American Politics during the Obama Presidency

Here an example of what I'm talking about.

[url]http://progressivevalues.blogspot.com/2009/01/usps-wasted-money-promoting-religion.html[/url]

A direct quote from the link above.

"The fact of the matter is that some like religious partisan Mormon Brent D. Ward want to impose their own religious views on the entire nation. And Brent Ward helped to fill both the FBI as well as the federal prosecutors with more like himself that who believed that the promotion of his own religious agenda was the proper role for government. Whoever knew that the major role of government should be the promotion of the personal Mormon religion of Brent D. Ward?"

If you have any doughts read the whole link above, these are dangerious people.

Exon

[QUOTE=Exon123]Some people in the Bush adminstration are criminals and should be prosecuted.[/QUOTE]Exon,

Undoubtedly there are "some" people in evey presidential administration who committed criminal acts, and thus you can make that statement about every president's administration.

"Some people in the Clinton adminstration are criminals and should be prosecuted."

"Some people in the Reagan adminstration are criminals and should be prosecuted."

"Some people in the Carter adminstration are criminals and should be prosecuted."

Get it?

Thanks,

Jackson

Exon, are these people any more dangerous than those wishing to impose their view of a godless society on the majority of the American people? Check out the polls, since that is what most politicos live by, the vast majority of the American people believe in a supreme being.

Since you have no problem reaching back to 1935, why not go back a bit further to 1776 and 1778 where "GOD" figured proximately in the majority of the documents the Founding Fathers left for us.

Exon, didn't your mother ever teach you it is never proper to discuss religion or politics in polite company?

I have to step in here and make a comment regarding religion in politics.

Doppleganger, you have made a comment that many of the Republicans (in true conservative style, as far as the term means to conserve and maintain what is) have made so many times trying to justify their desire to force religion on people, or ensure that the US remains a Christian nation as THEY define it. I feel that I have to respond.

Doppleganger, I am not saying you believe this or not, just a comment on the following quote that is pertinent to how I feel about government and religion (thank god this isn't polite company! :) ):

"are these people any more dangerous than those wishing to impose their view of a godless society on the majority of the American people."

I am not liberal in the sense of the word that the Republicans have made a curse word. I am liberal more closely defined by the defintion in Wikipedia under it's Liberalism entry. A quote from that page:

"Liberalism is a broad class of political philosophies that considers individual liberty and equality to be the most important political goals.

Liberalism emphasizes individual rights and equality of opportunity. Within liberalism, there are various streams of thought which compete over the use of the term "liberal" and may propose very different policies, but they are generally united by their support for constitutional liberalism, which encompasses support for: freedom of thought and speech, limitations on the power of governments, the rule of law, an individual's right to private property, and a transparent system of government. All liberals, as well as some adherents of other political ideologies, support some variant of the form of government known as liberal democracy, with open and fair elections, where all citizens have equal rights by law."

Indeed, to me that definition sounds so much more like Libertarian, to which school of thought I happen to belong.

Now, very few who hear the term "Liberal" escaping from the mouths of Republicans would ever equate the defintion above with what the Republicans mean when they say this. Generally what is meant is "Socialist", "Communist", "Libertine" (not Libertarian, quite different) and so on.

Including, I guess "Godless".

The truth is, the documents that were written by our founding fathers were varied in many ways. Some believed that government was the answer, some feared government. But of course one thing they all contained was indeed the word "God" because 230 some-odd years ago "God" formed so much of the way the people of that time thought.

However, they also believed (at least as far as the constitution goes) that the separation of church and state was a good thing. Why? Because they didn't want someone like good ol' King George telling them what religion to follow. Of course, that particular thought came out of centuries of religious war in Europe and was hardly uniquely "American" at the time of the writing of the Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary War.

But times change - and also they understood that. Maybe they would be dismayed that there are fewer people who go to church and worship the way that they did then. They might even be dismayed that we go to great lengths to separate the church (any church) from government. Maybe that wasn't quite what they meant.

But I think they might be a little smarter than most people give them credit when, looking around at reality, the founding fathers realize that the world is much bigger now than it was then and the term religion is a bigger, more diverse creature now. Do we want to create a tyranny of "God"? Do we have to define who God is? Is that the government's responsibility?

But back to the definition of Liberal. It's so easy to throw a word out there and label someone. The fact is, most of the people who are called Liberal are not necessarily what is meant by definition presented above.

Likewise, the thought that a "Liberal" is "Godless" because he or she doesn't want the US Government to have ANYTHING to do with religion is ludicrous. To me, someone who says "you are free to practice WHATEVER religion you want as long as the government doesn't support it one way or the other but upholds no more than your right to do what you want, and by the way I also am a Christian and worship God in my own way" is hardly Godless! In fact, is truly quite liberal in thought - but not the dirty-word liberal.

Considering the reputedly large number of people in the US who say they believe in God, I think you will find that many of the so-called "godless liberals" are not godless at all and don't want to keep people from worshippng God, they just think the government shouldn't be involved.

Does that mean that someone in the government can't go to church and pray to his God? Of course not!

It's kind of funny that the conservative Republicans, who (supposedly) believe that government should be small and out of the people's hair, would be so concerned about keeping religion in government.

From my standpoint, both parties are so screwed up and infantile precisely because they try to grab on to emotional "sound bytes" like "godless liberals" and "greedy conservatives" that they cannot actually do anything that falls outside of very narrowly-defined scopes which they themselves have drawn around themselves.

And why in the hell does anyone really care if someone else believes in God? How many lessons need to be taught that people who believe in God sin very large too - look at history and all that has been done in the name of just about every religion that every existed!

Does that mean a "Godless" person is going to be even worse? Or does it mean that a godless person is human as well and has just as much chance of being good or bad as a supposedly religious person who supposedly believes in God?

Of course, I am "Godless". I'm sorry, but I think that God (indeed any religion that believes in supernatural beings) is a myth that people use to explain why things are so fucked up and to comfort them when it's time to die.

But now having said that, I would probably never be able to run for any office in the US. Why? Because it is a stigma - to run for office in the US, it doesn't matter what good you would do, if you admit that you do not believe in God.

How's that for equality? Without belief in God my opinions are not valid, no matter what they are? In my opinion, the people who are looking to keep a good separation between church and state are on the right track.

As far as the "Vast Majority" of Americans believing in God, well:

- The proportion of the [American] population that can be classified as Christian has declined from 86% in 1990 to 77% in 2001.

(see American Religious Identification Survey," by The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, at: [url]http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_studies/aris.pdf[/url])

- There does not seem to be revival taking place in America. Whether that is measured by church attendance, born again status, or theological purity, the statistics simply do not reflect a surge of any noticeable proportions.

(see "Annual study reveals America is spiritually stagnant," Barna Research Group, Ltd., at: [url]http://www.barna.org/[/url])

- The fastest growing religion (in terms of percentage) is Wicca -- a Neopagan religion that is sometimes referred to as Witchcraft. Numbers of adherents went from 8,000 in 1990 to 134,000 in 2001. Their numbers of adherents are doubling about every 30 months.

(see "American Religious Identification Survey," by The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, at: [url]http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_studies/aris.pdf[/url]

and

"Survey indicates more Americans 'without faith', " American Atheists, 2002-NOV-22, at: [url]http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/atheist4.htm[/url])

So even though Christians are still in the strong majority, I don't think it can be claimed as "vast". To me vast is something like 90-95%. But admitedly, that is an opinion.

But what about the other (now) 23% of Americans who don't believe in a Christian God. Do we submit them to the tyranny of the "religious right" in the US? One more:

Evangelicals remain just 7% of the adult population. That number has not changed since the Barna Group began measuring the size of the evangelical public in 1994....less than one out of five born again adults (18%) meet the evangelical criteria. (N = 1003; margin of error = ±3.2%).

(See "Annual Barna Group Survey Describes Changes in America’s Religious Beliefs and Practices," The Barna Group, 2005-APR-11, at: [url]http://www.barna.org/[/url])

Just what does tyranny mean?

[QUOTE=Doppelganger]Exon, are these people any more dangerous than those wishing to impose their view of a godless society on the majority of the American people? Check out the polls, since that is what most politicos live by, the vast majority of the American people believe in a supreme being.

Since you have no problem reaching back to 1935, why not go back a bit further to 1776 and 1778 where "GOD" figured proximately in the majority of the documents the Founding Fathers left for us.

Exon, didn't your mother ever teach you it is never proper to discuss religion or politics in polite company?[/QUOTE]What Will Happen to the Bush Administration and Their Arguably Unlawful Activities?

What's to be done about the lingering questions concerning the arguably unlawful activities of the Bush administration? I refer, for example, to such issues as the use of torture, the creation of secret prisons, the secret detentions of American citizens, and the NSA surveillance program. These actions, and many others, pose serious, still unresolved, questions about the legality and constitutionality of the government's conduct.

We cannot and should not shut our eyes to these questions. And we should not let ourselves be distracted from these questions by other pressing issues, such as the economic crisis facing the nation. If for no other reason than to set clearer ground rules for the future, we need a full public understanding of the decisions of the Bush administration. We need to know who made them, why they were made, why they were made in secret, whether they were justified, whether they were legal, and whether we can establish better decision making processes for the future.

Exon

I would like to remind everyone that Exon is not a liberal, he just hates Republicans.

He in in fact a closet conservative who occasionally identifies himself as a Democrat solely because they are the "Anti-Republicans"

Exon readers may note that he rarely discusses Liberal Democrat philosophies, generally preferring instead to post constant diatribes against the cocksucking, motherfucking Republicans.

In other words, Exon's posts should be taken with the proverbial grain of salt.

Thanks,

Jackson

Mongers,

Whether or not Exon is liberal or conservative is not important, but either way he is right about the neo-con Republicans that made up the Bush Administration being war criminals and traitors. These people (Cheney, Wolfowitz, Pearle, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft and their ilk) are greed-driven religious psychopaths who are no better or less radical or less dangerous than any of the worst inmates at Guantanamo or the mullahs who control Iran. Essentially, the Bush neo-cons started a war of aggression in Iraq for the sole purpose of earning billions of dollars for the manufacturers of war materials and the providers of war services, not only at the cost of the lives of thousands of US servicemen but also at the cost of the financial health of the US State. Along the way, they managed to tear down a functioning state apparatus and replace it with what has essentially been a failed state up to this point that provides almost no reliable basic services to its citizens (water, electricity, telephone, security, education, etc) To add insult to injury, these war criminals decided it was acceptable to authorize torture in US-administered prisons at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. ANY moral high ground that may have existed after the Clinton Administration and 9/11 was completely pissed on then tossed into the shitter by the disgusting policies conducted by the Bush neo-cons.

Suerte,

Rock Harders

Because it pained me to witness all the hatred and worst aspects of many basically decent people many of who I think of as friends or more than casual acquaintances full of such hate. I'd vote for the president 100 times again to avoid the horror created my the prior administration which for me signaled what might be the beginning of the end of a noble experiment--my country that I love.

A country, in part, formed in revulsion for the brutality by western europeans brutalizing human beings because of how one viewed the role of eating a waffer at church. They created rules so that no minority could be tortured or treated differently based upon religious belief or lack of belief.

This was a country, imperfect, but which generally took the moral high ground and exhibited a generosity which has been very rare in history. This generosity was exhibited whichever party maintained control.

I don't appreciate Rocks strong lanuage in expressing his views. He will be attacked. The views of past Republicans like Nixon or Eisenhower or Prescott Bush would be bashed and ridiculed as leftist naivety in this forum or on right-wing talk radio.

I don't want to talk politics with this group and I'll disappear again. I live in a Republican town. I have friends who are evangelical christians. I enjoy political dialog, but not with this group. I'll stick to pussy and where to eat pizza.

The reason that I am writing is that maybe one or two people will just stop and think about what I am honestly writing here. There should always be places to explore differences of opinion and differences of opinion are good and right and the way that it should be--else we can have a monarchy where your head is cut off with you disagree with the king. WE elect presidents in the usa, not kings. The majority of usa citizens tend to be moderate and may slightly shift with changes in the times. I hope that civility might return to my country--or maybe some of the western europeans are correct when they say.

That the USA is too young and without tradition, respect and true culture.

I hope that no one really believes that the USA has a destiny to bring democracy to all of the world and should use it's power in a post Soviet period to do so. That is what Ben Ladin says our views are and he is successfully recruiting people willing to die and kill to stop us.

The current recession will be a footnote in a history book 100 years in the future. Issues like the beginning of dialog with the muslim world so that the mullahs don't end up with control of most mainstream muslim states. May be more than a paragraph in those same books.

I've said enough and I still wish the the big O would ***** slap pelosi and shut her up. Read the audacity of hope--some very interesting ideas there--which might include ***** slapping palosi if you read the book carefully. Realize that your grandchildern likely will have more use for learning manderin than french in school and the usa might be 50% latin within the next 50 years. The only constant is change.

Your friend and fellow member MB

The US, 50% latin? Where would future mongers go? Chinese female ratio is dropping drastically with one child policy. Looks like India or Africa. Imagine future Jacksons and Exons sitting in a cafe in Chennai or Lagos surrounded by Chinese / Japanese mongers! I feel a headache creeping up on me, I need release, can anybody help? I am in Arles in Provence.

[QUOTE=Rock Harders]Mongers,

Whether or not Exon is liberal or conservative is not important, but either way he is right about the neo-con Republicans that made up the Bush Administration being war criminals and traitors. These people (Cheney, Wolfowitz, Pearle, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft and their ilk) are greed-driven religious psychopaths who are no better or less radical or less dangerous than any of the worst inmates at Guantanamo or the mullahs who control Iran. Essentially, the Bush neo-cons started a war of aggression in Iraq for the sole purpose of earning billions of dollars for the manufacturers of war materials and the providers of war services, not only at the cost of the lives of thousands of US servicemen but also at the cost of the financial health of the US State. Along the way, they managed to tear down a functioning state apparatus and replace it with what has essentially been a failed state up to this point that provides almost no reliable basic services to its citizens (water, electricity, telephone, security, education, etc) To add insult to injury, these war criminals decided it was acceptable to authorize torture in US-administered prisons at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. ANY moral high ground that may have existed after the Clinton Administration and 9/11 was completely pissed on then tossed into the shitter by the disgusting policies conducted by the Bush neo-cons.

Suerte,

Rock Harders[/QUOTE]Your pretty close to where I'm coming from Rock & I appreciate Miami Bob's comments too.

I just watched the President give a security speach, then Chaney gave a rebutle right afterword. Obama in all his brillance choose the Constitution as a back drop to give a major policy speach. I've never seen this before it was brillant he wanted to remind us.

Thats not by accident and the point I've been trying to hammer home. Bush, Chaney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft and the like threw the Constitution out the window and told us were the Government, "We know what's best for You". The President is trying to modrate the tone of America and bring us together as a country. Maybe, just maybe by the time he leaves office the Republicans will revert back to the Goldwater era then they might be worth voting for again.

But even more damageing from my purview is the "Religous Moles" Bush's people appointed that will sit there for life. Judge's and bureaucrats that will sit there hireing more of the same as civil service workers. Its thease people and this line of thinking that will do more damage than 9-11

We've got Rush Limbaugh, (reminds me of Jackson) "Hacking" away at good people and public believes him. The guy's a druggie. And thats been the line of thinking for the last 8 years. That guy and many others, O'Reily comes to mind have been wageing a war on free thinking, open and honest debate. Democracy guys, and thats Freedom.

Exon

[QUOTE=Exon123]Judge's and bureaucrats[/QUOTE]See how it always comes back to judges?

[QUOTE=Miami Bob]05-21-09 CRS because it pained me to witness all the hatred and worst aspects of many basically decent people many of who I think of as friends or more than casual acquaintances full of such hate.[/QUOTE]I agree with you Bob.

I find that the members of the forums at the HuffingtonPost and the MoveOn.org websites to be much more civilized and respectful of the opinions of others.

Thanks,

Jackson

[QUOTE=Rock Harders]Mongers,

Whether or not Exon is liberal or conservative is not important, but either way he is right about the neo-con Republicans that made up the Bush Administration being war criminals and traitors. These people (Cheney, Wolfowitz, Pearle, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft and their ilk) are greed-driven religious psychopaths who are no better or less radical or less dangerous than any of the worst inmates at Guantanamo or the mullahs who control Iran. Essentially, the Bush neo-cons started a war of aggression in Iraq for the sole purpose of earning billions of dollars for the manufacturers of war materials and the providers of war services, not only at the cost of the lives of thousands of US servicemen but also at the cost of the financial health of the US State. Along the way, they managed to tear down a functioning state apparatus and replace it with what has essentially been a failed state up to this point that provides almost no reliable basic services to its citizens (water, electricity, telephone, security, education, etc) To add insult to injury, these war criminals decided it was acceptable to authorize torture in US-administered prisons at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. ANY moral high ground that may have existed after the Clinton Administration and 9/11 was completely pissed on then tossed into the shitter by the disgusting policies conducted by the Bush neo-cons.

Suerte,

Rock Harders[/QUOTE]I'm the only white male I know in the city where I live that was mad as hell when the U. S. went into Iraq in 2003. But what you wrote is total B.S. Maybe you can blame Bush, Cheney, etal for stupidity and faulty intelligence. Or even for wanting to insure that long term there would be oil flowing from Iraq. But going to war "for the sole purpose of earning billions of dollars for the manufacturers of war materials and the providers of war services"? Come on. If they'd gone into Iraq and found WMD's and if the poplulace had greeted us as liberators they'd be heroes to most people. And that's what they expected would happen. Again, you can call them stupid, but your conspiracy theory is about 5X more ridiculous than anything I've ever heard come out of Limbaugh's mouth.

Then you go on to call them war criminals, traitors, greed-driven psychopaths on the same level with terrorists. Again, that's about 5X worse than anything Limbaugh ever said about Clinton etal. How many people were waterboarded? Answer: 3. While I don't like the idea of torture, Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, in the big scheme of things, how big of sins did the Bush administration commit? Cheney and others say thousands of lives, maybe tens of thousands could have been saved by jailing people at Guantanamo or by using agressive interrogation techniques. Maybe they're lying. Maybe they're not. But you have no idea, either way. And Abu Ghraib, while whoever allowed those photos to become public was a complete idiot, I'm sure things like that go on in institutionalized prison settings all over the world, all the time. Yeah, things like that happened in part because the U. S. Military and civilian administrations in Iraq weren't as competent as they should have been. But that's not the same as them being war criminals.

I thought it was ridiculous when Republicans wanted to impeach Clinton over things like Lewinsky and Whitewater. And it's ridiculous when people like you want to try the Bush administration for war crimes. I'll say to you what I said to Exon -- if people you support get into office for an extended period of time, the U. S. will become like a banana republic. Like, say, Ecuador, when every time someone loses an election, he either has to go into exile or he's put in prison by the new government.

Tiny 12, Mongers, et al-

What is the answer to 99 out of 100 questions concerning politics? Nearly every single US foreign policy decision is made based on the answer to this question. Anyone who believes otherwise is either extremely naive or in total denial. I wish this were not the case.

Suerte,

Rock Harders