5122

The A-10 did get a reprieve in the past week!

5123

This morning on NPR I heard a soundbite that perfectly reflects the mentality of (apparently) a large segment of Trump voters: a New Hampshire Trump supporter complained that when he went to his local Panera he couldn’t order his lunch because “no one there spoke English.” Typical nativist/protofascist bullshit.

I guess Trump has the power to wave his magic wand and make all the immigrant workers learn perfectly idiomatic American English by the power of his “yooj” awesomeness. :rolleyes:

5124

The failure of the Osprey has been dramatically overstated at this point. While the system’s development definitely ran into tons of issues, at this point the aircraft is actually successful, and fills some crucial roles.

And again, the attempts to minimize the utility of the F35 don’t really grasp the importance of stealth in modern air combat engagements. If you don’t understand why stealth is important, then you can’t really effectively evaluate the utility of a stealth aircraft.

5125

I’ve always had a soft spot for that beautifully ugly plane.

5126

Yes, the Osprey had issues during development but operationally it has a good record.

What I would like to see is tests of the F-35 going up against the F-22.

5127

Is my gun out and pointed or do I have to draw it?

5128

Ones that we already paid for that work in their specialized roles? I mean the F-22 was fine for an interceptor, the A-10 does close support better than any platform that’s ever existed. Neither costs a trillion dollars and both actually worked.

5129

I don’t buy that Trump is authentic at all. “My favorite book is the bible.” Please. And it’s not authentic is answer every question with total bullshit about how you know so much about whatever topic and will do a great job… while somehow not saying you even know what the question is referring too. Total bullshit.

5130

He forgot to point out that “the bible” is what he calls The Art of the Deal.

5131

Yeah listing the Bible as his favorite book is pure pandering from someone who doesn’t know anything about the book is about as far from religious as you can get.

5132

Trump gets huge numbers from people who oppose immigration. I think part of that opposition is certainly economic, they don’t want to compete with immigrants, but more of it’s probably cultural. They don’t want their communities to change.

5133

Trump’s pandering on religion has been consistently absurd, in that it demonstrates he is not only not religious, but that he has no grasp at all of what religious people even think. Saying things like, “yeah, I go to church all the time. I eat the little cracker and drink some wine. I’m very religious.” Demonstrates such a profound disconnect from the people he is pandering to as to make it surreal. The little cracker is the body of Christ, either figuratively or literally, depending on which Christian sect you are talking about. It’s kind of a big deal to Christians.

Or when he spoke to all the Bible thumpers and said, “2 Corinthians”, effectively demonstrating that he has really never read the bible, and was simply repeating some line that some lackey had given him.

His lack of religion is not necessarily a problem, but his pandering illustrates that he had no respect at all for the Christian faith. His actions trivialize it, whether through contempt of profound ignorance, I cannot tell.

But what really blows my mind is that there are so called evangelicals who support him despite that. These people who specifically choose to define themselves by their faith, are willing to support someone who not only rejects essentially everything Christ taught, but actually goes so far as to trivialize his teachings as though they are a joke.

What this says to me is that those so called evangelicals are just shitty people, and that they really don’t understand Christ at all. They are the kind of religious dickheads who only embrace the parts of religion which give them an excuse to condemn others (which, to be clear, is effectively not in real Christianity at all). The kinds of idiots who think that religion is about condemning sinners and punishing them.

And these people can support trump, because their faith is not faith at all. It is merely bigotry and hate, wrapped up in a bible’s dust jacket. And for those people, it’s just as easy to embrace trump, since he’s the same thing as what they get out of their religion.

For actual evangelicals, I would think Kasich is much more appealing. He actually is an evangelical himself. He doesn’t shriek about fire and brimstone like Cruz, but he talks about shit that is supposed to actually matter to Christians. About bringing people together to make things better for everyone. I mentioned previously, this is similar in many ways to where the evangelicals were back in the 70s, when they supported people like Carter.

5134

And to that I say amen, Timex. Well said.

5135

This gaffe really confused me, and I am hoping some American Christians can help me out. I’ve been to probably a thousand church services in Australia in the evangelical protestant mold, and people here say it as “two corinthians” just as often as “second corinthians”. I always call it (and other epistle sequels) two corinthians, as it’s shorter and doesn’t make any less sense linguistically.

Are American Christians so different that someone saying two Corinthians would be called a phony?

5136

You can see that in the polling. He does poorly on “shares my values.”

I think, to a point, it doesn’t matter as much though. What’s the point of voting for a Huckabee or a Santorum if they’re not actually going anywhere? I think that explains Falwell’s endorsement at least. People are betting on his ability to do what he says.

5137

Per the rest of your post, I think it demonstrates that he has a very good grasp of what those people think. Or, at least, that there’s a large base of “religious” people that he grasps, well. They certainly seem to outnumber the Kasich type that you laid out.

5138

No one would ever say “2 Corinthians” in the US. Not even atheists making fun of the Bible. The only people who would do it are people who don’t know anything about it and are just regurgitating something someone else wrote for them. I have no idea on the origins of why people say it that way, they just do and always have.

5139

I don’t think I’ve ever heard an American Christian say it as “Two Corinthians.” More directly, there’s this:

“Tony Perkins wrote that out for me – he actually wrote out 2, he wrote out the number 2 Corinthians,” Trump said. "I took exactly what Tony said, and I said, ‘Well Tony has to know better than anybody.’ "

Tony Perkins took the lump and added…

“No, I don’t dispute it at all. I wrote the scripture reference, which is 2 Corinthians 3:17, which is how it’s written,” he told CNN’s Erin Burnett on “OutFront.” “I’m guilty as charged. That’s exactly what I did. I sent him a couple of suggestions of some things he could talk about as a connection point.”

“It shows that he’s not familiar with Bible,” Perkins added. “Donald Trump’s a very interesting guy. There are some things about him that I find fascinating, that I like about him, as well as other evangelicals.”

5140

I think he has a good grasp on what they want to hear, which has been true of most things he’s done. He knows he needs evangelicals, but he also knows most of them see religion as a weapon to be used against people they don’t like. You have toss them a bone, but really, they don’t know the Bible all that well anyway. Anything you give them will be enough. You’re going to lose most of them to Cruz anyway, but the ones who don’t actually know anything beyond what other people have told them… well just toss them a vague reference and say the Bible is your favorite book. That’s enough. You don’t have to debate theology with them, or even follow through on anything.

Once election time comes, they’ll still vote for you as long as you showed them you’re on their side. After all, you have an R next to your name and said you like the Bible. That’s more than enough.

5141

I didn’t attend church very often as a child. But with that said, two Corinthians sounds a bit odd. I was high church Anglican.