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A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
n From bondage to spiritual faith;
n From spiritual faith to great courage;
n From courage to liberty;
n From liberty to abundance;
n From abundance to selfishness;
n From selfishness to complacency;
n From complacency to apathy;
n From apathy to dependence;
n From dependence back into bondage.
Do people really not see that this describes exactly what is happening to our country????????????????
Tea party: Peaceful protests? You mean they can get away with carrying firearms strapped to their hips and yet don't get beaten by police? And it seems to me that they attacked a woman in a wheel chair once...didn't they? Yet, the peaceful Occupy protesters sitting peacefully on the ground gets pepper-spray in their faces? If the Tea Baggers had the cops treating them like they treat the Occupy movement then they wouldn't be so pro Fascism. Oh, and you left out the most important thing....Tea Baggers largely funded by the Koch Bros...main stream 1 percenters who are warring against the rest of us 99%. So, organized? Yes, they are organized by the 1% who use some middle class useful idiots that should know better. You can't fix stupid! By the way, how do you "defecting" on police cars? Does that mean that the Occupiers are "defecting" to the Tea Baggers side? Oh, you mean "defecating" on police cars....yeah...that's disgusting isn't it? lolol
There were always a few aggressive bully-boy troublemakers who wanted to make everyone else follow their particular brand of superstitious stupidity. It was always the other guy who was going to hell because they didn't interpret the Bible...or the Quran...or whatever holy book you follow...the way the you do. I think the reason why some religious people try so hard to convince others in their beliefs is because it is a way for them to reassure themselves because they really have doubts, themselves. It really must be very hard to believe in a lie. And once you commit yourself, whether it is because you have been propagandized into the flock from your parents or friends, you don't want to be an outcast by expressing doubt. One such person that went through this was a very devout Christian when very young and as a boy went around trying to convert people. Then he became a minister and a evangelist and was a very talented musician who wrote many popular Christian songs that are still being sung today. And, of course, he has written many great books. He eventually began to realize that it was all a lie. Today, Dan Barker, the Co-President of Freedom From Religion can be found at www.ffrf.org/about/getting-acquainted/
Thom,
You should know. Iran is not an Arab nation, it's Persian....and why do you call it a "rogue" nation. Are you buying into the propaganda?
Gregory Wonderwheel
RE Tea Party corporate sycophants
TEA PARTY
1) Message: No socialism, lower taxes, smaller government, restore liberty, leave our children alone and get off our backs or we will vote you all out off office. Respect the constitution.
2) Method: organized
3) Mostly average middle class Americans
4) Peaceful protests
5) No arrests nationwide in 2010 for the entire year and 300 protest events
6) Leave protest area clean when they leave
7) Never any clean up or repair cost left for others to pay
8) Never camped out or occupied, short events usually a few hours
9) Accomplishments: instrumental in voting out huge numbers of democrats in the 2010 midterms
OCCUPY
1) Message: Confused, no cohesive leadership, differing ideas why they’re protesting from one person to another, even when they are at the same event.
2) Method: disorganized
3) Mixed participation of financial backgrounds
4) Violent protests
5) Many arrests nationwide 1600+ and counting in just 5 weeks in 2010
6) Widespread narcotics trafficking and use
7) Gang Rapes
8) Muggings
9) Robbery
10) Arson
11) Disturbing the peace
12) Harassment of local business causing damage, lost revenue, public fear and chaos
13) Defecting on police cars and in public.
14) Public nudity
15) Caused millions in damage to both public and private property (Cost to struggling municipalities forced to clean up was in the millions $$)
16) Required massive public service responses for fire, ambulances, swat teams and city maintenance workers. More millions $$ wasted
17) Accomplishments: unknown
Very funny (and sad) that fundamentalists take the words of Thomas Jefferson as support for their delusions about Christianity. No fundamentalist today would ever accept Thomas Jefferson if he were alive today. The Jefferson Bible was Jefferson's redacted Bible taking out all the miracles and supernatural claims that Jefferson thought was hooey. Jefferson believed in Jesus, not in Christ. What Christian of the Santorum variety would accept that as Christian?!!!
"My views...are the result of a life of inquiry and reflection, and very different from the anti-christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions. To the corruptions of Christianity I am, indeed, opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference to all others..." April 21, 1803 in a letter to Dr. Benjamin.
In saying the above words, Jefferson was not proclaiming his Christianity in the conventional sense, he was saying that he was the true Christian because he didn't believe in the silliness of any of the official Churchs' interpretation of Jesus. But clearly, people in his day knew of his radical views of Jesus, and that is why they called him "anti-Christian" then, and would do so today if they listened to his words that came out of his mouth and not the words they put into his mouth..
Palindromedary
RE: "The Right-Wing Plot to Undermine Science in Public Schools
OK I clicked your link and read through your article.
Let me preface by saying that I believe in scientific theory. I believe in evolution and other things that have been proven by unbiased testing and I realy on that alone.
As such, I am not convinced Global warming is man caused or to what extent it exists. My doubts are because many of the scientists tasked to determining these things were busted deliberately fudging the data to favor a crisis of pending global warming.
What better way to insert a political agenda than to tell the people they are about to die unless they do something? Such as surrender their energy liberty to a Cap and Trade scheme?
Cap and trade will give government’s massive centralized power over energy. Once a centralized government controls energy, food, water distribution and healthcare, they will begin to pull down all the churches. Destroying religion converts distraction away from individual preoccupation and directs it to focus ion the all knowing ~ all providing police state.
The switch flips, and now you're livestock for a government tyranny.
So I really don’t mind if some Christians parents, or many non Christian parents don’t want to have their children learn corrupt propaganda put out by liberals with a subversive twisted agenda.
And if anyone runs the schools today, its not Christians of conservatives, its liberals.
SUCCINCT EXPLANATION OF TODAY’S LIBERAL BIAS
Liberal bias is partisan selection or distortion of information to support liberal policies. This bias can be expressed by professors and public school teachers, College Board exams, reporters and other journalists in mainstream media, and any other information source. Typically purveyors of liberal bias falsely present themselves as being objective. Liberal bias includes techniques such as distorted selection of information, placement bias, photo bias and liberal style. There is a difference between being liberal, having a liberal perspective, and having a liberal bias.
The essence of liberal bias is to dismiss or even to censor all opposing views. For liberals, to allow the airing or publishing of an opposing view creates the risk that people might discover errors in the liberal viewpoint. On the other hand, CONSERVATIVES TYPICALLY UPHOLD FREEDOM OF IDEOLOGICAL EXPRESSION, WITH MANY EXPRESSING THAT ALTHOUGH THEY MAY OPPOSE A LIBERAL VIEW WITH EVERY FIBER OF THEIR BEING, THEY WILL DEFEND TO THE DEATH THEIR RIGHT TO SAY IT, BECAUSE THEY BELIEVE THAT IN THE MARKETPLACE OF IDEAS THE TRUE WILL ALWAYS WIN OVER THE FALSE.
"But America was NOT founded on Christian principles..."
That is absolutely correct. The whole cultural context for the revolution and the Constitution was the Enlightenment that rescued intelligence from the dogma of "Christian principles" that were made clear in the Inquisition and the Witchunts and immediately in Jefferson's day, the mandatory tithing to the Anglican parish even if you were a believer of another religion. There is no "God" in the Constitution and there is no "corporation" either, but the crazy fundamentalist Christians and Tea Party corporate sychophants believe their delusions despite the reality..
Palindromedary
RE: But America was NOT founded
Was America founded on Christian principles??????
If you don't know where you've come from, it's pretty hard to determine where you're going.
The history of America is an awesome drama. Our nation is no accident. For hundreds of years, the dream of liberty was carried across European history to be birthed on these shores, and biblical truth, biblical thinking, played a pivotal role in the birthing of America.
But was America founded on Christian principles? Just read the first words of the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
From the beginning, America's founders accepted the reality that basic rights were inseparable from human beings and they recognized that those inalienable rights were not given by government nor acquired by force, but that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are the gifts of the Creator.
In 1844, the Court said, "Christianity is part of our common law."
In 1892, the Supreme Court said this: "No purpose of action against religion can be imputed to any legislation, state or national because this is a religious people. This is historically true."
In 1930, the U.S. Supreme Court said this: "We are a Christian people, according to our motto."
In 1952, the U.S. Supreme Court said, "We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.
The question isn't - Was America founded on Christian principles? The question is - what world view has given birth to and sustained America? The answer to that question is simple: Christianity.
Still not satisfied?
1. Quotes from our Founding Fathers on religion http://www.aproundtable.org/tps30info/beliefs.html
2. American History Online Archive http://www.aproundtable.org/tps_topic.cfm?issuecode=history
"The Right-Wing Plot to Undermine Science in Public Schools
Leaked documents reveal a right-wing think-tank's plans to undermine the teaching of climate science -- and defund public education in the process."
http://www.alternet.org/education/154246/the_right-wing_plot_to_undermin...
I would not care if he was a Christian either. Doesn't matter as long as he is not wearing it on his sleeve like Santorum, or any of the other Fascist Republicans that are running for President. Obama is not like Bush in that one respect, at least. As long as Obama is smart enough to realize that he is President of a country with people with all kinds of beliefs, or non-beliefs, and that it would not only be awkward but inappropriate to wear his religion on his sleeve then I don't care what religion he is or is not, what sexual orientation he is or is not, or even if he is a Martian, or a Frenchman, as long as he does not favor one religion, or non-religion in the decisions he has to make then he is ok with me. I do have other issues about Obama...which really ticks me off. But I think the Republican candidates are not only ignorant and racist but they are also extremely selfish and childish. I certainly wouldn't want another 4 years of another Bush in the White House.
Clarissa, it is corporate greed that causes people to start new businesses and expand existing ones. I know you feel that anyone who works for money is somehow evil, but it is those kind of "evil capatalists" that provide employment for a whole bunch of people. Yes business owners need to obey the law, pay taxes, and protect the environment, etc, etc. But other than that, more power to them. Where do you think all the tax dollars that are needed for your endless goverment handouts are going to come from? The homeless and unemployed?
I don't know that much about Germany, but I'll bet that they are not running the budget deficits that we are here. If the taxpayers are willing to support huge social welfare programs, fine. But that is simply not going to happen here. And that will not change. And there is simply not enough money in the top 1 percent to tax to close the 1 trillion dollar a year gap we have now. That is simply symbolism over substance by the Democrats. All hot air.
But America was NOT founded on Christian principles...Santorum is wrong..and so is anybody else that says this. America was founded on escaping the very thing that some bible-spouting religionists now want to bring back....the bullying of everyone else to follow their particular brand of superstition. The founding fathers wanted to escape the imposition of any one particular religion on them...religious freedom...and the freedom to not practice any particular religion at all....freedom from religion. Of course, it didn't take long for some to, again, force their stupidity on others...which led to more witch burning and the like.
Santorum is typical of those who do not want anyone to be non-religious...and more specifically...he wants us all to follow his particular brand of religion. They play lip-service to other religions and pretend to be tolerant...but they are not tolerant. Most of all, he says the things he does because he knows that there are a lot of dummies out there that will nod their heads in agreement and will end up voting for him. For all we know...he is actually an atheist too. Or maybe...the devil? Naw, I don't believe in that non-sense either. But Santorum has four of the five letters of Satan in his name. And I thought I noticed some horns and a tail a few times. Watch out! The devil is awfully sneaky!
And much of that religious stupidity that wheedled its way into Americana was forced down our throats during the McCarthy era....when people were persecuted and afraid to stand out against the sinister forces of what amounted to hysteric lynch mob mentality by bully boy simpletons. We are again living that same kind of hysterics with a whole new invention of "terrorists", rather than "communists", as the neo-boogy man that we all have to be afraid of. And instead of the "God-less Commies" we are to be afraid of "Muslim terrorists". And the thumpers are all there salivating at their chance to force everyone else into their folds once more...through fear and intimidation, if necessary. By the way, all courts do not require putting one's hand on a bible and swearing to god to tell the truth....etc, etc. We are not all living in Kansas, you know. Keep religion in the churches where it belongs and not in our Government.
Palindromedary
RE: That's right, LF, I
So it’s OK with you if Obama is an atheist or Muslim. How would you feel if he was a Christian?
Gregory Wonderwheel
ERATA: Speaking of Iran -
Good point!!!
And you are absolutely correct. Prsains are not Arabs. Also Persians do not like Arabs and Vice Versa. That’s why Saudi Arabia doesn’t want Iran to get nukes.
Recovering conservative2
RE: Except Mr. Santorum will deny
What Mr. Santorum was saying is that America was founded upon Christian principals. America has ALWAYS self recognized itself as a Christian nation, and in recent mainstream polling; “70% of Americans identify themselves as Christian”.
Everywhere we look, - on our money, in the court houses in the schools, there are references to “In God we Trust”. When you go to court you still have to swear on the bible. Even the president has to swear his oaths with his hand on the bible and say things like “So Help Me God”
Santorum was referring to what currently is the religious climate in America.
Granted there are fewer and fewer of these references as they come under attack by liberals. But many will remain traditions for a long time to come.
So are you saying that if Santorum is elected that Americans will flood into Canada because Mr. Santorum claims to believe in Christian values?
Do you know how stupid that sounds?
That's right, LF, I definitely do not believe in all that nonsense, thank you very much! And I would also like it if Obama was an atheist. But I wouldn't even mind it if he was a Muslim. Don't really care. What I do mind is a bunch of thumpers trying to imprison everyone else into aping their ridiculous superstitions. Religion has led a very sordid history and many of us know that there are those who would love to see heretics and witches burned to the stake once more. We don't need that kind of stupidity any more. Science rules...not stupidstitions and their ignorant adherents.
Mostly it means two workers are forced to do the same work four used to do.... "for less pay"....and the 1%ers have converted the resulting blood, sweat, and tears, into swollen fortunes for themselves!
In an interview with ABC on Sunday - Santorum said, "I don't believe in an America where the separation between church and state is absolute."
**
Of course that makes Santorum totally opposed to the "founding fathers" like Jefferson who was very proud in his autobigraphy that he kept the name of "Jesus Christ" out of the Virginia freedom of religion statutes. Here's Thomas Jefferson's own words, which I believe Santorum would oppose.
"The bill for establishing religious freedom, the principles of which had, to a certain degree, been enacted before, I had drawn in all the latitude of reason & right. It still met with opposition; but, with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed; and a singular proposition proved that it's protection of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word "Jesus Christ," so that it should read "a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion." The insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of it's protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and infidel of every denomination."
Michael Hudson:
"I have just returned from Rimini, Italy, where I experienced one of the most amazing spectacles of my academic life. Four of us associated with the University of Missouri at Kansas City (UMKC) were invited to lecture for three days on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and explain why Europe is in such monetary trouble today – and to show that there is an alternative, that the enforced austerity for the 99% and vast wealth grab by the 1% is not a force of nature."
"Stephanie Kelton (incoming UMKC Economics Dept. chair and editor of its economic blog, New Economic Perspectives), criminologist and law professor Bill Black, investment banker Marshall Auerback and myself (along with a French economist, Alain Parquez) stepped into the basketball auditorium on Friday night. We walked down, and down, and further down the central aisle, past a packed audience reported as over 2,100. It was like entering the Oscars as People called out our first names. Some told us they had read all of our economics blogs. Stephanie joked that now she knew how The Beatles felt. There was prolonged applause – all for an intellectual rather than a physical sporting event."
"...the emerging financial elite that hopes to use this crisis as an opportunity to become the new financial lords carving out fiefdoms by privatizing the public domain being sold off by governments that have no central bank to finance their deficits, and are tragically beholden to bondholders and to Eurocrats drawn from the neoliberal camp"
".....although we did many press, radio and TV interviews, we were told that the major media were directed to ignore us as not politically correct.
Such is the censorial spirit of neoliberal monetary austerity. Its motto is TINA: There Is No Alternative, and it wants to keep matters this way. As long as it can suppress discussion of how many better alternatives there are, the hope is that the public will remain acquiescent as their living standards shrink and wealth is sucked up to the top of the economic pyramid to the 1%."
"The size of the audience filling the sports stadium to hear our economic explanation of how a real central bank should operate to avoid austerity and promote rather than discourage employment showed that the government’s attempt to brainwash the population was not working."
http://michael-hudson.com/2012/02/mmt-theory-as-an-ecb-alternative/
ERATA: Speaking of Iran - Rick Santorum wants the United States to be more like the rogue Arab nation.
FYI Iran is not an Arab nation, it is a Persian nation.
Should the US become a theocracy? I'm not sure, I still have a few lingering questions.
First, What kind of horrific tortures will the Branch Rickdians use to extract confessions from heretics like myself who unknowingly attended indoctrination mills?
What does the inquisitor job pay these days?
Will hysterical fear of witchcraft be a patriotic requirement? With this in mind will Christine O'Donnell be burned at the stake and what about that wizard named Rove?
Does it make one a snob to wish everyone in America could attend Liberty University?
Santorum said, “I don’t believe in an America where the separation between church and state is absolute.” END QUOTE !!
HE DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT MAKING AMERICA INTO A THEOCRACY. OR MAKING IT LIKE IRAN, OR MAKING IT LIKE AN ARAB STATE.
Once again the “dashboard talking wobble heads” from the leftist septic tanks of lies have twisted and bastardized the truth. Doesn’t the left have ANY honest journalists???
You should be ashamed of yourselves. How do you sleep at night knowing God witnesses your deceit? … oh yeah ,… you don’t believe in that nonsense ….
Did it ever occur to any of you that Obama does not wear his religion on his sleeve because he may not be religious? I personally don’t think he’s Muslum or Christian devoted.
Yes maybe Bachmann but not the others, yer right about that.
Also the GOP won the house fair and square in 2010 they didn't steal any elections. Al Gore tried to in 2000. Al Franken did in 2008 and Gov Gregoire in WA did in 2004.
Also Tea Partiers are good people who salute the flag and clean up after themselves when they are done.
The occupy crowd defocates on our flag and breaks laws and are anti-Semitie!
I'll take the tea party people over the occupy people and ACORN any day. The tea-party folks are NOT violent and racist! They are just tired of seeing the country go down the tubes, and they want Republicans to start acting like real conservative Republicans not RINO's!
Is it ignorance or another attempt to mislead people when he claimed that separation of church and state meant no people of faith could be elected to office.
He might be that dumb.
I think it's pretty hard to move to Canada these days.