SOUL

As long as it's not the P diddy ...because no diddy

Get out of your dogmas! Believe mine instead! This is too funny...

You are looking behind you for it when it's in front of you, transcend the story of your poop.

Absolute poop

Read what you wrote back to yourself and recognize the dualism of your words, in your mindset...you say absolute truth is limitless but also put limits on it by saying, no, not yours...just mine. Again, it seems you are just in love with the stink of your own poop.

I think I have discovered the defect in your thinking...critical thinking isn't the same thing as criticizing something in one's thinking. We can logically reason through something without criticizing it at the same time. There is a distinction. Also, when we call something false or true in a relative sense it reinforces the dualistic mindset. Them over there with those ideas are false, while me over here with mine are true. Absolute truth isn't the same as relative truth, so different perspectives of it can be equally valid. You may not have a perspective of absolute truth that resonates with someone else's perspective of it. Instead of criticize another's and call it false instead we can celebrate the diversity of perspectives and recognize they all are infinite expressions of absolute truth. Sure, you can abide in your own mind pointing fingers at others, calling out your perception of false so continuing to invest in the illusory dualism...or not do that.

Brainwashing is when other people think and believe things different than you like but when you want to change them and society to think and believe as you do it's not brainwashing at all, it's 'freedom'. The cope delusion is rampant.

As long as you believe in dear leader... so laughable. The cultish mind-virus that is MAGA is truly diverse, as long as you bow to the almighty Trump. This is how utterly brainwashed that culture is people can't even see past the veil. Just doom scroll that twixie site and it's so obvious how accepting of others expression and perspectives they are as long as you submit to everything MAGA wants you to believe. Your every belief and thought are conditioned to conform with the repetitive delusions of the anointed one. This isn't even considering the religious fanaticism, add that element to the cauldron of MAGA conservatism it is oh so open minded, they celebrate diversity and inclusion, just ask them. I'm sure they'll agree. I'm stunned I live in the timeline that millions of people are gaslit like this. I wouldn't have believed it unless I saw it with my own eyes.

So you poop on 'self help' then create your own story about what needs to be done to 'end the mission'...just seems like you want to criticize others about their story and prefer the stink of your own poop. Ok...noted.

@martins name If your list of 'causes' and 'becauses' is any indication, you actually don't understand as much as you think you do. Even the history you claim is 80% shaping American psyche is really from 80% brainwashing of it, not actually what it is.

Bibi is Trump's Daddy. If someone tries to suggest it's only about 'what is now' it lacks understanding of how 'now' is actually every moment up till now like a wave isn't just what is cresting on the beach, it's the ocean. The iceberg isn't just what pops above the water and can be seen, there's most of it unseen below the water. This is how 'time' manifests, it's not just little bits streaming past our eyes moment by moment, that is just our perception of it. Time is an unfolding and every 'moment' holds the totality of 'now' in it as the absolute it is, not just the fragment that appears to us. What does this mean for the middle east? Contemplate it with this is mind and maybe it will reveal itself to your perception, I can't explain it in one post on a forum.

Read the book 'Manufacturing Consent' by Noam Chomsky and it explains why this and so many other things about these dynamics. To be fair in full disclosure I never read it because I actually see it so clearly anyway it's as if I could have written that book myself. It still is a great read from what I'm told.

There isn't even consistency within an opinion, as you mentioned, people usually layer in so many caveats to their position that it distorts the point of view so dramatically it isn't really coherent to common knowledge about the topics. Let alone that most people have a diverse set of viewpoints that cannot be neatly organized into two categories even if they aren't aware of it themselves, as you also mentioned. Imagine being pro-life for our own life but also pro-choice because you can't impose one person's belief on another. Consider being for gun control to keep it out of certain people's hands(typically known as red flag laws) because of their behavior but also being in favor of open carry laws(for people who pass safety standards). What about someone who think trans people should not be discriminated against(housing, health care, workplace, restrooms) but also sees protections for fairness in competition of sports, especially for youth as important. I know people, even I may have some of these types of nuanced views, but how would these people fit into the 'two box theory' that political and social life has become. These views don't even fit cleanly into one or the other within the typical social understanding of the topic. On this forum there's a huge thing about being non-dual and then we have to live in a world that is only-dual in nearly every aspect of interaction. Although, I suspect you understand my points here, I'm probably just be articulating them for others who may read these comments.

What's absolutely comical is you say this about progressives when it's pretty much ALL of conservative culture, not just half. The most critical things that could be said about 'liberals' is what 'conservatives' celebrate about themselves and blame others for. Every accusation by conservatives is really just a confession. The lack of self awareness is stunning.

Sounds like the Christian religion but even if they can't find victims, they make people into victims then say they have the solution to save them from the hell Christians brought them.

Yabadabadoo!

I even think the people of this forum should be freed from the religious loonyism on this forum. Sure, it's a mental captivity and I doubt the solipsistic cabal would turn to actual physical oppression because they would only be oppressing themselves in their mind.

I think all people across the world should be freed from the religious loonies.

You are leaving out an important piece, that Shah was an oppressive and abusive dictator. The religious extremists said they would 'liberate them' from the oppressive government, which they wanted. Except they turned around to oppress them in another way, the religious extremist version of it. They may have been culturally Islamic but that doesn't mean they wanted the extremist version of it. They didn't choose the religious extremism, they wanted the freedom from oppression, they just didn't get it from the zealots, either If the west hadn't meddled in the first place, the country still might be democratic today. Except for greed and callousness to the people far away, they didn't have to see, the west didn't care as long as they got what they wanted. It's just the extension of the colonialist mindset that seems to permeate the west.

It wasn't just the 'rich and upper class' but the amount of religious extremism or the more culturally restrictive version of it wasn't as influential as it came to be. In fact, in many instances the US and western countries backed, armed and empowered the religious extremists because those groups promise to let the western corporations get the oil and getting a cut themselves in exchange for backing them. As soon as they didn't do everything the west wanted them to they all of a sudden became 'extremist' and 'terrorist' states. As an example, Saddam Hussein was a western puppet dictator they let gas his own people because he let them do what they want. Some friction occurred, he decides to sell his oil in euros which plummets the US dollar value and poof, 6 months later there's gulf war and he's in a spidy hole. If a country lets western corporations make most of the money off the oil then they get to do whatever they want. If not then here comes the meddling, coups, destabilization, sanctions and war mongering. They will let Saudi Arabia be as cruel and religious extremist as they want because they play ball with western corporations, if not like Iran, then they are the baddies...truth is, both are pretty bad.

If you see pictures of the middle east in the 40s, 50s and 60s it shows a western styled modern(for the times) culture. Yet, after decades of meddling and warmongering by the west, mostly the US, it's been thrown into continual destabilization and degrading of the quality of life for everyone there. Well, except for the few that allow themselves to be vassals for western corporate interests, then they are allowed to improve their quality of life and build a society free from constant war. They even get to be permitted into the circle of warmongering states themselves, like Saudi Arabia and Isreal are.

The rightoid brainworms are realer.

Fixed it for you. Fixed it for you.

I read it and the basis of their research seems pretty flawed. I don't want to go into a full explanation of what I find flawed but how they came to their conclusions is derived from a misinterpretation of distorted results from a flawed survey practice. I will point to one aspect that seems fundamentally flawed, though. This was a survey of Europeans who self identify with American political parties. Americans don't even really understand what the political parties represent, let alone Europeans, who only hear through social media or mass media. If they didn't add that aspect and just centered it around the 'attitudes' towards the topics and the networks connecting them without trying to 'identify' them with political parties, they might have been able to draw a more clear conclusion about diversity of thought. The truth is 'liberalism' encompasses much of the political spectrum in the west but what people call conservative and liberal is a shallow bastardization of the meaning of the words which in practice is more based on social, cultural and geographical differences. To be fair, though, many are moving towards a more traditionally conservative view point. They endorse more authoritarian control from an elite class with less freedom of expression from a set ideology. Although, they differ on who should control and what is that ideology, but it still is moving that way. Most seem to think their ideology should be the one for everyone and the people on 'their team' should control. The people who don't think this are a minority that are trapped in a partisan fight. They may 'identify' with one or another but are forced to accept things they don't agree with in the process. In conclusion....not a conclusive research study, they did a poor job of it in my opinion. Oh...and there is no actual 'left' party in America...both parties are 'right' and what they call 'left' in the US are hardly leftists. They really don't exist, they are the smallest percentage of people.

Anyone who argues in favor of solipsism doesn't get the joke, those that don't mention it at all are in on the joke.