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[Sergarr]

Oh no she charges fees to give speeches to various groups whatever will we do all hope is lost oh no...


Not that I disagree on the point about her having massive party sway, I just seriously disagree on the speeches.

Nobody's dinner speech is worth a hundred thousand dollars.

I didn't know that USA was a command economy with fixed pricing for presidential speeches. Of course, in real USA, seeing as it is a market economy, things cost as much as people are willing to pay for them, and really, no one except for them should have the rights to decide that they pay "too much" to have one of the very few people alive in the world that could call themselves once as a leader of the free world speak to them.

And if these speeches manage to make some funding move the right way... what about it? It's just another way - in some cases, one of the most effective ones - to influence the world, an instrument to change it to what you think is a better place - and Clinton's vision of the "better place" seems good enough for me, seeing as she was championing for women rights, children's health, and she's also able to change her mind to take into considering what the American people see as a "better place", too - like, for example, her views on LGBT rights. Or the way she adapted her economical plans under Sander's pressure.

Seriously, what's your bone to pick with her? She appears to be a genuinely smart person working within the system to make world a better place to the best of her abilities and available information - she actually writes notes in her expeditions over the country and them periodically processes through them, which is extremely good, because it means that she doesn't just focus on the issues in front of her!

Do you think there is any better way to do it, in our real world, for just a single person?

What of the $1.5 million the city was forced to pay to the sole survivor and families of two of the dead? You make this out like it came from the top, rather than just some idiot mayor. Mind you, yes, the information I have is from 5 seconds of searching, but this does not appear to be a federal "silencing dissidents" operation. Just a mayor fuckwit abusing his power in office to clear out what he considered to be a "disagreeable" civil rights group.

It's a matter of scale. Few groups shake the top, so the top doesn't care. Shaking the town, on the other hand, requires much less work. You can see examples of things "from the top" with COINTELPRO and the Civil Rights Movement or the plans to assassinate Occupy organizers if it endured as a large thing.

So... you want to enforce a policy that a majority of the population disagrees with because you're convinced that you are right and they are wrong and you are helping them? Do I have that right?

What fucking policy? What are we even talking about now?

And the wishes of the majority of the population have never directly mattered. The entirety of the political system is to ensure that their desires can be both known and ignored if necessary. The majority of Americans support severe electoral reforms, nobody runs on that. The majority of Americans wanted out of Iraq, took the better part of a decade (which is still way better than Vietnam). The majority of Americans oppose the drug war, still going. The majority of Americans think this is a Christian nation, countermanded by the Constitution. When Roe v. Wade was passed over 70% of Americans opposed abortion, 50% still do.

No, I don't believe in the fairy tale version of democracy. I believe in effective leadership with intelligibility from the general population. That's not too far off where we are, either, but it requires a certain amount of giving a shit. I'm not concerned about the government being able to push through whatever unpopular thing it needs, because it's always had that power. I'm concerned about whether or not they'll know what unpopular things need to be done for the collective good.

unpopular things need to be done for the collective good.

Ah, so you do think there's a better way. You want to enforce your ideals through a brutal dictature that will oppress anyone who's against you and your beloved ideals. Fucking hell, you seriously believe that it's going to be better than the current democracy of USA!

What is this Stalinist bullshit?!

[smjjames]

"I'm not concerned about the government being able to push through whatever unpopular thing it needs, because it's always had that power. I'm concerned about whether or not they'll know what unpopular things need to be done for the collective good."

Hillary promised to fix Obama care? That was originally opposed by many but done for the collective good.
Is that the sort of thing you mean?

The fixing was opposed or Obamacare was opposed? Just checking what you mean.

Part of the problem though is that the Republicans have given no details on what they want to replace it with (besides something not-Obamacare), Trump especially.

[Criptfeind]

I mean, do something about it involves a lot of stuff. Talking to people on the internet is part of "doing something about it" even if obviously not the strongest action possible to take.

Did you send that Email to Clinton yet by the way Ispil? If so, how'd that work out?

[SalmonGod]

You make this out like it came from the top, rather than just some idiot mayor.

but making it sound like Big Washington nuked some hippies for being dangerously vegan is disingenuous.

Not orchestrated by upper levels of government, as far as I'm aware, and not terribly covert.

Want to talk about re-framing?

Yeah, the people who died at the MOVE bombing weren't saints.  They were even dangerous, though if I remember right, they had threatened and endangered but not actually hurt anyone.  But people don't typically get their houses burned down for being troublesome crazy people.  Troublesome, criminal, crazy people may get their door kicked in and shot in an encounter.  But burning down a city block?  That kind of thing is politically motivated.  When authorities surround that block and shoot at anyone who tries to escape, knowing that there are multiple full families living inside, that doesn't mean there's some federal-level initiative to silence dissent, but it's more than just an idiot mayor and is politically motivated.

Allow me to re-state my core point.

How many of you know about it.  How many of the people you know know about it?

I'm aware that it's this exact style of thinking that gets me labeled a conspiracy theorist, but when I see cases like thus that are so egregious, yet still so widely unknown, I can't help but take that as indication of high probability that plenty other such things happen which are equally unknown.

It doesn't take much to get away with things like this.  Why do journalists get so heavy targeted whenever anything controversial is going on?  Things don't have to be kept secret to be kept irrelevant.  So long as exposure can be limited, something that's a big deal will look like not so much amidst a sea of distractions, and easily forgotten

That it's not so paranoid and unrealistic to be afraid of facing abuse from the state if you genuinely oppose and trouble them.  Maybe there will be a pay-off in damages to yourself or your family later, after the job is done.  But the job will be done.  And few will know or care later on. 

I guarantee you that even though Standing Rock is in many ways an unprecedented event, and law enforcement actions have mirrored stereotypes of native abuses from 100+ years ago, that it will turn out to be a politically insignificant event in 10-15 years.  That if you try to talk to people about it who weren't specifically involved or paying close attention, that you'll face an initial reaction of "you're a conspiracy theorist" if you try to tell people that police stamped Native Americans with numbers and stored them in dog kennels in 2016.  Unless something about the nature of what's going on drastically changes.  I'm sure many of the natives and protestors will get paid.  But I invite you to get in contact with some of them and tell them everything that's happening is fine, so long as they get paid later.

Don't worry MSH - you shouldn't be afraid of trying to work for changes that go against powerful interests.  You or your family will probably get paid if something happens to you.

[Max™]

I saw something recently about the whole "Sanders is an outsider" thing. Guy has been in office for what, 25 years as an independent, hasn't he? Does he sit in a corner and grumble about socialism the whole time?

Trump obviously knows a lot of very powerful people, there's no way you can fuck up as much as he does and come out better off unless you're a bank. Trump runs in the same social circles as the Clintons do, if he is an outsider, they are. Amusingly he's also given ridiculously overpaid speeches before, strangely no outrage though.

In other news, any of you know that stonekettle station guy? Self described ur-conservative?

Horrifyingly disgusted by the current republican platform to the point he's voting for Hillary, and willing to explain why?

Good read. I liked the other one he wrote about seeing George Wallace as a kid and realizing that was the point when the Democratic party hit bottom, and hoping Trump is the same point for the Republican party.

[Frumple]

Man, I was wondering what the hell was up with the comments from that... until I reached the end of 'em, ha.

Though yeah, it sometimes looks kinda' like that vis a vis sanders, MTM. For all the guy's been loitering around for bloody ever he hasn't seemed to accomplished all that much. Only so much y'can blame someone for that with congress being what it is, but still.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I didn't know that USA was a command economy with fixed pricing for presidential speeches. Of course, in real USA, seeing as it is a market economy, things cost as much as people are willing to pay for them, and really, no one except for them should have the rights to decide that they pay "too much" to have one of the very few people alive in the world that could call themselves once as a leader of the free world speak to them.

Just because you can doesn't mean it's a good thing. There was and is no law against jacking up the price of EpiPens, but there you go. "Market economy" and "command economy" are more like philosophical conceptions than reality.

The issue is that it is proof that this is how Clinton moves in the circles of power. Pay to play, as someone said earlier. It's almost certainly never a hard guarantee, but Clinton has motive to go through with it all the same. Now, as I said, I believe Clinton can be controlled through public scrutiny, and that's on its way to being ignored thus allowing her to be the legal trading point for anybody with money and desire. It's still kind of a bullshit thing, but as long as its kept under control by the public eye it'll all be good.

And if these speeches manage to make some funding move the right way... what about it? It's just another way - in some cases, one of the most effective ones - to influence the world, an instrument to change it to what you think is a better place - and Clinton's vision of the "better place" seems good enough for me, seeing as she was championing for women rights, children's health, and she's also able to change her mind to take into considering what the American people see as a "better place", too - like, for example, her views on LGBT rights. Or the way she adapted her economical plans under Sander's pressure.

I don't really care or think we can know about Clinton's inner personal feelings. She is bonded to her own words and the Democratic platform, but that will only have an effect if she believes she'll be called on it. I'm sure that short of a supervirus that turns people into frothing bigots, Clinton will continue to say nice words about LGBT people. But she will never push Congress to pass a law extending employment, housing, adoption, or benefits equality guarantees unless she is made to think not doing so would be more damaging to her popularity.

Seriously, what's your bone to pick with her? She appears to be a genuinely smart person working within the system to make world a better place to the best of her abilities and available information - she actually writes notes in her expeditions over the country and them periodically processes through them, which is extremely good, because it means that she doesn't just focus on the issues in front of her!

Do you think there is any better way to do it, in our real world, for just a single person?

My bone to pick is that Clinton doesn't just play the game, she plays it better than all the rest, exempting her obvious social awkwardness. Again, Trump has sauteed our collective brains in a fine sauce of organic butter and oregano with a hint of cream cheese and now the collective narrative is turning into "love Clinton or Trump bigot" when being ready and willing to criticize her is the most important thing to make her be a good president.

Ah, so you do think there's a better way. You want to enforce your ideals through a brutal dictature that will oppress anyone who's against you and your beloved ideals. Fucking hell, you seriously believe that it's going to be better than the current democracy of USA!

Read what I am saying. There is no. Such thing. As fairy tale democracy. This vision people have in their minds where people go to the polls and vote their free minds, and this affects the change they want in the county, is bullshit. I support democracy, but it's the real democracy.

People don't have a free choice, because their opinions are dictated by societal norms, not the other way around. Though nobody has complete or even partial control, nothing is happening out of control. All the organizations of influence in the country do whatever is in their interest to ensure people accept the values they want accepted based off of existing opinions, and that is what all political thought stems from. If not all thought period. The obesity crisis isn't because of lack of education or good options, it's because the options presented by money-making desires of food corporations coincide with human survivalist instincts to result in eating as fattening food as possible. Can individuals choose to defy this? Sure. But no human tribe as a whole will ever defy this, not unless the circumstances of their desires change.

That last part, by the way, is what my opinions here are all about. I don't care about altering democracy, I care about two things:

A. Leadership with intelligibility (that being understanding of the population and long-term concerns)

B. Altering the structure of society in ways that alter the opinions of the humans living in it in the way they need to be altered for the good of the humans living in it.

The focus on the environmental crisis is incidental, but inevitable due to it being the biggest real concern. Plus, it's also a good example for all this. People want to have as easy lives as possible, and will gravitate towards that state. Therefore, the action of the state should be to make the easiest life an environmentally stable one. This will have a much heavier impact than any debate or any fancy advancements in technology.

This also applies to the leadership of the nation. Every government makes unpopular decisions, that's just a constant. What is needed is to encourage the government to see the right things to make unpopular decisions on. Such as, say forcing Cap & Trade instead of permitting corporate malfesence, or global standards of action instead of preying on weaker states.

What is this Stalinist bullshit?!

>Being accused of crypto-communism
>And destroying America
>By a Russian westaboo
>In 2016
>mfw

[Loud Whispers]

tfw you got rused

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Oh geez, I didn't even get the Red Scare similarity until now...

There's something I don't quite get...

A. Leadership with intelligibility (that being understanding of the population and long-term concerns)

With you here.

B. Altering the structure of society in ways that alter the opinions of the humans living in it in the way they need to be altered for the good of the humans living in it.

I do not follow. Could you give an example of such an alteration?

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

I saw something recently about the whole "Sanders is an outsider" thing. Guy has been in office for what, 25 years as an independent, hasn't he? Does he sit in a corner and grumble about socialism the whole time?

Trump obviously knows a lot of very powerful people, there's no way you can fuck up as much as he does and come out better off unless you're a bank. Trump runs in the same social circles as the Clintons do, if he is an outsider, they are. Amusingly he's also given ridiculously overpaid speeches before, strangely no outrage though.

In other news, any of you know that stonekettle station guy? Self described ur-conservative?

Horrifyingly disgusted by the current republican platform to the point he's voting for Hillary, and willing to explain why?

Good read. I liked the other one he wrote about seeing George Wallace as a kid and realizing that was the point when the Democratic party hit bottom, and hoping Trump is the same point for the Republican party.

Holy shit that is a true conservative in the sadly archaic sense.

I hate this system, where the elites have set these squabbles up. It's our version of bread and circuses - hate and divisiveness. It just distracts us.

I can actually agree with true conservatism. I can see both sides, and I can see how a compromise might work better than either extreme. That's the way it should be! But it's not. We have these "conservative" politicians, who I will now call Hatists (for that is what they really are), and we have people who fall prey to their hateful appeals to emotion. We have people who refuse to compromise. And so we liberals compromise, and everything slips further to the right.

But not the right of old. Not true conservatism. It slips further and further toward Hatism. And we liberals are not innocent, either; we have our own problems. But the conservatives are preferentially taken over by the Hatists. And this party politics thing turns decisions into nothing more than "I vote for teh person with the R".

[Sergarr]

Just because you can doesn't mean it's a good thing. There was and is no law against jacking up the price of EpiPens, but there you go. "Market economy" and "command economy" are more like philosophical conceptions than reality.

The issue is that it is proof that this is how Clinton moves in the circles of power. Pay to play, as someone said earlier. It's almost certainly never a hard guarantee, but Clinton has motive to go through with it all the same. Now, as I said, I believe Clinton can be controlled through public scrutiny, and that's on its way to being ignored thus allowing her to be the legal trading point for anybody with money and desire. It's still kind of a bullshit thing, but as long as its kept under control by the public eye it'll all be good.

I don't see Clinton being on a way to ignore public scrutiny. In fact, the way media has been picking up on her every non-scandal is making me think that there's the exactly opposite thing going on here - Clinton is going to become one of the most scrutinized Presidents in recent history, with literally every controversial decision of hers being massively criticized and overblown out of proportion.

I don't really care or think we can know about Clinton's inner personal feelings. She is bonded to her own words and the Democratic platform, but that will only have an effect if she believes she'll be called on it. I'm sure that short of a supervirus that turns people into frothing bigots, Clinton will continue to say nice words about LGBT people. But she will never push Congress to pass a law extending employment, housing, adoption, or benefits equality guarantees unless she is made to think not doing so would be more damaging to her popularity.

So, is she a populist or a corporatist? You seem to fluctuate her between the two.

My bone to pick is that Clinton doesn't just play the game, she plays it better than all the rest, exempting her obvious social awkwardness. Again, Trump has sauteed our collective brains in a fine sauce of organic butter and oregano with a hint of cream cheese and now the collective narrative is turning into "love Clinton or Trump bigot" when being ready and willing to criticize her is the most important thing to make her be a good president.

And that's going to go away soon after Clinton's victory. Don't you remember how fast USA political history goes? Who now remembers that the Republicans have shut down the government and almost defaulted USA, which would've broke the entire fucking world's economy, back in... 2013, only fucking three years ago? I'm certain that the overall narrative during Clinton's rule will change away by the end of the first fucking year, if not earlier.

Read what I am saying. There is no. Such thing. As fairy tale democracy. This vision people have in their minds where people go to the polls and vote their free minds, and this affects the change they want in the county, is bullshit. I support democracy, but it's the real democracy.

People don't have a free choice, because their opinions are dictated by societal norms, not the other way around. Though nobody has complete or even partial control, nothing is happening out of control. All the organizations of influence in the country do whatever is in their interest to ensure people accept the values they want accepted based off of existing opinions, and that is what all political thought stems from. If not all thought period. The obesity crisis isn't because of lack of education or good options, it's because the options presented by money-making desires of food corporations coincide with human survivalist instincts to result in eating as fattening food as possible. Can individuals choose to defy this? Sure. But no human tribe as a whole will ever defy this, not unless the circumstances of their desires change.

That last part, by the way, is what my opinions here are all about. I don't care about altering democracy, I care about two things:

A. Leadership with intelligibility (that being understanding of the population and long-term concerns)

B. Altering the structure of society in ways that alter the opinions of the humans living in it in the way they need to be altered for the good of the humans living in it.

The focus on the environmental crisis is incidental, but inevitable due to it being the biggest real concern. Plus, it's also a good example for all this. People want to have as easy lives as possible, and will gravitate towards that state. Therefore, the action of the state should be to make the easiest life an environmentally stable one. This will have a much heavier impact than any debate or any fancy advancements in technology.

This also applies to the leadership of the nation. Every government makes unpopular decisions, that's just a constant. What is needed is to encourage the government to see the right things to make unpopular decisions on. Such as, say forcing Cap & Trade instead of permitting corporate malfesence, or global standards of action instead of preying on weaker states.

Yes, yes I know that real people aren't fucking perfect and that fairy tale democracy is impossible, which is why I don't condemn Clinton for doing shady things in the first place! Who or what are you even arguing against? Are you saying that Clinton will just not do the climate change measures at all? I remember her running climate change ads in the DNC, so.... what are you basing this on, again?

>Being accused of crypto-communism
>And destroying America
>By a Russian westaboo
>In 2016
>mfw

...I may have overreacted a little bit here. Sorry for that.

Also, I don't think I'm a "westaboo" for acknowledging the fact that the West is currently winning in about every economical, political and technological sphere imaginable. I would be really fucking stupid to not do that.

So it makes sense for me that you'd want to keep your current system as intact as possible, because you'd risk losing it otherwise - and it would really fucking suck for you, and, by the virtue of the world being a highly interconnected system, for me, as well - which is why I keep advocating for you to not rock the boat too much by trying to make the already most unpopular soon-to-be President of the United States even more unpopular through making highly controversial decisions like that environmental stuff before she secures her footing.

I mean, she's not even elected yet and there are already people talking about impeaching her for bullshit reasons!

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Ahaha yes

Also, Sergarr and MSH, I have no idea what the argument even is anymore. I have a suspicion that nobody does.

[smjjames]

My bone to pick is that Clinton doesn't just play the game, she plays it better than all the rest, exempting her obvious social awkwardness. Again, Trump has sauteed our collective brains in a fine sauce of organic butter and oregano with a hint of cream cheese and now the collective narrative is turning into "love Clinton or Trump bigot" when being ready and willing to criticize her is the most important thing to make her be a good president.

And that's going to go away soon after Clinton's victory. Don't you remember how fast USA political history goes? Who now remembers that the Republicans have shut down the government and almost defaulted USA, which would've broke the entire fucking world's economy, back in... 2013, only fucking three years ago? I'm certain that the overall narrative during Clinton's rule will change away by the end of the first fucking year, if not earlier.

I remember all of that with the Republicans. And yes, I know it was a rhetorical question.

Also, I don't think I'm a "westaboo" for acknowledging the fact that the West is currently winning in about every economical, political and technological sphere imaginable. I would be really fucking stupid to not do that.

So it makes sense for me that you'd want to keep your current system as intact as possible, because you'd risk losing it otherwise - and it would really fucking suck for you, and, by the virtue of the world being a highly interconnected system, for me, as well - which is why I keep advocating for you to not rock the boat too much by trying to make the already most unpopular soon-to-be President of the United States even more unpopular through making highly controversial decisions like that environmental stuff before she secures her footing.

I mean, she's not even elected yet and there are already people talking about impeaching her for bullshit reasons!

To be fair, the Republicans have been trying to 'impeach' her in any manner possible for years.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

B. Altering the structure of society in ways that alter the opinions of the humans living in it in the way they need to be altered for the good of the humans living in it.

I do not follow. Could you give an example of such an alteration?

For example, the biggest thing you could do to solve police brutality is to completely rework the police academy and training system, or to alter the standards of the judiciary (which are not explicitly defined in law) to not cooperate with testalying and the blue line. Compare to people out protesting in the streets, who will never change police brutality meaningfully. The protestors don't even explicitly advocate for solving the source issue.

Or to go along with the obesity example from before, change the state of food taxes to subsidize healthy food and penalize crap.

There's also non-legislative things, like rejection of demagoguery and recognition of the President as not the god-king of American politics but somebody with executive powers who has to work with Congress. 

I know that seems somewhat similar to the way we think about changing society anyway, but it's not. Consider acceptance of same-sex relationships. There were centuries, millennia even of societies trying to put a stop to it. People didn't magically change in the latter half of the 20th century onward. What changed was the Stonewall riots made a splash people paid attention to, and once it became a thing in the United States the hegemonic cultural power of the nation spread it all throughout the world.

And yet, there's plenty of history outside of and before this, like that homosexuality was legal and even somewhat normalized in France for the past two hundred years, not at all starting with Stonwall. The shift occurred because it happened in a place and time that exported the new zeitgeist. Now we're here, and LGBT is one of the bywords for supporting human rights.

We're not any different from our ancestors. The circumstances of our structure, which is just a vastly exaggerated tribe, are different. Control the circumstances, you control the whole world, even people's thoughts and feelings.

I don't see Clinton being on a way to ignore public scrutiny. In fact, the way media has been picking up on her every non-scandal is making me think that there's the exactly opposite thing going on here - Clinton is going to become one of the most scrutinized Presidents in recent history, with literally every controversial decision of hers being massively criticized and overblown out of proportion.

This is the thing though, what's being picked up on is bullshit and often part of a desire to destroy her. That's not the kind of criticism we need. It's "is she or is she not doing what she and the Democrats as a whole promised"? The very lack of that, and the attempts at stupid shit like the emails, itself only straighten everybody who would prefer criticism of Clinton be shut down as Trump supporters.

So, is she a populist or a corporatist?

Yes. She's a pragmatist and does whatever she thinks will do the best for her. If the public seems more important, she'll drop the corporations. If the corporations seem more important, she'll drop the public. This is part of the few hopes there are for the Clinton presidency, that she can be influenced in this way positively instead of destructively.

And that's going to go away soon after Clinton's victory. Don't you remember how fast USA political history goes? Who now remembers that the Republicans have shut down the government and almost defaulted USA, which would've broke the entire fucking world's economy, back in... 2013, only fucking three years ago? I'm certain that the overall narrative during Clinton's rule will change away by the end of the first fucking year, if not earlier.

A lot of Obama's early potential was harmed by "these fucking Dems only voted for him because he's black", trying to truncate a repeat of this would be a good thing.

Yes, yes I know that real people aren't fucking perfect and that fairy tale democracy is impossible, which is why I don't condemn Clinton for doing shady things in the first place! Who or what are you even arguing against? Are you saying that Clinton will just not do the climate change measures at all? I remember her running climate change ads in the DNC, so.... what are you basing this on, again?

I don't believe what Clinton will do is set in stone yet, but yes, sufficient lack of publicly visible concern will lead to her not addressing climate change. She has so much more to gain by dealing with the big dogs that the public outcry or at least convincing evidence of ecological destruction needs to be as extreme as it really is.

Also, I don't think I'm a "westaboo" for acknowledging the fact that the West is currently winning in about every economical, political and technological sphere imaginable. I would be really fucking stupid to not do that.

I was more thinking back to that one post where you mentioned how you tried to learn about the perspective of Western posters and instead accidentally turned yourself against believing Russia was number one. It seemed a bit...overly bright towards the state of the West.

So it makes sense for me that you'd want to keep your current system as intact as possible, because you'd risk losing it otherwise - and it would really fucking suck for you, and, by the virtue of the world being a highly interconnected system, for me, as well - which is why I keep advocating for you to not rock the boat too much by trying to make the already most unpopular soon-to-be President of the United States even more unpopular through making highly controversial decisions like that environmental stuff before she secures her footing.

There will always be an argument for "later". I trust the collective body of climatologists. We're in a critical period, and if it is solved one day people will thank us now for having the wisdom to look ahead. More likely, I fear, the desire for the profits of the next quarter will lead us to denying it all the way into the shallow grave of the human race. Not much use for US hegemony then.

I mean, she's not even elected yet and there are already people talking about impeaching her for bullshit reasons!

I'm more concerned that there are Republicans talking about denying any and all judicial appointments, SCOTUS or otherwise, while she's president. The impeachment stuff is just blustering until there's something solid, especially with the failed action against Bill.

[smjjames]

Ahaha yes

Also, Sergarr and MSH, I have no idea what the argument even is anymore. I have a suspicion that nobody does.

They might as well say 'Religion is a mental illness', but we all know that's BS, right?