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Thread: 2012 Elections - Page 105







Post#2601 at 08-10-2011 09:17 PM by KaiserD2 [at David Kaiser '47 joined Jul 2001 #posts 5,220]
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Quote Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon View Post
Ask yourself, how would a creationist compromise with an evolutionist? There is no middle ground. Now, ask yourself how you compromise between Austerians, bound as they are the idea that the pain of austerity will wash us clean of our debts, and Keynesians who believe that cutting leads to collapse and spending leads to growth?

You have to choose one or the other. That's the essence of any 4T.
I agree.

Meanwhile, we had some argument a while back about whether Michele Bachmann is in touch with reality. A great, well-researched, very careful article in this week's New Yorker has the answer: no. An extreme fundamentalist religion is at the center of all her thinking about politics, education, and the law. She got her law degree from Oral Roberts University. She has recommended the work of a prominent neo-Confederate who wrote (in a book she used to recommend on her web site) that slavery fostered strong, positive relations between the races. I urge all of you to take a look at the piece. She is a very frightening candidate--unless you think, as I'm inclined to, that Obama would easily beat her. Still. . .. you never know.







Post#2602 at 08-10-2011 09:35 PM by millennialX [at Gotham City, USA joined Oct 2010 #posts 6,597]
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Quote Originally Posted by KaiserD2 View Post
I agree.

Meanwhile, we had some argument a while back about whether Michele Bachmann is in touch with reality. A great, well-researched, very careful article in this week's New Yorker has the answer: no. An extreme fundamentalist religion is at the center of all her thinking about politics, education, and the law. She got her law degree from Oral Roberts University. She has recommended the work of a prominent neo-Confederate who wrote (in a book she used to recommend on her web site) that slavery fostered strong, positive relations between the races. I urge all of you to take a look at the piece. She is a very frightening candidate--unless you think, as I'm inclined to, that Obama would easily beat her. Still. . .. you never know.
Well, David... I don't know about you or her, but I do blame Obama for the Swine flu epidemic!






Born in 1981 and INFJ Gen Yer







Post#2603 at 08-10-2011 10:05 PM by Odin [at Moorhead, MN, USA joined Sep 2006 #posts 14,442]
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Quote Originally Posted by KaiserD2 View Post
I agree.

Meanwhile, we had some argument a while back about whether Michele Bachmann is in touch with reality. A great, well-researched, very careful article in this week's New Yorker has the answer: no. An extreme fundamentalist religion is at the center of all her thinking about politics, education, and the law. She got her law degree from Oral Roberts University. She has recommended the work of a prominent neo-Confederate who wrote (in a book she used to recommend on her web site) that slavery fostered strong, positive relations between the races. I urge all of you to take a look at the piece. She is a very frightening candidate--unless you think, as I'm inclined to, that Obama would easily beat her. Still. . .. you never know.
That is terrifying stuff. These folks are, quite frankly, un-American fanatics and need to be stopped by any means necessary.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.

-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism







Post#2604 at 08-10-2011 10:53 PM by pbrower2a [at "Michigrim" joined May 2005 #posts 15,014]
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Quote Originally Posted by KaiserD2 View Post
I agree.

Meanwhile, we had some argument a while back about whether Michele Bachmann is in touch with reality. A great, well-researched, very careful article in this week's New Yorker has the answer: no. An extreme fundamentalist religion is at the center of all her thinking about politics, education, and the law. She got her law degree from Oral Roberts University. She has recommended the work of a prominent neo-Confederate who wrote (in a book she used to recommend on her web site) that slavery fostered strong, positive relations between the races. I urge all of you to take a look at the piece. She is a very frightening candidate--unless you think, as I'm inclined to, that Obama would easily beat her. Still. . .. you never know.
Where do I begin?

Note well: She is not a pure ignoramus. She is not stupid in the least; she is exceedingly clever. She is smart enough to patch together coherent prose much unlike Sarah Palin. Unlike Sarah Palin she has exposure to philosophy and law. The results may be alien, but they are valid -- if one accepts her 'moral' underpinning.

This section shows how out of touch she is with modernity -- if by modernity one begins with the Renaissance, arguably the time in which Roman Catholicism had so completely marginalized the superstitious elements of paganism that sophisticated people could again learn from the pagan Greco-Roman past without being suspected of making libations to Bacchus at the dinner table:

At the time, evangelicals were becoming a major presence in American politics. In 1976, like many other fundamentalist Christians, the Bachmanns supported Jimmy Carter, a born-again Baptist. The Bachmanns attended Carter’s Inauguration, in January, 1977. Later that year, they experienced a second life-altering event: they watched a series of films by the evangelist and theologian Francis Schaeffer called “How Should We Then Live?”

Schaeffer, who ran a mission in the Swiss Alps known as L’Abri (“the shelter”), opposed liberal trends in theology. One of the most influential evangelical thinkers of the nineteen-seventies and early eighties, he has been credited with getting a generation of Christians involved in politics. Schaeffer’s film series consists of ten episodes tracing the influence of Christianity on Western art and culture, from ancient Rome to Roe v. Wade. In the films, Schaeffer—who has a white goatee and is dressed in a shearling coat and mountain climber’s knickers—condemns the influence of the Italian Renaissance, the Enlightenment, Darwin, secular humanism, and postmodernism. He repeatedly reminds viewers of the “inerrancy” of the Bible and the necessity of a Biblical world view. “There is only one real solution, and that’s right back where the early church was,” Schaeffer tells his audience. “The early church believed that only the Bible was the final authority. What these people really believed and what gave them their whole strength was in the truth of the Bible as the absolute infallible word of God.”

The first five installments of the series are something of an art-history and philosophy course. The iconic image from the early episodes is Schaeffer standing on a raised platform next to Michelangelo’s “David” and explaining why, for all its beauty, Renaissance art represented a dangerous turn away from a God-centered world and toward a blasphemous, human-centered world. But the film shifts in the second half. In the sixth episode, a mysterious man in a fake mustache drives around in a white van and furtively pours chemicals into a city’s water supply, while Schaeffer speculates about the possibility that the U.S. government is controlling its citizens by means of psychotropic drugs. The final two episodes of the series deal with abortion and the perils of genetic engineering.

Schaeffer died in 1984. I asked his son Frank, who directed the movies—and who has since left the evangelical movement and become a novelist—about the change in tone. He told me that it all had to do with Roe v. Wade, which was decided by the Supreme Court while the film was being made. “Those first episodes are what Francis Schaeffer is doing while he was sitting in Switzerland having nice discussions with people who came through to find Jesus and talk about culture and art,” he said. But then the Roe decision came, and “it wasn’t a theory anymore. Now ‘they’ are killing babies. Then everything started getting unhinged. It wasn’t just that we disagreed with the Supreme Court; it’s that they’re evil. It isn’t just that the federal government may be taking too much power; now they are abusing it. We had been warning that humanism followed to its logical conclusion without Biblical absolutes is going to go into terrible places, and, look, it’s happening right before our very eyes. Once that happens, everything becomes a kind of holy war, and if not an actual conspiracy then conspiracy-like.”

Francis Schaeffer instructed his followers and students at L’Abri that the Bible was not just a book but “the total truth.” He was a major contributor to the school of thought now known as Dominionism, which relies on Genesis 1:26, where man is urged to “have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” Sara Diamond, who has written several books about evangelical movements in America, has succinctly defined the philosophy that resulted from Schaeffer’s interpretation: “Christians, and Christians alone, are Biblically mandated to occupy all secular institutions until Christ returns.”

In 1981, three years before he died, Schaeffer published “A Christian Manifesto,” a guide for Christian activism, in which he argues for the violent overthrow of the government if Roe v. Wade isn’t reversed. In his movie, Schaeffer warned that America’s descent into tyranny would not look like Hitler’s or Stalin’s; it would probably be guided stealthily, by “a manipulative, authoritarian élite.”
Today, one of the leading proponents of Schaeffer’s version of Dominionism is Nancy Pearcey, a former student of his and a prominent creationist. Her 2004 book, “Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity,” teaches readers how to implement Schaeffer’s idea that a Biblical world view should suffuse every aspect of one’s life. She tells her readers to be extremely cautious with ideas from non-Christians. There may “be occasions when Christians are mistaken on some point while nonbelievers get it right,” she writes in “Total Truth.” “Nevertheless, the overall systems of thought constructed by nonbelievers will be false—for if the system is not built on Biblical truth, then it will be built on some other ultimate principle. Even individual truths will be seen through the distorting lens of a false world view.”
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...#ixzz1UgLyh8HJ

At no time other than the Renaissance has Western Civilization been so entwined with the orthodox teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and its Protestant successors. The Renaissance is the beginning of modernity in the West, and without it the West would be obliged to achieve any refinements of culture, philosophy, or technology from exotic sources. Before then the art and literature are almost entirely amateurish and juvenile. Sure, there was Aquinas, there was some fine literature (like the Chanson de Roland and The Canterbury Tales), and there were some impressive cathedrals... but all in all the music was awful and the art was execrable. It's not until people started insisting upon rules of perspective in art and revived Classical naturalism that people could treat reality objectively as the Renaissance allowed. That modernity allowed people to study the human body objectively... and almost everything else, Without the Renaissance we not only don't have such art as Impressionism and all that follows... we have no coherent biology, political science, psychology, or economics, and we can't develop the tools for deciding right from wrong on many issues -- including the authority of the dominant Church and its hierarchy. Without the Renaissance there is no Shakespeare, Locke, Harvey, Galileo, Newton, Descartes, Monteverdi, Bach, Haydn, Rembrandt, Goya, or Degas. There is also no Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, or Bolivar -- and above all, in the case of Michele Bachmann, no Martin Luther.

Her dominionist ideas suggest a person whose mind is in the 14th century and that her body is in the 21st. As a cultural conservative I must state that an appropriate reach into the past is for the glories of the past and not to the sleaziness of the past. A reversion to executions with torture for homosexuality is not only cruel and unjust, but also insane. Judgments of people for 'blasphemy' easily wander into the repression of ideas, a practice that I associate with the Inquisition -- and Stalinism alike.

The universe in which Michele Bachmann operates is far more alien than the world in which President Obama operates or even the fantastic world that she, Sarah Palin, and Tea Party types claim that Barack Obama operates in, or in which they believe that President Obama was born (Kenya).
Last edited by pbrower2a; 08-10-2011 at 10:56 PM.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."


― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters







Post#2605 at 08-10-2011 10:53 PM by Wes84 [at joined Jun 2009 #posts 856]
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Quote Originally Posted by KaiserD2 View Post
I agree.

Meanwhile, we had some argument a while back about whether Michele Bachmann is in touch with reality. A great, well-researched, very careful article in this week's New Yorker has the answer: no. An extreme fundamentalist religion is at the center of all her thinking about politics, education, and the law. She got her law degree from Oral Roberts University. She has recommended the work of a prominent neo-Confederate who wrote (in a book she used to recommend on her web site) that slavery fostered strong, positive relations between the races. I urge all of you to take a look at the piece. She is a very frightening candidate--unless you think, as I'm inclined to, that Obama would easily beat her. Still. . .. you never know.
There are a few of things that stand out to me about the article.

1. I am appalled by the dislike that some RW Christians have for the Enlightenment, which was the intellectual force behind the American Revolution. That's right, they're against the principles of our own Revolution.

2. I am a bit surprised and totally appalled by Bachmann's neo-Confederate/Lost Cause leanings. It appears that she is covering them up now that she is running for President.
Last edited by Wes84; 08-10-2011 at 10:56 PM.
Generation: Millennial (Gen Y)







Post#2606 at 08-11-2011 01:00 AM by Odin [at Moorhead, MN, USA joined Sep 2006 #posts 14,442]
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Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
Where do I begin?

Note well: She is not a pure ignoramus. She is not stupid in the least; she is exceedingly clever. She is smart enough to patch together coherent prose much unlike Sarah Palin. Unlike Sarah Palin she has exposure to philosophy and law. The results may be alien, but they are valid -- if one accepts her 'moral' underpinning.

This section shows how out of touch she is with modernity -- if by modernity one begins with the Renaissance, arguably the time in which Roman Catholicism had so completely marginalized the superstitious elements of paganism that sophisticated people could again learn from the pagan Greco-Roman past without being suspected of making libations to Bacchus at the dinner table:



Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...#ixzz1UgLyh8HJ

At no time other than the Renaissance has Western Civilization been so entwined with the orthodox teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and its Protestant successors. The Renaissance is the beginning of modernity in the West, and without it the West would be obliged to achieve any refinements of culture, philosophy, or technology from exotic sources. Before then the art and literature are almost entirely amateurish and juvenile. Sure, there was Aquinas, there was some fine literature (like the Chanson de Roland and The Canterbury Tales), and there were some impressive cathedrals... but all in all the music was awful and the art was execrable. It's not until people started insisting upon rules of perspective in art and revived Classical naturalism that people could treat reality objectively as the Renaissance allowed. That modernity allowed people to study the human body objectively... and almost everything else, Without the Renaissance we not only don't have such art as Impressionism and all that follows... we have no coherent biology, political science, psychology, or economics, and we can't develop the tools for deciding right from wrong on many issues -- including the authority of the dominant Church and its hierarchy. Without the Renaissance there is no Shakespeare, Locke, Harvey, Galileo, Newton, Descartes, Monteverdi, Bach, Haydn, Rembrandt, Goya, or Degas. There is also no Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, or Bolivar -- and above all, in the case of Michele Bachmann, no Martin Luther.

Her dominionist ideas suggest a person whose mind is in the 14th century and that her body is in the 21st. As a cultural conservative I must state that an appropriate reach into the past is for the glories of the past and not to the sleaziness of the past. A reversion to executions with torture for homosexuality is not only cruel and unjust, but also insane. Judgments of people for 'blasphemy' easily wander into the repression of ideas, a practice that I associate with the Inquisition -- and Stalinism alike.

The universe in which Michele Bachmann operates is far more alien than the world in which President Obama operates or even the fantastic world that she, Sarah Palin, and Tea Party types claim that Barack Obama operates in, or in which they believe that President Obama was born (Kenya).
Not to be a nitpick, but I think you are being a bit too harsh on the Middle Ages, and I think the Renaissance is overrated.

In fact, Renaissance classicism threatened to bury the theoratical advances of the late Middle Ages (such as Bishop Nicolas of Oresme's discovery of Inertia and refutation of Aristotle's physics) under a slavish devotion to the classical authors and superstitious Hermeticism. We have the printing press to thank for preserving late Medieval theoretical advances long enough for Galileo to read them and finally prove them with his telescope.

The popular stereotype of the "Medieval" Aristotelian professors that got in the way of progress is actually wrong, those Aristotelians were Renaissance Humanists.
Last edited by Odin; 08-11-2011 at 01:02 AM.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.

-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism







Post#2607 at 08-11-2011 04:34 AM by '58 Flat [at Hardhat From Central Jersey joined Jul 2001 #posts 3,300]
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Herbal Tee is right - sort of - in that it is not time for middle-of-the-road politics.

But I say it is time for what I call "bipolar/moderate" politics - tacking far left on economic issues, but far right on "social" issues, especially immigration (round up and deport even one-quarter of the illegal aliens and the unemployment rate drops how far, virtually overnight?).
But maybe if the putative Robin Hoods stopped trying to take from law-abiding citizens and give to criminals, take from men and give to women, take from believers and give to anti-believers, take from citizens and give to "undocumented" immigrants, and take from heterosexuals and give to homosexuals, they might have a lot more success in taking from the rich and giving to everyone else.

Don't blame me - I'm a Baby Buster!







Post#2608 at 08-12-2011 01:04 AM by Odin [at Moorhead, MN, USA joined Sep 2006 #posts 14,442]
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A summary of the Republican debate:

(Yeah, some of us watched so you didn't have to)

Debate watchers - did I miss any other insanity?


  • Frothy Mixture Santorum kept dropping the 'polygamy' word into the gay marriage debate as a dig on Romney.
  • Bachmann's strategy was to attack Pawlenty. Pawlenty all but picked up his podium and hit her over the head with it.
  • Frothy Mixture broke the sancrosanct GOP rule that states "Ignore Ron Paul" by not only calling attention to him every time he spoke, but provoking him.
  • Ron Paul was all "fuck your little bell I'm not done speaking".
  • Newt kept whining about "gotcha questions" (Chris Wallace asked him about his staff quitting) and alternately kept telling people how much he reminds himself of Reagan.
  • Frothy Mixture raged about gay marriage destroying the country, but feels that Iran is the most evil place on earth because of how they "trample on gay rights".
  • Multiple Choice Mitt wants to replace unemployment INSURANCE with an undefined "account" for "all Americans" and finally,
  • Huntsman defended the fact that 10k of his 12k employees are in India/China being due to the "EPA's reign of terror in regulations" preventing him from opening factories in the US.



People, you really can't make this shit up.


A few choice post-debate tweets:

@howardfineman
Obama's best (maybe only) chance: edit this debate to an hour and run it on TV nationally every week from now until Election Day.

@JohnFugelsang
Gentlemen, I give you the Obama Re-election committee.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.

-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism







Post#2609 at 08-12-2011 09:00 AM by pbrower2a [at "Michigrim" joined May 2005 #posts 15,014]
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Quote Originally Posted by Odin View Post
Last night I was working at the Democratic party's food booth at the county fair... and I had the radio tuned to...

a baseball game between the Detroit Tigers and the Cleveland Indians, Justin Verlander pitching. Verlander wasn't at the top of his form (he's almost a dead-ringer in style as a pitcher to Juan Marichal). Not quite at his best he is far better than Republican candidates for President getting softball questions. Verlander has thrown two no-hitters already.

I guess I missed the no-hitter last night on FoX Propaganda Channel! And the 'batters' were getting the sorts of non-entity pitches typical of batting practice! Who would have so expected!
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."


― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters







Post#2610 at 08-12-2011 10:46 AM by pizal81 [at China joined May 2010 #posts 2,392]
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Quote Originally Posted by '58 Flat View Post
Herbal Tee is right - sort of - in that it is not time for middle-of-the-road politics.

But I say it is time for what I call "bipolar/moderate" politics - tacking far left on economic issues, but far right on "social" issues, especially immigration (round up and deport even one-quarter of the illegal aliens and the unemployment rate drops how far, virtually overnight?).
It's ok to hold moderate positions, but we can't let the tea party bully the crap out of the whole government.

The dems and Obama made a bargaining mistake in my opinion. When you bargain you say a price that you might not be really after first. Like if I'm buying pearls and a guy says 200 kuai I should say something like 75 when I'm really going for 120. Obama and the democrats should have came out saying we need to raise taxes with no cuts then they may have been able to get some revenue.







Post#2611 at 08-12-2011 11:45 AM by Brian Rush [at California joined Jul 2001 #posts 12,392]
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Quote Originally Posted by '58 Flat View Post
But I say it is time for what I call "bipolar/moderate" politics - tacking far left on economic issues, but far right on "social" issues
Well, that would win your vote, but the problem is that more than your vote is needed to win an election.

Here's something interesting that I came across today. It's embedded in a DKos diary, but the main thing is the embedded graph itself. Y'all can read the diary if you want but it's the graph I want to discuss here.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/0...ide&via=blog_1

This is a Gallup tracking of the generic ballot for Congress. This only goes back to 2006, when the Democrats took over Congress, and I would imagine that's why most of it shows a Democratic lead (before that you probably would have seen a GOP lead). The Democratic lead spiked at the time of the 2006 election, spiked again at the time of the 2008 election, became more or less a tie thereafter, briefly went negative (i.e. a GOP lead) at the time of the 2010 election, and since then the Dems have pulled into the lead again and the trend is upward. Now, the Democrats have done bugger-all to earn this lead. They've been feckless, corrupt, wishy-washy, weak-kneed, and generally worthless. So the only thing I can attribute it to is the Republicans provoking total alarm and hostility on the part of voters. This poll records, at the moment, sentiment against rather than sentiment for.

The Tea Party agenda and that of the GOP in general is not popular. It has the fervent support of 25% of the voters, approximately, and is actively opposed by the other 75%. But for non-political-junkies, the real agenda is somewhat concealed most of the time. People convince themselves that Republican pols don't really mean that shit, that they aren't actually going to try to dismantle Social Security and Medicare, take away everything the government does for ordinary people, and tilt everything towards the further empowerment of the already-powerful. They see the GOP as a center-right party rather than a far-right one. But since the 2010 election, perhaps because of the relatively-naive Tea Party element among freshmen, or perhaps because the Republicans got giddy with victory, the mask has slipped badly and people are seeing the raw, naked truth. And it's not one they like.
"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?"

My blog: https://brianrushwriter.wordpress.com/

The Order Master (volume one of Refuge), a science fantasy. Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GZZWEAS
Smashwords link: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/382903







Post#2612 at 08-12-2011 03:01 PM by ziggyX65 [at Texas Hill Country joined Apr 2010 #posts 2,634]
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Quote Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon View Post
Ask yourself, how would a creationist compromise with an evolutionist? There is no middle ground. Now, ask yourself how you compromise between Austerians, bound as they are the idea that the pain of austerity will wash us clean of our debts, and Keynesians who believe that cutting leads to collapse and spending leads to growth?
It totally depends on the issue. Slavery, for example, was an issue that had to have one of two distinct outcomes -- legal or outlawed. But most issues are one of a matter of degree; most issues have many intermediate shades of gray instead of just black or white.

Yes, 4T thinking is that of "annihilate the opposition", but that doesn't mean there isn't middle ground to be had in many areas if the "political warriors" of the 4T are willing to demand less than unconditional surrender of the enemy. And in a 4T, the word "enemy" is taken literally since so many people viciously hate each other personally for believing the "wrong" things.







Post#2613 at 08-12-2011 04:51 PM by KaiserD2 [at David Kaiser '47 joined Jul 2001 #posts 5,220]
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Quote Originally Posted by Odin View Post
The debate reminded me of a Communist Party meeting. Anyone who had ever deviated from the line--that is, endorsed a tax increase, made a gesture towards gay rights, cooperated with Democrats, or done something suggesting a belief in government like signing a health care law--was given an opportunity to confess his or her sins and write a letter of self-criticism. And every single one of them took it. Ron Paul at least has views of his own on foreign policy, although domestically he comes across not simply as a nut, but as an incomprehensible nut. I must say I was proud of my one-time roommate Chris Wallace who was well prepared and not afraid of any of them.







Post#2614 at 08-12-2011 04:58 PM by Deb C [at joined Aug 2004 #posts 6,099]
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Be concerned. Be very concerned.

Maddow on the Radicalism of Rick Perry: Could He Lead to "Christian Overthrow ofUS Government"

There's more than one big reason to be concerned about the potential entrance of Rick Perry into the presidential race, and Rachel Maddow is on the case. She begins her segment by playing yet another round of clips of crazy pastors attending Perry's "Response" (with all their offensive rhetoric towards Jews, gay people, the Statue of Liberty and Oprah), and wondering whether this man's potential success is being viewed by these extremists as a chance to take over the ruling class.

"There are some patterns among these folks," says Maddow, describing them as being part of the "New Apostolic Reformation," a specific political and religious movement, which is outlined in detail in this riveting Texas Observer article.
"The only Good America is a Just America." .... pbrower2a







Post#2615 at 08-12-2011 09:42 PM by Odin [at Moorhead, MN, USA joined Sep 2006 #posts 14,442]
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Quote Originally Posted by Deb C View Post
Be concerned. Be very concerned.

Maddow on the Radicalism of Rick Perry: Could He Lead to "Christian Overthrow ofUS Government"

There's more than one big reason to be concerned about the potential entrance of Rick Perry into the presidential race, and Rachel Maddow is on the case. She begins her segment by playing yet another round of clips of crazy pastors attending Perry's "Response" (with all their offensive rhetoric towards Jews, gay people, the Statue of Liberty and Oprah), and wondering whether this man's potential success is being viewed by these extremists as a chance to take over the ruling class.

"There are some patterns among these folks," says Maddow, describing them as being part of the "New Apostolic Reformation," a specific political and religious movement, which is outlined in detail in this riveting Texas Observer article.
These nuts are frightening.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.

-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism







Post#2616 at 08-12-2011 10:24 PM by KaiserD2 [at David Kaiser '47 joined Jul 2001 #posts 5,220]
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I think Perry is jealous of all the attention Bachmann is getting--and figures, "Wouldn't I do better?"

Romney was very cool last night. I think he's feeling pretty confident and I can see why.







Post#2617 at 08-12-2011 10:51 PM by Deb C [at joined Aug 2004 #posts 6,099]
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Quote Originally Posted by Odin View Post
These nuts are frightening.
Indeed! I was with a group of people the other evening that included some who work for the televangelist Joyce Meyer. Many of them were already singing the praises of Perry. The followers of Meyer's ministry number in the thousands. Not to mention that this ministry is joined at the hip with Joel Osteen who has another huge following in Texas. These ministers have a major influence on the people who turn to them for spiritual guidance.

So yeah, they are frightening.
"The only Good America is a Just America." .... pbrower2a







Post#2618 at 08-13-2011 08:01 AM by The Grey Badger [at Albuquerque, NM joined Sep 2001 #posts 8,876]
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08-13-2011, 08:01 AM #2618
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolt_in_2100 --

Required reading if you would understand the way the 2012 elections could easily go, and how. Get The Handmaid's Tale at the same time. (And notice, Heinlein's theocracy lasted precisely one saeculum.)
How to spot a shill, by John Michael Greer: "What you watch for is (a) a brand new commenter who (b) has nothing to say about the topic under discussion but (c) trots out a smoothly written opinion piece that (d) hits all the standard talking points currently being used by a specific political or corporate interest, while (e) avoiding any other points anyone else has made on that subject."

"If the shoe fits..." The Grey Badger.







Post#2619 at 08-13-2011 09:22 AM by pbrower2a [at "Michigrim" joined May 2005 #posts 15,014]
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Quote Originally Posted by The Grey Badger View Post
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolt_in_2100 --

Required reading if you would understand the way the 2012 elections could easily go, and how. Get The Handmaid's Tale at the same time. (And notice, Heinlein's theocracy lasted precisely one saeculum.)
The GI Generation did one genre of literature well -- science fiction. I can't be sure that Robert Heinlein caught onto the idea of the saeculum lasting 80 years; it could be coincidence because 2100 is the second-roundest number that he could imagine in about 200 years from when he was an active writer. But 2100 is 160 years -- two saecula -- from the low point of the Crisis of 1940 (the Nazi conquests of Poland, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France and the Soviet Union brutally taking over the three Baltic republics). 2100, if the generational theory is correct, is probably time for the next Crisis Era when the last people who can know this one at its conclusion are largely departing the scene.

A "Christian version of Iran" is one of the most appalling outcomes of this Crisis Era for America -- but for some it is a wish come true. To my deepest regret I can think of several Republican candidates hollow enough intellectually and morally to seek it out -- and it would have plutocratic support. Iran is a great place to be super-rich, and a horrible place for the working poor (sharecropping is a norm among peasant farmers) despite having a world-average GDP per person.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."


― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters







Post#2620 at 08-13-2011 10:48 AM by Deb C [at joined Aug 2004 #posts 6,099]
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Here's a sample of how part of that *Texas Miracle* of not raising taxes came to pass. It appears you have to steal from the middle class who are donating the money and from the poor who need it.

Texas raids fund for poor to keep taxes low

Posted on 08.12.11
By Muriel Kane

Texas utility customers pay a little extra on their bills that is supposed to go into a fund to help the poor cover their own utility payments. But in a year of record heat, less than half the fund is being paid out, forcing people to do without air conditioning in triple-digit temperatures.

CBS reports that the Texas legislature has repeatedly approved raiding the fund in order to balance its budget without raising taxes. By 2013, there will be $900 million sitting unspent, with no plans to ever pay it out.

And not only are the poor being shortchanged, but members of the middle class who pay utility bills are being charged that extra fee which does nothing but subsidize keeping taxes low on the wealthy.

You can watch this video from CBS News, posted August 12, 2011.

http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/20...eep-taxes-low/
"The only Good America is a Just America." .... pbrower2a







Post#2621 at 08-13-2011 11:06 AM by millennialX [at Gotham City, USA joined Oct 2010 #posts 6,597]
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Quote Originally Posted by The Grey Badger View Post
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolt_in_2100 --

Required reading if you would understand the way the 2012 elections could easily go, and how. Get The Handmaid's Tale at the same time. (And notice, Heinlein's theocracy lasted precisely one saeculum.)
Interesting! So Civics can be Prophets.
Born in 1981 and INFJ Gen Yer







Post#2622 at 08-13-2011 01:16 PM by millennialX [at Gotham City, USA joined Oct 2010 #posts 6,597]
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Watching Rick Perry's announcement. Geez, CNN and Fox news seems so excited about him. He just snickered like Bush. Is that a Texas swagger thing?

I don't know......Weird feeling in the pitt of my stomach.


Born in 1981 and INFJ Gen Yer







Post#2623 at 08-13-2011 01:35 PM by ziggyX65 [at Texas Hill Country joined Apr 2010 #posts 2,634]
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Quote Originally Posted by millennialX View Post
Watching Rick Perry's announcement. Geez, CNN and Fox news seems so excited about him. He just snickered like Bush. Is that a Texas swagger thing?
I'm sure as hell not going to claim King Richard.

Two terms was enough for Washington, but not for Perry. Should we be unfortunate enough that he's inflicted on the entire nation, expect the 22nd Amendment to be under attack.

And in reality, the more far right, Tea Party evangelicals there are in the race, the more they cannibalize each other's support and the more it probably helps folks like Mitt Romney, who isn't a Tea Party darling and may have the support of most Republicans who don't drink tea.







Post#2624 at 08-13-2011 01:37 PM by millennialX [at Gotham City, USA joined Oct 2010 #posts 6,597]
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Quote Originally Posted by ziggyX65 View Post
I'm sure as hell not going to claim King Richard.

Two terms was enough for Washington, but not for Perry. Should we be unfortunate enough that he's inflicted on the entire nation, expect the 22nd Amendment to be under attack.

And in reality, the more far right, Tea Party evangelicals there are in the race, the more they cannibalize each other's support and the more it probably helps folks like Mitt Romney, who isn't a Tea Party darling and may have the support of most Republicans who don't drink tea.
Yes, very true.
Born in 1981 and INFJ Gen Yer







Post#2625 at 08-13-2011 01:52 PM by ziggyX65 [at Texas Hill Country joined Apr 2010 #posts 2,634]
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And does Perry's announcement today mean that all of the other political news of the day just got Rick-rolled?
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