This is exactly what no one here besides you believes these people have.
I realize that this is a subject with great personal impact to you, and you may simply not want to believe that anyone with these beliefs could be anything but mentally deranged, but the fact is that they have not lost all contact with reality, any more than anyone else with a belief in astrology or anything else that has mountains of evidence against it.
They do not have derangement of personality, they have not lost contact with reality (you DO realize that the definition means bascially ALL contact with reality, not just believing something that’s not true), and they do have normal social function with the people who meet their criteria for interaction.
Belief in something that you don’t like, or even something demonstrably incorrect does not make someone clinically nuts.
People with racist beliefs have decent, even good marriages, raise non-wacko children, run businesses, and otherwise communicate with and participate in society in normal ways.
My own grandmother once let it slip that she would not want to see any of her grandsons bring home a black girl, but you couldn’t find a more beloved person at her church. Sure, she was wrong about her race attitudes; she was born in Nebraska in 1918. Her lingering beliefs didn’t make her psychotic.
Here’s another example I thought I would trot out if you decided to push the issue:
I believe that there are spirits out to get me. I am one of the focal points of a titanic, eternal spirit battle. I have been picked by God to accomplish His work on earth as a special messenger and appointee.
Well, in a case this extreme, I would be very tempted to say that they are expressing an opinion that is wrong. More accurately, they are presenting a version of the facts that has no solid evidence, that has been proposed for many decades, but still sorely lacks even scraps of documentation. At this point I think the overwhelming majority would call it wrong.
Being wrong does not make you psychotic. Being somewhat paranoid does not make you psychotic. Not liking people does not make you psychotic.
I honestly think that your insistance on viewing immense groups of people in this manner says more about you and the way you need to see the world. I don’t know exactly what that is, but there is something there that is quite a driving force behind your need to define these people in this way.
I find it chilling that so few people here take the Stormfronters seriously.
There’s no need to bring this down to the personal level.
Source?
They say that Jeffrey Dahmer was a “nice guy” on the surface too.
I would say more like a psychotic Christian. You people need to stop forcing your religion down other people’s throats. Your religion is hateful and anti-Semitic as Mel Gibson’s recent abomination clearly proved to the world.
Many of us take the National Alliance, the Christian Identity movement, the Aryan Nation, (not so much the Klan, any more), and similar groups very seriously. We simply do not apply your label, ripped incorrectly from the language of psychiatry, to those groups.
You have clearly never seen the movie and are reacting solely to pre-release opinion pieces. Given that the only single case of anti-Jewish expression that has resulted from the release of Gibson’s movie has been by one pastor who was censored by his own parishoners (and who had also not seen the movie), your attack on Gibson is unfounded. I also have not seen the movie, but the reports from those who have do not support your hysterical claims that Gibson’s"abomination" (based on what?) has “proven” anything except that Gibson shares an older Christian tradition that people should recognize the immense suffering that Jesus experienced, regardless who inflicted that pain.
On the contrary. We take those behind such nonsense very seriously. Which is why we are not quick to dismiss them all as psychopaths. (Q to any bahav-sciences Dopers: is there a difference with sociopaths?)
Because some of the leaders are psychos, but others know full well what they’re doing and are fully aware of the consequences of their actions, and they as much as the psychos equally mean to convince others of their lies so they’ll take concrete action to bring about their evil.
Because some their followers are just paranoid about the world and looking for an excuse to act up, but others are just vulnerable in their ignorance to being led to believe that the leaders mean what they say, accept that uncritically as truth, and willingly act upon it.
That’s Dangerous with a Damn capital D, either way.
Your mapping of immorality/criminality to psychotic mental illness, OTOH, is what is not being taken seriously. And your spew of hateful invective at someone else’s religion does nothing to further your argument.
Slightly true, but still inaccurate. The Egyptians ain’t Black, but they ain’t White either. It’s my understanding that most Egyptians consider “Egyptian” to be its own seperate racial/ethnic category.
Aw, fsck the labels, let’s all just call ourselves human and be done with it.
Those “rebuttals” are so weak that I’m not going to bother with this anymore. Rabbi, you’ll notice you’re not getting any traction around here. You refuse to admit that people are full of contradictions and don’t need to be psychotic to have wrong beliefs or have a persecution complex.
I didn’t say anything anti-Semitic or Jewish at all.
And I resent your not-implications about me and my beliefs. No, I’m not kidding, and you are the one spreading hate and insulting people here. Go away.
The spookiest thing to me about Stormfront is not the racism and bigotry. I had expected to see that when I went there, and I was all braced for it. Sure enough, Indians are on the shit list too. That really didn’t bother me. It rankled me, but I could handle it. What bothered me was the almost casual conversation among some of the more articulate members about everyday things. Kitchen wallpaper. Planting gardens. And — gulp — their children. As a minority, watching them discuss these ordinary things made me feel like a ghost in a room with real people who can’t tell that I’m there. It’s like evil dressed up in innocence or something. Chilling.
Are you by any chance familiar with the phrase “coded words.” Sir, may I ask of you a question: what is your handle on Stormfront? Christian Crusader88?
Since you ever so cleverly avoid discussion of that anti-Semitic bile that your hero Mel Gibson produced, let us address that topic right now:
Does The Passion of Christ cause anti-Semitism? That is sort of like saying, “does a heavy dose Magnesium Citrate give you lose bowels?”
Here you have the hero of the largely white, Christian world being beaten, whipped, and tortured mercilessly by the Roman soldiers at the behest of “the Jews.” The Jews lie about Christ. The Jews demand his persecution. The Jews set free a known murderer so Jesus can be crucified. Even after brutal and extremely graphic torture of Jesus, the Jews unabashedly demand his crucifixion.
Pontius Pilot is portrayed as a helpless pawn in the hands of the “Jewish power structure” of that day, clearing showing that the canard about “omni-potent Jewish power structure” is indeed centuries old. Caesar would have executed Pilot should the Jews riot again (when have youever seen or heard of Jews rioting in your life? When the bagel shop closed early?).
This is a canard that feeds into peoples deeply-held beliefs that “the Jews” are responsible for this or that – and it contributes to attacks on Jews – and in several occasions, appeared may have been a motivating factor in hate crimes against Jews all over North America.
Of course, don’t take my word for it. See for yourself …
**Toronto Jews On Edge
Weekend of anti-Semitic incidents, major rise in hate acts worries — and angers —community.**
By the way, lines such as “Some suggested that…” and “The group, Messiah Truth Project, says…” suggest that you’re pulling out the fanciful sensationalist irresponsible news reports and quoting them as hard evidence.
Most of the regular posters are dolts, but I have encountered some half-intelligent people in that “movement”. I believe many of the shapers and leaders of these groups see the ideology more as a vehicle for their own enrichment or self aggrandizement than a set of beliefs they hold dear to their heart. They often have a real “televangelist” mentality. David Duke, for instance is undoubtedly a racist asshat, but he has mainly been in this racket to line his pockets and live a rather lavish lifestyle.
The dangerous part is that many of the kids that get into that circle end up taking it much more seriously, and acting on these beliefs.
Rabbi Rosencratz, you are getting dangerously close to the line where you appear as a hate-spewing kook who operates on the same principles of bad rhetoric and stereotypes as the very people that you are in such haste to condemn.
Nothing that Cardinal has posted suggests that s/he is actually sympathetic to the cause of the National Alliance or any similar group. Unless you have actual evidence to make the accusation that s/he is actually a poster on S F who uses a username that links (neo-)Nazis and the Christian Identity movement, you are simply engaging in stupid ad hominems that are clearly hateful in nature.
Regarding your provided links: Not one of them provided a single shred of evidence that Gibson’s movie had anything to do with any rise in anti-Jewish crime. In fact, the major point of the stories has been that such activities have been on the rise for well over a year–hardly the sort of thing for which an intelligent person could blame a movie that has been out fewer than four weeks. In addition, each of the more recent acts of vandalism have occurred in locations where there was already rising tensions and increasing violence. Blaming the movie for those problems makes no sense (unless one has a desperate need to ignore evidence and trump up a case to support a predetermined conclusion).
Regarding your claim that Mel Gibson is a “hero” to anyone posting on this thread: you are simply making that up. Inventing “facts” does not support your side of the discussion.
Now, you do go on to point out several of the objections that have been raised prior to its release regarding the movie. A very few of those objections have actually continued to be raised following the movie’s release, but they appear to be as distorted as the film is accused of being. There has been a pretty consistent criticism of the movie that Pilate is portrayed as rather wishy-washy. However, the portrayal of the Jewish priests is not so clearly a matter of making them bloodthirsty. The majority of people I’ve encountered seem to echo Libertarian’s perspective that what was portrayed was a hypocritical and power-hungry set of authorities (who happened to be Jewish in the case of this story) rather than some view of “Jews” as evil.
So, you begin with one view of a movie (that does not seem to be shared by the majority of the people who have actually seen it) and draw a conclusion about how they are going to react (even though there has been no evidence that anyone has actually behaved in that manner). You then go on to link a situation of anti-Jewish speech and behavior that has been increasing for over a year (coincident with the increase in tensions regarding the perceived treatment of the Palestinians by Sharon and company that you carefully fail to mention) and blame that year-long rise of trouble on a movie that has been out for fewer than four weeks. In addition, you demonize a poster who has differed with your posts, making broad declarations about the poster’s attitudes and beliefs and actions that are not supported by evidence.
I’m sure that your beliefs would be anathema on the S F website, but your debating tactics are quite remeniscent of the tactics used by several of the posters from that board who have come here.
I would respectfully suggest that you take some time to look at what has actually been posted, here, rather than ascribing words and motives to people that are not actually demonstrated in their posts.
Beat me up if you will for not having a cite, but I recall my old World Book having an entry on race that was based off of an older…1800s?] researcher’s theories. There were 6 races of the world (Aboriginal, Mongoloid, American, European, African, Micronesian and Polynesian). Egyptians were within the European sphere. These divisions were based on physical differences between races (what those differences were, I don’t know).
It’s clear that many of the ancient Egyptians were “black,” as we use the term today. The repeated references to them as “black” in ancient Greek and Roman literature are not, as often claimed, a different intepretation of the term “black”. Rather, they are the common-sense evaluation by ancient Greek and Roman eye witnesses.
DNA analysis has shown that the ancient Egyptian population was highly mixed, with elements from sub Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean.
I think Mr. Ashcroft can be trusted to determine the difference between “fanciful sensationalist irresponsible news reports” and “hard evidence” of hate crime incitement …
Gibson film violates
‘hate crime’ statutes?
Group wants Ashcroft to investigate, claims movie caused attacks on Jews
