Posted on 03/04/2009 10:55:38 AM PST by rabscuttle385
"If" is a mighty poor promissory to tie onto where the GOP is concerned. Let it burn out. Let the liberal moderates have it in total and languish under it. Start over with a strong foundation of conservatism. Build it and they will come.
There are many countries where "faith in the one true God of this world" is much stronger than in America. With few exceptions, these countries are corrupt and tyrannical hell-holes. Countries with no faith in anything above human intellect (e.g., socialist bloc) are equally hellish.
What the hellish countries have in common is that their cultures are dominated by mass movements, whether secular or religious.
What the non-hellish countries have in common is faith in something higher than human intellect (whether it's God, Tao, natural law, etc.), but not to the point that such faith gets organized into mass movements.
I believe that America is being destroyed by two complementary forces: People who have discovered they can vote themselves other people's money and politicians who pander to them. These politicians say "Vote for me and I'll take money away from other people and give it to you." When there's no "virtue in the people," it is impossible to compete with this platform.
If organized religions want to claim some relationship with the "true religion" that the Founders say is necessary for a governmet of free people, they need to be a lot more explicit about promoting the sort of morality that would counter the urge to vote oneself other people's money.
IDK...I see “movement” and “stool” in the same headline about the GOP and I’m not sure I really wanna know...
It’s like a train wreck. You have to look.
The polls show that Rush Limbaugh has 65%+ negatives among the fairer sex, as it was once called, and about a 55% negative among the men. This gives RINO's all the ammo they need to attack the lovable blowhard and preacher to the choir. He is an entertainer who has made a vast fortune giving people who already agree with him, blinding glimpses of the obvious, while having absolutely no effect on anyone else. He makes his white male audience (and me) feel OK about being and believing differently than the other 65%. It's brilliant, but it ain't politics.
IOW, if Limbaugh is a Republican icon, Republicans lose. Which is why the RINOs scramble for distance, and the White House is all for Rush as the "head" of the Republican Party.
The RINO (which by now IS The Republican Party,) will sacrifice principles to win the elections and cannot understand why the Conservatives hold exactly the opposite view.
The key to every election becomes white women. whoever can get 52-55% of them, wins. This is why big tough Republican men sound like the goddam Avon Lady when they make political speeches. It's not "nice" to attack environmentalists, and unionized teachers, dirty commie rats, anyone "of color," for any reason, and kill people in foreign countries before they kill us. Far better for winning elections is to make "nice," speeches that don't really say anything and make lots of promises to make things nice for the women and children. An ounce of reassurance is better than a pound of facts on the stump or in a TV commercial.
Throw in the ironbound Two-Party System that has rigged itself to go on forever in its protection of incumbents, figuring out how to divide the spoils as usual, no matter which party wins ... and you can learn what the Greeks also learned the hard way ... Democracies run in cycles of self destruction .... as soon as politicians have access to the wherewithal to reward their friends and crush their enemies, the downward spiral begins.
In this death spiral, non-elected entities grow to enormous power, which would be the ONLY reason to vote for McCain and Republicans over the preposterous Kenyan Kommie and his KleptoKohort. E.G.: Soon the ancient SCOTUS judges will start dropping like flies. McCain, I thought, hoped, and prayed, would appoint better ones than this fast-talking mystery Chicago dude who actually somehow got the job.
“With few exceptions, these countries are corrupt and tyrannical hell-holes.”
List the countries. I can guarantee you before you list them that they are not, in plurality or officially, worshippers of the one true God.
“I believe that America is being destroyed by two complementary forces: People who have discovered they can vote themselves other people’s money and politicians who pander to them. These politicians say “Vote for me and I’ll take money away from other people and give it to you.” WHEN THERE’S NO “VIRTUE IN THE PEOPLE,” it is impossible to compete with this platform.”
Agreed (emphasis added). Virtue must be taught, upholded, and enforced in social as well as legal ways.
I define virtue as submission to the one true God, and that would encompass such things as honesty, sexual morality, and abstention from such things as murder and so forth.
Without a fear of God, we human being indulge in our sins with great abandon. With a fear of God, such indulgence is restrained.
You lost me at “This gives RINO’s all the ammo they need to attack the lovable blowhard and preacher to the choir. “
Rush may be many things, but blowhard isn’t one of them.
Rush is the leader of conservatives and polls don’t mean squat, they are just propaganda used by the left to sway the unwashed.
The key to every election is to stand on conservative principals.
>>Faith is the exact opposite.<<
I believe you are referring to “blind” faith.
There really is a difference.
I have faith in my brakes, but it is not blind.
To a large number of Republicans, perhaps even a majority (especially the women!) Rush is no hero. Sadly, to this large faction of the Republican Party, a qualifying credential has become an obligatory attack on, or if not an "attack," certainly a dismissal of, Rush. Obama and Rahm are playing directly to this. Every time a RINO disses Rush, the Democrats score more points.
Rush, of course, is a commercial enterprise. I think he is smart enough to play Obama's boys, who are using him as a distraction, for his own benefit. After all, Obama won the election, has the House, and has the Senate. He has the MSM. If he still cannot get his program through, tangling mano-a-mano with Rush could be a disaster for him. Rush's challenge to a debate is a lose-lose for BHO, Jr. He doesn't have to do it, and he won't.
I predict that what he will do is send out surrogates and his MSM "Butt Boys" over a long time period to further try and identify Rush as the "Party Leader." That will hurt the Republicans in the midterm election and further marginalize the influence of the Conservatives might have on party philosophy and policy.
Probably kill the RINOs too. Why vote RINO, when the Democrats offer the real thing?
The key to every election is to stand on conservative principals.
Since the people who run the Republican Party see outspoken Conservative Principles as costing votes and assuring electoral losses, this just is unlikely to happen soon. What I think you are wishing for is a Conservative Party, a strong movement toward which will also be an electoral losing proposition for a long while. Could be worth it.
Rush has certainly given everyone a kick in the hasp. Wouldn't it be great if a strong conservative, outspoken and with media smarts, could now take over from him?
You equivocate on the word faith. You are speaking of confidence based upon the evidence of experience and memory of the timing of your last break job.
Faith means belief without evidence and without regard to the evidence. Using faith to mean confidence based upon the evidence is a dishonest attempt to steal a concept that has no connection with faith.
Faith is blind. That is the only form faith takes.
>>Faith means belief without evidence and without regard to the evidence<<
That is how I define blind faith.
No Christian’s faith is blind. It is partly based on imperfect experience and evidence. Again, like the brake analogy. But only partly.
You have faith that Aberdeen, South Dakota exists based on imperfect evidence and the testimony of others (google maps, for starters) and the authority you apply to those sources. Likewise, your belief or lack thereof in GW and various portions of the TOE.
All of those beliefs are based partly on faith. All of them.
If it becomes important, I can go to Aberdeen, SD and see for myself. I cannot go to God no matter how important it would be. According to your religion, God has to come to me.
You report you have an “imperfect” experience of God and that “experience” is sufficient evidence for you. However, I cannot experience your “experience” - imperfect or not. Even if I could, it would be subjective and vulnerable to many explanations other than your God: psychosis, delusion, hallucination, mis-interpreted brain noise, mental confusion, and countless others.
The point is, you cannot produce objective evidence for the existence of your God or even that Jesus was God on earth or even that Jesus lived. All you can do is assert and repeat the assertions of countless others and possibly try to force me to say I believe at the point of a gun or sward. Your faith is blind. It is without evidence and counter to the facts.
>>I cannot go to God no matter how important it would be. According to your religion, God has to come to me.<<
False and false.
>>You report you have an “imperfect” experience of God and that “experience” is sufficient evidence for you.
Nope. That is not what I “reported”. Your knowledge of my experience and sources of information is, by virtue of it coming only from what I have said on this site, imperfect.
>>The point is, you cannot produce objective evidence for the existence of your God or even that Jesus was God on earth or even that Jesus lived.<<
Not true. A Christian’s relationship with God is between him and God. The objective evidence is there for me but for nobody else, just as the objective evidence others have is not for me.
It is a bit like human consciousness. If you don’t have it, you don’t understand it or even believe it exists (it cannot be measured in any way). It is, however, objective evidence for those that have it, which is all that matters.
Christianity is a true one on one relationship with god.
>>All you can do is assert and repeat the assertions of countless others and possibly try to force me to say I believe at the point of a gun or sward.<<
Not true. Also, forcing others to believe is absurd in a Christian context. The Bible is extremely clear on this.
>>Your faith is blind.<<
Is not.
>>It is without evidence and counter to the facts.<<
Read “Evidence that demands a verdict”.
“The objective evidence is there for me but for nobody else, just as the objective evidence others have is not for me.”
You have hereby openly admitted that you cannot produce evidence for me to examine and test against reality. All you can do is assert that you believe. I am quite willing to accept that you truly do believe. That you believe in no way constitutes proof that the object of your belief exists or is as you believe.
Thanks.
BTW, part of that evidence is real live physical-laws-defying “miracles”. Three of ‘em.
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