Christian responses to US Politics

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

  1. Tiffy

    Tiffy Well-Known Member

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  2. Tiffy

    Tiffy Well-Known Member

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  3. Tiffy

    Tiffy Well-Known Member

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  4. Botolph

    Botolph Well-Known Member

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  5. Tiffy

    Tiffy Well-Known Member

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  6. Tiffy

    Tiffy Well-Known Member

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    Botolph Well-Known Member

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    Psalm 146

    Praise the Lord, O my soul; while I live will I praise the Lord *
    yea, as long as I have any being, I will sing praises unto my God.

    O put not your trust in princes, nor in any child of man *
    for there is no help in them.

    For when the breath of man goeth forth he shall turn again to his earth *
    and then all his thoughts perish.

    Blessed is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help *
    and whose hope is in the Lord his God;

    Who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that therein is *
    who keepeth his promise for ever.

    Who helpeth them to right that suffer wrong *
    who feedeth the hungry.

    The Lord looseth men out of prison *
    the Lord giveth sight to the blind.

    The Lord helpeth them that are fallen *
    the Lord careth for the righteous.

    The Lord careth for the strangers; he defendeth the fatherless and widow *
    as for the way of the ungodly, he turneth it upside down.

    The Lord thy God, O Sion, shall be King for evermore *
    and throughout all generations.​
     
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  8. Tiffy

    Tiffy Well-Known Member

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    You can't beat the prayer book poetry! Wonderful!
    .
     
  9. Tiffy

    Tiffy Well-Known Member

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  10. Rexlion

    Rexlion Well-Known Member

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    "...breaks all the rules"--??? Folks on the other side of the pond may not be aware that the USA has a very long tradition of Presidents placing their hands on Bibles to take the oath of office, to read, to pray, or to make a point. There is no rule forbidding a sitting US President from holding up a Bible, mentioning God, or openly supporting Christianity. Don't we have enough atheists, agnostics and pagans acting as the devil's mouthpiece by saying that Presidents don't have the right to do these things? Do we now need Christians to join them in this unholy endeavor?

    I'm not defending a stupid action. If clearing the crowd was really done for a mere photo op, it was stupid. But the alleged "separation of church and state" which the US currently labors under is a legal fiction and a construct which never existed prior to the middle of the last century. It is a rejection of all previous legal precedents, an upending of the principle of stare decisis, and a travesty.

    I wonder, of the people who find this Bible incident as a mote in Trump's eye, how many of the same people expressed concern when Obama (while in office) quoted the Quran, when he received members of the Muslim Brotherhood into the White House, when he celebrated Muslim holidays (but ignored Christian ones), or when he endorsed the Muslim 'call to prayer' as the sweetest sound on earth?

    The Wrong Rev. Mariann Budde (who shouldn't be a bishop at all) should have kept her mouth shut. Two wrongs don't make anything right.
     
  11. Botolph

    Botolph Well-Known Member

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    The 1st Amendment - United States Constitution
    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 issue for us in the rest of the world is not that he held up a Bible, nor really that he stood in front of a Church where many Presidents have been present and prayed, but rather that he effectively sent out storm troopers to move the crowd using 'not tear gas' and pepper bombs to achieve it, so he could apparently go for a walk in the park as if all was well in the world. We don't understand his commitment to the faith for Jesus, having just instructed the Governors to 'Dominate the Streets'. We hear that he has a high level of support from bible believing evangelical christians, and accept that as true, and wonder is that because of an outspoken opostion to the followers of the prophet, rather than the depth and integrity of his own life of prayer and sacramental commitment.

    During the course of the 45 Presidency many of us in the world have come to wonder if this is not simply a reality TV Show on steroids.

    What seems to have been lost in all this is that there is a call for justice that needs to be answered.
    • For some that is understood to be the enforcement of the Rule of Law
    • For others it is seen as fairness, equity, and equality in access to education, health, housing, employment, and the social infrastructure.
    Most of our nations have some problems in these areas, and I know in Australia our First Nations Peoples are overrepresented in the incarceration statistics. That does not mean they are more criminal, but rather that they have fewer options, are pushed to the limit more often, and are more easily identified and less easily excused, and they can not necessarily afford the quality of defence that others can. We all have a long way to go.

    If the best response you have to people protesting a police force overreaching (people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances), is to extend the perimeter by means of aggressive policing, so you can go for a walk in the park and hold up a Bible outside a Church, then I submit you have not understood the problem, and until you do there will be very little chance of resolution. God Bless America!
     
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  12. Rexlion

    Rexlion Well-Known Member

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    I quite disagree. In fact, I would venture to say that the issue for folks in the rest of the world is that they're getting all worked up over something that doesn't concern them. Only US residents have any genuine, legitimate, personal interests in the behavior quirks of the US president.

    You don't see US citizens lecturing folks in Russia that Putin has deep issues. You don't see US citizens harping on the horrible prime minister of this or that nation. Yet we in the US have to endure the nonstop belittlement of our duly elected leader. If we want to belittle our own leader, well hey, we have a stake in the future path of our country, especially with an election nearing. The people who reside elsewhere don't get a vote and don't have to put up with the result, so why do they think they need to butt in?

    You say that holding up a Bible is not the issue, yet you quote the First Amendment. Why? The only reason to quote it is if you want to make a big deal about the "Establishment Clause." Very well, let us examine the First Amendment to the US Constitution, and look closely at what it says, plus what it does not say.
    1. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..." Congress, that's the bicameral legislature, okay? Congress can't pass a law that establishes a religion as the State Religion. That's what it means. The worry the framers had was to prevent the Church of England or the Friends Church or the Roman Catholic Church or any church from becoming The church of the USA. They didn't want to wind up like, say for example, merry old England. That's why they didn't want Congress to establish an official religion.
    2. "...or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." The framers wanted to preserve every citizen's right to choose his own flavor of religious observance and to practice his religious beliefs according to his conscience.

    Nothing in either of those clauses prohibits a citizen from talking about God, praying to God, or holding a Bible. Not even if the citizen happens to have been elected to a high or low office. The President of the US is still a US citizen, so he is entitled to the same Constitutional protections as the rest of the citizens. The Establishment Clause does not say that a sitting President must divorce himself from all mention of God, faith, prayer, and the Bible when in public. (In our nation's infancy, Congress voted to have Bibles printed and distributed at public expense for the express reason of furthering Christian education in this country; this shows conclusively that the 1st Amendment was neither understood nor intended to keep faith out of government's business, but rather to keep government out of the church business. This was the very promise Jefferson made to the Danbury Baptists in his famous letter, a letter which modern re-interpretation has distorted out of all context.)

    Now, one more thing. There seem to be some in this world who enjoy stating their doubt that Pres. Trump's faith is genuine. Maybe it isn't genuine, or maybe it is. Only God knows. I am not his judge. Who among you is his judge? Who will cast the first stone? At times Trump appears to act like a hypocrite. Which of us has never been hypocritical? At times he is rude and brash! Which of us have never done so? At times he makes mistakes. Are we so very perfect? In watching and listening to Trump, one often sees signs that he is a sinner. Does our church ever stop reminding us that we all are sinners, saved only by God's grace? Trump is tasked with the most difficult, most thankless, perhaps the most stressful and demanding job on this planet. On top of all that, the 'establishment' players (including MSM) all hate him and the globalist elites desperately want him removed ASAP so they can salvage their timetable. Cut him a little slack! From Christians in particular, what he needs is not ridicule and demonization but a whole lot of prayer.
     
  13. Botolph

    Botolph Well-Known Member

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    Really I wasn't picking. I think the American Constitution is a fine document - though I do have some doubt about the way that the 2nd Amendment has been understood. It is probably a better document that the Australian Constitution. The 1st Amendment clearly provides a number of things more clearly spelled out than course, including various freedoms including religious conviction, freedom of the press, freedom of speech and freedom of assembly all of which we in Australia have to find in common law or though the fact that we are a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I had no intent to make a big deal about the Establishment clause, which is not an issue in Australia and I am not sure that England knows what it means any more either.

    We do get a little over saturated with the 45th potus as it makes great news fodder when we can't produce enough of our own. I don't expect leaders to be perfect, yours our ours, however I would like them to have integrity. My comments were about the matter of the strength of the support base from the religious right, and since I wrote that this morning I have read an article where the ABofC was saying he didn't understand it either, in no way questioning the place he has in the eternal scheme as that would be above my pay grade.

    I did however raise a significant question about the meaning of justice, and that question spang to me repeatedly as I listened to him speak on issues through this, and I concluded that his understanding of what justice means is different to what I (and I suspect many others) think that justice is.

    Only US residents have any genuine, legitimate, personal interests in the behavior quirks of the US president.​

    Would that were the case. Genesis 4:9 suggests that perhaps we should be concerned for one another. Presidents of the United States have been prepared to respond with Fire and with Fury in numbers of global issues, and Australia has stood by them and supported them in many of these campaigns. Americans have made strong representations to Australia about our treatment of First Nations peoples, the 44th president included. When the US picks a trade war with China the Australian Economy gets hit hard, and for many of us that means directly our income. So I will not be disenfranchised, however I do wish and pray for a proper resolution of this great unrest.
     
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  14. Tiffy

    Tiffy Well-Known Member

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    There is a difference between a President 'placing a hand on a bible when making a solemn oath to serve the nation, under God', on the one hand, and the spectacle of a President provocatively, forcefully and agressively, pushing back a lawful assembly of citizens, peacefully protesting about long term and serious discrimination and denial of justice to a significant proportion of the nation that, that same President, has previously solemnly sworn to uphold.

    This was no 'reading, praying or making a point', it was a crude political stunt, a photo opportunity devised in order to demonstrate, by force of the arm of the law, who's ongoing and persistent, disgraceful conduct, was the issue that the peaceful protesters were protesting about. His premeditated showmanship was clearly intended to inflame an already tense situation and visibly and very publicly demonstrate his power over the people rather than showing any indication of listening to their complaint and duly adressing their righteous petition.

    It was a cheap political stunt and an abuse of the bible, which aparrently, he didn't even manage to hold the right way up.
    .
     
  15. Rexlion

    Rexlion Well-Known Member

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    People seem to be laboring under a misconception that Pres. Trump did this. Anything bad happening? Must be Trump who did it, right?
    Wrong.
    https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/ag-...rs-cleared-park-trump-visit/story?id=71026258

    But thank you for backing off from the absurd claim that Trump broke some rule by holding up the Bible.

    By the way, that church had been vandalized and damaged just the night before by a crowd of "demonstrators," and this next crowd only had a half hour before they were obligated by curfew to disperse. I read one story which said the crowd had begun throwing things... so the claim that they were 'entirely peaceful' may not be accurate, but the claim certainly fits the MSM's desired narrative.

    Many people are quick to condemn Trump for absolutely anything and everything. In the current situation they blame him for being too tough, too law-and-order in regard to the demonstrations. These people are missing the 'big picture.' What we have here is an orchestrated attempt to overthrow the properly elected government of the United States.

    First, a situation was hyped beyond all reason, with estimates of tens of millions dead from a virus unless extreme action was taken. Extreme actions were taken in response: shutdowns occurred worldwide, US unemployment quintupled within two months, and public wearing of face-concealing masks and fingerprint-concealing gloves was made socially acceptable and commonplace. Then, after two months have passed, a time which psychologists know is a long enough period for people to tire of new restrictions, tire of sitting around home with nothing to do and no income to spend, when people are feeling restive and potentially rebellious, a tragedy (that normally would get just a day or two of MSM coverage) is made into a vehicle for widespread social change. The wrongful death of a suspected currency counterfeiter is used to organize protests all over the country... nay, all over the world! These protests draw large groups of outraged but peaceful citizens, but they also serve as a cover for the real instigators of change, the radical wings, as well as the criminal opportunists.

    These far-flung protests don't just "happen" all by themselves. For thousands of people to congregate at one location, it takes planning and preparation. We can find evidence of the organizational planning behind these demonstrations. Signs and flyers are made and passed out to attendees. Sometimes even t-shirts. Pallets of Acme bricks are trucked into multiple cities and placed where demonstrators can conveniently grab and throw (no sign of any construction or legitimate reason for these bricks); who paid for all these bricks and transportation? Anyone who thinks these demonstrations just spontaneously "appear" is naive.

    Who are the instigators, and what change do they advocate? A relative of mine was in our downtown area last Sunday with a friend and the friend's mother, and they saw the prep work for that evening's demonstration. Many of the people with signs and propaganda to distribute were not actually pushing anything about George Floyd. Their signage and pamphlets were literal communist revolutionary propaganda, using the circumstance to further their own personal interests! These three females also had a black lady drive up and shout at them to get out because they only wanted black people around. In another case, a black guy invited them to come join their “protest” behind a building… can you imagine what might have happened to these women if they'd gone with him? These organizers and demonstrators were not "nice" people! Later that evening, the demonstration turned ugly (as usual) when people began bashing windows and attempting to loot (but the chief of police wisely had the national guard on standby and they rushed in to protect the properties). Police cars were also bashed. Pepper balls were used by police when things were thrown at them. Watching the local demonstrations that night and the previous night on tv, I noted something interesting: the demonstrators tended to be so biased against the police, they believed that police were being outrageous and unreasonable when they shot pepper balls, but the news cameras caught the water bottles and rocks being thrown and the people breaking windows; this shows how ignorantly limited a crowd's viewpoint can be and how quickly they can turn into an unruly mob.

    In another part of the country, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, one of those pallets of bricks was placed in advance. One woman caught on camera was identified and found. She was from Detroit (on the other side of the state) and she said she was paid $200, given a heavy metal bar,informed of the location of the bricks, and told to smash as many windows as possible.

    A good many of the people we can see at these demonstrations are young, unemployed people; these events tend to draw the idle, the idealistic, the morally handicapped, and the misinformed. In other words, the fools and the tools.

    But it's not just 'small potatoes.' In California a demonstration was used as cover to break into a car dealership's safe for the vehicle keys, whereupon $2,000,000 worth of motor vehicles were stolen. Another theft incident involved $20,000 worth of prescription drugs from a pharmacy. TV news showed a Target store with looters running in and carrying out big-screen tvs and other high ticket items; they basically cleaned out the store of everything valuable (Target has closed a slew of their stores and trucked out all the merchandise for fear it will happen elsewhere). These are not isolated incidents; they are now common nightly occurrences. Face masks and gloves (worn by the smarter criminals) make identification and capture nearly impossible. All of this is happening on top of a business-busting economic downturn due to Covid closures. It wouldn't take much for this entire nation to descend into anarchy, mob rule, and vigilante groups. Maybe even civil war.

    And in the face of all this, the MSM has the unmitigated gall to push a narrative that Pres. Trump is too hard, too intractable, too uncaring, too law-and-order. How dare he say anything about the possibility of sending in the army to help?! I guess we're supposed to simply let the police be overwhelmed by massive crowds, let them loot and steal and riot, maybe let them murder a few cops to get even. Seems fair, after 3 bad cops murdered one criminal. A few thousand wrongs will make a right, won't it???

    Can't you see that this whole George Floyd thing is being milked like a cow? And the goal is to get rid of Trump. Why? Because Trump stands in the way. The globalist elites cannot unite the world under their control until they bring down the United States. The US is the strongest bastion of individual freedoms. The elites can't control the US until they convince us to lay down our rights, give up our weapons, and become as docile as the rest of the nations. What they can't destroy from without, they seek to weaken from within. They already have infiltrated the US in government, media, education, and other key areas, and they know they have enough US citizens fooled by the carrot-and-stick of progressive socialism. They've already made a huge inroad toward making the populace dependent upon "Uncle Sam the Provider" by getting a quarter of the working population laid off and receiving a government dole. If only they can minimize the conservative Christians and replace Trump with a "bought" politician, they'll have it made.

    The vast majority of people in the US are neither racist nor bigoted. But there will always be a few bad apples. Do protesters really believe they can convince bigots to stop being bigoted, merely by making a lot of noise? How naive. Evil does not come out of the heart so readily.

    The other day the local channel showed a group of citizens who'd showed up at a protest rally and positioned themselves, with guns, in front of stores and businesses to protect them. On the video feed they could be heard shouting and chanting, "Four more years! Four more years!" and "USA! USA!" Law-abiding patriots and wise, experienced citizens support police, businesses, and Trump. On the other side we have the law-breaking, the disrespectful, the naive youths, and the misinformed opposing our police, businesses, and president; the latter people are the fools and the tools.
     
    Last edited: Jun 5, 2020
  16. Botolph

    Botolph Well-Known Member

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    Whilst all the world, not just the US has been in lockdown, and all the world, not just the US has suffered economic downturns, and all the world, not just the US has seen significant increases in unemployment (AUS 4 times), we all have lots of people sanitizing, wearing gloves and masks and experiencing what might be termed cabin fever. The wrongful term you use is undoubtedly correct, however it somewhat sanitizes the televised event that caused the out burst of public rage, namely that a uniformed law enforcement official knelt on a mans throut for nearly nine minutes and ignored his cries to let him breathe. I am really amazed that you are not outraged by this.
    In 2009, Floyd served a five-year prison sentence as part of a plea deal on the 2007 charge of aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon, reports the Houston Chronicle. One of his Houston pals, Ronnie Lillard, told the BBC that he became involved in his local ministry, Resurrection Houston, after being freed from jail. Determined to change himself and help improve his neighbourhood, "Big Floyd" - as he was known - "embraced his own life change [and] he was looking around at his community," Lillard added.​

    On May 25, “someone called 911 and reported that a man bought merchandise from Cup Foods... in Minneapolis, Hennepin County, Minnesota with a counterfeit $20 bill”, say prosecutors. Their court report explains that, once at the scene, officers Thomas Lane and J.A. Kueng were told the customer was sitting in a car nearby. Floyd was in the vehicle with another man and woman.

    One cop “pulled his gun out and pointed it at Floyd’s open window and directed Floyd to show his hands". After ordering him to leave the car, the officer “pulled him out of the car” and Floyd “actively resisted” being handcuffed. Once restrained, however, Floyd was “compliant”.

    Asking him if he was “on anything” the officer explained that he was arresting him for “passing counterfeit currency”, the report adds.
    But, on the way to the cops' car, Floyd panicked, and said that he suffered from “claustrophobia”.

    “Officers Derek Chauvin and Tou Thoa then arrived in a separate squad car. “While standing outside the car, Mr Floyd began saying and repeating that he could not breathe,” prosecutors say. He was pulled to the ground, “face down and still handcuffed".

    Two officers held Floyd’s back and legs. Chauvin then “placed his left knee in the area of Mr Floyd’s head and neck. “Mr Floyd said, 'I can’t breathe' multiple times and repeatedly said, 'Mama' and 'please'."

    The report says that after officers “checked Mr Floyd’s right wrist for a pulse and couldn’t find one”, he was pinned down to the ground for a further two minutes, until paramedics arrived. He was pronounced dead that same night at Hennepin County Medical Centre.​

    I 100% accept you point that these protests had to be organised. People don't all decide to go for a walk in the park at the same time, carrying the same banners and wearing the same t-shirts without there being some planning. However people were no paid to be there, people were not somehow manipulated to be there, people were there because they wanted to express there concern for what had happened. Without the protest there seems a good chance that none of the four former officers would have been charged.

    The protests began the following day and continued. There are a number of fundamental issues beyond the death (presumed homicide) of George Floyd.
    1. A history of Police Violence and the over representation of African Americans in the death toll resulting from Police Violence.
    2. George Floyd's death is not an isolated incident which is awful enough to spark outrage
    3. The socio-economic divide which has clearly has a racial component
    4. The covid 19 effect, and even here the economic cost is felt most heavily across the socio economic divide (54% of african americans are now unemployed)
    5. The Trump Factor - which as I understand is complicated as many people in the US love him, however many also don't, and his response to the outrage is in a word outrageous. People protesting aggressive policing have a President ordering Governors to 'Dominate the Streets'.
    6. An over militarized Police Force, no doubt required to support a regime obsessed with the 2nd amendment.
    The US is the strongest bastion of individual freedoms.​

    Tell that to George Floyd.
     
  17. Rexlion

    Rexlion Well-Known Member

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    This is actually a fallacy and a fiction. David Horowitz wrote a piece on it, https://www.conservativereview.com/...w2r-yXolOv72UzihTohZJmLV3YWOAFpGKRF1wDwzEsH3o
    Horowitz cites actual statistics from Washington Post's searchable database. In 2019 police shot 9 blacks who weren't armed with guns, and 19 whites who weren't armed with guns. (Unfortunately no stats on choke-to-death incidents, probably because they are even more rare.) This is out of 53,000,000 contacts between police and people. Can anyone claim (with a straight face) that 9 shooting deaths for the entire year shows a systemic racial prejudice on behalf of police? Especially when twice as many unarmed whites were shot! And those 9 blacks were threatening either the cops or someone else with potentially deadly force (such as with an automobile).

    The article goes on to cite research results:

    As researchers from the University of Michigan and University of Maryland reported last year, “We did not find evidence for anti-Black or anti-Hispanic disparity in police use of force across all shootings, and, if anything, found anti-White disparities when controlling for race-specific crime.”

    If anything, according to this study analyzing 917 officer-involved fatal shootings published last August, they found “officers are less likely to fatally shoot Black civilians for fear of public and legal reprisals” and therefore, “all else equal, this would increase the likelihood that a person fatally shot was White vs. Black.” They conclude that “per capita racial disparity in fatal shootings is explained by non-White people’s greater exposure to the police through crime.”​

    What we have here is an isolated injustice. Horrendous, yes. Murder, yes. An outrage, yes. Worthy of nationwide, even worldwide demonstrations? No! Not at all! But we have MSM hyping the event, talking about it multiple times daily with incendiary language. They have weaponized George Floyd's murder and have enabled groups with ulterior motives to turn it into a massive protest event.

    Now let's consider the very real probability that all these demonstrations will actually accentuate and aggravate the racial divide rather than help heal it.
    https://archive.fo/b4XZu According to this article in a psychology journal, researchers
    ...found that more extreme behaviors — such as the use of inflammatory rhetoric, blocking traffic, and vandalism — consistently resulted in reduced support for social movements. This was true even when participants were already politically or socially sympathetic to the social movement. “We found extreme anti-Trump protest actions actually led people to not only dislike the movement and support the cause less, but to be willing to support Trump more,” Feinberg said. “It was almost like a backlash.” The researchers also found evidence that extreme protest actions led to a loss of support because they were viewed as immoral. These perceptions of immorality were associated with reduced feelings of emotional connection and less social identification with the movement.​

    I submit that the organizers behind these protests do not care a flying flip about George Floyd or about black lives, but instead they hope to deepen the racial divide and induce civil war or violent revolution.

    I feel badly for Floyd and I hope he's in heaven today. He was a drug user (probably with an addiction) and he'd apparently passed a bogus $20 bill that was so fake the ink was running off the paper. Police had a legitimate reason to arrest him. That said, he didn't deserve to be killed by those 3 cops. Now that those cops have all been arrested and will stand trial for murder, it's up to a jury to hear the evidence and reach a verdict. No amount of marching with signs or yelling with bullhorns or breaking windows or killing police (which is happening!) will bring Floyd back or balance any scales of justice. They're just doing more harm than good.

    A Protestant pastor/author posted yesterday on his FB page that "all lives matter to God." How do you suppose BLM supporters responded? Would you care to guess? I'll tell you. They inundated the pastor with hate messages and death threats. Are these the kind of people that we Christians should support? Should we add our voices to theirs? I think not.

    One of the signs seen recently in a BLM demonstration read, "Down with whiteness." Should we give that a pass? Is it okay to show reverse discrimination and reverse bigotry? Do Black Lives Matter so much more than any other lives? Imagine someone holding up a sign that said, "Down with blackness;" that person would be rightly excoriated. Yet the person who proclaims "Down with whiteness" gets a pass from the media, and everyone else is too timid to call them out for racism. Why??

    As for your point #3, the socio-economic divide, we in the US already have seen blacks receiving preferences in college admissions and in employment for the past 40 years. Our Supreme Court mandated "Affirmative Action" plans for several decades, but a while back (maybe 3-4 years ago?) they ruled that colleges had done enough and were to stop giving preference. If blacks haven't caught up with whites yet, it isn't for whites' lack of trying.

    Personally, my wife and I have always gotten along fine with blacks. We have black friends, black neighbors, black co-attendees at church, blacks at work, etc. To us they are not "black people" or "white people," they're just people. People whom God loves. People who either know their Savior or who need to know Him. But we have huge numbers of people out there marching in demonstrations and virtue-signaling (probably to cover up their own guilt feelings) to the world that they care more than the rest of us do. Three quarters of these marchers aren't even black. If they feel so strongly motivated to march for BLM, maybe it's because they themselves have been bigots? Is marching a means to assuage their own consciences? I don't know. But I do believe they're being manipulated by the lie that police racism is systemic, and they're being used as tools to further a divisive, revolutionary agenda.
     
    Last edited: Jun 5, 2020
  18. Botolph

    Botolph Well-Known Member

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    Anglican
    I think in fairness I must say that Australia is not a lot better, though we are less armed and our police force is less militarised than yours. Since 1991, so that is nearly 30 years we have had 434 First Nations People deaths in custody. 1991 marked the Royal Commision into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. Now clearly there are a number of reasons for a death in custody, including systemic failure to respond to medical care requirements, use of illicit substances, and prison conflicts and violence. The has been not one person convicted of an offence in all of this. So yes, we have a systemic problem that we still need to address. Today many of our citizens will take to the streets on this issue, and the catalyst for this is the death of George Floyd.

    Think what I like, there are still matters that need to be addressed. The more we try to suppress this, the more it will bubble and fester, and then come back with greater force.

    We can no longer assume that a person of a different race or language is not my brother or sister. They are, and that needs to be part of what we mean when we pray 'Our Father ...'
     
  19. Rexlion

    Rexlion Well-Known Member

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    Theodore Shoebat recently did a half-hour video to explain, in his view, what the Bible teaches about racism.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqAO29VcZME
    Although I disagree with much of what he posts overall, on this subject I thought he was quite good. He brought in some scriptures I hadn't connected to the issue before.
     
  20. Botolph

    Botolph Well-Known Member

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    Interesting. Did you notice the username on the channel? 'BashtheFash'

    Bash the Fash is a catchphrase associated with anarchist and antifa movements, meaning "bash the fascist," which some read as advocating for violence as a means to stop the spread of fascism. Online the phrase is often used in vertical posting and comment chains.​

    Not that I take this to be the thrust of the video you shared at all. I would share you concern about some of what Theodore Shoebat seems to post. I guess I would support his 1st Amendment right to speak.
     
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