It is as secular a document as they could make it

I listened to a recent Gaslit Nation episode titled How to Stand Up to a Bully. The transcript is here. Host Andrea Chalupa talked to David McRaney, a science journalist and author of the books You Are Now Less Dumb and How Minds Change. This episode is about the second book. If one has a friend or relative that is caught in an alternate reality and they now bully all who oppose their ideas what can one do? McRaney was sure some minds can’t change, completely unreachable. But in writing the book he changed his mind. One thing that did it is the shift in acceptance of same-sex marriage. How did that happen? He studied what groups did to change minds and saw that even if they didn’t collaborate, they came up with similar techniques. The techniques are similar because that’s how brains work. McRaney discussed how we learn and categorize things. The easiest is to fit a new thing or concept into existing categories. When that won’t work a person is resistant and doesn’t want to expend the effort. Progressives sometimes joke that the right does things because reasons. That’s mostly accurate. Most of the time the reasons are whatever we or they need them to be. What is more important is how our reputation or status fits within our social circle. That means an appeal to logic and evidence will be taken as reasons and dismissed. McRaney explains why someone can fall into a group. I’ll let him explain. Challenging why a person is in a group is the quickest way to get them to reject the attempt. So, what to do? First be very clear, at least to yourself, what your goal is. Is it to change their belief, attitude, value set? Second do not debate! Refuse to be drawn into a debate. Do not bring shame into the conversation. Do not get into I win/you lose. That doesn’t change minds. Part of their bullying is a performance for their peers – and nearly all bullying has spectators of some sort. Start with a position of: I’d like to explore this with you. As: Do you like it? What about it do you like? Probe more deeply from there. With each question elaborate, paraphrase, and mirror. Soon a person may not be able to justify why they like it. Ask for definitions, ask if they have sources. Ask for a rating of confidence and why not higher or lower. Ask them to judge the quality of their reasoning. Give them space to generate their own opinion. In a sense, be a lawyer trying to get their side of the argument to be the best it can be. This pulls them out of debate mode, away from a win-lose situation. Then offer to continue the conversation as many times as it takes. You will be seen as an ally, not an ally in their current position, but an ally in helping them work through the issue. If you want more explanation for that read the transcript ... or the book. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos recognizes Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri is smart – he was editor of Yale Law Review. So the tweets coming from Hawley must have another purpose, like trolling. So perhaps it is time for troll hunting. What Hawley is tweeting is putting words in the mouths of Founding Fathers, making it seem they were explicitly building a Christian nation. So Sumner delved into Founding Father’s beliefs. In short, then, as now, there were a wide range of beliefs. Patrick Henry handed out Bible tracts. George Washington was perhaps a member of an Anglican Church and attended a wide variety of churches while remaining vague about his beliefs. Many, such as Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Monroe, and Founding Mothers Abigail Adams and Dolly Madison, were Deists. That could be described as what Thomas Paine called “nature’s god” – the universe exists so something brought it into existence. Paine also said:

I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and in endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.

And Franklin said:

The most acceptable Service we can render to him, is doing good to his other Children.

Which seems in short supply these days. Sumner wrote:

When Jefferson and crew were writing, they invoked “the creator” or “the divine” or “the spirit” of this and that because they simply had no other options. So far as they were aware, there was neither the time nor the means by which the universe might have been produced sans magic wand.

But that doesn’t mean they’re referring to Christianity.

Just about the only thing this diverse group really agreed on when it came to religion was that they wanted to keep it out of their government. Their own experience with state religions of all types showed that religion was harmful to the state, and the state was harmful to religion. This is why the only mentions of religion in the Constitution are in places where the founders went out, collected a set of 20-foot poles, and placed them firmly between any expression of religion and anything to do with the government. There’s not a Bible, a Jesus, or a GD God in the whole thing, much less any overt expression of Christianity. It is as secular a document as they could make it, expressly to protect their diversity of beliefs. And disbelief. ... That’s America: A secular nation by design, made so by a group of people who realized that only a secular nation could protect their views on religion.

Laura Clawson of Kos discussed Casey, the wife of Ron DeathSantis. She’s a lot more photogenic and personable than her husband, but just as nasty. She and Mamas for DeSantis are all about parental rights and how they will go all out to protect the innocence of their (well, everbody’s) children. Yeah, we’ve been hearing about various attempts like this for quite a while now. Clawson adds:

“Innocence” is key here, and translates as “ignorance” when it comes to the existence of people different from their families.

Clawson discussed a video put out by Mamas for DeSantis in which they make clear, “They’re not yours. These are our kids.” So it’s offensive for the nation to have an interest in the welfare of all children? And as you protect your children you get to ban books that other children desperately need? Clawson included the video. But it’s all hate and rage. Which makes one wonder why to humanize a candidate one must go this ugly this early. Is ugly all they have? Meteor Blades of Kos wrote another Earth Matters post. In this one he discusses the farm bill. It is revised and renewed every five years. The next one is to be approved in September. Along with it is a renewal of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that is 80% of the bill’s funds (and nearly all of its wrangling). Blades explains many reasons why this bill is quite different from what America and the world need right now. He concludes this section of the article with:

Reviving rural America and securing ecologically sound agriculture means weaning farmers off the chemical teat. It means revamping the USDA and the land-grant institutions to innovate and promote rather than treat organic agriculture as niche operations run by modern hippies. It means putting up obstacles to the further industrialization of farming. It means recognizing that we cannot continue to draw down aquifers without replenishing them if we are to avoid titanic future impacts. Climate change requires quick action in all these matters. Just as difficult, if not more so, will be dealing with the concentration of agribusiness. Four companies now control 90% of the global grain market. One of those four, Cargill, and three others control 85% of U.S. feedlot cattle. Forty percent of U.S. farmers don’t own the land they farm. Seasonal farmworkers make up a super-exploited workforce without nearly enough protections even compared with other U.S. low-wage earners. And then there are the millions of consumers for whom healthy, affordable food is often out of reach. To Americans, agrarian reform has always seemed a project for developing countries, what used to be called the Third World. But the U.S. needs its own comprehensive Agrarian Reform Act. Unfortunately, one thing we can count on is that this year’s farm bill won’t come close to being anything like that.

Blades discussed several other things, one of them is a survey on what voters are thinking about renewable energy. They support adopting good policies in general. But supporting specific policies is different. “For example, most Americans oppose ending the production of gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035.” In the comments of a pundit roundup for Kos Denise Oliver Velez posted cartoons. John Deering of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette shows an ad painted on a bus stop bench, “Worried you might be asked to provide a service you aren’t currently providing anyway? Better Call Scotus! Proactive discrimination. No case? No problem!” Mike Luckovich drew a cartoon of a woman with a massive “student loan debt” strapped to her back and the GOP Court tells her, “You also have to carry that to term...”