Posted on 11/30/2004 2:28:45 PM PST by Lorianne
Sure it does. God made the nations and appointed them to their lands and gave them different blessings. See Genesis 11 and Acts 17.26. If it weren't important to God for us to belong to different nations, He would not have divided us by language at Babel, and He certainly never would have taken up a particular relationship with the Israelites.
What doesn't matter with nationality is one's own relationship with God. God doesn't care with respect to that relationship from where you come or who you are.
But when it comes to interpersonal relationships, we necessarily feel more allegiance to our own family, then our own nation, and then to closely related nations, than we do to people from other more distant nations, because humans are creatures of nationality. Our fellow nationals understand our speech and look familiarly like ourselves. That's why America has a special relationship with England, and not with Nigeria or Thailand.
It can be. Liberals exercise thought control over people by getting them to accept their definition of words, ideas, and thought constructs.
Think of words like "gay", "choice" or "privacy". Think of "abortion provider" replacing "abortionist". Do you visit a "podiatry provider" or "podiatrist"? An "optometry provider" or an optometrist"? Even better, the word "discriminate", which used to be thought of as a virtue, as in "She is such a good bargain hunter, she discriminates between the quality of goods offered with a very keen eye." Or how about "tolerance" which used to mean grudgingly accepting a negative for a perceived greater good, but which now means openly accepting and embracing formerly condemned persons or behaviors?
These redefinitions extend into politics too. Thus, Conservatives are not "progressive" because "progress" is defined as the implementation of the socialist-liberal agenda, while the conservative agenda is portrayed as "regressive" and "reactionary". And "freedom" has become not the ability to choose the good, but a liberty from any destraint to choose either what is right or wrong as equally valid alternatives - a definition which obviously pits freedom as contrary to law and order, rather than law and order being a service to our enjoyment of freedom. Thus repealing morals laws is portrayed as "widening personal freedom" rather than as "legalizing moral turpitude" or "causing moral confusion", as if sinking into personal degredation is anything but an enslavement to passions. And similarly, refusing to prosecute adultery is protrayed as "letting adults be free" rather than as "undermining marital contracts".
Then there are ideas constructed by liberals out of wholecloth to eliminate previously used words with widespread stigmatization. Think here of the transformation of "sodomites" into "homosexuals", and the inclusion in the latter group of celibate men who do not practice sodomy but suffer from an attraction to men, and the exclusion from the latter group of men who practice sodomy but also engage in normal sexual intercourse. Or there is the redefinition of a word such as "child", not in what it is but in what it brings to mind. A child is now a "burden" with high lifetime costs to be met, rather than a "blessing" of posterity to the parents.
Lastly, there are words liberals try to shove down the memoryhole in order to make them socially unacceptable. One might think here of "fornicator", "bastard-child", "pervert", "deviant", "sodomite", etc.
The whole process is really quite Pavloian in the conditioning people are given through the mass media to accept the liberal reworking of the language.
And Noah Webster would certaily be horrified by what is put out in his name nowadays, given his strong Chritian convictions.
Is the dictionary a liberal source? It is if written by liberals with an agenda, which the modern Webster's certainly is.
Thanks for your interesting comments about Philadelphia. They just go to show that the US is a big country with huge regional variations, and that it's not wise to generalize! : )
One point about "sodomite" - it's a more inclusive word than "homosexual." Heterosexuals can be sodomites too if they engage in sodomitic practices.
Whilst this is true, remember that it's those very same families who vote for tax increases by demanding that the government do and provide more.
You misinterpret. My kid's point was that I was a happier person, more upbeat, positive, and interesting when I was working than when I was not. My occupation at the time was writing and producing children's magazines, which probably had something to do with it. And I mostly worked at home, tho when I work I'm so focussed, I don't pay much attention to anything else. But I could afford live-in help. And oh yes, I had more money to spend on them when I was working than when I was not. Life was just more fun. Many working mothers are terrific parents.
If that's what you want to believe, feel free to do so.
I certainly never said that though. My wife's family is from "southern Europe" - read Parma, in Italy.
My "immigrant" ancestors helped found this country. They did not come here afterwards but were present at and participants in the creation.
If they were wanted by their parents they wouldn't be in an orphanage. Most children up for adoption in China are girls, who are considered undesirable in a culture that prefers sons. Because of the one-child policy, many infant girls are not put into adoption, but are rather abandoned to starve or so forth, so the couple can try again for a son. I have little sympathy for these mothers and fathers "who do not have their children." They do not deserve them. If they go extinct because they have killed or adopted out all their females, they got what they deserved
Imagine if 1/2 million American kids were sent to China every year for adoption.
That would be the fault of Americans, who should not have children they cannot take care of.
The way things are today and how people behave, it seems a very large number of them are.
Frankly, I am far more disgusted with sodomites in general than with any man who is simply struggling with an attraction to men provided they attempt not to indulge their weakness. There are plenty of people with all manner of weaknesses like kleptomania, nymphomania, or a tendency to lie. It is purposefully indulging in these weaknesses that is repulsive, not the fact of having inner demons.
ping to self.
Bump for later
This book isn't going to do much good. It's nice that someone is writing about the damage being done to children by our modern child-rearing methods, but the author pulls back from recommending any serious change to the status quo. By definition, without any serious change in the status quo, it will remain status quo. And that is not encouraging for children.
As far as societal trends taking care of the problem by themselves, that is certainly not going to happen. The current generation reaching marital age are astonishingly clueless, as I see from first-hand experience, and things will continue to deteriorate absent major changes in societal structures.
"I have to disagree with that statement."
You're absolutely right--I was disagreeing with myself as I typed it, just didn't want to interrupt my fractured thought process. The fact that there IS NO specific gene--or gene pool--for Americans is part of what makes us so much better than every other nation. I grind my teeth whenever I read or hear of some foreign national sneering at the intolerance of America. Not one single country on earth has the amount of ethnic diversity that we have in our great country. All things considered, we are the very epitome of tolerance.
Silly me! I didn't realize that you were of Native American descent.
The Indians didn't create our country. They fought its creation, and lost.
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