Christian responses to US Politics

Discussion in 'The Commons' started by Tiffy, Mar 26, 2020.

  1. Rexlion

    Rexlion Well-Known Member

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    Praising Islam as “one of the great confessional faiths,” (Joe) Biden told attendees of the Million Muslim Votes that he wished U.S. schools taught more about Islam.
    “One of the things I think is important, I wish we taught more in our schools about the Islamic faith,” he said, blaming President Trump for “fanning the flames of hate.”​
    Biden also quoted Muhammad (which is far more P.C. nowadays than quoting Jesus). One can read the entire article here:
    https://www.jihadwatch.org/2020/07/...-sees-a-wrong-let-him-change-it-with-his-hand
     
  2. Tiffy

    Tiffy Well-Known Member

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    Fwaughh! . . . . . Do I smell a dead cat recently bashed on the table? :order: :disgust:

    Watch out. Here comes one of my own:

    The United States arrests and incarcerates more people than any other country.
    The Brennan Centre’s Lauren-Brooke Eisen said while it accounts for 5 per cent of the world’s population, America is home to 25 per cent of those incarcerated, around 2.2 million. Around 95 per cent are in jail for non-violent offences.
    .
     
    Last edited: Jul 21, 2020
  3. Tiffy

    Tiffy Well-Known Member

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  4. Botolph

    Botolph Well-Known Member

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  5. Rexlion

    Rexlion Well-Known Member

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    I'm not sure I understand. I watched the video you linked. Are you saying that the US would be better off if police beat the crap out of more people, like they did to that guy? Why exactly did you post that video? And what does it have to do with Trump???

    What country was that (in the video) anyway? Someplace in Europe, I'm guessing. Perhaps the UK?
     
    Last edited: Jul 22, 2020
  6. Tiffy

    Tiffy Well-Known Member

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    Perhaps I should have posted the actual caption attached to the video, which was: "Law and Order"!

    I think the original poster should have supplied a question mark rather than an exclamation mark though.

    Just leaving the question for others to ask themselves seems to be insufficient for a right wing American audience so:

    "Law and Order"?
     
  7. Rexlion

    Rexlion Well-Known Member

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    But why post a video from Europe (or someplace) in reference to US law enforcement policies? I could understand if the video had shown something from the US, but it doesn't. Those street signs are foreign. The siren sounds are foreign.
     
  8. Tiffy

    Tiffy Well-Known Member

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    I did say: "THE WORLD" needs Batman. I don't remember saying anything pertaining to America other than "Trump is the Joker".

    His fame is international. :laugh: and The Joker is internationally infamous.
    .
     
  9. Rexlion

    Rexlion Well-Known Member

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    I think you might be a candidate for The Riddler, Tiffy. :laugh:

    The world needs Jesus! Only the power of God can trump sin! Satan thinks he's the big Ace, but compared to Jesus he's nothing more than a lowly deuce.
     
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  10. Tiffy

    Tiffy Well-Known Member

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  11. Tiffy

    Tiffy Well-Known Member

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  12. Rexlion

    Rexlion Well-Known Member

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    Wow, maybe the health care in one county of the US might be temporarily as bad as socialized medicine always is in many other countries.
    https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12102/socialized-medicine

    As for the claim that masks don't inhibit oxygen intake, tell that to the COPD patients and the asthma sufferers. Tell it to the guy who went jogging with a mask on and wound up with a collapsed lung.
     
  13. Tiffy

    Tiffy Well-Known Member

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    Actually asthma sufferers have difficulty breathing out not breathing in. You can't breath in without previously exhaling. Asthma nebulisers relax the airways alowing exhalation and thereby easing breathing. Masks don't stop them exhaling. Asthma is the cause of their breathing difficulties, not masks.

    Those with mental health conditions may have difficulty wearing masks, claustrophobia or related anxiety, panick attatacks etc. but they are not a large proportion of the population and can have legitimate exemptions if required.

    The guy who went jogging with a mask on and wound up with a collapsed lung obviously had a previous morbidity and would have suffered the injury anyhow, probably. More likely something to do with over exertion or bad pacing, obviously an extremely rare case. Simple remedy, don't jogg excessively wearing a mask, pace yourself, use some common sense.

    Others can do it, so could you.
    .
     
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2020
  14. Rexlion

    Rexlion Well-Known Member

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    That sort of message (the link) only makes me feel more obstinate. Makes me want to stop wearing my mask just to show the nasty people where they can stick it. Whoever created that meme should learn the old saying, "You'll catch more flies with honey than with vinegar."
     
  15. Botolph

    Botolph Well-Known Member

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    In fairness there have been three of us contributing to this discussion in the main with input from others. Firstly let me acknowledge that @Rexlion lives in the USA, where as @Tiffy and @Botolph do not. That does not mean that anyone is more right or less right, however it does mean that @Rexlion has more skin in the game.

    It is probably clear that different responses have had different outcomes.

    Covid19_StatsJuly26.jpg

    Now, I don't for one moment want to suggest that this is in any sense a competition. There are many reasons why these figure may not be absolutely correct, and different jurisdictions count differently. What I am going to suggest is that the different experiences we have in our own parts of the planet may well account for some of the reason for some of the differences.

    The case morbidity in the US is clearly much lower than the UK and indeed better that the overall world stats. At some stage I hope there will be some analysis of these kinds of variations, and perhaps we will all understand more clearly what works better and what does not. What is clear at the moment s that none of us have beaten it. The new cases each day worldwide is growing over time, currently sitting at around 250,000, which suggests we will be looking at death around 10,000 per day.

    One of the things we have learned in Australia is that you cannot let your guard down. We thought we were doing well, and had new infections down in single digits, and mostly in quarantine (returning travelers). Do to some systemic failures in the management of quarantine, (guards being way to friendly with detainees (if you get my gist) and guards not realising their own duties in terms of keeping themselves safe with protective gear and cleanup etc tec, and not happily working multiple sites with indifference, and a problem in aged care where people work in multiple facilities, the things has got out again, and we are currently worse than before and now dealing with 500 new cases a day.

    I think what I am trying to say is that we need to be a little more considerate of alternative views and understand that each of us can only come at this from out of our own situation. I do take it that all us would prefer to see lower infection rates and lower morbidity rates. To achieve that we need if at all possible an effective vaccine, and better treatment options, earlier reliable diagnosis (preferably without stick something a long way up your nose), and until then we need social distancing, hygiene, and quarantine, and protective equipment especially for our frontline workers.

    There will be a significant financial cost to the economies our our countries, and we will no doubt be paying it off for the next 30 years. The real question will be if that cost is the result of action to arrest the spread of the virus, or loss of productive resources as the result of the thing having run rampant through our communities unchecked.
     
  16. Tiffy

    Tiffy Well-Known Member

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    Our experience here in the UK has caused me to be very distrustful of the political officialdom supposedly leading the nation currently. The measures taken to combat the spread of this virus have been generally charaterised by the phrase "Too little, much too late" and "Playing Catch up"?

    Sensible people, where it was possible, took timely measures and self isolated before being told to. Sensible people, before being told to, adopted mask wearing in enclosed public places, not so much to protect themselves as to protect others in case the wearer has the virus but has not yet shown any symptoms. (That charateristic of this virus was well known by January 2020 but few governments took notice of how this factor would exacerbate the spread of the infection).

    I am not an advocate of compulsory mask wearing, but there are always those who obstinately refuse to respond to common sense and advice but only comply when commanded with threats and consequences for disobedience. That is the reason God gave us The Law, Gal.3:21-29, and why The Law is good, but Gracious Living in the Spirit, is better.

    I suggest that rather than enforcing a mask wearing 'Law', matters should be taken in hand by sensibly mask wearing individuals when surrounded by bare faced, socially non distancing, selfish fools in an enclosed space, as follows:

    Throw an 'amateur dramatic' coughing and sneezing fit, :biglaugh: profusely wheezing appologies to all closely surrounding you. :console:Then just watch the sudden increasing distance they give you. It's amazing how quickly people respond when they suddenly see the advantages to themselves of increasing the distance between themselves and a possible Covid Carrier.

    Interestingly The Gospel works in much the same way. It is often only when a selfish individual sees the advantages to themselves of accepting God's freely given Grace offered through the sacrifice of His Only Son Jesus Christ, Luke 15:17-19, that they begin to have any respect whatever for God's Perfect Law. (Ps.19:7.)
    .
     
    Last edited: Jul 26, 2020
  17. Rexlion

    Rexlion Well-Known Member

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    https://dailycaller.com/2020/07/25/seattle-police-carmen-best-businesses-on-your-own-riots/
    Article is quoted below, in part (emphasis mine):
    Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best told local businesses Friday that due to new city council regulations, the police force won’t intervene in the event of more riots.

    “Please also know that the City Council Ordinance 119805 Crowd Control Tool goes into effect this weekend on Sunday, July 26, 2020. This ordinance bans Seattle Police officers the use of less lethal tools, including pepper spray that is commonly used to disperse crowds that have turned violent,” a letter addressed to businesses and residents in the city stated.

    Best argued that this has resulted in her police officers having “NO ability to safely intercede to preserve property in the midst of a large, violent crowd.”
    .......
    Seattle is already in the process of defunding its police force by cutting its budget by 50%. The city is also reportedly planning to shut down its county jail, which currently incarcerates 60% of the prison population.​

    There are some other points made in the article, including a couple of interesting links to related articles. The city council of Seattle, on our west coast, has hamstrung the police force. Starting tonight (Sunday 7/26/20), don't be surprised if looting, destruction, and violence escalate in this city. Seattle and Portland, in fact nearly all the west coast cities, are bastions of liberal-progressive-socialist type people. Some of them are more radical than others, of course, but when one sees a massive defunding of police and passage of ordinances that hamper police work and intimidate police, one can safely conclude that a radical faction is in control of the local government.

    One such radical faction (of many) is the Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement, or RAM for short. A perusal of RAM's "Statement on Principles of Action" reveals some parallels to the actions taken by the Seattle City Council, NYC's Mayor diBlasio, and other Socialist/Democrat strongholds:
    1. Liberation will be won by any means necessary.
    2. We will destroy the state, police, military, corporations and all those who run the American plantation.
    3. We will live with dignity in a world without prisons.
    4. Systems of punishment will be abolished. There will be no law to enforce, no money to protect.
    5. Revolutionary justice will be determined by those who are oppressed.
    6. There will be no government. No person or group will have power over another.
    7. Communities will make decisions about how they live, and will make sure that everyone has what they need to live a dignified life.
    8. Land is not property. It is alive, communal and must be protected.
    9. Alongside international comrades, we will destroy all borders for the free movement of people everywhere.
    10. Militant networks will defend our revolutionary communities. Liberation begins where America dies.​
    source: https://itsgoingdown.org/revolutionary-abolitionist-movement-10-points-of-action/

    How they hope to have "a world without prisons," "no government," no laws and no punishment... yet at the same time have "militant networks" that "defend our revolutionary communities" and still "dispense revolutionary justice" and have communities "make decisions about how they live, and...that everyone has what they need" ... without any laws or enforcement, :doh: is beyond me.

    We have people in this country who make Karl Marx look like a moderate!
     
    Last edited: Jul 26, 2020
  18. Botolph

    Botolph Well-Known Member

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    That does sound a little like labelling and name calling, and probably does not help the argument.

    Karl Marx of course was quite moderate. His analysis of history and the human struggle was a good deal more conservative than the radical analysis that is evident in the teachings of Jesus.

    This of course is meaningless babble with any means of a mechanism by which this might be established voided by the other statements and there is left a vacuous promise of a utopian bliss to be achieved through an amorphous but bloody revolution. The view suffers from a lack of an understanding of history. The failure of the Russian Revolution and Mao's Great March to provide anything but a more authoritarian regime is of course the evidence of history that speaks against the ideals being proposed.

    I suspect that what is really going on in Seattle is the problem engendered by the movement to Defund the Police. It struck me as exceedingly odd when I saw posters calling for it. The administration on Seattle has clearly had a shot at implementing it, without proper planning or consideration. Our situation in Australia is very different, and our police force is considerably less weaponised, but then again we have about 10 guns for every 100 citizens, as against the US which has about 120 guns for every 100 citizens.

    The call for a kinder administration of justice, and a fairer application of the rule of law, should not be understood to be a call for lawless anarchy. They are not the same thing.

    The reduction of the political landscape to the declaration of one's own genius together with the vilification and demonisation of all opponents seems to have become the new accepted norm of western democracies, and the US under the Trump administration does seem to have showcased this. It is as if there is no middle ground where all may stand, but rather as islands in the abyss shoot insults at one another we simply drift further apart. This is an unfortunate, unproductive, and unhelpful approach to the tasks at hand.
     
  19. Tiffy

    Tiffy Well-Known Member

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    Actually I think Marx probably could be described as moderately moderate, more of a western philosophical theorist than an actual revolutionary.

    It was Trotsky, Lenin and Stalin who were radically psychopathic and they of course were followed other angry sociopaths like Tito, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro etc, etc.

    The problem with repressive regimes is, they spawn reactionarily repressive regimes. The problem with revolutions and revolutionaries is they have a pathological terror of revolutions and revolutionaries and are always ready to use force to defend their repressive regime that they gained by force from some other repressive regime. And so on - and so on ad infinitum.

    It seems that the USA, being bigger, better, richer and free-er, (home of the brave and land of the white), than anyone else, does not do 'moderation' very well on either side. It seems almost that the population of the USA does not know the meaning of the word 'Moderation' any more than it seems to have any sort of grip on the etemological derivation of the word 'Liberal'. The same with the word 'compromise' you all seem to think they are insults. You have done GBH to the English Language Sirs. :policeuk::laugh:
    .
     
  20. Rexlion

    Rexlion Well-Known Member

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    Where's the love in this message? (warning: graphic language):
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-FRC6I3bgE
    This shows how badly society has devolved. Adults gave signs with obscene messages for their little children to carry. Those adults must be so proud of themselves, eh? O_o
     
    Last edited: Jul 27, 2020