Will the President Unite the Country?
- Thread starter Joesitz (RIP)
- Start date
bronxgirl said:
Thank You,
I think that if Kerry had won and the map was blue instead of red--the left would think they won by a substancial margin, if not a landslide. Alan Combes wouls see to that.
There are not too many people who can fill Bush's shoes but we have 4 years to find that person. I hink Bush will go down in History as a great President.
Having said that, I have to admit that the far left and the far right might as well be on different planets because they will never agree.
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2004
A win by any margin is a win... the map is probablly acurate (I doubt he could get away with crediting a country to the wrong victor).
My recent political pet peeve is when uninformed people complain that a news outlet is unbiased because they have endorsed a candidate. Thats what news papers do!!! It doesnt mean they arent giving fair coverage to each candidate, and they dont provide an endorsement till the week before the election typically.
My recent political pet peeve is when uninformed people complain that a news outlet is unbiased because they have endorsed a candidate. Thats what news papers do!!! It doesnt mean they arent giving fair coverage to each candidate, and they dont provide an endorsement till the week before the election typically.
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2003
- Country
-
A better map is one that shows population. A lot of the red in America is in low populated areas and a lot of the blue is in high populated areas. I'm sorry I don't have a link, but I saw one recently that showed how the blue and red areas mirrored a map of population. It was quite interesting actually...wish I still had the link.
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2003
Bush won the most popular votes of any President in the history of the US.
Kerry, who is not a President, came in second, ahead of Eisenhower, Nixon, Goldwater, and Reagan.
The country is divided. Live with it.
Joe
Kerry, who is not a President, came in second, ahead of Eisenhower, Nixon, Goldwater, and Reagan.
The country is divided. Live with it.
Joe
- Joined
- Jul 26, 2003
I hate this statement.
Joe, I'm not bashing you. Just need to point out that the single statement says nothing overall. Unfortunately, the media only goes on about how Bush won the highest number of popular votes and says little about Kerry getting the 2nd highest in history.
Heyang - not to worry.
Kerry's very big popular vote was well publicized in NYC and reiterated by Al Franken on David Letterman's show. The point being made it is a 'so what' statement for Bush.
Joe
Last edited by a moderator:
Did anyone see the post-election "Politically Incorrect" during which Bill Maher tried to interview former Wyoming Republican senator Alan Simpson? Maher had invited Simpson on the show because he felt Simpson had always been a "straight shooter." Maher said congratulations to Simpson, your party ran a great campaign, etc. in a very sincere manner. Then he asked Simpson what he thought the democrats were doing wrong, what weren't they getting that amounted to these high number of presidental losses since 1964? IMO, Simpson seemed spoiling for a fight from the get-go, but whatever the case, the minute Maher made a quip about an issue the Republicans held dear (it IS a satirical show, Mr. Simpson), Simpson blew his stack and went ballistic at Maher, saying, "If you want to keep losing just keep making jokes about morality and religion!"
Maher tried to apologize and get back on track but Simpson would have none of it, so the whole thing finally turned into a free-for-all. I wished someone had said, "So it's okay for people like Rush Limbaugh to call feminists 'FemiNazis' and broadcast his anti-liberal humor [which I think it is, first ammendment Nazi that I am], but it's not okay for liberals to make jokes about conservative issues?" I'm starting to wonder if we will even have a USA 100 years from now. I can see us having a Pacific west coast nation, a central nation, and a mid-Atlantic, northeastern nation.
Anyway, a friend sent me the following column from a well-known Episcopal Christian, John Shelby Spong. For those who don't know of him, John
Shelby Spong was the Episcopal bishop of Newark, NJ for 24 years before his retirement in 2000. He is one of the leading spokespersons for liberal Christianity.
Understanding the Christian Roots of My Political Depression
by John Shelby Spong, Episcopal Bishop
The Republican Convention in New York City forced me
to face the fact that my feelings about the Bush
Administration have reached a visceral negativity, the
intensity of which surprises even me. So I decided to
search introspectively to identify its source. Is it
simply runaway partisanship? That is certainly how it
sounds to many who make that charge publicly, but that
has not been my history. I did not react this way to
other Republican presidents like Eisenhower, Nixon,
Ford or Reagan. My feelings are quite specifically
Bush related.
I first became aware of them in 1988 when George H. W.
Bush's campaign employed the Willie Horton ad against
Michael Dukakis. This dirty trick was successful and
the insinuation entered the body politic that to be
the governor of a multi-racial state where all were
treated fairly meant that you favored freeing black
criminals to commit murder. Lee Atwater, mentor of
Karl Rove, devised that campaign. The Willie Horton
episode said to me that these people believed that no
dishonest tactic was to be avoided if it helped your
candidate to victory.
The next manifestation of this mentality came in the
South Carolina primary in George W. Bush's campaign in
2000, when the patriotism of John McCain was viciously
attacked. It appeared that five years as a prisoner of
war in North Vietnam was not sufficient to prove one's
loyalty to America. The third episode came when the
operatives of this administration destroyed Georgia's
Senator Max Cleland in 2002, by accusing him of being
soft on national security, despite the fact that this
veteran had lost three of his limbs in the service of
his country. Each of these attacks brought defeat to
its victims but they also brought defeat to truth and
integrity.
In 2004 we have seen the pattern repeated. John Kerry,
a veteran who served with honor and distinction in
Vietnam was told in countless surrogate ads that his
service was not worthy and that his three purple
hearts and his Silver Star for heroism were cheaply
won. For a candidate who ducked military service by
securing a preferential appointment to the Texas
National Guard, part of which was served in Alabama,
this takes gall indeed.
Then Senator Zell Miller, his face contorted with
anger, recited a litany of weapons systems that he
said Senator Kerry had opposed. What he failed to say
was that most of these military cuts were recommended
by a Secretary of Defense named Richard Cheney in the
first Bush Administration! The last time I looked, the
Ten Commandments still included an injunction against
bearing false witness.
Yes, other campaigns bend the truth but these tactics
go beyond just bending, they assassinate character and
suggest traitorous behavior. When that is combined
with the fact that this party does this while
proclaiming itself the party of religion, cultural
values and faith-based initiatives is the final straw
for me. I experience the religious right as a deeply
racist enterprise that seeks to hide its intolerance
under the rhetoric of super patriotism and "family
values." For those who think that this is too strong a
charge or too out of bounds politically, I invite you
to look at the record.
It was George H. W. Bush who gave us Clarence Thomas
on the Supreme Court, calling him "the most qualified
person in America." Thomas replaced Thurgood Marshall,
who had been the legal hero to black Americans during
the struggle over segregation. Clarence Thomas, the
opponent of every governmental program that made his
own life possible, is today an embarrassment to blacks
in America. To appoint a black man to do the racist
work against black people is demonic. Consistent with
that pattern, this administration entered an amicus
brief against the University of Michigan's Law School
because in the quest for a representative student body
that Law School used race as one factor in determining
admissions. The strange 'Orwellian' rhetoric again was
deceiving. "We want America to be a nation where race
is not counted for anything and all are to be judged
on merit alone." Those are fair sounding words until
one factors in centuries of slavery and segregation,
or the quality of public education in urban America
which just happens to be predominantly black. Next one
cannot help noticing the concerted Republican effort
to limit black suffrage in many states like Florida
where it has been most overt, and to deny the power of
the ballot to all the citizens of Washington, D.C.
Does anyone doubt that the people of Washington have
no vote for any other reason than that they are
overwhelmingly black?
Only when I touched these wells of resentment, did I
discover how deeply personal my feelings are about the
Bushes. I grew up in the southern, religious world
they seek to exploit. I went to a church that combined
piety with segregation, quoted the Bible to keep women
in secondary positions, and encouraged me to hate both
my enemies and other religions, especially Jews. It
taught me that homosexual people choose their
lifestyle because they are either mentally sick or
morally depraved. I hear these same definitions echoed
in the pious phrases of those who want to "defend
marriage against the gay onslaught." Are the leaders
of this party the only educated people who seem not to
know that their attitudes about homosexuality are
uninformed? People no more choose their sexual
orientation than they choose to be left-handed! To
play on both ignorance and fear for political gain is
a page lifted right out of the racial struggle that
shaped my region. Racism simply hides today under new
pseudonyms.
I lived in Lynchburg, Virginia, before Jerry Falwell
rose to national prominence. He was a race baiting
segregationist to his core. Liberty Baptist College
began as a segregation academy. Super patriot Falwell
condemned Nelson Mandela as a 'communist' and praised
the apartheid regime in South Africa as a 'bulwark for
Christian civilization.' I have heard Pat Robertson
attack the movement to give equality to women by
referring to feminists as Lesbians who want to destroy
the family, while quoting the Bible to defeat the
Equal Rights Amendment. The homophobic rhetoric that
spews so frequently out of the mouths of these "Jesus
preaching" right-wingers has been mentioned time and
again as factors that encourage hate crimes.
I am aware that the former Chief Justice Roy Moore of
Alabama, famous for his attempt to place a three-ton
monument of the Ten Commandments in his Montgomery
courthouse to the delight of southern preachers, is on
record as saying that "homosexuality is inherently
evil."
I lived through the brutality that greeted the civil
rights movement in the South during its early days.
Congressman John Lewis of Atlanta can tell you what it
means to be beaten into unconsciousness on a "freedom
ride." I remember the names of Southerners who covered
their hate-filled racism with the blanket of religion
to enable them to win the governors' mansions in the
deep South: John Patterson and George Wallace in
Alabama, Ross Barnett in Mississippi, Orville Faubus
in Arkansas, Mills Godwin in Virginia and Strom
Thurmond in South Carolina. I know the religious
dimensions of North Carolina that kept Jesse Helms in
the Senate for five terms. Now we have learned that
Strom Thurmond, who protected segregation in the
Senate when he could not impose it by winning the
presidency in 1948, also fathered a daughter by an
underage black girl. I know that Congressman Robert
Barr of Georgia, who introduced the Defense of
Marriage Act in 1988, has been married three times. I
know that Pat Robertson's Congressman in Norfolk, Ed
Schrock, courted religious votes while condemning
homosexual people until he was outed as a gay man and
was forced to resign his seat.
I know that the bulk of the voters from the Religious
Right today are the George Wallace voters of
yesterday, who simply transformed their racial
prejudices and called them "family values." That
mentality is now present in this administration. It
starts with the President, embraces the Attorney
General John Ashcroft and spreads out in every
direction.
I have known Southern mobs that have acted in violence
against black people while couching that violence in
the sweetness of Evangelical Christianity. I abhor
that kind of religion. I resent more than I can
express the fact that my Christ has been employed in
the service of this mentality. My Christ, who refused
to condemn the woman taken in the act of adultery; my
Christ who embraced the lepers, the most feared social
outcasts of his day; my Christ who implored us to see
the face of God in the faces of "the least of these
our brothers and sisters;" my Christ who opposed the
prejudice being expressed against the racially impure
Samaritans, is today being used politically to
dehumanize others by those who play on base instincts.
David Halberstam, in his book on the Civil Rights
movement entitled The Children, quotes Lyndon Johnson
talking with Bill Moyers right after the Voting Rights
Act of 1965 had passed by large margins in the
Congress of the United States. This positive vote
followed the arousing of the public's consciousness by
the Abu Ghraib-like use of dogs and fire hoses on
black citizens in Alabama. Klan groups, under the
direct protection of Southern State Troopers and local
police, had also attacked blacks with baseball bats
and lead pipes in public places, which had been seen
on national television. Moyers expected to find
President Johnson jubilant over this legislative
victory. Instead he found the President strangely
silent. When Moyers enquired as to the reason, Johnson
said rather prophetically, "Bill, I've just handed the
South to the Republicans for fifty years, certainly
for the rest of our life times."
That is surely correct. Bush's polls popped after his
convention. It is now his election to lose. The
combination of super patriotism with piety, used in
the service of fear to elicit votes while suppressing
equality works, but it is lethal for America and
lethal for Christianity. It may be a winning formula
but it has no integrity and it feels dreadful to this
particular Christian.
John Shelby Spong
Interesting food for thought, IMO.
One other point a friend made is that today's voters are the first to be entirely raised on television and "hit and run" advertising. Gut reaction is in; thinking and reflection is out.
Rgirl
Maher tried to apologize and get back on track but Simpson would have none of it, so the whole thing finally turned into a free-for-all. I wished someone had said, "So it's okay for people like Rush Limbaugh to call feminists 'FemiNazis' and broadcast his anti-liberal humor [which I think it is, first ammendment Nazi that I am], but it's not okay for liberals to make jokes about conservative issues?" I'm starting to wonder if we will even have a USA 100 years from now. I can see us having a Pacific west coast nation, a central nation, and a mid-Atlantic, northeastern nation.
Anyway, a friend sent me the following column from a well-known Episcopal Christian, John Shelby Spong. For those who don't know of him, John
Shelby Spong was the Episcopal bishop of Newark, NJ for 24 years before his retirement in 2000. He is one of the leading spokespersons for liberal Christianity.
Understanding the Christian Roots of My Political Depression
by John Shelby Spong, Episcopal Bishop
The Republican Convention in New York City forced me
to face the fact that my feelings about the Bush
Administration have reached a visceral negativity, the
intensity of which surprises even me. So I decided to
search introspectively to identify its source. Is it
simply runaway partisanship? That is certainly how it
sounds to many who make that charge publicly, but that
has not been my history. I did not react this way to
other Republican presidents like Eisenhower, Nixon,
Ford or Reagan. My feelings are quite specifically
Bush related.
I first became aware of them in 1988 when George H. W.
Bush's campaign employed the Willie Horton ad against
Michael Dukakis. This dirty trick was successful and
the insinuation entered the body politic that to be
the governor of a multi-racial state where all were
treated fairly meant that you favored freeing black
criminals to commit murder. Lee Atwater, mentor of
Karl Rove, devised that campaign. The Willie Horton
episode said to me that these people believed that no
dishonest tactic was to be avoided if it helped your
candidate to victory.
The next manifestation of this mentality came in the
South Carolina primary in George W. Bush's campaign in
2000, when the patriotism of John McCain was viciously
attacked. It appeared that five years as a prisoner of
war in North Vietnam was not sufficient to prove one's
loyalty to America. The third episode came when the
operatives of this administration destroyed Georgia's
Senator Max Cleland in 2002, by accusing him of being
soft on national security, despite the fact that this
veteran had lost three of his limbs in the service of
his country. Each of these attacks brought defeat to
its victims but they also brought defeat to truth and
integrity.
In 2004 we have seen the pattern repeated. John Kerry,
a veteran who served with honor and distinction in
Vietnam was told in countless surrogate ads that his
service was not worthy and that his three purple
hearts and his Silver Star for heroism were cheaply
won. For a candidate who ducked military service by
securing a preferential appointment to the Texas
National Guard, part of which was served in Alabama,
this takes gall indeed.
Then Senator Zell Miller, his face contorted with
anger, recited a litany of weapons systems that he
said Senator Kerry had opposed. What he failed to say
was that most of these military cuts were recommended
by a Secretary of Defense named Richard Cheney in the
first Bush Administration! The last time I looked, the
Ten Commandments still included an injunction against
bearing false witness.
Yes, other campaigns bend the truth but these tactics
go beyond just bending, they assassinate character and
suggest traitorous behavior. When that is combined
with the fact that this party does this while
proclaiming itself the party of religion, cultural
values and faith-based initiatives is the final straw
for me. I experience the religious right as a deeply
racist enterprise that seeks to hide its intolerance
under the rhetoric of super patriotism and "family
values." For those who think that this is too strong a
charge or too out of bounds politically, I invite you
to look at the record.
It was George H. W. Bush who gave us Clarence Thomas
on the Supreme Court, calling him "the most qualified
person in America." Thomas replaced Thurgood Marshall,
who had been the legal hero to black Americans during
the struggle over segregation. Clarence Thomas, the
opponent of every governmental program that made his
own life possible, is today an embarrassment to blacks
in America. To appoint a black man to do the racist
work against black people is demonic. Consistent with
that pattern, this administration entered an amicus
brief against the University of Michigan's Law School
because in the quest for a representative student body
that Law School used race as one factor in determining
admissions. The strange 'Orwellian' rhetoric again was
deceiving. "We want America to be a nation where race
is not counted for anything and all are to be judged
on merit alone." Those are fair sounding words until
one factors in centuries of slavery and segregation,
or the quality of public education in urban America
which just happens to be predominantly black. Next one
cannot help noticing the concerted Republican effort
to limit black suffrage in many states like Florida
where it has been most overt, and to deny the power of
the ballot to all the citizens of Washington, D.C.
Does anyone doubt that the people of Washington have
no vote for any other reason than that they are
overwhelmingly black?
Only when I touched these wells of resentment, did I
discover how deeply personal my feelings are about the
Bushes. I grew up in the southern, religious world
they seek to exploit. I went to a church that combined
piety with segregation, quoted the Bible to keep women
in secondary positions, and encouraged me to hate both
my enemies and other religions, especially Jews. It
taught me that homosexual people choose their
lifestyle because they are either mentally sick or
morally depraved. I hear these same definitions echoed
in the pious phrases of those who want to "defend
marriage against the gay onslaught." Are the leaders
of this party the only educated people who seem not to
know that their attitudes about homosexuality are
uninformed? People no more choose their sexual
orientation than they choose to be left-handed! To
play on both ignorance and fear for political gain is
a page lifted right out of the racial struggle that
shaped my region. Racism simply hides today under new
pseudonyms.
I lived in Lynchburg, Virginia, before Jerry Falwell
rose to national prominence. He was a race baiting
segregationist to his core. Liberty Baptist College
began as a segregation academy. Super patriot Falwell
condemned Nelson Mandela as a 'communist' and praised
the apartheid regime in South Africa as a 'bulwark for
Christian civilization.' I have heard Pat Robertson
attack the movement to give equality to women by
referring to feminists as Lesbians who want to destroy
the family, while quoting the Bible to defeat the
Equal Rights Amendment. The homophobic rhetoric that
spews so frequently out of the mouths of these "Jesus
preaching" right-wingers has been mentioned time and
again as factors that encourage hate crimes.
I am aware that the former Chief Justice Roy Moore of
Alabama, famous for his attempt to place a three-ton
monument of the Ten Commandments in his Montgomery
courthouse to the delight of southern preachers, is on
record as saying that "homosexuality is inherently
evil."
I lived through the brutality that greeted the civil
rights movement in the South during its early days.
Congressman John Lewis of Atlanta can tell you what it
means to be beaten into unconsciousness on a "freedom
ride." I remember the names of Southerners who covered
their hate-filled racism with the blanket of religion
to enable them to win the governors' mansions in the
deep South: John Patterson and George Wallace in
Alabama, Ross Barnett in Mississippi, Orville Faubus
in Arkansas, Mills Godwin in Virginia and Strom
Thurmond in South Carolina. I know the religious
dimensions of North Carolina that kept Jesse Helms in
the Senate for five terms. Now we have learned that
Strom Thurmond, who protected segregation in the
Senate when he could not impose it by winning the
presidency in 1948, also fathered a daughter by an
underage black girl. I know that Congressman Robert
Barr of Georgia, who introduced the Defense of
Marriage Act in 1988, has been married three times. I
know that Pat Robertson's Congressman in Norfolk, Ed
Schrock, courted religious votes while condemning
homosexual people until he was outed as a gay man and
was forced to resign his seat.
I know that the bulk of the voters from the Religious
Right today are the George Wallace voters of
yesterday, who simply transformed their racial
prejudices and called them "family values." That
mentality is now present in this administration. It
starts with the President, embraces the Attorney
General John Ashcroft and spreads out in every
direction.
I have known Southern mobs that have acted in violence
against black people while couching that violence in
the sweetness of Evangelical Christianity. I abhor
that kind of religion. I resent more than I can
express the fact that my Christ has been employed in
the service of this mentality. My Christ, who refused
to condemn the woman taken in the act of adultery; my
Christ who embraced the lepers, the most feared social
outcasts of his day; my Christ who implored us to see
the face of God in the faces of "the least of these
our brothers and sisters;" my Christ who opposed the
prejudice being expressed against the racially impure
Samaritans, is today being used politically to
dehumanize others by those who play on base instincts.
David Halberstam, in his book on the Civil Rights
movement entitled The Children, quotes Lyndon Johnson
talking with Bill Moyers right after the Voting Rights
Act of 1965 had passed by large margins in the
Congress of the United States. This positive vote
followed the arousing of the public's consciousness by
the Abu Ghraib-like use of dogs and fire hoses on
black citizens in Alabama. Klan groups, under the
direct protection of Southern State Troopers and local
police, had also attacked blacks with baseball bats
and lead pipes in public places, which had been seen
on national television. Moyers expected to find
President Johnson jubilant over this legislative
victory. Instead he found the President strangely
silent. When Moyers enquired as to the reason, Johnson
said rather prophetically, "Bill, I've just handed the
South to the Republicans for fifty years, certainly
for the rest of our life times."
That is surely correct. Bush's polls popped after his
convention. It is now his election to lose. The
combination of super patriotism with piety, used in
the service of fear to elicit votes while suppressing
equality works, but it is lethal for America and
lethal for Christianity. It may be a winning formula
but it has no integrity and it feels dreadful to this
particular Christian.
John Shelby Spong
Interesting food for thought, IMO.
One other point a friend made is that today's voters are the first to be entirely raised on television and "hit and run" advertising. Gut reaction is in; thinking and reflection is out.
Rgirl
"The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life."
- Adolph Hitler, Proclamation to the German nation at Berlin, February 1, 1933
Sound Familiar??????
- Adolph Hitler, Proclamation to the German nation at Berlin, February 1, 1933
Sound Familiar??????
I don't think Sk8m8 is saying Hitler and GW Bush have the same ideals -- not that Sk8m8 can't speak for himself
. Rather, at least the way I read it, the point is to show that what seems like even the most positive, moral, religious, or whatever you want to call it rhetoric can either hide the opposite agenda, even when the speaker believes he is promoting Christian values, or eventually morph into totalitarianism.
It's like when statements by Karl Marx and other communists or socialists are aligned with statements made by democrats. For me, it's the sum total of someone's statements and actions rather than a few separate statements that matter.
One of the main things that concerns me about GW Bush is his repeated and stated disregard for the constitutional mandate of separation between church and state.
Rgirl
. Rather, at least the way I read it, the point is to show that what seems like even the most positive, moral, religious, or whatever you want to call it rhetoric can either hide the opposite agenda, even when the speaker believes he is promoting Christian values, or eventually morph into totalitarianism. It's like when statements by Karl Marx and other communists or socialists are aligned with statements made by democrats. For me, it's the sum total of someone's statements and actions rather than a few separate statements that matter.
One of the main things that concerns me about GW Bush is his repeated and stated disregard for the constitutional mandate of separation between church and state.
Rgirl
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jul 28, 2003
RGirl, lately I find myself in a peculiar position. I am very anti-Bush. I think (and have repeatedly stated on this forum) that this country is moving toward a state where morality equals religion. I don't like that a bit. I also disagree with W's policies on Iraq, North Korea, Russia, taxes, social policies, environment, constitutional civil rights, and judicial appointments.
Having said that, over the last week I keep explaining to people that the American system is strong. That American democracy won't seaze to exist because of four years of ineffectual leadership. We'll survive! I guess that's what makes me over sensitive to any comparison with Nazi Germany or Taliban or whatever.
Having said that, over the last week I keep explaining to people that the American system is strong. That American democracy won't seaze to exist because of four years of ineffectual leadership. We'll survive! I guess that's what makes me over sensitive to any comparison with Nazi Germany or Taliban or whatever.
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2003
Bravo to Shelby Spong. A great article, Rgirl. We need more of Spongs in the world and less of the Falwells.
Joe
Joe
- Joined
- Dec 18, 2003
As a person in the middle.....
(I would say I'm a conservative on some issues, a liberal on others, and open minded on some more)
.....here is an observation.
It seems that for both enthusiastic liberals and conservatives, things have gotten so emotional that it's tough to have a rational, factual type discussion on any given topic. Most discussions I've tried to engage in during this last election year seem to either boil down to "well, you're just a Bible thumping hard head" or "well, you're just an amoral jerk."
Neither side will change any minds with these positions. Just MHO. I for one, would welcome a considerate and open minded discussion of political topics. But political discussion has become the ONE thing I feel most uncomfortable talking about in "mixed" company.
OK - BRING ON THE ROTTEN EGGS!!!!
DG
(I would say I'm a conservative on some issues, a liberal on others, and open minded on some more)
.....here is an observation.
It seems that for both enthusiastic liberals and conservatives, things have gotten so emotional that it's tough to have a rational, factual type discussion on any given topic. Most discussions I've tried to engage in during this last election year seem to either boil down to "well, you're just a Bible thumping hard head" or "well, you're just an amoral jerk."
Neither side will change any minds with these positions. Just MHO. I for one, would welcome a considerate and open minded discussion of political topics. But political discussion has become the ONE thing I feel most uncomfortable talking about in "mixed" company.
OK - BRING ON THE ROTTEN EGGS!!!!
DG
- Joined
- Dec 18, 2003
A try....
Conservative v. liberal I think, is irrelevant to this question. Here's my question, and I sincerely hope we can have a respectful discussion about it.
I used to be "pro death penalty" (I think, a traditionally conservative viewpoint) and "pro-choice" (I think, a traditionally liberal viewpoint)
My view on the death penalty changed dramatically when I served on a jury. The case we heard was NOT a death penalty case. Not a murder case, not even close. But it made me give some hard thought to how I would feel if asked, as a prospective juror, the hard question about being able to "vote" for the death penalty.
At that moment in my time, I decided I was not comfortable as a human to decide who should live or die, regardless of their crimes. I dedided it's not mine to judge.
So fast forward to the abortion issue, which I have always supported as a woman's right of choice. If I oppose the death penalty because I'm not comfortable deciding life and death in that situation, how can I support abortion? And believe me, the subject of abortion goes very much deeper and more personal for me. I'm not being flip about this comment.
That's an example of the type of tough subject I would love to talk about. That's because I'm still conflicted about it.
Anyone else see these political debates as something you WISH we could talk about more freely??? Without so much emotion and conclusion?
DG
Conservative v. liberal I think, is irrelevant to this question. Here's my question, and I sincerely hope we can have a respectful discussion about it.
I used to be "pro death penalty" (I think, a traditionally conservative viewpoint) and "pro-choice" (I think, a traditionally liberal viewpoint)
My view on the death penalty changed dramatically when I served on a jury. The case we heard was NOT a death penalty case. Not a murder case, not even close. But it made me give some hard thought to how I would feel if asked, as a prospective juror, the hard question about being able to "vote" for the death penalty.
At that moment in my time, I decided I was not comfortable as a human to decide who should live or die, regardless of their crimes. I dedided it's not mine to judge.
So fast forward to the abortion issue, which I have always supported as a woman's right of choice. If I oppose the death penalty because I'm not comfortable deciding life and death in that situation, how can I support abortion? And believe me, the subject of abortion goes very much deeper and more personal for me. I'm not being flip about this comment.
That's an example of the type of tough subject I would love to talk about. That's because I'm still conflicted about it.
Anyone else see these political debates as something you WISH we could talk about more freely??? Without so much emotion and conclusion?
DG
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2003
Well, here's my two cents. About abortion, IMHO, no, we will never be able to have a rational discussion of that issue. That is because, IMO, there is no scientific way to define at what precise point a fertilized egg becomes a human being. This is a gradual process, and to say that it happens at 12:00 midnight on the first day of the third trimester has no more rational basis than any other arbitrary choice.
If you think that a fetus is a person, then the whole idea of "choice" goes out the window. We do not have the choice to kill people.
If you think that a fetus is an undifferentiated blob of tissue, then the woman's right to have a baby or not is still in play, and it's nobody's business but her own.
I do not see any way to decide.
To go back to Bronxgirl's comments about living one's religion, I think one of the problems is that in the real world no one can actually do this. Therefore, as Ptichka says, we cannot take religion as the arbiter of morality.
Islam means peace, and its adherents are urged by the Quran to pursue 'the paths of peace,' which is the path of God (5:16, 4:128, 2:205). Yet the most enthusiastic of the followers of this religious tradition are far from peaceful.
It is the duty of Jews to observe the Law. But the Law and the traditions surrounding its interpretation are so rich and complicated that it is impossible to do so without ambiguity.
Jesus said, "Love your enemy, do good to those that despitefully use you. If someone steals your coat, give him also your cloak. If someone strikes you on the left cheek, turn to him the other also. If you are rich, sell everything you have and give it to the poor, otherwise you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."
It is impossible to obey these commandments in the actual world. We're only human.
Mathman
If you think that a fetus is a person, then the whole idea of "choice" goes out the window. We do not have the choice to kill people.
If you think that a fetus is an undifferentiated blob of tissue, then the woman's right to have a baby or not is still in play, and it's nobody's business but her own.
I do not see any way to decide.
To go back to Bronxgirl's comments about living one's religion, I think one of the problems is that in the real world no one can actually do this. Therefore, as Ptichka says, we cannot take religion as the arbiter of morality.
Islam means peace, and its adherents are urged by the Quran to pursue 'the paths of peace,' which is the path of God (5:16, 4:128, 2:205). Yet the most enthusiastic of the followers of this religious tradition are far from peaceful.
It is the duty of Jews to observe the Law. But the Law and the traditions surrounding its interpretation are so rich and complicated that it is impossible to do so without ambiguity.
Jesus said, "Love your enemy, do good to those that despitefully use you. If someone steals your coat, give him also your cloak. If someone strikes you on the left cheek, turn to him the other also. If you are rich, sell everything you have and give it to the poor, otherwise you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."
It is impossible to obey these commandments in the actual world. We're only human.
Mathman