The Folk Prophet

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I agree. And so does, pretty much, everyone. In point of fact, it's already illegal to do that. If you tell me to shoot someone and I do it, you're already breaking the law. But if you tell me you don't like someone and in response I shoot them...well now where are we? Should you be held accountable then? We'd be in a position where you couldn't say you think anyone is problematic, dishonest, or anything of the sort...ever... because someone who hears you might then take that as justification for shooting at them and then you are liable. Is that how it should be? Is that free speech? No ability to even question someone you don't agree with? This is clearly the path we're headed down. And, note, pretty much everyone who's being held accountable in these cases is a "conservative" voice. You can criticize a conservative all you want. But if you are a conservative....watch your mouth. If this were true I totally agree. But I do not believe this to be true. And, also, if someone takes a shot at Jones because of what you just said, you might be accountable for millions of dollars! Watch it! Oh...wait... he's a conservative. So you're okay.

Sorry. The context was, if you blame Jones for his follower's nutty actions, do you blame Brigham Young for his followers nutty actions? The idea being that it doesn't, necessarily, follow logically that just because nutty followers of someone engage in horrible behavior that the individual they follow is culpable. Or more directly, I'm saying that people harassing and shooting at the Sandy Hook parents is the fault of the people harassing and shooting at the Sandy Hook parents. Obviously it isn't a perfect analogy. It's just the thought I had when Gator stated that Jones' followers' actions meant Jones had no right to claim free speech, or that because his followers did bad things, he has no right to call himself a victim of the press or the government. I'm not saying that Jones is or isn't culpable. I'm just saying that his followers' actions alone aren't proof that he is.

Shouldn't being a role model be specific to whatever role is being modeled? I look up to certain composers as composers. That doesn't mean I want to emulate their personal lives.

Biden and his administration are clearly undercover conservatives, working behind the democratic curtain to undermine them and ensure the Republicans take power back. This is painfully obvious, is it not?

This is my thinking too, for the most part (except thinking he's a "loon", which I do not.) He was off based with his point of view and approach in the case of Sandy Hook. But to hold him accountable for other's actions this way is problematic for free speech. So, yes, he was off based here...but what about when he's right on something? By setting this precedent it says, you better watch your opinions pretty closely, because if anyone takes your opinion the wrong way you can be liable for tens of millions or more. Yes...Alex Jones is in the mud, and got buried deep enough to start seeing ghosts that weren't there. Ten years ago that was odd. And the fact that he was blind to how odd it is indicates how deeply in the mud he was. But things have changed. We are ALL in the mud now, and getting deeper and deeper all the time. Now everyone who isn't pro baby-murder and trans the kids is a conspiracy theorist. Anyone who doesn't think the election was the safest ever is a straight up nutjob, right? So...how long before the precedent set here starts biting others who aren't as deep in the mud as someone like Alex Jones? It's kind of a bad thing. And I can't really even assess Jones' guilt. The actual context of what he said and when and why is lost. The actual source, the long-form videos where he made his claims, are not available. Instead, we get quotes that are clearly missing context. I'm not suggesting he wasn't off based. But was he as unfair and un-even-handed as is being portrayed? Nothing else he says ever is. To wit: "They're turning the friggin' frogs gay!" - Alex Jones. A par for the course Jones type statement that is ridiculous on the face of it, but in meaning and context is a legitimate issue that's worth serious consideration and understanding. In short, I don't trust what people say about Alex Jones. I've watched enough of him to know that I don't particularly care for his style and approach...but I also have watched enough to know that the media, social commentary, meme-world, etc., lie about him, constantly. Yes, they're half-lies a lot of the time. And yes, he makes it easy for them. But it's still not truth. Take, for example, the headline that Jones' lawyers accidentally turned over his phone texts to the prosecution, thereby catching Jones in lies. It's kind of nonsense. Something sort of akin happened... but the exchange in court was not anywhere near that black and white. There was no perjury proven. There were no objections to the phone records being introduced, etc. etc. It was simply Jones saying, "Yeah, okay. I forgot about that." And a prosecutor using that to try and push the "you're a liar" narrative as much as humanly possible. And the news media report it as, "Jones, the LIAR, gets caught in his LIES...." That's just not true. (Please note: I didn't personally follow this and am reporting what I've heard from others. So if I'm shown to be wrong, I'll own it.) So I legitimately do not know how to feel about his punishment here. He messed up. And some compensation for that mess up is probably fair. But it doesn't strike me they're trying for fair compensation. They're doing as you suggest: Hitting a soft target on the way to the broader target of free speech itself. That part of it is concerning. We see the same thing with all the "conspiracy theories" that have come down the pike in the past few. Pizzagate, etc. So the fact that Clinton's running a child sex-ring in the basement of a pizza parlor is ridiculous means we are meant to believe that nothing of the sort has ever happened? Really? But that's they way it's sold. See, people...Pizzagate is ridiculous. Alex Jones is a liar. 4 Chan's filled with a bunch of trolls. Nothing to see here folks. The government is noble and good. Nothing shady going on. Move on. Most secure election ever!

Well, basically, Brigham Young's "followers" murdered a bunch of people.

I wonder what your take on the Mountain Meadows Massacre is.

May or may not apply. May or may not be interesting. But my buddy and I did a podcast on The Recession, if anyone has the time or interest:

And... $45.2 million more.

Looks like either way he's paying for his mistakes. 5.6 million owed...and damages still to come. Ouch.

Gotchya. Thanks.

I am convinced more and more as I age that the evil in the world is almost beyond comprehension to those who are not engaged in it. Most people do what they can get away with. Period. That's it. If they can, they do drugs and alcohol. If they can, they lie. If they can, they steal. If they can, the cheat. If they can, they murder. Powerful people can get away with a LOT. So they do. We're in a time where a lot of this evil is being exposed. I don't think a lot of it is new...but as things have become more socially acceptable, the evil peeks it's ugly head out from the crevices, believing it safe in the sunlight. In cases, they've shown more of their hand than they meant to. (For example, the leaked "gay agenda" videos by Disney execs.) But most of the true evil is still hidden. We're starting to see, for example...the "minor attracted" crowd beginning to show their cards. Ever so slightly. Testing the waters. Pushing the acceptance. Etc. Underneath what's seen, there's an entire unfathomably deep pit of filth. And some, as you point out, seem to disbelieve this to be true. I'm not sure why. Most of this corruption remains hidden. So we don't know the explicit details. But the fact that it exists seems so obvious.

Yeet!

I'm not sure what your point is or how this is a response (Counter? Agreement?) to what I said. Could you clarify?

I have a hard time commenting on this because the information in the media is all SO biased. I don't trust it. I know that what I typically see is that the media and everyone makes the terrible claims about him and they typically turn out to be inaccurate, twisted, or outright lies. So is there truth in some of the claims related to what happened with the Sandy Hook stuff....??? Could be. Probably is. But it's a cry wolf situation and so I don't trust much. And having not followed Alex Jones back then at all...well I just don't know. I'm not sure how to think on the idea of "followers" of any given person doing something that the person didn't tell them to and then blaming said person. We see the same thing with the Trump/Jan 6 narrative going on. As a general rule I don't buy that sort of thinking. Should Alex have said, "stop this" to them, in that case? Well, yeah. Of course. But I'm not sure we can really know the full story, what he was thinking, and why he might have said or not said what he did related to that. So I can get on board that there may have been mistakes made by him. From what I know of him though, he'd probably admit the same. In fact I've heard him say he made mistakes on certain things. Because he isn't some prophet leader of some cult. He's a radio show personality who talks about stuff. I mean we see the same thing with like Joe Rogan and the medicine he talked about taking on his show for Covid. Joe's not responsible if someone takes him as the authority on the matter. Anyone who takes Joe Rogan as an authority on anything besides, perhaps, MMA stuff is being dumb. Joe Rogan isn't an authority. If he said, "This is what you should do!" then, sure...he becomes somewhat culpable (though those believing him would still be dumb to do it on his word alone... Do your own research people!). But does every person with any sort of a following on any given platform need to automatically presume their listeners are nut-jobs who will do something stupid based on their opinions. Well...probably. Yeah. But... did Alex Jones presume that? Should he have? I dunno. Anyhow, I'm not really defending Alex Jones here. I just...I dunno... There's a problem in the world. (That's putting it lightly. I mean there are many problems. But....) Speech is under attack. Big time! It's a serious problem. Political correctness is out of control. People can't talk about so many things. Opinions can't be shared. Debates can hardly be had. It's bad. And it's getting worse. I'm not defending Jones...but his ability to share his opinions on things openly even if they're off based.... That I would defend. Of course that doesn't have anything to do with whether he's a good or bad person. Who knows. It doesn't strike me he's bad. Just flawed. But that's everyone. Right? Anyhow...just chatting. Don't take my thoughts too seriously on the matter. It's more a matter of curiosity than having any sort of real stance.

Are you saying it was your perception that he was ONLY in it for the money and fame? Because I would expect that anyone who's building that kind of thing is in it for money and fame...but if it's ONLY money and fame, then that implies dishonest intent. I've never felt Alex Jones had dishonest intent, overall. He has messed up. Yes. But he said what he thought and believed at any given time, I think. That's as compared to, say, Milo Yiannopoulos, who I believe is in it ONLY for the money and the fame and to be a provocateur because it makes him the popular "bad boy" of "conservativism" (quotes added here because...come on.) I think there are many out there who are provocateurs on the right because it's cool to do so and they were in it for only money and fame, particularly in the previous slate of right-wingers who have fallen a bit out of fashion now (many because they got banned from everywhere). But my sense of Jones was that he was/is sincere. He's a provocateur because he has a brazen personality, but I feel like he believes what he says. But the primary reason I wouldn't call him a "false" prophet (prophet's a weird word to use here, I think..but....)... is because of how often he's been right.

I'm just curious here. Does anyone actually watch Alex Jones' show? Or are the opinions here based on what the news media, etc., report of him? (Just to be clear, I don't watch his show...but I've watched him a few times in long-form conversations on Tim Pool's show.) Like I said, just curious. I'm not a fan of his. Have no interest in defending him or anything. But I certainly haven't concluded he's a "false prophet". Seems a bit extreme. My take on him is he's got some communication styles that put people off and can easily miscommunicates what he's trying to say to a lot of people. And he makes some presumptions that are off based sometimes, because he's, you know...a human. But a false prophet just trying to con people out of money seems a bit extreme to my thinking. As I said, I'm not a fan of his. And I can certainly understand many people disliking him as a personality. But he has also been, to my thinking, demonized WAY beyond reality.

I don't know if this comment will tie into this thread or not, but it's related to the title at least: I think it's terrible how all the commentary from conservatives is so fear-mongering right now to gain political points. I actually understand, in part, what the Biden administration is trying to do. Yes, some things in the economy are concrete -- but a lot of it is merely perception. When people get scared and tighten their belts, stop spending, stop hiring, etc., it makes things worse. If people trust things are going to be okay, they're more likely to keep spending, keep hiring, etc. Yes, there are concrete issues that affect such things as well. Though even some of those concrete things are based on up-the-chain perception. By letting people know that things aren't as bad as "A RECESSION", it seems the Biden administration is trying to keep things positive, in part, to maintain perception, so everything doesn't go into hunker-down mode, that will surely make things even worse. By arguing the point and demanding that the Biden admin is "redefining what recession means" the conservative commentary is playing a self-fulfilling prophecy style game. They're adding fear to the recession they claim we're now "by definition" in. And literally repeatedly stating how scary it is. Yes, I know there's more to it than simply what I've described above. I know the Biden admin is playing political games as well, trying to make it seem like they're doing a better job than they are. But I still think it's irresponsible of conservative voices to be dumping fuel on the fire.

It's amazing to me how much of a contest raising my kids feels like sometimes. Yes, I know...that's terrible. But I can't help it. Well, my kids may or may not be smarter than your grandkids...but they're cuter, dang it! So says I. And I'm not biased at all! It's objective!

Except, by literal word definition, it kind of does. (I will grant, there is an implication of the additional un-spoken "for" in the similarity of meaning. But unspoken implied added words are moderately common.) Which is why people misuse it that way so naturally. Some basic thesaurusing: Begs (for) the question, invokes the question, pleads (for) the question, advocates (for) the question, asks the question, sues (for) the question, adjures (for) the question... vs. Raises the question, incites the question, provokes the question, suggests the question, arouses the question, awakens the question.... I dunno...seems pretty much to mean the same thing, at a basic level...to me. Granted, without the implied "for" then it doesn't mean the same thing, because instead of asking "for" the question one is asking "of" the question itself...but still... clearly when anyone uses "begs the question" to mean "raises the question" they mean the implied "for" as part of it.

Prior to reading this post I was feeling so good about how well my 5 and a half year old was sounding out and reading words like "cat", "bob" and "ant". Now I feel like she's way behind the curve. Thanks for that.

I've never had a problem with the Book of Mormon's writing style until I started recently reading nightly scriptures to my 5-year-old. One might ask, why would you read something so difficult to understand to a 5-year-old? Well...for the same reason my mother read it to us. So when we're older the language doesn't seem or feel hard or strange. Every time I read "And it came to pass..." now my child pipes up, "that means, 'It happened!'". And she's just naturally starting to understand what "thou/thee" means, etc. And I have to explain what I'm reading as I go a lot, and find that in some verses...well, a lot of verses...I have to explain every other word. The language is not common or plain, despite Nephi's proclamation that he's speaking plainly. (Obviously what he means by speaking plainly is a subjective idea. And he is, indeed, speaking plainly....relatively.) Anyhow, my point is, I've never given much thought to the difficulty of understanding The Book of Mormon (other than the Isaiah parts, that I still struggle with), until I started reading it to a 5-year-old. 😆

I hope you weren't wondering if you were the one who was wrong on this one.