fullspinzoo

Carol Kelly

If we are to succeed in conquering our adversaries, we do need to remember that this is “one nation under God.” We need to bring Him back into schools and workplaces and reclaim our right to free speech.

bahmer

Amen and Amen

Radiance3

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We are a nation under God. The Judeo-Christian doctrine that the Constitution is based upon.
For all of us, as God gave us LIFE, LIBERTY, and the pursuit of HAPPINESS.

Praise God. May God bless America, and president Trump!

Carol Kelly

That was telling it like it is. True words. Would someone please give Obama a plane ticket out of here?

Carol Kelly

My response got mixed up.

JohnCorrespondent

Not everyone in the U.S. has the same concept about what God is or what this nation's about.

I, for example, believe that if there is a good God, it (the God) would (1) favor socialism over capitalism and would also (2) favor Obama over Trump. This, for me, is the good God attitude, or some rough approximation of it, whereas the notions about "Obama ... out of here" and so on are wrong attitudes wrongly attributed to God.

And, I believe that the Founding Fathers intended the U.S. to have a secular government, which I believe is a good idea.

As for me, I was born in the U.S. and have tried to be a decent person all my life, and I see a lot of so-called Conservatives and so-called Capitalists hijacking my country and taking it in wrong directions.

They can say God is on their side but anyone can say that, even the Saudi Arabian hijackers who flew the planes into the Twin Towers can say God is on their side.

Most talk about "God" doesn't prove useful in governance, it only makes people less intelligible to each other.

As the God of the Old Testament would have it, they who would cooperate with each other should be shut down, and instead people should be confused by not understanding each other. (Gen 11:7.) Some religious people can rationalize all that. However, I, instead, find it emblematic of how a Bible religion is a poor model for building a good society. But it might be a really good model for provoking lots of wars and making rich arms merchants richer, while spreading lots of misery among most people.

There are some religious people who don't have any problem with spreading misery like that; they just think it's a step on the way to the Second Coming; there are some Bible verses, probably, that mention misery and also mention a Second Coming, so why not do all that, say these religious people.

But I think, if there's a good God, then it is saying, "You dummies! If I _had_ mentioned misery in your "Bible", it was certainly not because I wanted you to go out and create misery! I had credited you with some sense to know better. But apparently I have to spell it out: It is better to understand each other and cooperate with each other and be accepting of minor differences. And almost all differences are minor. Look to see what you all have in common with each other! Stop demonizing each other!"

Carol Kelly

Your last paragraph is good advice, but it will never happen. We can wish.

Radiance3

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At the utmost, we must protect our Christian faith. That is the very reason why our country was blessed by God since she was born.

Protecting our Christian faith is by v****g all Republicans this 2018 Mid-Term e******n. This is the most important e******n in the history of our country. A matter of survival of our Christian faith and our constitutional democracy.

Please my fellow Americans, think about your children. We need to save them from the immoralities so pervasive and destroying and corrupting the minds of our youths.
May God be with us, guide and protect us. May God bless and preserve our country.

We must be always pray to be under God.

Thank you.

JohnCorrespondent

While reading your 2nd paragraph it occurred to me that you might be kidding. But I don't think so, because your first paragraph looks very sincere.

For ecology, Democrats are the better party. Republicans indirectly support more pollution. Ecology and pollution are very important issues that affect the well-being of our children and subsequent generations.

Why would God want a more polluted environment instead of respect for the natural environment?

I think it is true that Republicans are more likely to profess (_profess_) Christian faith, but I don't think they are really any better Christians than Democrats or Independents or others are. (Matt 6:1-7 would have us be good but not show much about it.) Not that I care exactly about what's Christian, but I care about decency and respect and thoughtfulness and various qualities like that; and surely Jesus would too. If enough people do as you say, and v**e "all Republicans", then that could lead, later, to a second term of Trump presidency. Is that what you think Jesus or God would want? Trump does not appear to be very respectful or thoughtful.

One day somebody accused me of being unethical (but I think I am ethical), so that got me to thinking a little bit about ethics and morality and philosophy. Your post says we need to save our children from immoralities. But if I wanted to save my children from immoralities I would never even think of trying to accomplish that by v****g for Republicans. To me, Republicans don't look any more moral than anyone else. (I would have thought they were less moral than most people -- though they may profess to be more moral.) So I wonder how you and they evaluate morality. As for me, I suppose that good morality would include allowing people to have happy and productive lives, or at least trying not to impede them in this. To support such aims I'd favor universal, single-payor health care, a lenient or flexible immigration policy, less power to big corporations, less taxing of labor, and more taxing on using up natural resources. I could v**e for Bernie Sanders, or a Green Party candidate, or a Democrat, but probably not a Republican.

bahmer

Have you ever witnessed a democrat lead rally or gathering after they have left the area? It is akin to a pig sty and the park personnel have to come in and remove barrels of trash that is just scattered around. After a conservative rally or gathering there is very little trash laying around if any because the republicans respect the environment and nature and clean up after themselves. I would compare the difference between the democrats and republicans thusly. The democrats remind me of the Muslims that wipe their buts with one hand and eat with the other. The republicans remind me of human civilization that has advanced and they now use toilet paper instead of their hand alone and then they wash their hands after using the rest room. The fact that we are against all these regulations by no means that we are against the environment just that we want our freedom. If you want all of those rules and regulations write them down and you follow them that way you are working to a clean environment just don't make me or my business follow a bunch of nonsensical rules that really don't accomplish that much in the first place and usually harms business.

JohnCorrespondent

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This is a long post, with bahmer's and my replies interspersed. So if you want to see it all, keep scrolling down.
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[quote=bahmer]Have you ever witnessed a democrat lead rally or gathering after they have left the area? It is akin to a pig sty and the park personnel have to come in and remove barrels of trash that is just scattered around. After a conservative rally or gathering there is very little trash laying around if any because the republicans respect the environment and nature and clean up after themselves.
[unquote]

No, I haven't seen any such difference after such rallies. I don't remember actually being at specifically Democrat or Republican rallies, except for one Tea Party rally which looked okay behavior-wise but I left pretty quickly because I felt I didn't have any realistic chance of having a useful discussion with any of them.

In the rally place I usually go, the people aren't particularly big on being Democrats (though I suppose at least half of them would be Democrats, while almost none of them would be Republicans, at those events). They do tend to be anti-Republican. They are the sorts of people who would like to v**e for a Bernie Sanders or a Ralph Nader or some other candidate who seems unlikely to actually win. So they have to choose between casting their v**e for whom they'd really like to see in office the most (thereby possibly "throwing away their v**e" on somebody who won't really win), or instead casting their v**e for a lesser of two evils which for them is the Democrat. (To get past that political problem, we should have a ranked-choice, instant-runoff system of v****g. It would dramatically improve our democracy.) And a lot of these people like to say they are for "peace". So you would hear "I'm for peace" more often than you'd hear "I'm a Democrat".

At that rally place I usually go, they don't leave trash.

I'm careful not to litter anywhere, but other people around where I live do leave bits of litter in front of my house, and I don't know what political party they identify with.

I believe Republicans are more likely to drive big vehicles which pollute more, which is somewhat like littering. The few examples I've really noticed have been a Republican who drove a Suburban, a Unitarian (who was probably not a Republican) who drove a Prius, and myself who drove a Prius; and a Conservative who thought Vietnamese were backward for riding bicycles instead of driving cars.

[quote=bahmer]
I would compare the difference between the democrats and republicans thusly. The democrats remind me of the Muslims that wipe their buts with one hand and eat with the other. The republicans remind me of human civilization that has advanced and they now use toilet paper instead of their hand alone and then they wash their hands after using the rest room.
[unquote]

There's an old joke: "Which hand do you wipe with?" No matter whether you say left or right, the punch line is "Most people use toilet paper!" Of course the way in which the question was asked was a trap.

A Muslim friend once mentioned to me that there was a rule, where she was from, the rule being that one hand was used for dirtier things and the other hand was used for eating. It never occurred to me that it would imply not using toilet paper nor that it would imply not washing hands. If I had even thought to ask about that, I probably wouldn't because it would seem rude. I think your description is wrong and they wash and wipe the same way we do. (And so what if they use the left hand instead of the right hand when wiping with toilet paper!) Among my 4 or 5 Muslim friends and encounters with another half dozen Muslims, they have generally seemed cleaner than the people I've seen who were not Muslims.

About two generations ago, some people (who didn't happen to be Muslims) forced left-handed kids to use their right hands for eating and writing. It's just a notion about what's appropriate for right hand or left hand. I'm pretty sure you've misinterpreted a right-hand-left-hand custom in the case of Muslims, to wrongly imply not washing or not using toilet paper.

I imagine such customs could date back to times and places where there was no running water and such customs would make perfect sense even when doing all you could to stay clean.

From my side, I would compare the Democrats and Republicans in this way: the Republicans are more likely to stereotype people of other cultures.

People who are not Republicans tend to have fewer hard-and-fast notions about what's right. So, people who are not Republicans have a greater tendency to think flexibly or to think of more than one way to live. Similarly, people who are not Republicans have a greater tendency to actually meet people of other ways and cultures and religions. After having met such a variety of people and gotten to know some of them who have different ways of thinking, then these non-Republicans are less likely to stereotype them.

There's a large group of people who are both Fundamentalist Christian and Republican. For them, what I've just said would not be convincing at all, because they are already so hard-and-fast in their belief that their "Christian" way is the only right way. Traditionally many such people have thought it's even bad to be exposed to other ideas.

(I was a little like that when I started college, in my Spanish class! Our teacher was from Cuba. I had never met anyone from Cuba nor hardly anyplace else. I thought he might brainwash us with C*******m. After a couple of weeks, including one class period in which I watched him so intently that it made him uncomfortable, I decided to let him immerse me in his language. In the end it turned out he was just a person with a very strong personality. He had a lot to teach us about world affairs too. Of course, coming from my restricted background, I wasn't in a position to believe much of it, until reflecting on it years later after having read and heard other things.)

I'm sure there are some kinds of fundamentalist Muslims, fundamentalist Hindus, and so on who behave the same way as those fundamentalist Christians. Rather than getting to know each other, they tend to k**l each other instead, and then they feel even more righteous.

[quote=bahmer]
The fact that we are against all these regulations by no means that we are against the environment just that we want our freedom.
[unquote]

Point taken. I don't like government telling me what to do either. But even less do I like big corporations (which do some things like polluting) spoiling the quality of life of me and my descendants.

So our representative government could have laws to regulate what corporations do.

There are reasons why to have governments. And it's more than just having a military. Republicans seem to favor "law and order". That involves government. There are laws against littering. (I know you don't like littering.) There are also laws against polluting. I don't really like police and judges telling me not to litter, pollute, steal, or murder, but I can see how some kind of law and order like that is better than its absence.



I've never cared much about business. It all comes down to what's good for people and the quality of people's lives. Business is good if its net result is good for people. Business is bad if its net result is bad for people.

The government actually does things to help corporations and big business. So it's not just a pure free enterprise system. One example where government has favored big business is the tobacco subsidy. The people would have been better off without it. Another example where government has favored big business to the detriment of the mass of ordinary people is in the tax structure, where labor is taxed (the so-called "income tax") but big businesses, big corporations, and rich people have so much more money but are not taxed so much on it. We were told the income tax was based on the "ability to pay" but I find that it's really based on "ability to take". The rich entities who influence how the tax code is written have arranged to deduct money from laborers' paychecks, while finding ways to shield from taxation what they themselves do.

So, if the government is to stop regulating our lives so much, one good place to begin is to stop taxing labor so much and start taxing more the large entities which take from the environment (raw resources which they did not create) or which pollute the environment, this environment which humans did not create and which we all have to live in.

You say it's "nonsensical rules that really don't accomplish that much". I would agree that there are probably _some_ environment-related regulations that don't accomplish much, net. That's because we don't get everything right, but we still have to keep trying. So it is with all human endeavors.

How shall we determine or approximate what's nonsensical and what's sensible -- and what "accomplishments" are worth more than other "accomplishments"? We can use science: orderly thinking raised to a level called "science".

Shall it be corporation-sponsored science, or government-sponsored science? Well, I would expect corporation-sponsored science to be biased, like Big Tobacco's stalling on the issue of whether smoking is bad for people.

Is government-sponsored science any good? It "put a man on the moon" and some people thought that was good.

The government has a way to be accountable to the general population. That other big ruling force in our lives, big corporations, also has a way to be accountable to some people. Neither does really well for the general population, but the government's way looks more credible; it is "representative government" of a "democracy", whereas big corporations are accountable to their biggest shareholders.

I'd rather trust a climate-scientist in a government agency under a Democrat-Party administration, than a consultant, scientist, or lobbyist in Big Oil under a Republican-Party administration.

(I said "under a Democrat-Party administration" because I've read that Republican administrations have a greater tendency to quash climate-science, for no good reason that I've ever seen. Whereas, the Republican administrations are more likely to take corporation-sponsored recommendations at face value, as though trusting the corporations to have the public's interests at heart.)

What dastardly plot do you think those climate scientists, in the government in Democrat administrations, want to do? And why would they subvert the t***h?

Carol Kelly

Amen and AMEN!

Carol Kelly

John Correspondent. My guess is you were never hired to be a correspondent, therefore
you have saved all your words for your posting. I can understand why you were passed over in your chosen profession. You’ve attacked the wrong person.

Radiance3

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Question. What are really the most important issues why the democrats are running like wild animals and moral decay is to the highest.

What plans, projects, and ideas they'll do for our country that will advance our economy, like the economy, national security, national education, and the preservation and protection of our constitution? You are not a scientist who could accurately gauge environment, but rather listening to deceptive rhetoric of the left and the media. Democrats have none. They are empty but loaded with massive crimes, corruptions, deceptions, lies, lack of personal responsibility, millions of i*****l a***ns polluting our country.

If you align with Al Gore, then by hook or by crook you'll defend him. He is protecting his financial gains due to his h**x invented and blind folding the masses about c*****e c****e.

In desperation, democrats right now are running wild and violent. They have applied physical assaults, verbal, and relentless denigrating against the most productive best, and honest president we ever have. And you benefit from it.