(11-16-2018, 12:29 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (to David Horn)
I'm going to give some information about Republican voters. The majority of the Republican voters are about as religious as (David Horn) , Bob and PB. The majority of them don't go to church on a regular basis. The majority of them don't pay much attention to what Evangelicals have to say and don't listen religious radio stations and so forth. However, the bulk of them are firm believers in God and have a strong faith in God.
I have known plenty of conservatives who mock televangelists. Hucksters and charlatans, they really offer nothing. I have found clergy useful in consoling the afflicted, alleviating grief, guiding people in trouble, and visiting people in bad medical situations. I'm not saying that such is a high intellectual enterprise, but it can certainly be necessary. If it takes some Bible reading to give comfort to someone in a desperate situation, I have done it. Then again, I am a good actor, so I can pretend to faith that I do not have. It goes with Asperger's syndrome; I must act just to seem normal. If someone wants to do real good for lots of good people without getting paid well, and is willing to live in miserable places, then clergy is a good career choice.
I have no idea of how I would behave if I were in great fear of death. I did experience what some people thought a possible coronary, but once I found that I was out of danger I could even joke about the situation. Something like terminal cancer or final stages of congestive heart failure? Nobody knows then until it is too late.
Quote:Now God ain't quite the same as Jesus, God can be unsympathetic and down right mean. Any hoo, if you and I were to meet on a battlefield, you're adversary wouldn't be worried about what Jesus thinks or how Jesus feels and so forth. Of coarse, if we were to meet on a battlefield, your association with evil would already be determined and proven beyond all doubt. So the killing, you're killing and so forth would be justified and sanctioned by both Jesus and God. Japan was largely a Godless world. Nazi Germany was largely a Godless world.
Nazi Germany was anything but godless. Hitler was for all practical purposes god, and Christianity was for most Germans a sentimental attachment that the Nazis tolerated. We need remember that evil people can pretend to do the Lord's Work, and good people will do the Lord's Work without knowing that they do so -- if there is a God that they do not believe yet exists anyway.
Jesus could be as harshly judgmental as anyone, as in casting demons into the Gadarene swine and sending the swine (and the demons) to their doom, and of course disrupting the corrupt dealings of the money-changers on the Temple Mount. He warned that He could break up families between those with Faith and those without. Likewise, those who failed to follow him would be damned.
I am satisfied that atheists, agnostics, and non-Christians can be just as moral as Christians at their best, and that religious identity usually connects closely to one's culture.
Both (Nazi Germany and Thug Japan) were leveled and bombed without mercy by the American right with the assistance of the American left ( The Democratic party). The American has always been the force for freedom in this country. The American right has always been force for the defense of freedom in this country.[/quote]
Liberals and conservatives think much the same of the Axis powers -- uttermost hatred. To defend the crimes of the Axis powers one must be a fascist, the sort who would love to have had the Holocaust and such atrocities as the Bataan Death March happening in an occupied America, too. But note that when I say conservatives I refer to people who believe in America's traditions of limited government and free enterprise.
Quote:You have been given a glimpse as to how large the American right is in this country because the American right showed up in force during the 2016 election. Think about this, there are 60 some million members of the American right that both parties have little influence and no control over at this time in American history.
The Right includes old-fashioned conservatives and fascists (neo-Nazi and KKK scum) alike, and I do not lump them together any more than I lump liberals and Stalinists. Heck, even dogs and cats seem to have more in common. In the first two years of the Trump Presidency, the President and Congress have neglected practically everything left of center and even the center. Polarized and partisan as American politics is today, even a 51-49 split of representation means something like a complete shutout of the relevance of the Other Side.
Quote:Do you really want to (mess) with that at this point of our history? I don't think it would be wise knowing who those people are and how much power and money they can bring to bear and topple a blue regime or several blue regimes that are dotted across the country?
Knowing that the Right successfully brought about a right-wing House majority in 2010, a Senate majority in 2014, and a semi-fascist President in 2016, we are all well. Money does not simply talk in American politics; it shouts! But with political power in a democracy comes responsibility. The 2018 House election and many gubernatorial elections have shown that the Republican Party has not exercised power wisely... and paid for such with the House majority. Donald Trump and the Republican majority in the Senate need to clean up their act lest they find themselves waking up on Wednesday, November 4, 2020 to find that someone other than Donald Trump or Mike Pence will be President and that their Senate majority has two months in which to try to pass a little of their agenda. In a democracy, power comes with responsibility. In a despotic or tyrannical regime, power comes without responsibility. Donald Trump has acted much like a despot or a dictator, and a majority of Americans -- and when 56% disapprove of a right-leaning President and Congress, that includes some conservatives -- dislike the result.
Quote:Would the American right do it? Yes, it would do it just like it has done it before in the past. The far left are more or less viewed as guests in our country.
If you are thinking of a right-wing coup -- that would take the connivance of the military. Donald Trump has been so erratic that he has raised the possibility of a military coup above zero, a dubious achievement in American history. I have no idea of what the Armed Forces would do if the President started using unconstitutional powers -- like nullifying the 2018 House election or provoking violence against elected officials. You can be thankful that not one of those bombs that a fanatical Trump supporter assembled, let alone mailed, did not kill or maim is intended target. Such would have caused make millions of Americans suspect the President. I do not know how close we liberals are to our limits of tolerating criminality by the Other Side in politics.
We have had no difficulty with seeing liberal pols get taken down for corruption and abuse of power. Elected office is no excuse for crime, and neither is proximity to power.
Note well: we liberals have shown that we respect the rule of law by not rioting against Trump, by not doing violence, and by trusting the courts and law enforcement. A hint: Robert Mueller is not a liberal.
Quote:BTW, I think your leadership understands this but you wouldn't think so by the way they talk. A few moves and Nancy P would be a poor woman with no power what so ever and she would most likely prefer to kill herself than accept living out her life in a tent like her poorest subjects are doing right now.
Nancy Pelosi has a rich pension awaiting her should her term of office come to an end, and she probably has a nice bank account that can allow her to live in San Francisco (an expensive place) in property that she or family members bought long ago when it was affordable. San Francisco is a rich city, and people like me are priced out of it into a place that better resembles eastern Kentucky in economics than it does the paradise that is the San Francisco Bay Area. I have outgrown the miserable hick town in which I live in every way except finances -- but this is America, and money is the measure of human value in contemporary America.
Quote:Queen Hilary was defeated by the American right alone with hardly any support from the GOP. Yes, the GOP are in trouble. Yes, the GOP have an issue with the American right. Yes, the Republican party has things to think about in regards to the minor loss it took in the the house and the Democratic fill ins who are occupying Republican seats that were lost by weak candidates or uglier candidates. I have to say, Seneca is a very attractive woman.
The GOP is most of the American Right. It is not to be confused with the KKK and neo-Nazi part of the American Right, but it has not done enough to denounce people who burn crosses or shout stuff like "Jews will not replace us!", let alone "Sieg heil!". As for the alleged caravan of people from countries replete with violence resulting from drug money -- I would be delighted to replace our meth fiends and other addicts with some people in the alleged caravan of Central Americans who expect to do the nastiest, lowest-paying jobs in America just to survive rather than face violence by drug gangs whose funds have been supplied by America's addicts.
Like a typical conservative I consider sobriety a virtue and believe that America would be better off without drug activity and drunkenness. Prohibition? Hello, no! My therapist has told me that an occasional beer or glass of wine can dissolve some anxiety that cripples me as a person. One is enough.
I have more faith in the current Democratic majority in the House for competence, relevance, and and electoral success. The 2018 elections to the House reflect the rise of the Millennial generation as a voting bloc, and that politicians will have to account for its views or be defeated in the next election. The Millennial generation has greatly increased its participation in elections, and I see no reason to think that a one-time event. It is liberal and rational, and that already shows in the composition of its new members of the House. Its rise in American politics will be swift as Silent and first-wave Boomer politicians go into retirement or die off.
The split in the popular vote for House seats is about the same as the split in the popular vote between Obama and McCain in 2008. I do not expect a dip in voting in 2000, and although I expect a dip from 2020 to 2022 that dip will not be so precipitous as the one from 2008 to 2010. The Religious Right and the Tea Party will both be smaller, and I do not expect any conservative current among the Millennial generation.The Senate? Sure, Republicans on the net gained some seats, but that better reflects the distribution of those seats than the sentiment of voters.
Little bodes well for the Republican Party in 2020. The President is highly unpopular, and by objective assessments of professional historians, he is doing little good. Republicans will have about as many vulnerable Senate seats in 2020 as Democrats did in 2018, and with an electorate at least as liberal-leaning in 2020 as in 2018, I can easily see Democrats with an effective majority in the Senate as of January 3, 2021. That is 50-50 because I expect Donald Trump to be the Republican nominee for President, and I expect him to lose to the Democratic nominee, whoever that is.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.