Pokemon Preacher

It’s funny how you wanted to twist that this white guy questioning why Native Americans get tax exemption was actually trying to help them and “calling out” an injustice. Lol.

"That Trump testimony about the comment he made about Native Americans was not him expressing concern over George Miller letting “non- Native Americans” get exemptions."

Yes that's exactly what it was and if you actually know how to read and can understand what it is you read then it's very obvious this is the case and only someone who knows a little bit of the story and thinks that makes them an expert when it actually makes them an idiot would think otherwise.

"He wanted to get the same exemptions as them or make Native Americans not get exemptions at all. He made that clear in his testimony when he stated how “discriminatory” it was and questioned why Native Americans were the only ones getting it."

No, he didn't make that "clear." If that's what you think was the "clear" message then the whole thing just went over your head and that's ok. Some people struggle reading and comprehending congressional transcripts. That's not the problem. The problem is you thinking you can just call people racist and assume you're right when you don't have the full context and you don't even understand the context you have.

What he was saying if the Native Americans operating the casinos are calling themselves part of the sovereign nation and not tribes, then they should be subject to the same rules and regulations as the rest of the nation and what is the issue with that? If they are actually agreeing to be part of the nation and the government giving them special treatment that is, in fact, discriminatory. Plus, if they are part of the sovereign nation then their casinos would be supervised and protected and organized crime wouldn't be such an issue.

"Not to mention the added casual racial stereotypes he implied about Native Americans not looking “Indian” enough for him."

See your problem is you're so narrow minded you see something like that and your brain can only output one thought which is "racism." I've explained in detail why that was not a racist comment. He was not stereotyping Native Americans you absolute moron. He was was calling out fraud that was being committed by Representative George Miller. You are the one pretending you're smart enough to know the intentions of the comment when you're not even smart enough to grasp the basic issue at the center of this nonsense.

The context of the quote cannot be anything else. That's why the mainstream media narrative, the only one you're familiar with, took it out of context. Because once you fully understand the context and the issue that was actually going on, the absolutely brain dead racism narrative falls apart.

"It’s funny how you wanted to twist that this white guy questioning why Native Americans get tax exemption was actually trying to help them and “calling out” an injustice. Lol."

BITE stands for Behavior Control, Information Control, Thought Control, and Emotional Control.

The more points a group “scores” on the model, the more of a cult it is.

I think this model is the best one for several reasons:

It’s more nuanced than “cult” or “not cult” and doesn’t make false equivalences between groups

It’s versatile, applying to groups big and small, and cults of all kinds, religious, political, financial, etc.

BITE stands for Behavior Control, Information Control, Thought Control, and Emotional Control.

The more points a group “scores” on the model, the more of a cult it is.

I think this model is the best one for several reasons:

It’s more nuanced than “cult” or “not cult” and doesn’t make false equivalences between groups

It’s versatile, applying to groups big and small, and cults of all kinds, religious, political, financial, etc.

This is a great example of Thought Control used by cults whenever they’re confronted with criticism.

Behavioral Control:

Promote dependence and obedience (it’s obvious).

Modify behaviors with rewards and punishments (heaven vs hell).

Restrict or control sexuality (in like…so many different fucking ways).

Control clothing and hairstyle (modest clothing).

Exploit you financially (megachurches)

Information Control:

Deliberately withhold and distort information (the whole damn bible is distorted lol).

Discourage access to non-cult sources of information (”only seek answers from god”).

Divide information into insider vs outsider doctrine (also very obvious).

Generate and use propaganda extensively (!!!!!)

Require you to report thoughts, feelings, & activities to superiors (catholicism).

Encourage you to spy and report on others’ “misconduct” (happened to me personally, so it’s going up here).

Thought Control:

Instill Black vs White, Us vs Them, & Good vs Evil thinking (especially the Good vs Evil).

Use loaded language and cliches to stop complex thought (perfect example is right above in that reblog, they also love to dissect your brain).

Teach thought-stopping techniques to prevent critical thought (”it’s just god’s will,” “that’s what the bible says,” etc).

Use excessive meditation, singing, prayer, & chanting to block thoughts (especially the prayer part, not much thinking goes on during prayer lol).

Reject rational analysis, critical thinking, & doubt (particularly doubt, they swerve you with another reason you shouldn’t doubt god, as if they’re trying to get out of the conversation).

Emotional Control:

Instill irrational fears (phobias) of questioning or leaving the group (their entire premise is based on nothing BUT fear - that if you don’t believe, you’re going to hell and they use the idea of hell to control you).

Label some emotions as evil, wordly, sinful, or wrong (this one’s obvious and they also like to say that those evil and sinful thoughts are okay so long as you’re a believer which ultimately excludes you from criticism).

Promote feelings of guilt, shame, & unworthiness (being “lost” or “impure” before finding god/if you’re not a believer).

Shower you with praise and attention (love bombing) - (when you do shit their way, you’re perfect and invincible).

Shun you if you disobey or disbelieve (personal experience).

Teach that there is no happiness or peace outside the group (stems from them teaching that God should always come first).

Also, there are two really fucked up things that Christians believe that I can’t justify and see as a sane thing to believe. One of them is the belief that God comes first before everybody and everything in your life, including your family. When you put God above everyone and everything, so basically giving him all your attention and energy, you’re giving glory to God. And if you don’t or can’t put him first, you’re not giving him enough glory for salvation. 

The second thing is how obsessed with death they are. How they say shit like “I can’t wait until HE comes back and we all get to go home” or “Let’s pray that he comes and takes us all” or any other way of expressing how they want to go to heaven and can’t wait to go to heaven. They’re basically saying they can’t wait to fucking die lol. They HOPE to die, just so that they can go to heaven. They WANT to die, just so that they can experience something they don’t even have full knowledge of yet (because God is all powerful and his power we will never truly understand. Makes sense, right)? Borderline death cult behavior.

Overall scores: 

-Behavioral Control: 5/10

-Information Control: 6/9

-Thought Control: 5/8

-Emotional Control: 6/8 (!!!!!!!)

Behavioral Control:

Promote dependence and obedience (it’s obvious, don’t say anything that could hurt the feelings of anyone, stop offending people!).

Modify behaviors with rewards and punishments (being celebrated vs being cancelled).

Restrict or control sexuality (not per se, but if you prefer heterosexuality over other sexualities, you’re per se a bigot).

Control clothing and hairstyle (no shirts with ‘racist’ images like the famous general lee).

Exploit you financially (Black Lives Matter)

Information Control:

Deliberately withhold and distort information (can you imagine anything as distorted as people whining over kids dressing up as Indians and cowboys for fun? In my days it was just fun).

Discourage access to non-cult sources of information (”only seek answers from us”).

Divide information into insider vs outsider doctrine (also very obvious).

Generate and use propaganda extensively (!!!!!)

Require you to report thoughts, feelings, & activities to superiors (in that case, Saint George Floyd, I do agree that he was unjustly killed, but that doesn’t make him a hero, if you look at his life, he was quite the opposite).

Encourage you to spy and report on others’ “misconduct” (happened to me personally too, but not from the people most expect).

Thought Control:

Instill Black vs White, Us vs Them, & Good vs Evil thinking (especially heroic SJW’s vs the old white men).

Use loaded language and cliches to stop complex thought ("use pronouns!”).

Teach thought-stopping techniques to prevent critical thought (”to say all lives matter is bad!”).

Use excessive meditation, singing, prayer, & chanting to block thoughts (Not per se literal prayer, but certainly something religious, except that it is more violent, like burning down entire buildings and hurting both officers and civilians).

Reject rational analysis, critical thinking, & doubt (yes, “science” so called can be blamed too, even Hitler and Mussolini backed their racial claims on “science”).

Emotional Control:

Instill irrational fears (phobias) of questioning or leaving the group (their entire premise is based on nothing BUT fear - that if you don’t agree with then, you’re a fascist. Oof.).

Label some emotions as evil, wordly, sinful, or wrong (in that case, any questioning whether Antifa is actually antifascist is evil).

Promote feelings of guilt, shame, & unworthiness (if you’re not 100 %ly woke, you’re part of the “fascist agenda).

Shower you with praise and attention (love bombing) - (when you do shit their way, you’re perfect and invincible).

Shun you if you disobey or disbelieve (personal experience).

BITE stands for Behavior Control, Information Control, Thought Control, and Emotional Control.

The more points a group “scores” on the model, the more of a cult it is.

I think this model is the best one for several reasons:

It’s more nuanced than “cult” or “not cult” and doesn’t make false equivalences between groups

It’s versatile, applying to groups big and small, and cults of all kinds, religious, political, financial, etc.

they were literally the only other person that brought up the 5 y/o shit lmao so i know it's you

i never said the right to free speech was being restricted, but when you consider that leftists want to ban every space that allows us to say what we want when we want, it certainly seems that way

if you think kiwis are friends and buddy buddy, you're absolutely wrong. there will only be one or two exceptions. like, ever. most just want to anonymously say slurs and i find that funny. thats the appeal. i just like saying shit i can't elsewhere without getting banned lol

anyways can you stop threatening me? its pathetic. and if you thought i wanted any association with the lgbt community, you're wrong

BITE stands for Behavior Control, Information Control, Thought Control, and Emotional Control.

The more points a group “scores” on the model, the more of a cult it is.

I think this model is the best one for several reasons:

It’s more nuanced than “cult” or “not cult” and doesn’t make false equivalences between groups

It’s versatile, applying to groups big and small, and cults of all kinds, religious, political, financial, etc.

BITE stands for Behavior Control, Information Control, Thought Control, and Emotional Control.

The more points a group “scores” on the model, the more of a cult it is.

I think this model is the best one for several reasons:

It’s more nuanced than “cult” or “not cult” and doesn’t make false equivalences between groups

It’s versatile, applying to groups big and small, and cults of all kinds, religious, political, financial, etc.

This is a great example of Thought Control used by cults whenever they’re confronted with criticism.

This can be deeply traumatizing, and rather than make the missionary go ‘hm, maybe what I’m doing is Annoying and Fucked Up,’ it usually makes them go ‘wow, the world outside my religion really is a terrible awful place like everyone said,’ so they bank hard and lean in even deeper into the cult, because they are comparatively more welcomed there than in the ‘outside world’.

I would imagine Rumspringa can have a similar affect on Amish youths- imagine you spent your entire life in a closed, isolated community, living in a very specific way in a close-knit community, and suddenly you step out into greater society- and it’s all different. Cultural norms are different, the people react to you strangely, you seem funny and weird and you’re devoid of both cultural touchstones and normative knowledge. Depending on how isolated you were, you might not even know how to navigate in this world on a fundamental level. 

No matter how rebellious and excited you might be, this is going to be an overwhelming experience- you aren’t so much exploring your other options as you are getting beat upside the head with an alternative you were in no way shape or form prepared for, making that alternative scarier and harder to adapt to. There’s a lot of secret rules and hidden loops to modern society that can be tough to overcome even when you’re born inside it, nevermind raised explicitly to avoid it. 

So if we look at it through this lens, Rumspringa is less an encouragement of independence, and more like a subtle threat. This is the world you have to look forward to if you leave. It’s confusing and complicated and full of rejection and is going to punish you for existing in it. Might as well stay here, where it’s safe and familiar.

This is somewhat touched on if you read interviews with ex-amish folks, although this will also by necessity be from people with the biggest bones to pick about the community, and had some of the worse experiences. I found this interview on VICE, and some of the interviewee’s quotes on leaving:

The biggest physical challenge was that I didn’t know how to survive or act in the outside world. I didn’t know how to get a job. I had only a third-grade education. […]

Everything felt loud and scary. The electric lights hurt my eyes, and I was constantly turning them off. I was even scared of the hairdryer at first, because it made so much noise. I felt very overwhelmed for about six months.

Plus, there’s always the fact that if you do decide to peace out on Rumspringa. Well, that’s your entire family gone. That’s all your friends, siblings, cousins. You just don’t have those anymore. You will likely be shunned by them, if you try to stay in contact at all. It’s an emotional toll that can be difficult to overcome in its own right, especially when you’re young.

BITE stands for Behavior Control, Information Control, Thought Control, and Emotional Control.

The more points a group “scores” on the model, the more of a cult it is.

I think this model is the best one for several reasons:

It’s more nuanced than “cult” or “not cult” and doesn’t make false equivalences between groups

It’s versatile, applying to groups big and small, and cults of all kinds, religious, political, financial, etc.

BITE stands for Behavior Control, Information Control, Thought Control, and Emotional Control.

The more points a group “scores” on the model, the more of a cult it is.

I think this model is the best one for several reasons:

It’s more nuanced than “cult” or “not cult” and doesn’t make false equivalences between groups

It’s versatile, applying to groups big and small, and cults of all kinds, religious, political, financial, etc.

This is a great example of Thought Control used by cults whenever they’re confronted with criticism.

BITE stands for Behavior Control, Information Control, Thought Control, and Emotional Control.

The more points a group “scores” on the model, the more of a cult it is.

I think this model is the best one for several reasons:

It’s more nuanced than “cult” or “not cult” and doesn’t make false equivalences between groups

It’s versatile, applying to groups big and small, and cults of all kinds, religious, political, financial, etc.

This is a great example of Thought Control used by cults whenever they’re confronted with criticism.

BITE stands for Behavior Control, Information Control, Thought Control, and Emotional Control.

The more points a group “scores” on the model, the more of a cult it is.

I think this model is the best one for several reasons:

It’s more nuanced than “cult” or “not cult” and doesn’t make false equivalences between groups

It’s versatile, applying to groups big and small, and cults of all kinds, religious, political, financial, etc.

Our country has fascism. This is the creator of rick and morty and community saying he’s not a nazi and you should too. To actually stand up and say no.

The discourse is over. Nazi white nationalist whatever the fuck they want to call it now are terrorists.

Their entire platform is to get rid of minorities. 

They’re fucking Nazis. . It’s the bedrock of humanity. It’s so low that the worst people in the world find it, and that’s where they rally. And it’s so low

We have gotten so bad, that a 1/3 of our country has gotten there! 29% of the people are fucking Nazis! Let’s face it. That’s a minority. We can beat them! We have to say, ‘I’m NOT A NAZI’ though!”

2/3 of the country doesn’t want to be political. It’s not politics to say you’re not a Nazi! It’s like taking a shit. You just do it or you explode! You die if you don’t shit and you die if you don’t say you’re not a Nazi. Fascism is a fucking cancer, it will eat your country unless your country kills it.

Here’s what happens when you get cancer: nothin good. nothing. There is no way out of it. I’m your country’s doctor. You’ve got cancer. You have fascism. You are going to suffer. You are going to fight. You are going to feel pain. You are not getting out of this. We have fascism. It is happening. We’re fucking dead maybe, or maybe they’re dead. That’s about it. There’s not a continuum. It’s not a grey area. It’s not a fad. Fascism doesn’t pop up and then recede when it finds out no one’s into it. It doesn’t respond to love. It doesn’t respond to hate. It doesn’t respond to ignoring it. It doesn’t respond to timeouts. It doesn’t respond to attention. It doesn’t respond to lack of attention.

You stab it. You cut it out. You bombard it with poison or you die. And in any case, you will probably die. Don’t die talking to cancer! Don’t die hanging out with it. Don’t die arguing with it on Twitter. It’s fucking fascism. ENOUGH! Team up. Stop bitching about Bernie Sanders. I don’t care what flavor you want your democracy to be. It’s democracy versus motherfucking fascism! You can be as Bernie as you want! You got to do it later man. You’ve got to do it fucking later. You got to do it later.”

Also, dehumanizing people with beliefs you dislike so you can justify treating them poorly. Literal Nazi tactics.

Also, if I may ad hominem for a second;

(He also made a personal attack based on someone’s cringy bio, which in no way rebutted that person’s argument.)

I regularly complain about people who say they’re fighting Nazis who a) can’t even find actual Nazis , b) do a bad job of countering them, or c) both. I also endorse more successful (IMO) methods.

I’ve also repeatedly said “you can’t convince people with a persecution complex that they’re wrong by persecuting them.”

Antifa themselves have repeatedly attacked people who are explicitly opposed to white supremacy, and/or are in minority groups Nazis hate. They once pepper sprayed a woman for wearing a MAGA parody hat, because they couldn’t tell the difference.

It says “MAKE BITCOIN GREAT AGAIN”. There are news stories that said she was a “Trump Supporter”, even with her hat clearly readable.

Logically speaking “Nazis deserve no protection, and you can’t question any accusations” would lead to people falsely accusing other people of being Nazis to justify attacks, which, um, actually happened. They don’t even have to be liars.

I’ve seen people go “well, it’s okay to attack Nazis and ’enablers’ or ’defenders’” and they defined the last two as anyone who questions blind and sometimes violent hatred of Nazis, or identification of Nazis.

But of course a liar and coward like you would block me so I can’t respond.

Ah, yes, because my moral stance in this post is inconsistent with (checks link) someone defending themselves from an armed robber, who is an immediate deadly threat, unlike most Nazis. It’s not like I’ve explicitly said people should have the right to defend themselves from assailants no matter who they are, even if they’re Nazis, and made a hard distinction between the theoretical threat of Nazis and actual terrorism.

Just-a-cool-person is trying really hard to score points off me here, and it’s kinda sad.

BITE stands for Behavior Control, Information Control, Thought Control, and Emotional Control.

The more points a group “scores” on the model, the more of a cult it is.

I think this model is the best one for several reasons:

It’s more nuanced than “cult” or “not cult” and doesn’t make false equivalences between groups

It’s versatile, applying to groups big and small, and cults of all kinds, religious, political, financial, etc.

This is a great example of Thought Control used by cults whenever they’re confronted with criticism.

This can be deeply traumatizing, and rather than make the missionary go ‘hm, maybe what I’m doing is Annoying and Fucked Up,’ it usually makes them go ‘wow, the world outside my religion really is a terrible awful place like everyone said,’ so they bank hard and lean in even deeper into the cult, because they are comparatively more welcomed there than in the ‘outside world’.

I would imagine Rumspringa can have a similar affect on Amish youths- imagine you spent your entire life in a closed, isolated community, living in a very specific way in a close-knit community, and suddenly you step out into greater society- and it’s all different. Cultural norms are different, the people react to you strangely, you seem funny and weird and you’re devoid of both cultural touchstones and normative knowledge. Depending on how isolated you were, you might not even know how to navigate in this world on a fundamental level. 

No matter how rebellious and excited you might be, this is going to be an overwhelming experience- you aren’t so much exploring your other options as you are getting beat upside the head with an alternative you were in no way shape or form prepared for, making that alternative scarier and harder to adapt to. There’s a lot of secret rules and hidden loops to modern society that can be tough to overcome even when you’re born inside it, nevermind raised explicitly to avoid it. 

So if we look at it through this lens, Rumspringa is less an encouragement of independence, and more like a subtle threat. This is the world you have to look forward to if you leave. It’s confusing and complicated and full of rejection and is going to punish you for existing in it. Might as well stay here, where it’s safe and familiar.

This is somewhat touched on if you read interviews with ex-amish folks, although this will also by necessity be from people with the biggest bones to pick about the community, and had some of the worse experiences. I found this interview on VICE, and some of the interviewee’s quotes on leaving:

The biggest physical challenge was that I didn’t know how to survive or act in the outside world. I didn’t know how to get a job. I had only a third-grade education. […]

Everything felt loud and scary. The electric lights hurt my eyes, and I was constantly turning them off. I was even scared of the hairdryer at first, because it made so much noise. I felt very overwhelmed for about six months.

Plus, there’s always the fact that if you do decide to peace out on Rumspringa. Well, that’s your entire family gone. That’s all your friends, siblings, cousins. You just don’t have those anymore. You will likely be shunned by them, if you try to stay in contact at all. It’s an emotional toll that can be difficult to overcome in its own right, especially when you’re young.