts with money you don't have. Maybe I went on a bit of a rant, but that's just what has become of the holiday.

Do you want to join my young socialist chat group

Things certainly seem to be going backwards. Especially when you look at how our generation is the first one in however many that will make less than our parents. And lowered wages, lack of employment options, the unlikliness of affording a house within our lifetimes. But its also important to keep this in perspective. We exist at a time coming off the back of a period of constant growth for 50-70 years. Yes, things are declining, but only because that growth was unsustainable. Compared to 50-70 years ago things are much better. We have central heating and air conditioning, microwaves, the internet, vaccines, supermarkets. For good or bad, individuals can have more effect on the world then they ever could in the past. Another thing to consider is, yes things were better in the past, but who were they actually better for? For most of the world's population and for minority groups in western countries, the world didn't start getting significantly better until within the last 20 years or so. For example, China's economic miracle brought tens of millions of people out of poverty and is continuing to do so today. The thing about the golden age of the 1950s-1970s is that it was somewhat of an illusion. Unless you were predominately a white american living in the midwest or east or west coast, it didn't happen to you. Europe was still recovering from the Second World War. Asia and the middle east still hadn't industrialized and were still by-and-large living under medieval feudal states or totalitarian military dictatorships. If you were a minority living in the United States, the golden age totally passed you by. What we're seeing now is that people are reacting to the feeling that things are getting worse for them and better for minorities/foreigners. Because of that people are lashing out and supporting secessionist, nationalistic (and therefore anti-foreigner) and racially charged ideologies and politicians. The reality is that, rather than things getting worse for one group and consequently better for another group, we're starting to see some of the economic prosperity leaking from the predominately dominant group to all of the others. The reason that feels like we're losing out is because a. we're so used to constant progress that we feel like things slowing down for us and speeding up for others is an objective decrease even though things are still better for us than they were 50-70 years ago and b. it's human nature to want to compare and constrast ourselves with other people and we therefore feel that if someone else is getting something that we're not then it's unfair even if that someone else has been historically disadvantaged. I would also argue that this is more of an American thing rather than an overall western issue. I suspect that this is a case where American 'soft power' (i.e. news, television and online presence) has pushed this idea of poor white people missing out to poor minorities/foreigners and galvanised already existing nationalist and racially charged movements in european countries. This is similiar to how there wasn't really many anti-vaxxers or climate change deniers in other western countries until the Unitex States supercharged these issues. In other words, these things were imported from America. Sorry for the longwinded post, but it's quite a complex topic.

seano was permabanned before tudd was even on this forum, tudd was actually picking up his slack

Not really. For all of capitalism's flaws, it's less of a fuckpit than socialism is. Plus I hate politics in general.

Tudd's an intellectual giant compared to Seano, which is incredibly depressing to think about.

He was making fun of you

Things may be less shit than they were before, but that doesn't mean they aren't shit. A slightly less stinky and slimy turd is still a turd and the world is still an awful quagmire of bullshit. Plus we're losing a bunch of that stuff. Diseases that were all but eradicated are making a comeback thanks to fuckwits that think vaccines cause autism, and of course the economy is being controlled by people who grew up in that golden age and thus they're just looking down at us whispering 'Bootstraps' while they continue to rig the system as much as possible in their benefit. I, personally, have nothing against minorities. My beef lies with the corporate oligarchy that governs us, that pulls the strings guiding the puppets in Congress, and with those puppets themselves. And of course the Russian government, because those fuckwits are just fanning the flames all in the name of bettering themselves, too...any red-blooded American that has an ounce of self-respect should be flipping the Kremlin off as hard as they can these days. Shouldn't let that extend to the average Russian, though, hell those poor bastards have it even worse than we do.

I was just pointing it out, because your response literally did not indicate any modicum of awareness that he was doing so. No need to be a penis about it.

In my mind, the thing is with all those issues (the anti-vaxxers and extreme alt-right blaming-of-everything-on-non-white-people not the corporate oligarchy part, we'll be contending with that until a meteor wipes us out or the heat death of the universe, whichever comes first) is that they're a product of the period of time we're living in and not permanent. Heck, the alt-right thing is starting to die off now that enough people have been galvanised to show up at their demonstrations and make them look bad. Not that they'll disappear or anything. They will just go underground until the next major civil uproar gives them a chance to gain a sliver of legitimacy again. In the meantime their media spotlight will be taken over by incels, probably. My point being is that Im not trying to say that bad shit doesnt happen. Bad shit is constantly happening, but it cycles around so that no one bad thing ends up having such a demonstrable impact so that it, say, wipes out humanity or puts forward momentum permanently on hold. For example, yes anti-vaxxers are bad and people are probably going to die from diseases that were once thought erradicated from anywhere except third world countries. But are there so many anti-vaxxers that they will cause 100 years of scientific development of vaccines to be invalidated? I'd argue no. Anti-vaccination is, after all, a fad like the paleo diet or zumba. So, yes anti-vaccination is horrible, but it's important to keep context in mind when you say everything is shit and will continue to get more shit. There's also the fact that the media tends to amplify the shitty things that happen and underappreciate all the positive advancements and innovations. Like, at the same time anti-vaxxers are weakening the effectiveness of existing vaccines there are scientists coming up with breakthroughs of new vaccines to countereact them. Overall, the bad stuff is temporary while the good stuff gradually keeps making stuff better and better. According to all objective metrics, the average human life expentancy and quality of life globally has been increasing steadily over the past 50 years. This is due to advancements and innovations in technology and infrastructure in third world countries, which simultaneously drives down prices and improves standards of living in first world countries due to the industries growing there.

In greater numbers humans and their animal companions are sustained and supported by objectively beneficial advancements, and technological optimization. Held up by this knowledge, subjective thinking willingly branches out towards greater diversity. But, that leads to an inescapable double-edged sword, quasi-, pseudo-, and unhelpful thinking creates disorder. From our inherently flawed genetics, more diverse awarenesses with objectively flawed perceptions create more disorder.

In terms of moral and ethical beliefs, I'd argue that the world's population is far more unified and orderly than it was, say, in the middle ages. If someone was to talk to another person on all but the extreme opposite side of the political spectrum, they'd find that they all but totally agree on pretty much every single issue save for a few specific niggling points, especially when it comes to ethical and moral problems. For example, it is almost universally believed that killing another human being in cold blood and not in self defense is wrong except in a few specific cases. In the past it may have been justifiable to commit murder on an otherwise innocent person if the victim had the wrong belief system or cultural grouping. Once again, our modern media tends to amplify points of contention which makes us feel that we are more dividied than ever when in actuality the current situation only seems so dire because of how well things have been appearing to be in the last very short span of time.

I was making a joke Not to be a downer but we've had tech explosions before that ended up regressing horribly for quite long periods of time. We've got to this point extremely quickly and we could lose it just as quickly. Overall progress doesn't mean we'll end up seeing a lot of immediate benefit from it, nor that we won't even suffer immensely. It just means that on average people will be getting happier.

I'm sorry, did I disrupt your echo chamber? Not everyone who has a different set of political beliefs is some backwards hateful individual. This attitude is exactly what's pulling the country apart and if it continues then there will be serious ramifications.

I don't think you're a downer at all. And the point you're making is the same as the one I was making in my previous post: Automation will cost people jobs in the short term, but in the long term it will create new jobs by growing the economy. Otherwise it will be so good that it essentially replaces human labor entirely and increases production exponentially so that we'll be able to implement some form of universal basic income. I think people might be overestimating the ability of current artificial intelligence technologies in that case though.

I don't think you'd be able to comfort many people's suffering with "future humans will be happy!". I'm not suffering a lot right now but a lot of people are. People's contempt for you has nothing to do with your beliefs.