Christian responses to US Politics

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

  1. Botolph

    Botolph Well-Known Member

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    The veracity of any conspiracy theory is checked by the number of people required to keep the secret. The number of people required to keep silent on the suggested electoral fraud makes it difficult to think that it is possible.
     
  2. Tiffy

    Tiffy Well-Known Member

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    Seems there are only 4 types of reaction to seeing the scenes of the 'advance on Capitol Hill' by Trump's supporters.

    (1) Saw it, hated it, called it out for what it was.

    (2) Saw it, loved it, cheered them on.

    (3) Missed it, therefore no reaction to it if disinterested or if interested attempted to find out about it.

    (4) Saw it, understood it, excused it because of what might be in it for oneself. Be it getting to stay in a job, house, neighbourhood, brotherhhood of Trump etc.

    There just doesn't seem to be any other options.

    Which one would describe your reaction?
     
  3. Rexlion

    Rexlion Well-Known Member

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    It's just that the corruption goes too deep. The entire bureaucratic machine of the executive branch was hired under predecessors, and the legislators are as dirty as sewer rats too. Trump appointees were blocked at every turn such that many jobs went unfilled for these past 4 years, while many of the people Trump did manage to get appointed turned out to be Deep State stooges. Not enough honest people in D.C. to fill a subway car....
     
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  4. Stalwart

    Stalwart Well-Known Member Anglican

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    There are literally videos where at 3am people pull out suitcases of ballots from under the table, and scan them into machines. The courts did not allow any evidence to be admitted, and every time dismissed all suits on procedural grounds or technicalities. In 100% of the time. There is not a single suit that I'm aware of, where evidence was allowed to be admitted as evidence.

    However there were hearings held by the State Legislatures. And there was so much evidence presented there that they went on sometimes for 7-10 hours, and have produced hundreds of instances of evidence. There are 1000+ of signed affidavits of people who swore under oath, under threat of perjury, that they personally witnessed election tampering. Those thousands of affidavits were not admitted into courts, even once, but in legislative hearings they were admitted and entered into record.

    This is without a doubt the most stolen election in American history.
     
  5. Tiffy

    Tiffy Well-Known Member

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    And there is no chance at all that any of this is fake news, propaganda, lies and subterfuge then?

    Some successful conspiracy, in a nation where such news would be very, very lucrative if evidence could be publicly presented.

    I think somehow Trump has either entirely lost control, never ever had control, or everyone else in any official position has entirely lost their wits.

    Either this is happening with the world looking on or many of the Trumpist conspiracy freaks are utterly delusional.

    What makes them want to believe this stuff? If Trump wre not such a perennial liar it might be more believable, but he has such a track record now of such enormous porky pies that it's difficult to believe anything at all the man ever says. He has cried wolf many times too often.
     
  6. Stalwart

    Stalwart Well-Known Member Anglican

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    I saw the footage and the eyewitness testimonies myself. I have watched hundreds of hours of direct record, to know the events in my country. I'm a completely invested American citizen, while you're just some foreign observer picking at headlines from partisan British propaganda, during morning tea. If you haven't bothered to look into it yourself, then why do you bother saying anything at all, especially calling others "freaks"? Do you think it's Christian of you to call them "freaks?"

    "If there isn't anything worth saying, then it's better to say nothing." -Plato
     
  7. Botolph

    Botolph Well-Known Member

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    I accept that a good deal of the media in the country is dominated by the left, however we also have a right wing media stream with a 24 hour news service. As a matter of course I try to watch a bit of each, in order to have some balance in the equation. I would say our right wing media stream has been consistently pro-Trump. In coverage of the invasion of the Capitol Building on the 6th, they were lauding the people taking the people's house and championing their 1st amendment rights (which are way in excess of anything citizens of the UK and Australia have).

    As I understand it the core issue is that in the US in person balloting is a thing that is cherished to ensure full free and fair elections. Mail in balloting is considered to be open various issues including fraud and tampering. That having been said, I gather that DJT and his wife voted by mail in Florida which has been their registered residential address for a year or so now. In Australia, and I think in the UK, we are quite accustomed to, pre-poll (where you attend in person at a designated pre-poll station and get you name marked off the roll and vote in the two weeks before the election) and mail in ballots (where you apply and return the ballot in and envelope inside another envelope which has your electoral details on it, and is separated from the vote to ensure it's confidentiality, and we have out of electorate voting (where you attend any polling station on the day and cast you vote for your home electorate it ends up in a double envelope system as well). The reason all of this works in Australia is because we have a body called the Australian Electoral Commission whose charter requires that maintain the electoral rolls, and arrange organise and manage the conduct of free and fair elections.

    I can't understand why the USA has not gone down such a road, given the importance of free and fair elections in a democracy. This is especially true in the USA where you elect the Head of State, who then takes a pro-active role in the hurdy-gurdy of political life.

    Was this election stolen? I can honestly say I can not speak definitively on that. On balance I would have thought not. There is the question of the size of the collusion group that would be required to achieve such grand scale larceny. And indeed that would require the co-operation of the free-press which would seem possible for a couple of outlets, but someone should still be open to the truth. I find it hard to believe that such a huge story would not have perhaps bounced the cute Panda story from the end of some news edition.

    What I do observe is that America is a nation divided. There are the significantly rich, and the significantly poor, and a shrinking middle class. There is an economy built of making things and growing things, where a lot of this has been taken off-shore due to the high cost of US labour against the relatively cheaper cost of the Asian work force. Whilst this has resulted in cheaper products for US citizens, and more profits for the ultra wealthy, it has also meant less jobs, less money to pay for the cheaper goods, and people migrating from the middle class to the significantly poor. This has created the social discomfort which DJT captured with the MAGA rhetoric. I also observe that The Republican Party, like many of the conservative parties of the west is intent of self destruction due to the tension between conservative centrist members and the hard right. I don't know that DJT is either, but he has brought to the office personality and showmanship, which means he has had more media coverage than probably any other President.

    I did think when the Democrats decided on Joe Biden, that they had concluded that they would be unable to unseat a sitting president, and rather than waste a candidate they would run a lame duck, and run a real candidate next time. However the electorate can be fickle, and ultimately DJT may have lost the election perhaps rather more that Biden won the election.

    If you genuinely believe that the election was stolen, from here it seems that the most important thing to do would be to work for electoral reform that ensures that it never happens again.
     
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  8. Rexlion

    Rexlion Well-Known Member

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    When the people who stand to gain by election fraud are in power, there is no way to achieve election reform. The foxes guard the henhouse.
     
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  9. Stalwart

    Stalwart Well-Known Member Anglican

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    Yes, this, a 100 times!


    Why election reform has been shot down in America every time it was proposed in the last 40-50 years.
     
  10. Tiffy

    Tiffy Well-Known Member

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    But that applies as much to the goose as it does to the gander. If electoral fraud is no new thing Trump was silent about it when he was the winner. It is only when he is the loser that he has complained. My guess is that if there is electoral fraud going on Trump is more peved that he was out trumped at his own game than he is at the opportunities that exist for electoral fraud in your voting systems.

    He genuinely thought he had done enough to win, and can only explain not winning by assuming the winners have 'found' the votes more successfully than he was managing to get them 'found'.
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    Last edited: Jan 8, 2021
  11. Tiffy

    Tiffy Well-Known Member

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    Insist on a government of national unity (coalition), to sort it out once and for all. Then accept the results.
     
  12. Tiffy

    Tiffy Well-Known Member

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  13. Rexlion

    Rexlion Well-Known Member

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    Actually, Trump wasn't "silent about it." He acknowledged that there was reason for suspicion regarding some fraud in Hillary's favor during the 2016 election. During his administration he did try to take steps to avoid future fraud, but his instructions to bureaucrats were ignored, reporting deadlines were missed, and nothing got fixed.... precisely because the administrative state (what we call the Deep State) wanted to make sure he would never get reelected.

    The latest information we're hearing is that an Italian man named D'Elia acted under instructions from people in the US Embassy in Naples, Italy to upload and transmit switched votes to Dominion's Frankfurt server. D'Elia has been deposed and submitted sworn testimony to an Italian court, admitting to his involvement. He says he has in his possession the backup of the original data as well as a copy of the altered data. Not sure how long this video will work; youtube is playing "whack-a-mole" in an attempt to keep the info off the web.
     
  14. Tiffy

    Tiffy Well-Known Member

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    Doesn't alter the fact that Trump was just as likely to gain from voter fraud as he was to lose from it, if it was as widespread as you suggest. I can't imagine someone like him not arranging for someone to 'find' him enough votes to swing an election, if it's that easy.

    But wait! Isn't that exactly what he tried to do?

    No one knows how black the pot is better than the black kettle you know.
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  15. Tiffy

    Tiffy Well-Known Member

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    “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” Joseph Goebels.

    Surely though it would depend entirely on what kind of state he was talking about, whether a BIG enough lie would maintain it?

    Surely what we are seeing on our TV screens right now of America is not politics but a struggle over who has the authority to define what is a lie and who consistently speaks the truth.

    That in all honesty is not a political matter, it is a religious one, since Jesus Christ IS The Truth. John 14:6. An attack on the TRUTH is an attack upon HIM and repeating the attack is a Satanic ploy to recruit slaves to a lie, since HE is the father of it.
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  16. Rexlion

    Rexlion Well-Known Member

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    Today we do see the truth and dissent being repressed, but not necessarily by the State per se. Instead the Deep State controls the means of communication and represses truth by trying to limit the dissemination of it. Facebook and Twitter are prime examples. Google and Apple, too (have you seen what they're doing to stop Parler from allowing free speech?) They and all MSM outlets have become arbiters of what "truth" is and what will be heard. They are the New Pravda.
     
    Last edited: Jan 9, 2021
  17. Tiffy

    Tiffy Well-Known Member

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    A lie, a false accusation, a falsification of the truth does not become TRUTH when it is broadcast to the nation by the President, just because he IS the president. Even the President must abide by the same Twitter rules as the rest of us. If I had Tweeted to millions that it would be a great idea to storm capitol hill and get 4 people killed to make a political point and stop the wheels of democracy, just because I get up at a rally and say so, then Tweet about it, I would be permanantly banned from Twitter and so would you or anyone else who did likewise. In our case it would be trivial because we are nobodies. In HIS case it is imperative that he abides by Twitter rules, because HE is the leader of a Nation with a nuclear arsenal at his disposal and an unquestioning partisan following at his behest.

    It's time the USA understood the differencec between 'Free Speech' and 'Rabble Rousing', between 'Free Speech' and 'Fellonious Salanderous abuse'.

    I have no brief whatever to defend Facebook, ( I deleted my account some years ago when I saw the way it was going), or Twitter, (It has improved since I have been able to Block Trolls and just Move On, BAMOing idiots is a powerful way to preserve one's sanity. I have also NEVER followed Trump but he still keeps popping up from time to time to spoil my day.)
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    Last edited: Jan 9, 2021
  18. Botolph

    Botolph Well-Known Member

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    First Amendment
    Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.​

    The first amendment of the US Constitution is gobsmackingly simple and provides rights for the people that we do not have in the same measure in other countries. People speak in Australia of Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press, as if we have them as some inalienable right, however in truth to pursue redress for those presumed rights being infringed is difficult to establish, and we have no constitutional or legislative guarantee, and will be relying of such things as common law (vaguely), the accepted presumption (vaguely) and the UN Declaration of Human Rights (even more vaguely).

    Consequently you argument here must fail, firstly on the grounds that the burden of proof on what you assert would be difficult if not indeed impossible to establish within the context of a legal culpability, and secondly, because being President of the USA does not in any way remove from his the protection of his rights as a citizen so granted by the Constitution.

    The question, that will do doubt be tested shortly, is a question of the level of freedom that Twitter has to curtail DJT's 1st amendment rights to Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press. I suspect that Twitter may well have a new issue to deal with here, and whilst the rest of us citizens in a free world may presume those rights, the citizens of the US have a much stronger case to make for their own rights in this area. As George Orwell once said all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
     
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  19. Rexlion

    Rexlion Well-Known Member

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    In post # 633 I mentioned that an Italian man has stated under oath that he, following the instructions of others, switched vote data that was being uploaded via satellite to Dominion's servers in Germany. In a somewhat related story I read today, I learned that the Data Integrity Group performed an analysis of vote patterns over time in Pennsylvania and in Georgia (two of the states with controversial election results). They found, using publicly available data, that the number of votes for Trump kept going down during a certain time period in 15 of the counties in PA. Since election data keeps coming in over time and this normally causes the number of votes counted for each candidate to rise over time, it is particularly suspect when the vote tally declines over time instead. The Data Integrity Group found that more than 432,000 votes were removed from Trump's tally across 15 counties in PA. The data analysis of GA results showed a removal of more than 30,000 votes from Trump plus a transfer of 12,173 votes from Trump to Biden. In each of these states, the removal numbers exceed the margin of Biden's alleged victory.

    This data dovetails well with the allegation that tallies were doctored in the transfer of data to the main server from which all the counts were being reported by Dominion.
     
  20. Tiffy

    Tiffy Well-Known Member

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    And the organisations reporting this data and supposedly providing this evidence are of course scrupulously impartial, I suppose. Strange that none of this evidence has reached any court in the USA and been upheld by even the judges of the Supreme Court, which Trump had so recently 'stuffed' with judges he considered 'sympathetic' to his causes.
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