"I am a Christian first and last … I am a member of Team Jesus Christ."

[deep]

I grew up an evangelical and nothing scares me more than the political power of the evangelical church.

Amen

 

[melon]

It's not just what I believe. These are credible accusations. Watch the movie "Stolen Honor" sometime.

http://www.stolenhonor.com/

That film is as credible as the "Swift Boat" ads. That is, it isn't credible. It was wholly made to be a large political attack ad.

Melon

 

[melon]

And this translates into a call for violence HOW? You are making the same logical stretch Ted made. Has it ever occurred to you that he was talking about divine justice?

Interestingly enough, that's exactly what the OT commandment, "Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain" was referring to. Contrary to popular opinion, saying "bad words" has absolutely nothing to do with this commandment. It had to do with the practice of people invoking God to slander their enemies.

By Tom DeLay implying that he knows EXACTLY what God would do in this situation and then cursing the judges supposedly on behalf of God, he's technically broken a commandment. At least, with this interpretation, assuming it's correct. How amusing.

I think DeLay was probably stewing up rhetoric for the GOP's impending attempt to remove the Senate filibuster. After all, that's exactly what the GOP did this Sunday with evangelical Christian groups. How shameless of them all.

Melon

 

[Irvine511]

Irvine, for someone who preaches tolerance, you are one of the least tolerant people in these forums. And you're rude, also. Have I ever made any personal insults against you?

As I stated in my own post, Irvine. "Influence" is one thing, but what Hilary suggests goes beyond "influence".

And this translates into a call for violence HOW? You are making the same logical stretch Ted made. Has it ever occurred to you that he was talking about divine justice?

It's not just what I believe. These are credible accusations. Watch the movie "Stolen Honor" sometime.

http://www.stolenhonor.com/

i'm not going to respond to much, because Melon has already made the points i would have.

i apologize for the "nutty" comment -- i should have made the distinction that the commetns/beliefs i find "nutty," not the individual person. i can see how you found that rude, and i apologize.

i also think you misunderstand the notion of tolerance. no, i don't tolerate ideas i find abhorent. i argue them, debate them, and do my best to change minds. that's my responsibility as a wide awake citizen. what i do tolerate, and would fight to the death for, is your right to hold any and all of these, imho "nutty," positions. i don't understand how some people -- on the left and on the right -- will make a claim without any credible evidence and then when the are challenged whine about how people aren't tolerating their poorly reasoned views. i don't respect arguments that don't make sense, but i respect the right of everyone to hold them and to express them. for example, one of the posters i respect the most is also one of the most conservative out there. but his arguments, while i don't agree with them, are soundly argued. that, i respect. your rational for labling the said Democratic senators were not well argued, and as such, i am going to challenge them, because that's always been my understanding as to what FYM is supposed to be about.

no, i don't preach tolerance. i don't want tolerance. i don't even want acceptance/understanding. what i want is to be treated like a full citizen. i don't give a damn what anyone thinks about what i do behind closed doors, what i do object to is 1) the labeling of such as objectively "sinfu" and that it's somehow against God's plan (as if a human could know such a thing), and 2) legislation passed on the basis of the above narrow worldview.

i'm much more of a libertarian than a liberal, when it comes to social issues. i dont' need tolerance, i need the right wing to stop using government to regulate my personal life.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

Been reading this, staying out of the discussion about what people are nutty and what people aren't, and just going to say that I agree with this post:

i'm not going to respond to much, because Melon has already made the points i would have.

i apologize for the "nutty" comment -- i should have made the distinction that the commetns/beliefs i find "nutty," not the individual person. i can see how you found that rude, and i apologize.

i also think you misunderstand the notion of tolerance. no, i don't tolerate ideas i find abhorent. i argue them, debate them, and do my best to change minds. that's my responsibility as a wide awake citizen. what i do tolerate, and would fight to the death for, is your right to hold any and all of these, imho "nutty," positions. i don't understand how some people -- on the left and on the right -- will make a claim without any credible evidence and then when the are challenged whine about how people aren't tolerating their poorly reasoned views. i don't respect arguments that don't make sense, but i respect the right of everyone to hold them and to express them. for example, one of the posters i respect the most is also one of the most conservative out there. but his arguments, while i don't agree with them, are soundly argued. that, i respect. your rational for labling the said Democratic senators were not well argued, and as such, i am going to challenge them, because that's always been my understanding as to what FYM is supposed to be about.

no, i don't preach tolerance. i don't want tolerance. i don't even want acceptance/understanding. what i want is to be treated like a full citizen. i don't give a damn what anyone thinks about what i do behind closed doors, what i do object to is 1) the labeling of such as objectively "sinfu" and that it's somehow against God's plan (as if a human could know such a thing), and 2) legislation passed on the basis of the above narrow worldview.

i'm much more of a libertarian than a liberal, when it comes to social issues. i dont' need tolerance, i need the right wing to stop using government to regulate my personal life.

Well said .

Angela

 

[earthshell]

(Kerry is a 100% legit vietnam war hero who saw the folly of the US government and did the right thing -- to come back hom and do what he could to get our troops out of there ... communist sympathizer? please, please -- point to a shred of evidence to support such a piece of nonsense rather than this fact-free "i believe" refrain.)

oh run, it's the commies! communism isn't necessarily a bad thing. the capitalist system benefits the rich, whereas communism we are all equal and provided for.

i wonder what jk would think of this endorsement...

http://communistsforkerry.com/

 

[80sU2isBest]

whereas communism we are all equal and provided for.

Tell that to all the people jailed and executed under communist rule for speaking against the government or for practicing their religion. Probably 80% of the people on the Interference forums would be dead or incarcerated by now under Communist rule, including me.

People are not equal under communism. In communism, you're working for a government that rules you financially.

 

[melon]

I don't shed a tear for the death of communism. In some ways, it was more blunt than capitalism. Communism, at least, outright told you that the government owned your land. Capitalism lies to you, says that you own your land, but if you don't pay your property taxes ("rent"), the government can take it away. Even then, the government can still cry "eminent domain" and take it anyway for cheap.

On the other hand, communism argued that the power was in the "people." In that regard, it was a complete and blatant lie. All it did was shift the dominant hegemony from one group (aristocrats/business elite) to another--and they became the new aristocrats/business elite within a short period of time.

Communism deserves to die for being as open to corruption as capitalism.

Melon

 

[verte]

Just ask Vaclav Havel and Lech Walesa how great communism was, Walesa in particular because he was a shipyard worker in Gdansk and they got their union smashed. Havel didn't have much fun in prison, where he landed after he put some of the "wrong" stuff in his plays. Awhile back we could asked Pope John Paul II about being a priest in Poland during the time it was behind the Iron Curtain. I have my criticisms of capitalism also, and do not like pure laissez-faire economics. There needs to be government intervention in economics so some of the problems solved by laissez-faire economics can be remedied. But communism was a brutal, unjust system that's better off dead. It was a rulership of an elite, the elite owned just about every damn thing. Party members' wives in Poland were flying to Paris every week to have their hair done while Polish workers struggled.

 

[deep]

RIGHT-WING JIHADISTS CHIP AWAY AT AMERICANS' LIBERTY

Sat Apr 23, 7:58 PM ET

By Cynthia Tucker

It would be comforting -- but naive -- to dismiss House Majority Leader Tom DeLay as a harmless, charmless churl who appeals only to a tiny, ineffectual group inhabiting the far religious right. In fact, the DeLay wing of the Republican Party is on the rise, and its antediluvian agenda represents a serious threat to American democracy.

That's no exaggeration.

If the DeLay wing gets its way, the entire nation will live according to the rigid rules of a handful of self-righteous folks who distrust modernity. They would dictate the way we worship, live, work, have sex and even die.

While five years' worth of political analysis has made much of the nation's cultural divide -- a bitter disagreement over social issues that cleaves the nation roughly in half -- the fact is that the entire country is being manipulated by a much smaller group. (Only 13 percent of Americans approved of Congress' intervention in the painful Terri Schiavo case.)

After President Bush's re-election, the news media swooned over vaguely worded polls showing "moral values" were the most important consideration for 22 percent of voters. But we don't really know what voters had in mind: Did they mean opposition to gay marriage, or did they mean support for programs for the poor?

Nevertheless, the generals among the religious extremists -- men such as James Dobson of Focus on the Family -- have used those polls to exaggerate their influence and browbeat less reactionary Republicans into supporting their agenda. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who has presidential ambitions, is the latest to bow before them.

Don't be fooled into believing that the DeLay-Dobson axis represents the beliefs of most ordinary, God-fearing Americans, Christian or otherwise. It doesn't. Consider just two issues that represent the extremists' views -- the chorus of complaint against federal judges, as well as an increasingly vocal opposition to contraception.

After judges refused to ignore the law in the Schiavo case, religious extremists stepped up their attacks, suggesting that the federal judiciary is dominated by liberals out to ruin a moral America. In fact, more than half of the 821 active federal judges (445, or 54 percent) were appointed by Republicans, according to the Federal Judges Biographical Database.

Florida Judge George Greer, the main judge in the Schiavo case, was elected to the circuit court after a stint as a Republican on the Pinellas County Commission. He has been described as a conservative Christian. But Greer, who has weathered death threats, is apparently not conservative enough to satisfy the DeLay faction.

In one of his recent harangues, DeLay claimed Congress should have stopped the courts' expansion of individual liberties long ago. "The reason we had a right to privacy is because Congress didn't stop them," he said, according to The Washington Times.

Perhaps most Americans associate the phrase "right to privacy" with the Supreme Court's 1973 ruling legalizing abortion. But the high court supported a constitutional right to privacy in its 1965 ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut, when it struck down a state law that made birth control illegal. Writing for the majority, Justice William O. Douglas said, "We deal with a right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights ..."

According to recent polls, 94 percent of Americans find contraception morally acceptable, and 78 percent of Americans believe pharmacists have no right to refuse to fill the prescriptions. Yet there is an increasingly vocal group of extremists who want to deny adults the right to contraception.

Across the country, women are complaining of ultraconservative pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions, sometimes quizzing women on their marital status before making a decision. The next thing you know, they'll be barging into your bedroom to make sure you're wearing your flannel nightgown.

These extremists have much in common with the jihadist wing of Islam. While Christian extremists usually don't practice violence, but merely threaten it (see Greer, above), they share with extremist Muslims the belief that all people should be forced to live according to their views. That's about as un-American as it gets.

 

[80sU2isBest]

Sorry deep, but it's hard for me to imagine that an article that starts off with the 3 words "right-wing jihadists" would be objective at all.

 

[Macfistowannabe]

Site your sources please.

 

[deep]

it is an op-ed 80s

Site your sources please.

Yahoo News site

 

[Macfistowannabe]

That article is crap.

We better watch out for all those right-thinking Christians. After all, they are no good hate mongers who want everybody dead.

x100

 

[Macfistowannabe]

Sorry deep, but it's hard for me to imagine that an article that starts off with the 3 words "right-wing jihadists" would be objective at all.

Let me try to prove you wrong...

Right-Wing Jihadists Convert To Christianity?

 

[deep]

Let me try to prove you wrong...

it looks like they are "in bed" together

 

[Macfistowannabe]

it looks like they are "in bed" together

A har har har, Deep.

Customary in Saudi Arabia.

 

[Macfistowannabe]

RIGHT-WING JIHADISTS CHIP AWAY AT AMERICANS' LIBERTY

Sat Apr 23, 7:58 PM ET

By Cynthia Tucker

Nothing quite like fair and balanced journalism...

 

[deep]

A har har har, Deep.

Customary in Saudi Arabia.

are you unaware that the Saudis are the major source of funding for BinLaden and most others that you call Jihadists?

 

[Macfistowannabe]

are you unaware that the Saudis are the major source of funding for BinLaden and most others that you call Jihadists?

I am well aware of the fact that Saudi men took advantage of our good relations with their country in order to get into our country. Ironically enough, the reason we are NOT attacking them is because they are the largest nation of oil supplies. Kind of contradicting with the mindless theory that we attacked Iraq for the oil.

 

[deep]

Kind of contradicting with the mindless theory that we attacked Iraq for the oil.

Oil was the main reason for military action against Iraq, a leading White House hawk has claimed, confirming the worst fears of those opposed to the US-led war.

The US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz - who has already undermined Tony Blair's position over weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by describing them as a "bureaucratic" excuse for war - has now gone further by claiming the real motive was that Iraq is "swimming" in oil.

Comments were made by Mr Wolfowitz in an address to delegates at an Asian security summit in Singapore.

Asked why a nuclear power such as North Korea was being treated differently from Iraq, where hardly any weapons of mass destruction had been found, the deputy defence minister said: "Let's look at it simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil."

 

[Macfistowannabe]

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cach.../p/tp-20030609a8.html+war+oil+wolfowitz&hl=en

Q: I'm Satoru Suzuki with TV-Asahi of Japan. Mr. Secretary, eleven weeks have passed since the coalition forces moved into Iraq. Yet you've found no weapons of mass destruction in that country -- no convincing evidence yet. Given that, are you still convinced that you'll be able to find such weapons eventually and, in the absence of such weapons, how can you still justify the war, and what would you say to those critics in Japan and the rest of the world who've been saying that the war was mainly about oil?

Wolfowitz: Well, let me start with the last part. The notion that the war was ever about oil is a complete piece of nonsense. If the United States had been interested in Iraq's oil, it would have been very simple 12 years ago or any time in the last 12 years to simply do a deal with Saddam Hussein. We probably could have had any kind of preferred customer status we wanted if we'd been simply willing to drop our real concerns. Our real concerns focused on the threat posed by that country -- not only its weapons of mass destruction, but also its support for terrorism and, most importantly, the link between those two things. You said it's eleven weeks since our troops first crossed the Kuwaiti border, and coalition troops first entered Iraq, as though eleven weeks were a long time. Eleven weeks is a very short time. In fact, unfortunately, significant elements of the old regime are still out there shooting at Americans, killing Americans, threatening Iraqis. It is not yet a secure situation and I believe that probably influences to some extent the willingness of Iraqis to speak freely to us.

 

[deep]

so, you proved Wolfowitz is a liar.



and they appointed him to the Worldbank.

what a shame.

Worse administration in U. S. history.

Morally and ethically bankrupted.

 

[Macfistowannabe]

Kerry would have been a disaster. His anti-military record speaks for itself.

 

[Macfistowannabe]

So Deep... are you willing to admit that unless you're a flaming libbie, Cynthia Tucker's article is full of crap?

 

[80sU2isBest]

Asked why a nuclear power such as North Korea was being treated differently from Iraq, where hardly any weapons of mass destruction had been found, the deputy defence minister said: "Let's look at it simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil."

The most striking difference is one of self-preservation; that North Korea already has complete capability to blow away half our country.

 

[deep]

Re: it is an op-ed 80s

Yahoo News site

i posted it was an op-ed

Opinion - Editorial piece.


I think there are SOME valid comparisons.

"Fundamentalists" want their beliefs codified in law. They are very comfortable blurring line between religion (theirs) and state.

 

[Macfistowannabe]

Re: Re: it is an op-ed 80s

i posted it was an op-ed

Opinion - Editorial piece.


I think there are SOME valid comparisons.

"Fundamentalists" want their beliefs codified in law. They are very comfortable blurring line between religion (theirs) and state.

I don't consider myself a fundamentalist, but prisons are not crowded by the crimes committed by fundamentalists. There are more important things to worry about than those who live their life for what they believe to be the teachings of the Son of God. Even if they express that through the ballot.

 

[Macfistowannabe]

Re: Re: it is an op-ed 80s

i posted it was an op-ed

Opinion - Editorial piece.


I think there are SOME valid comparisons.

"Fundamentalists" want their beliefs codified in law. They are very comfortable blurring line between religion (theirs) and state.

And are they trying to force you to convert by law?

 

[indra]

Re: Re: Re: it is an op-ed 80s

And are they trying to force you to convert by law?

Not necessarily convert, but to live under their laws, yes, you bet your ass they are.