Opinion of this quote

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

(A bit of a paraphrase since the forum I originally read it on doesn't exist anymore):

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Can only imagine what some people here think of the comparison. I personally found it dead on.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Not sure what that has to do with US foreign policy....

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

So American that I have to wonder if it's a parody. Talking about this topic as a competitive market neatly explains most of the problem as to why Americans in general just fundamentally don't understand religion.

     This uniquely American conception of the cultural role of religion is so bizarre that I can't really conceive of how anyone takes it seriously. We're talking about a shared history, a shared code of suffering...that one can just flippantly discard.

Because it is quite easy to discard? It's more convenient than it is to change cell carriers, and you never have to worry about any type of early termination fee.

And still don't get the picture. What's it have to do with American drone policy?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

So American that I have to wonder if it's a parody. Talking about this topic as a competitive market neatly explains most of the problem as to why Americans in general just fundamentally don't understand religion.

     This uniquely American conception of the cultural role of religion is so bizarre that I can't really conceive of how anyone takes it seriously. We're talking about a shared history, a shared code of suffering...that one can just flippantly discard.

Because it is quite easy to discard? It's more convenient than it is to change cell carriers, and you never have to worry about any type of early termination fee.

The problem with this analogy is that it implies that you have as much attachment, commitment, and loyalty to your religion as you do to your cell carrier.

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Oh for crying out loud.

Well having low attachment, commitment and loyalty to something  you had zero input in choosing and was entirely imposed on you (as is what's being referred to here) makes sense.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I just got back from an Ingress marathon so I'm too tired to read all of that until the morning, but I'll just say: I thought my attitude toward any type of non-self-shaped identity was pretty obvious with my opinions about nationalism and jingoism...and seeing what those have spawned I'm not too ashamed of it.

Also the fact that things I'm into can easily be inserted into just about existing culture with little difficulty and exist independent of their surroundings is something I actually find quite appealing about them, since by definition then they're not excluding anyone. Hell to use a weird but fitting analogy, look at my quite hated metal, and how there are things like Scandinavian black metal that don't really exist in that style outside of that region. And then look at my scene's music, which is basically the same thing no matter what country it's in, and people even wear the same type of hoodies. It's not part of some thing you have to be born into, like some nasty caste system and is accessible by everyone. And I've found that emergents have a pretty similar attitude toward the emergent scene as well, it's got people from all sorts of ethnic backgrounds, isn't limited or even heavily disproporationally concentrated in just one region of the country (although yes rather urban concentrated), and is for now something you can't have been born into if you're an adult and thus has to be something you chose, it wasn't chosen for you. And pride in that is something that I think would at least be understandable. And you know what's funny? My cell phone carrier (who I actually even work for now) is the same as it was in high school when I got my first cell phone, so actually yeah, that identity that I was thrust into did stick far more than anything else.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Now that I've actually read the exchange:

train: I think your views here are actually pretty mainstream and basically the rule in our age bracket. Like how many people from your high school still live in your home town? Yeah there's no doubt some, but it's certainly nowhere near as much as would be expected in past times.

Madeline: I think "tragic" is a bit too strong to describe someone identifying with some affiliation that isn't typical for their ethnic background. At best I'd say "unfortunate" and even then only in the same sort of context as that it's unfortunate that people need to leave dying Rust Belt towns for big cities with better economies: the state of the Rust Belt towns certainly is, but the moving isn't. Also the only Thatcher quote I'm familiar with is the stupid one about "the problem with socialism"

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

If there's ever a "free market" for something, this sort of "marketing" will happen. And in the US NOT having a "free market" is impossible, not to mention it'd be blatantly unconstitutional to imagine such a scenario. Plus is this a situation anyone thinks is ideal? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lina_Joy

So since it's pretty clear that no one in the US is going to ever propose banning conversion like in Malaysia or like some BJP state governments in India, and that such a law would be one of the most blatantly unconstitutional things ever (not just in the US but in essentially all Western democracies), it seems kind of weird to take an anti-US attitude in this context. What exactly would be the ideal scenario then? If the answer is setting up a sort of societal attitude and expectation that no one convert from whatever they were born into, I think it goes without saying that would be a pretty horrifying and repressive type of attitude and society, even if not enforced by law.

And furthermore, what type of attitude do you expects the emergent crowd to take? Of course they're going to aim at conversion and bringing people in, that's the only way something that new can survive and grow. What do you propose the emergent churches do instead?