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A nice post:
From: boofdahpoo@gmail.com (Mjkenoyer)
Newsgroups:
alt.true-crime,alt.politics.democrats,alt.politics.bush,alt.education,alt.politics.liberalism
Subject: Two Nations Under God--awesome article
Date: 4 Nov 2004 11:34:53 -0800
Two Nations Under God
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: November 4, 2004
Well, as Grandma used to say, at least I still have my health...
I often begin writing columns by interviewing myself. I did that
yesterday, asking myself this: Why didn't I feel totally depressed
after George H. W. Bush defeated Michael Dukakis, or even when George
W. Bush defeated Al Gore? Why did I wake up feeling deeply troubled
yesterday?
Answer: whatever differences I felt with the elder Bush were over what
was the right policy. There was much he ultimately did that I ended up
admiring. And when George W. Bush was elected four years ago on a
platform of compassionate conservatism, after running from the middle,
I assumed the same would be true with him. (Wrong.) But what troubled
me yesterday was my feeling that this election was tipped because of
an outpouring of support for George Bush by people who don't just
favor different policies than I do - they favor a whole different kind
of America. We don't just disagree on what America should be doing; we
disagree on what America is.
Is it a country that does not intrude into people's sexual preferences
and the marriage unions they want to make? Is it a country that allows
a woman to have control over her body? Is it a country where the line
between church and state bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers
should be inviolate? Is it a country where religion doesn't trump
science? And, most important, is it a country whose president
mobilizes its deep moral energies to unite us - instead of dividing us
from one another and from the world?
At one level this election was about nothing. None of the real
problems facing the nation were really discussed. But at another
level, without warning, it actually became about everything. Partly
that happened because so many Supreme Court seats are at stake, and
partly because Mr. Bush's base is pushing so hard to legislate social
issues and extend the boundaries of religion that it felt as if we
were rewriting the Constitution, not electing a president. I felt as
if I registered to vote, but when I showed up the Constitutional
Convention broke out.
The election results reaffirmed that. Despite an utterly incompetent
war performance in Iraq and a stagnant economy, Mr. Bush held onto the
same basic core of states that he won four years ago - as if nothing
had happened. It seemed as if people were not voting on his
performance. It seemed as if they were voting for what team they were
on.
This was not an election. This was station identification. I'd bet
anything that if the election ballots hadn't had the names Bush and
Kerry on them but simply asked instead, "Do you watch Fox TV or read
The New York Times?" the Electoral College would have broken the exact
same way.
My problem with the Christian fundamentalists supporting Mr. Bush is
not their spiritual energy or the fact that I am of a different faith.
It is the way in which he and they have used that religious energy to
promote divisions and intolerance at home and abroad. I respect that
moral energy, but wish that Democrats could find a way to tap it for
different ends.
"The Democrats have ceded to Republicans a monopoly on the moral and
spiritual sources of American politics," noted the Harvard University
political theorist Michael J. Sandel. "They will not recover as a
party until they again have candidates who can speak to those moral
and spiritual yearnings - but turn them to progressive purposes in
domestic policy and foreign affairs."
I've always had a simple motto when it comes to politics: Never put
yourself in a position where your party wins only if your country
fails. This column will absolutely not be rooting for George Bush to
fail so Democrats can make a comeback. If the Democrats make a
comeback, it must not be by default, because the country has lapsed
into a total mess, but because they have nominated a candidate who can
win with a positive message that connects with America's heartland.
Meanwhile, there is a lot of talk that Mr. Bush has a mandate for his
far right policies. Yes, he does have a mandate, but he also has a
date - a date with history. If Mr. Bush can salvage the war in Iraq,
forge a solution for dealing with our entitlements crisis - which can
be done only with a bipartisan approach and a more sane fiscal policy
- upgrade America's competitiveness, prevent Iran from going nuclear
and produce a solution for our energy crunch, history will say that he
used his mandate to lead to great effect. If he pushes for still more
tax cuts and fails to solve our real problems, his date with history
will be a very unpleasant one - no matter what mandate he has.
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<buckeye-ELO@nospam.net> wrote
quoted from source-
"Is it a country that does not intrude into people's sexual preferences
and the marriage unions they want to make?
Always have- first with communal marriages, polygamy, native american
marriage customs, age/consanguinity- much less gender considerations.
then there is the arrogation by the State of the prerogative of a
participation in any marriage contract
Is it a country that allows
a woman to have control over her body?
You mean like having to ask permission for medicine, or taking drugs whilst
pregnant, or renting her body at her choice, or carrying a gun to protect
it; or just the part about killing a pregnancy, casually if choose, at
government expense?
Is it a country where the line
between church and state bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers
should be inviolate?
The 'Congress shall make no law' part?
Is it a country where religion doesn't trump
science?
Or vice versa- or have you a definitive scientific pronuncimiento on the
genesis of the Universe?
And, most important, is it a country whose president
mobilizes its deep moral energies to unite us - instead of dividing us
from one another and from the world?
Ya gotta wonder, don't you?
My problem with the Christian fundamentalists supporting Mr. Bush is
not their spiritual energy or the fact that I am of a different faith.
It is the way in which he and they have used that religious energy to
promote divisions and intolerance at home and abroad.
Maybe it was being the only social group left to ridicule without social
opprobrium and trying to get used to the government killing them with
impunity.
D'ya think?
Chas
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My USA does not intrude into people's sexual preferences
and the marriage unions they want to make?
Marriage is a religious word and only the religious have a right to
change its meaning. However homosexuals should have the right to form a
legal association aking to marriage, but not by that name. See Britain's
treatment of the subject.
Is it a country that allows
a woman to have control over her body?
That is fine, as long as women DON'T kill or injure the body of someone
else at any stage of his/her development.
Is it a country where the line
between church and state bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers
should be inviolate?
I am not aware what you are referring to. As far as I know the founding
father merely constrained Government actions in regards to the establishment
of a religion, not constrain religionists to practice their religion
wherever they, as a body, deemed it appropriate.
Is it a country where religion doesn't trump science?
It doesn't, nor should it. But wherever science rests on belief and
faith, such as in regards to abiogenesis, religion has a right to put its
views forward.
And, most important, is it a country whose president
mobilizes its deep moral energies to unite us - instead of dividing us
from one another and from the world?
That is indeed an important function of a president, but that should not
mean, that a president should have no principles regarding what is right and
what is wrong, or good vs. evil. Licentious civilizations don't survive for
long.
<long snip>
As far as the rest goes, you seem to forget, that most Bush supporters
are dispensationalists who see nothing wrong in leaving Palestinian natives
to the tender mercies of Jews who feel themselves justified in taking what
they want, at the behest of their god YHWH, by any means. After all, YHWH
commanded them to "Kill all that breatheth" in order to "occupy the land"
and "reap where they have not sown". The subjection of Muslims happens at
the expense of the USA, whose tax-payers support Jewish colonial ambitions
by supplying them with WMD incuding nuclear, unwavering political support,
and foreign aid to the tune of $15 million per day.
As our foreign policy rests solely on the trust and faith, that poverty
stricken and corrupt Russian generals will NOT sell their surplus nukes on
the black market, where the Bin Ladens of this world offer millions for
them, we can expect our military bases on foreign soil to be prime nuclear
targets for terrorists. American retaliation by nuking civillians will then
finally remove the stopper from the evil genie's bottle and we will
experience the Apocalypse as prophesied. YHWH said: I will put hooks into
your noses and lead you to destruction, and we sure are being lead in that
direction, aren't we? See below Dispensationalism at work in the USA
Pastor Frank
"Dispensationalism" Impacting U.S. Policy
By Tom Valentine
Published in THE SPOTLIGHT national newspaper
------------------------------------------------------------------------
During the 19th century, long after the birth of Christ, a former
con-man came up with his own twist on the teachings of the Bible that is
taught by some people virtually as "scripture." It is having a major impact
on the world today, particularly U.S. policy in the Mideast. This peculiar
philosophy, known as "dispensationalism" is political, and most emphatically
not Biblical. Yet many Christians in America consider it "Gospel."
A courageous author who has investigated this bizarre phenomenon was the
guest on the Jan. 15 broadcast of The SPOTLIGHT's weekly call-in talk forum,
Radio Free America, with host Tom Valentine.
The guest, Grace Halsell, a veteran international journalist, author of
10 books and a professing, Bible-believing Christian, described her findings
regarding this influential politico-religious force in her new book, Forcing
God's Hand: Why Millions Pray for a Quick Rapture, which is available for
$12 from Liberty Library, 300 Independence Avenue, SE, Washington, D.C.
20003. What follows is an edited transcript of the interview with Ms.
Halsell. Valentine's questions are in boldface. Ms. Halsell's responses are
in regular text.
Tom: How did you come about writing this book?
Grace: Let me go back to the very beginning. I've written a number of
books and lived around the world in many different countries. I was born in
Texas and I set out very early to see the world: Japan, South America etc.
Actually, I went to the Middle East after I had
been almost every place else and I did a book, Journey to Jerusalem. This
was about 20 years ago. In that book, I lived with the Christians and
Muslims and Jews and told their story and how they were living in Palestine
and Israel. One day I started living with the Jewish settlers who were
taking land illegally from the Palestinians and many of these Jews were
Americans who had moved over there from Brooklyn, N.Y. One of these was
Bobby Brown, a third generation American who had moved to the Middle East.
Sitting in this illegal colony outside Bethlehem, I heard Brown say,
"You know God gave us all this land and the Palestinians all have to leave."
That hit me very hard, because I had to ask myself what I believed as a
Christian. Was God in the real estate business? Was he really giving land
and taking it away from the people who had been living there for about 2,000
years? So that question in my mind stayed with me and then later I began to
take these tours with Jerry Falwell and meet Christians who condoned what
Bobby Brown was doing, which was taking guns and illegally confiscating land
from the owners who lived there. This led to this latest book, which is
called Forcing God's Hand: Why Millions Pray for a Quick Rapture.
Tom: I would assume that the Jews living there (and being Old Testament
people) would say, "Well, God dealt in real estate then. Why not now?"
Grace: That's correct. So these are the questions I raised and which I
am raising in this current book. I think I definitely do answer the question
in the book. As a Christian, I think I believe in the message of Christ,
which is peace and brotherhood and love and not murder and not confiscation
of land. I very definitely come out and say that Christ's message is what we
need to accept if we want peace in the world.
Tom: You're originally from Texas. In your book you examine how the
Southern Baptist Convention has been manipulated by this theory.
Grace: There are 16 million Southern Baptist Convention members and the
entire leadership has been taken over by this group of what I call these
"militant Christians" who support Israel and whatever Israel does. You know,
you can criticize France or China or even the United States, but you're not
supposed to criticize Israel because the Southern Baptist convention
leadership says that everything Israel does is orchestrated by God, and any
criticism is anti-Semitic.
Tom: That's a very unique perspective and many of the big television
evangelists promote this point of view. In your book you explain that the
Southern Baptists were actually taken over by these people who say that you
aren't supposed to criticize Israel in what was e
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["Followup-To:" header set to alt.atheism.]
On 2004-11-07, Pastor Frank <PF@christfirst.com> wrote:
Marriage is a religious word and only the religious have a right to
change its meaning. However homosexuals should have the right to form a
This is not a theocracy. It never was and never should be.
The US isn't even culturally uniform in this regard. This is why
any attempts to impose a xian version of Sharia are so problematic and
so absurd. Maryland will object to the shenanigans of Massacussets and
vice versa.
legal association aking to marriage, but not by that name. See Britain's
treatment of the subject.
[deletia]
--
AV is a bandaid over a bulletwound.
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Linux posesses no such bulletwounds. / | \
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"Pastor Frank" <PF@christfirst.com> wrote:
Marriage is a religious word
No.
[Bull#@($ stemming from this unsupported and false assertion is
irrelevant].
It doesn't, nor should it. But wherever science rests on belief and
faith,
Science does not. Period.
lojbab
--
lojbab lojbab@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, Founder, The Logical Language Group
(Opinions are my own; I do not speak for the organization.)
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org
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