Official Election Prediction ThreadFollow

Well, apparently he'll have an option now. Bob Barr just threw his hat into the ring.

Yes, Mr. "Impeach Clinton while I have an affair with this married woman over here, don't mind me, and GOGO family values" Barr.

It's pretty simple really. From about the mid 60s through the 70s, the Democrats adopted an increasingly secular socialist agenda (big government, anti-religion). They are fine with politically oriented churches that preach a negative message about US society and the ability of "the people" to succeed on their own (since that falls right into their own agenda), but have increasingly pushed "traditional" religious groups out.

Those groups moved into the Republican party because they were no longer welcome in the Democrat party. It has nothing to do with any particular alignment of ideals, except perhaps that the Republican agenda *isn't* actively trying to use the government (public schools, replacing private charities with publicly funded "secular" ones, etc) to undermine their teachings and traditional position in society.



Sure. And if that were all that the Dem platform has adopted, you'd have the same mix of religious folks in both parties that we had prior to the 60s.

It's amusing to me that you managed to miss all the things that Religious folks traditionally don't like. Things like encouraging "alternative lifestyles" (everything from homosexuality, to drug use, to the sexualizing of culture in general), the creation of publicly funded secular replacements to traditional religious based charities, policies that actively encourage the breakup of the traditional family model, and policies that remove responsibility for what they see as "moral failures".



Well. I've stated on many occasions that many of the hard core "religious right" are not actually conservatives in exactly those ways you mention. But that's really a much smaller percentage then most people think. There are very few religious people who actually want to teach creationism as a science in schools, or want to impose prayer in schools, or in any other way use the power of the federal government to impose their religious ideology on the nation as a whole.

What most religious people want is for government *not* to be actively involved in a social engineering experiment that seems most aimed at attacking the very values that they believe in.

There should be a balance point between those. The conservatives (true conservatives) are opposed to government intruding into our private lives. Right now, the biggest offenders in that regard are the secularists on the left. So the religious folks become allies of the moment if you will. As the pendulum swings, perhaps someday we'll be seeing a movement to impose religion via government instead. At that point, those movements become the "liberal" movement, and conservatives will oppose them. Whether that process involves the two parties switching positions, or movements shifting parties is hard to say.


You have to understand that while we only have two major parties in the US, the specifics of which group align themselves with each party changes over time. It's fundamentally not much different then having a group of parties form an alliance after the fact. The biggest difference is *when* they align, not how or why...




Yup. Absolutely correct. Hence why I always cringe when someone calls a hard core religious leader a "far right conservative". Um... They're not. Never have been. They're labeled that way. But it's an incorrect label IMO.

You know, for a moment there, a brief, fleeting and ephemeral second, I actually thought "Hey, a gbaji post that might actually be intelligent and worthwhile", you know, since you're a republican and all, and you're explaining your own political party.



And then reality kicked back in.



Right, so democrats discriminate between churches, and oppress the ones that preach a positive message. Gotcha.



In schools? How? By allowing the teaching of evolution? By using science to explain how biology and physics work?

And how did the democrats replace private charities with publicly funded ones? Assassination? They fed and gave wealth to all the poor, fixed the disabled, cured cancer and aids, so the private charities didn't have anything to work with anymore?



Democrats encourage people to be gay, sure.



And to abuse hard drugs, that's obvious.



But this, no. This is mostly the result of private sector advertisers. Sex sells. If anyone is responsible for this, its certainly not lefty governments. I can take the Dems being responsible for gays and crack cocaine, but you gotta draw the line somewhere.



Like what? Seriously, what "publicly funded secular charity actively encourages the break-up of the traditional family model"?



Oh, bullShit. What's been the single biggest intrusion into "people's lives" by politicians recently? Hmm?

If republicans followed their economic reasoning in the social sphere, they would allow for gay marriage. Anything else is government is expanding its power and intruding into people's lives. It's the "nanny state" that republicans despise so much. In fact, republicans should really be libertarians.

I think you're mixing up the sixties hippies' philosophy with what governments can actually do while in power.

Over the years, this is what I've learned from Gbaji:

(A) If it's bad, the liberals are behind it
(B) If it's good, the conservatives are behind it. If the liberals are also behind it, the conservatives do it better.
(C) If there's a flaw with the Republicans, it's the liberals' fault. The Republicans are overrun with the Religious Right because of liberals. When there's Republican scandals, it's because of the liberal media making a mountain out of it. When a Republican says or does something profoundly stupid, it's the liberals taking it our of context and distorting it.
(D) The Republicans are the biggest bunch of tools on the planet because they keep letting the liberals walk all over them and drag them into scandals and make them support legislation they didn't want, etc.

Cry more, Gbaji!

Didn't read gbaji's sh*t, nor your responses to him.



I'm not comfortable with simply dismissing the violent aspects of Christianity as just misguided or delusional interpretations of the "true" tennet of the religion. The entity known as Christendom is a complex beast with a lot of change and adaptation. Sure maybe Stanley Hauerwas would support this reading of the bible (actually, he definitely would,) but pacifist Christians don't make up the bulk of the history of the religion. The issues of violence are very difficult issues that people like Augustine had to fight with, HARD, in order to come up with some sort of system that could both satisfy the Christian's relationship with the state as well as his/her commitment to the bible and ethical teachings. It might not be entirely in line with Jesus, but it's certainly still Christian

It just doesn't seem all that hard to believe that mellenia old arguments about the correct use of violence (for christians) make their way into Government, and that conservatives who enjoy strict foreign policy will make an ally of them. Actually separating church from state is impossible when a political figure participates in a religion which has an ethical component (and every religion that I can think of has an ethical component.)

It's difficult for me to say something like "broaden your view of religion to include violence" because that makes me seem like I'm only focusing on the holy war aspect of it, but I'm not. It's more the fact that someone who might self identify as a Christian has a historically significant interpretation of scripture which allows for violence. We can't just dismiss it as some crackpot theory anymore than we can Christian pacifism, just because the former gives us nausea and the latter gives us warm fuzzies.



Only applies to some Christians etc. etc.

Edited, May 13th 2008 3:55am by Pensive

It must suck to have one's party being entirely defined by what the other party does. Whipping boys, or what?

Once again, if we take the scriptures, the immensly vast majority (espcially in the NT) are peaceful and pacifist.

There's a reason they still print the Old Testament right before them.

Oh, and here's some more educational reading that completely disproves what you were trying to say.

And before you respond, yes I know that some of the assumptions are unrealistic. That's why it's called a model. Generally though, anybody with enough money to send their child to a private school will also have near-perfect mobility.

Somehow, it makes me feel better knowing that I'm right, and I'd like to think that he knows that I'm right too, even if he won't/can't admit it.

Because you shouldn't use your back yard as a data source? According to you, the growth rate of private school expansion has been 0%. Do you honestly think that's accurate?

Hint: It's not.

You can't dismiss the fact that the modern school system is largely the result of increased modernization and urbanization in the western world. It used to be that kids past grade school would be expected to work on the farm until they were old enough to move out and start their own farms and families. It was only with the rise of industrialization and the enactment of child labor laws that adults needed something to DO with their kids all day -- and schools were the obvious solution.

I just don't understand why people want to demonize a good education grounded in established facts and science. If a person wants to teach their child that the Flying Spaghetti Monster made the world in 6 days six thousand years ago, they are welcome to do it with something else BESIDES my tax dollars. If they want me to pay for it, they need to be teaching children internationally accepted curriculum that isn't biased in favor of any religion. (Science explains the how, religion explains the why.)

If a person wants to teach their child that the Flying Spaghetti Monster made the world in 6 days six thousand years ago, they are welcome to do it with something else BESIDES my tax dollars.

Since Gbaji's incapable, let me make the argument fro him here. The majority of the tax dollars used to fund public schools are drawn from Christians. If the determining factor was the will of those who were the source of the tax dollars, we'd have school prayer in much of the country, not to mention Bible study.