Yeah, nice try there, Bre’r Rabbit. :rolleyes:
Belief in god or not is almost irrelevant in Judaism. You can be a practising Jew and an Atheist. Most jews would say that god doesn’t care if you believe in him or not as long as you live a righteous life. And the only people that care about this would never have voted for him anyway. You won’t flip anyone with this issue.
A practicing Jewish atheist? Never heard of such a creature. What is the point of the Law if you don’t believe in God? Are there actually kosher eating, Sabbath keeping Jews who don’t believe in God? I doubt it.
That opinion sounds wildly out of touch. Per Gallup:
I suppose you’ll say “hey, 54%, that’s all we need”. But it doesn’t work like that. You’ve got to look at the relative scale, and discount for people who would vote against someone for other reasons (Ayn Rand fans are atheists, and ultraconservative on economics, for instance), not to mention people who are reluctant to admit to a pollster that they will discriminate on *any *basis. Once you factor those things in, 54% is dismal, bottom of the heap. I can even think of two people right off the top of my head (my mother-in-law, and ex-MIL, both weekly-churchgoing, moderate swing voters married to Republicans) who would probably vote for Hillary but would **never **vote for an atheist.
I do, however, agree with you–and disagree with adaher–about Jewish atheists. I’ve known several.
Jewish atheists are legion. Practicing Jewish atheists, not so much. YOu actually know Jewish atheists who adhere to the Law?
Doesn’t matter, because as a Jew he pretty much gets a pass on this issue. As long as he doesn’t outright come out and say he’s an atheist most people are going to think of him as Jewish, which answers the religion question.
And Yes I have a friend who is a practising Jew who doesn’t believe in God. It’s not unheard of. Actually he’d probably be classified as a Jewish agnostic, he thinks it doesn’t matter if God exists or not. He just thinks Jewish law makes sense as the way he wants to live.
Why is it that, when confronted with an opinion different from yours, you’re reduced to speculating about the dishonest motives of the person with that opinion? I’ve pointed this out several times, and you continue in this vein. It’s insulting, and I think you and I are done in this discussion.
Advice we, on both sides of this issue, can use:
Hey Bernie and Hillary Supporters, Stop Being Dicks to Each Other.
If I find myself saying, “Sure, but–” and justifying why I should continue acting like a dick, actually, I should stop.
Edit: whatever you do, don’t read the comments. They’ll make you weep.
One of my best friends (and fellow ardent left-TRUMPist) is agnostic but also keeps Kosher and is part of his campus’s Hillel.
I’m not “reduced” to anything. I’m just pointing out that you were ignoring or overlooking my repeated points that it isn’t just the Soviet trip but a whole combination of things. You were either willfully ignoring that and creating a straw man, or really struggling to comprehend things I stated clearly and repeatedly.
That I’ve seen. Atheists keeping kosher and not working on Sabbath I haven’t seen.
Apparently only 18% of people 18-29 voted in the Iowa primary and he still got 49%. If Sanders can get higher youth turnout nationally he’s viable both in the primaries and the general.
It’s easier for Sanders to appeal to black voters than to get more youth to turn out. Getting non-voters out is a much tougher haul than convincing reliable voters to support you.
But thanks for the stat, it is fascinating that he’s so dominant among young voters.
It’s much tougher yes, but Sanders seems to have an effective machine and a huge dedicated base that is pushing this hard. Go check out the posts about Sanders on Reddit where he has a huge following. Reddit gets 231 million unique users a month, so thats a considerable audience. Also considering Iowa was a caucus requiring you to be there for several hours, he should be able to get higher youth turnout for the other primaries which are simple ballots.
A Jewish friend of mine attends an atheist-friendly synagogue in Chicago.
Anyway considering Bernie’s statements on spirituality he would either be an agnostic or believe in classical deism, he’s not an atheist.
If Gloria Steinem is such a feminist, why is she trying to claim that young women are supporting Bernie because he’s a man? Isn’t that an attack on women’s ownership of their own political opinions?
This thread reminds me ofa piece The American Conservative published when Nelson Mandela died:
I see that LHoD and Sam Stone are in essential agreement about the attractiveness of a Bernie candidacy. I do not question LHoD’s sincerity. Nor do I question Sam’s judgement. LHoD is entirely sincere. Sam has sound political judgment…
What?
More seriously,
It’s more than that though. Experts agree that Bernie would be a weak candidate in November: the only disagreement is how weak he would be. Vox asked 6 political scientists about Bernie’s viability. They were unanimous: [INDENT]“Under some unlikely circumstances, Sanders could win a general election. But nominating him would make it significantly more difficult for Democrats to keep the White House.”[/INDENT]
Yet Sander’s supporters complain about Hilary’s vicious attacks on Bernie. They truly haven’t seen anything yet.
I perceive that as the result of 30 years of right wing propaganda. Bill Clinton tried very hard to adapt difficult ideas for a mass audience: such behavior is the opposite of public dishonesty. (I disagree with his blowjob policy though.) Colin Powell and Rice received classified-after-the-fact documents on private emails as well, yet nobody accuses them of anything. Hillary does make guarded comments in public as she damn well should. Democrats have yet to perfect the Teflon shield like Reagan and Trump.
I take a different approach. Here it is:
Vote for Sanders in New Hampshire. Overton window.
If Sanders loses in New Hampshire, vote for Sanders until he wins at least one state. Afterwards, most should vote for Clinton and hope Bernie wins more than one state.
However. If you are among the 5% most liberal folks in the country or among the most 15% liberal folks in the Democratic Party, vote for Sanders. This might be your once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to vote for a leftie who actually has a grip on the realities of the US political system. Bernie does. He’s running an issue based campaign. As he should. Because it’s not about Bernie. It’s about expanding the Overton window, energizing the base, pulling under 40s into politics and persuading a small number of middle class Republicans to switch parties and vote in their own economic interest.
Most far lefties are like Nader: they are actively harmful to the progressive cause. Bernie is not.
To be clear, if I thought Bernie had a 3 percentage point vote advantage over Hillary in the general, supporting him would be a no-brainer for me. And I’d most probably go with Bernie at 2 percentage points. What if they were equally strong in November? At that point I’d have to think hard about the decison (now I don’t - it’s an easy choice for Hillary). Sure Bernie is leftish, but he hasn’t laid down any legislative base of support. And Hillary has experience coming out of her ears, as well as absolutely no illusions about the opposition. She works well with people and inspires loyalty among her staff. She doesn’t give up - she’s a workhorse who keeps plugging away. She’s not a show horse though: she will be a mediocre candidate. Luckily the Republicans show no signs of advancing a neuro-typical nominee.
I see no reason why we should believe those experts since they also said six months ago that Trump had no chance of getting the Republican nomination. Nothing about this election cycle is typical, so they’re just reading tea leaves. They’re also part of the political machine which wants Clinton to win, of course they’re going to down play Bernie’s chances.