We Are In A Culture War: How Do We Fight?

[skmo]

I can't think of any way to better explain our current situation in the Western World than to say we're in a culture war. Liberals are no longer "liberal" they're leftist fanatics, and the further left they go the more they're hailed as heroes. Their policies change depending on how far they think they can get:

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In 2000, Hillary Clinton said: "I think a marriage is as a marriage has always been, between a man and a woman." Fast forward to 2013 and she says: " I support marriage for lesbian and gay couples." I've no doubt that today she'd say "Parents should be supportive of their children wanting to choose whatever gender they want to be" and by 2020 it'll be "We should take children away from parents who refuse to allow their children to have a sex change operation and give them to some nice, progressive, gay, biracial,immigrant couple."

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Google mandates their employees undergo sensitivity training (you know, so you don't do something as evil as use pronouns like he and she or even acknowledge that different races exist.) They asked these employees for feedback on the training. When James Damore submitted his 10 page response explaining that Google may not be pursuing the best course for its company by forcing the HR department to even company numbers to 50/50 in genders (like society is) from the 80/20 male to female ratio it was at the time he was fired. He simply (and correctly, in my opinion) pointed out that it was a documented fact that women tend (TEND, not 'are forced into') toward jobs with more social interaction, more creativity, and more compassion/service whereas men tended to more inventive, technical, aggressive jobs. It's not rocket science, it's plain observation. I read much of his paper. It wasn't derogatory, it didn't assign value or dismissal to any one or any job, merely that it's normal. Of course, he was fired.

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Brigitte Gabriel is a Christian who narrowly escaped death at the hands of Muslim fanatics in Lebanon in 1982 at the age of 13 because Israeli Defense Forces came in and rescued her family and many others. She has fought for moderation of Islam and more international recognition of things done by groups like the PLO.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a former Somali who was forced to undergo female genital mutilation at the age of 5 by Muslims while her father was in prison. She has spent her life fighting to help end this horrific practice with moderate to little success depending on the location.

Linda Sarsour is a leftist apologist for Islam spreading all kinds of radically stupid ideas about how Islam is a religion of peace. Speaking about Brigitte Gabriel and Ayaan Hirsi Ali she has publically stated that "I wish I could take their [female reproductive organs] away — they don’t deserve to be women.” Considering Ayaan had already had a clitoridectomy done to her when she was five, I find Sarsour's comments incredible offensive.

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We're seeing the militant rise of leftist fascist groups proclaiming they're against fascism. They're hate groups, plain and simple. On the opposite side we're seeing the growth of rightist fascist groups who are also just largely hate groups, regardless of the protestations of the few literate spokespeople they have.

Every time a James Damore gets fired, the far right hollers about the radical leftism of giant corporations like Google and Facebook. Every time a conservative speaker is announced at a university, there are riots, threats, and it's often cancelled. We're seeing freedom of speech being lost to shouts of "hate speech" simply because there's a difference of opinion. Football, one of the only great things left in this miserable country is now a battleground of patriotism vs. activism, and athletes with 4 functional brain cells are being treated like visionaries from legend.

As we move more and more away from civil discourse and reasonable speech (like I did above with some of my editorial and inflammatory remarks) are we going to get so far apart that there becomes an insurmountable schism? Are things going to get more violent between sides here, and if so, how will the government respond? If some whiny leftist group feels they're victimized enough, are they going to petition the U.N. to send in peacekeeping forces? (Boy, wouldn't that open up a bloody can of worms, and I don't mean bloody like the British use the word.) Will we devolve into another civil war?

[Z2100]

There is supposed to be another Civil War that will part of the Cleansing of America.

[tribrac]

It scares and saddens me that people on the left and right believe violence is the answer. And it frustrates me they have allowed themselves to be manipulated into beliving in violence.

I hold out hope that we can return to civil discource because ive read the Book of Mormon and know what happened to other great civilizations when they started infighting.

Personally ive tried to be friendly to peopke who may want to consider me any enemy. Ive learned about them and their beliefs. Ive noticed some of them have tempered there views and rhetoric after we became friends.

[Fiannan]

[larsenb]

I can't think of any way to better explain our current situation in the Western World than to say we're in a culture war. Liberals are no longer "liberal" they're leftist fanatics, and the further left they go the more they're hailed as heroes. Their policies change depending on how far they think they can get:

-----

In 2000, Hillary Clinton said: "I think a marriage is as a marriage has always been, between a man and a woman." Fast forward to 2013 and she says: " I support marriage for lesbian and gay couples." I've no doubt that today she'd say "Parents should be supportive of their children wanting to choose whatever gender they want to be" and by 2020 it'll be "We should take children away from parents who refuse to allow their children to have a sex change operation and give them to some nice, progressive, gay, biracial,immigrant couple."

-----

Google mandates their employees undergo sensitivity training (you know, so you don't do something as evil as use pronouns like he and she or even acknowledge that different races exist.) They asked these employees for feedback on the training. When James Damore submitted his 10 page response explaining that Google may not be pursuing the best course for its company by forcing the HR department to even company numbers to 50/50 in genders (like society is) from the 80/20 male to female ratio it was at the time he was fired. He simply (and correctly, in my opinion) pointed out that it was a documented fact that women tend (TEND, not 'are forced into') toward jobs with more social interaction, more creativity, and more compassion/service whereas men tended to more inventive, technical, aggressive jobs. It's not rocket science, it's plain observation. I read much of his paper. It wasn't derogatory, it didn't assign value or dismissal to any one or any job, merely that it's normal. Of course, he was fired.

-----

Brigitte Gabriel is a Christian who narrowly escaped death at the hands of Muslim fanatics in Lebanon in 1982 at the age of 13 because Israeli Defense Forces came in and rescued her family and many others. She has fought for moderation of Islam and more international recognition of things done by groups like the PLO.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a former Somali who was forced to undergo female genital mutilation at the age of 5 by Muslims while her father was in prison. She has spent her life fighting to help end this horrific practice with moderate to little success depending on the location.

Linda Sarsour is a leftist apologist for Islam spreading all kinds of radically stupid ideas about how Islam is a religion of peace. Speaking about Brigitte Gabriel and Ayaan Hirsi Ali she has publically stated that "I wish I could take their [female reproductive organs] away — they don’t deserve to be women.” Considering Ayaan had already had a clitoridectomy done to her when she was five, I find Sarsour's comments incredible offensive.

-----

We're seeing the militant rise of leftist fascist groups proclaiming they're against fascism. They're hate groups, plain and simple. On the opposite side we're seeing the growth of rightist fascist groups who are also just largely hate groups, regardless of the protestations of the few literate spokespeople they have.

Every time a James Damore gets fired, the far right hollers about the radical leftism of giant corporations like Google and Facebook. Every time a conservative speaker is announced at a university, there are riots, threats, and it's often cancelled. We're seeing freedom of speech being lost to shouts of "hate speech" simply because there's a difference of opinion. Football, one of the only great things left in this miserable country is now a battleground of patriotism vs. activism, and athletes with 4 functional brain cells are being treated like visionaries from legend.

As we move more and more away from civil discourse and reasonable speech (like I did above with some of my editorial and inflammatory remarks) are we going to get so far apart that there becomes an insurmountable schism? Are things going to get more violent between sides here, and if so, how will the government respond? If some whiny leftist group feels they're victimized enough, are they going to petition the U.N. to send in peacekeeping forces? (Boy, wouldn't that open up a bloody can of worms, and I don't mean bloody like the British use the word.) Will we devolve into another civil war?

Good post. Good and almost imponderable questions. Maybe scratch the money together to buy a major broadcast media outlet such as CBS or MSNBC and 2 or 3 major print media outlets, such as the NY Times, etc., then go into full information battle . . . . otherwise, doesn't seem to be much one can do unless many more people wake up to what is going on.

[larsenb]

It scares and saddens me that people on the left and right believe violence is the answer. And it frustrates me they have allowed themselves to be manipulated into beliving in violence.

I hold out hope that we can return to civil discource because ive read the Book of Mormon and know what happened to other great civilizations when they started infighting.

Personally ive tried to be friendly to peopke who may want to consider me any enemy. Ive learned about them and their beliefs. Ive noticed some of them have tempered there views and rhetoric after we became friends.

I'm just not aware that many people on the so-called 'right' believe violence is the answer. Quite the contrary, from my experience.

[brianj]

It scares and saddens me that people on the left and right believe violence is the answer. And it frustrates me they have allowed themselves to be manipulated into beliving in violence.

Violence is the answer. Dianne Feinstein said that if an armed criminal starts shooting ad a crowd of people and sees they are unarmed, he will stop shooting. That worked out really well in Las Vegas, didn't it.

Violence is the answer to: "How do I respond to violence?" Feel good fantasies don't work in real life when confronted by Violence.
How did the Nephites react to learning that Lamanites were planning to attack? The only group that we know of that refused violence was protected by Nephites because it was known that they would be wiped out without that violence.

Now I'm not saying that we have any right to go on the offensive. But when the other side starts violence we can either become victims and allow others to become victims, or we can use necessary levels of violence to respond to the attacks.

[skmo]

It scares and saddens me that people on the left and right believe violence is the answer. And it frustrates me they have allowed themselves to be manipulated into beliving in violence.

I remember a line about this from the 1978 movie Foul Play by the character of Delia Darrow. She is part of a group wanting to assassinate the Pope as a demonstration against major religions: "We were attacked, laughed at, and finally imprisoned. But it was there, in those hellholes, where the mind is bound and the spirit is shackled, that we realized that the single most effective way to bring about radical change is the historically proven path of violence."

Jesus taught us a better way, but it's more difficult, it takes longer to achieve, and it definitely takes more discipline and commitment.

[skmo]

...go into full information battle . . . .

I do like Ben Shapiro's and Jordan Peterson's podcasts. The Internet has helped quite a bit, but one of the things I'm really getting annoyed with is the one-sidedness of so many of the major tools we use to communicate. The biggest problem can really be summed up in one word:

Google.

How many people use Gmail? How many use YouTube? How many use Google Drive to store info? It's other-worldly scary how much control Google can exert over people's lives. I'm not surprised they chose Provo as one of it's first few places to offer Google Fiber, what with so many of the good little conservative boys and girls of the LDS Church as its conservative nemeses.

Think about how big Google is: Google earth has pictures of the whole world. THE WHOLE WORLD. Not only that, Google Street View has a picture of almost every single house on every street in every N. American and European house, most of them in Latin America, and lots of Asia and Africa. Think about that: They've paid people to drive and walk all over the world and take pictures, sort them, and organize them to be posted online.

If you want to know how detailed Google Street View is, go to Google Maps and put in "Kotlik School, Kotlik AK" and when the map takes you there, click on the picture in the upper left corner. You'll see the school my wife and I taught in for a lot of our time in AK. That's a village of 600 people on the West Coast of Alaska less than 300 miles from Siberia, and they have pictures of it. There's one hell of a lot more to Google than just providing emails and posting Grumpy Cat videos.

[David13]

It scares and saddens me that people on the left and right believe violence is the answer. And it frustrates me they have allowed themselves to be manipulated into beliving in violence.

Violence is the answer. Dianne Feinstein said that if an armed criminal starts shooting ad a crowd of people and sees they are unarmed, he will stop shooting. That worked out really well in Las Vegas, didn't it.

Violence is the answer to: "How do I respond to violence?" Feel good fantasies don't work in real life when confronted by Violence.
How did the Nephites react to learning that Lamanites were planning to attack? The only group that we know of that refused violence was protected by Nephites because it was known that they would be wiped out without that violence.

Now I'm not saying that we have any right to go on the offensive. But when the other side starts violence we can either become victims and allow others to become victims, or we can use necessary levels of violence to respond to the attacks.

If somebody is shooting at me, I want to be able to shoot back.
Alma 43: 45, 46 and 47.
dc

[Seek the Truth]

It scares and saddens me that people on the left and right believe violence is the answer. And it frustrates me they have allowed themselves to be manipulated into beliving in violence.

I remember a line about this from the 1978 movie Foul Play by the character of Delia Darrow. She is part of a group wanting to assassinate the Pope as a demonstration against major religions: "We were attacked, laughed at, and finally imprisoned. But it was there, in those hellholes, where the mind is bound and the spirit is shackled, that we realized that the single most effective way to bring about radical change is the historically proven path of violence."

Jesus taught us a better way, but it's more difficult, it takes longer to achieve, and it definitely takes more discipline and commitment.

I don't know, Jesus is going to lead a big war at the end of time.

[Gage]

The time will come when you will have to follow the left and believe in their ideals and support their agendas or be assaulted or maybe killed or maybe even arrested. This is when many Mormons will be tested to the max. The Church will be the only religion, institution, that will not accept the homosexual lifestyle among other things that are called good now. Free speech will be non existent for conservatives, it just about is today. You will either go along with the liberal government ideologies and agendas or you will be silenced. Persecution will be unbearable.

[Seek the Truth]

We havent seen persecution yet, but perhaps it is around the corner.

[Seek the Truth]

When things get a little tight I often think of this kind of stuff.

[larsenb]

...go into full information battle . . . .

I do like Ben Shapiro's and Jordan Peterson's podcasts. The Internet has helped quite a bit, but one of the things I'm really getting annoyed with is the one-sidedness of so many of the major tools we use to communicate. The biggest problem can really be summed up in one word:

Google.

How many people use Gmail? How many use YouTube? How many use Google Drive to store info? It's other-worldly scary how much control Google can exert over people's lives. I'm not surprised they chose Provo as one of it's first few places to offer Google Fiber, what with so many of the good little conservative boys and girls of the LDS Church as its conservative nemeses.

Think about how big Google is: Google earth has pictures of the whole world. THE WHOLE WORLD. Not only that, Google Street View has a picture of almost every single house on every street in every N. American and European house, most of them in Latin America, and lots of Asia and Africa. Think about that: They've paid people to drive and walk all over the world and take pictures, sort them, and organize them to be posted online.

If you want to know how detailed Google Street View is, go to Google Maps and put in "Kotlik School, Kotlik AK" and when the map takes you there, click on the picture in the upper left corner. You'll see the school my wife and I taught in for a lot of our time in AK. That's a village of 600 people on the West Coast of Alaska less than 300 miles from Siberia, and they have pictures of it. There's one hell of a lot more to Google than just providing emails and posting Grumpy Cat videos.

And you have to wonder where Google gets all the money to do what they do. Is it just from 'Google placed ads? Hard for me to believe.

[larsenb]

The time will come when you will have to follow the left and believe in their ideals and support their agendas or be assaulted or maybe killed or maybe even arrested. This is when many Mormons will be tested to the max. The Church will be the only religion, institution, that will not accept the homosexual lifestyle among other things that are called good now. Free speech will be non existent for conservatives, it just about is today. You will either go along with the liberal government ideologies and agendas or you will be silenced. Persecution will be unbearable.

This certainly looks like the direction we're going in..

[iWriteStuff]

There is no fight between Babylon and Zion. Whenever Babylon gets riled up and contentious, Zion withdraws.

Hence, "Zion is fled".

[marc]

You don't fight. Jesus Christ did not fight. He loved. How do we love? We do precisely what He taught us to do and not to do what He taught us not to do. He spelled it out plainly in His sermon on the mount on the shore of Galilee and then again at Bountiful. Those who do as He did, though they die, witness to heaven the kind of association they wish to have and are thus welcomed into that association. The rest just argue, fight, kill, die and go anywhere else.

[skmo]

And you have to wonder where Google gets all the money to do what they do. Is it just from 'Google placed ads? Hard for me to believe.

Thus my concern. The bozos behind Google are leftists, which means they're humanitarians in the same way Hannibal Lechter was a doctor. Oh, they may do some good, but it's got an ulterior motive.

[Fiannan]

In the last days I am sure there will even be high leaders in the Church who will be on the side of darkness. The only way we can withstand the world will be to stay close to the scriptures, pray and ask for discernment. In Noah's day God had to wipe out hundreds of millions of people, including the high priests and priestesses and elite. Noah was from the upper class and spent centuries trying to bring people in his civilization to repentence. Not too successful, was he? We can be sure that when we reach the temptations of that era that many of the most elect will fall.

Be like Noah.

[Fiannan]

You don't fight. Jesus Christ did not fight.

[skmo]

There is no fight between Babylon and Zion. Whenever Babylon gets riled up and contentious, Zion withdraws.

Hence, "Zion is fled".

I'm too old, tired, and stubborn to flee.
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Fight Me.jpg (69.52 KiB) Viewed 812 times

[skmo]

You don't fight.

He did in the War in Heaven. This world is an extension of that war. Evil must always be fought. Not always with swords, though.

[David13]

Alma 43

45 Nevertheless, the Nephites were inspired by a better cause, for they were not fighting for monarchy nor power but they were fighting for their homes and their liberties, their wives and their children, and their all, yea, for their rites of worship and their church.

46 And they were doing that which they felt was the duty which they owed to their God; for the Lord had said unto them, and also unto their fathers, that: Inasmuch as ye are not guilty of the first offense, neither the second, ye shall not suffer yourselves to be slain by the hands of your enemies.

47 And again, the Lord has said that: Ye shall defend your families even unto bloodshed. Therefore for this cause were the Nephites contending with the Lamanites, to defend themselves, and their families, and their lands, their country, and their rights, and their religion.

dc

[Ezra]

You don't fight. Jesus Christ did not fight.

D&c 121 43

43 Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy;