The Downfall of the GOP

It is perhaps not clear that the OP is all Barry Speaking .. but yeah .. he was for woman's choice and said so directly.

 

I'm not according to the founders most of whom stated at one time or the other that that the constitution as written would only suffice to govern a Country of Christians today we are finding out that is true as leftist power lust slowly ruins the country and so-called libertarians are too busy chasing tail, and smoking dope to put up even the most feeble resistance. Sorry but as recorded history has shown for the last 8k years in a country that will not restrain it's baser instincts, when anything goes eventually everything does. Once the never ending party starts it becomes increasingly difficult to find any one willing to defend the party from hostiles. Among the later clay tablets from Summer are those complaining that the place was going to hell because of too much wine women and song and it was indeed gone not much later.

No civilization based almost entirely upon self indulgence long survives.

 

The founding principles are not the constitution - you need to better understand the distinction - especially in relation to secularism.

That folks do things you think God doesn't like with free will - is not justification for law ... unless one is a theocrat .. any way you slice it or dice it. Strict Sharia for all .. sounds good to you I bet.

 

Very few still actually trust the MSM, but that does not make it easy to discover truth concealed by crude repetitious propaganda.

“This of course should be the role of the Free Press—but the media are selling us short. Instead they have become the willing tools of the propagandists that Jacques Ellul warned us about in Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes, in 1965—propagandists so skilled we are not even aware of being manipulated.

The point is that are primary sources of news and information are increasingly being controlled by a very small group of men–supporting the thesis that an elite group has gained control over the information industry in the United States.”

“To be successful, as Jacques Ellul wrote, propaganda must be continuous and lasting– continuous and that it must not leave any gaps, but must fill the citizens whole day and all his days; lasting in that it must function over a long period of time.”

“Today's information industry learned this lesson well from Adolf Hitler who so successfully used propaganda in his quest for power. More than half century century ago Hitler said the masses take a long time to understand and remember, thus it is necessary to repeat the message time and time and time again –the public must be conditioned to accept the claims that are made … no matter how outrageous or false those claims might be.

We, as a society, appear to have been well conditioned to accept any number of claims regardless of how detrimental they may be to our environment or to our own well being.”
CENSORED, The News That Didn’t Make The News— And Why, The 1995 Project Censored Yearbook, Kyle Jensen & project censored, FOUR WALLS EIGHT WINDOWS, New York/London 1995. p. 12.

 

With all do respect we now have more laws rules and regulations than the Pharisees ever dreamed of and your worried some mentally ill person might get his feelings hurt because some one else doesn't want to join his game of let's pretend.

 

I miss the GOP. Rather than tailor their delivery to their audience/constituents, they went for the LCD of the religious right and the so called silent majority and eventually did the equivalent of selling their party for a mess of pottage.

 

I fear anything that unites a large group of people towards an evil goal - in this case - Totalitarianism and trashing of the founding principles - and you should to..

That said - who said anything about fearing "Religion" as a whole - I am talking about a cult - fundamental extremists within a religious group .. that we know of in this nation as the Religious right. This group is not representative of Protestantism - never mind Christianity - of which Protestantism a minority - Catholic/Orthodox being the majority.

but - at the end of the day really - to not fear Religion in general is to ignore History .. and yes you should fear Gov't more - for obvious reasons but, when Gov't teams up with religion to force you or bar you from doing certain things - it is doubly fearful

I do agree that this is less about religion and more about how Gov't is using various methods - be it religious fervor - climate fervor - external threat of war or terrorism fervor (the favorite) to remove the safeguards ..

Folks these days have been brainwashed into believing that Gov't is the "Good guy" - Gov't would never misuse this power - don't worry about the fact that the right to privacy "FROM GOV'T" has been taken without our consent ... don't worry mate .. There will never be a time where Gov't goes after thought .. where they rifle through all the data they have on you looking for "Thought Sin" "Thought Crime"

I need to do an OP on this - the "Necessary Illusion" "we are the Good guys" "Our Gov't - at its core is good" with just a few bad apples.

 

Very True - and its done in plain sight but in such a way as people do not notice .. very skilled they have become.

I call it the Oligopoly-Bureaucracy Fusion Monster - as the two work together in an unholy union - and often these folks are not even aware of what they are engaged in. An aspiring Media person knows where the lines are - that if you cross that one you will be an outcast - and there are plenty of examples to put the fear of God into you .. Phil Donahue is one of my favorite examples - The male Opera Winfrey for 20 years .. an "Icon".

Spoke the Truth about the Iraq war - and was against it - "at the wrong time"- and has never worked again.

Ed Shultz - an experienced veteran .. Lost his Job because he wanted to cover Bernie Sanders during the Presidential Election.

https://alethonews.com/2018/04/23/msnbc-where-journalism-goes-to-die/

This is what "meddling with our electoral process" looks like .. not Assange telling US citizens "The Truth" about Hillary prior to the election. Orwellian doublespeak.

Well studied it is .. these people know what they are doing - and most often do not hide it - in some cases we call them "Special Interest Groups" - in other cases you have groups like the famous "Council on Foreign Relations" CFR - which has long been a target of Conspiracy theorists - for good reason.

But there are many many groups like this. The influence peddling in our system is massive - being conducted by many groups - right out in the open... Is it a secret to anyone that Washington is a Pay to Play system ?

That there are so many interests - and that these interests compete sometimes - makes everything look legit in a way - or rather you it is hard to identify one or a few entities that are in control.

 

Virtually all ordinary Americans have finally learned that the MSM, like professional politicians cannot be trusted.


“There is no incongruity in the fact that a new poll conducted by the Media Insight Project, a joint project of the American Press Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, finds the American media’s popularity way down with that of Washington politicians. With 2,014 adults surveyed, only 6% expressed “a lot of confidence” in the press.”

“The Media Insight poll found that close to 90% of Americans consider it extremely important or very important that journalists get their facts right. As in RatherGate and so many other cases, the media not only gets the facts wrong but also uses them as political weapons.”
INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY, Only 6% Trust the Media, But It Should Be Less, Editorial, 4/19/16.
http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/only-6-trust-media-but-it-should-be-less/

Which leaves us without any credible objective sources for real news and the truth.
That is a very bad situation for a representative democratic republic.

 

I am pretty sure that the puritans were mostly a small and insignificant group of settlers in America. They were kicked out of England, landed in Germany until they raised the funds to migrate to America, long after other settlers had already set up colonies. Their strict Christianity began to quickly fade after a generation as their children began to interact with the wider culture.

There are two parts to secularism as regards to the founding of the US government. The first is the rather strong influence David Hume had on the Scottish Enlightenment which morphed into liberalism. The second, and more persuasive was the history of Europe immediately preceding. Ever since the Reformation and the break with the Catholic Church saw a splintering of religious sects who fought endless wars. One was called the 100 Years War. These endless wars were mostly about royal ambitions, but the party lines tended to fall along religious beliefs, with the religion of each principality being set by the preference of the ruler at the time.

One of the goals of the founders was to create a government where the transfers of power would be peaceful, unlike the battles of succession that often led to bloodshed throughout Europe. Which had a lot to do with the support for elections for the highest offices. There was also the fear of violence between the differing religious sects. The purpose of the religious clause in the First Amendment is so that Catholics don’t have to worry about having to live under Baptist laws and Baptists wouldn’t have to live under Episcopalians, who wouldn’t want to live under Calvinists laws, who wouldn’t want to live under Lutheran laws who didn’t want to live under Catholic laws. It was thought, each to his own beliefs, rather than forced belief from the top.

 

I am sure that the Rockefeller family is well diversified away from oil by now. The big money is in conglomerates these days.

 

Sure .. but the first amendment comes out of the founding principles - which should not be confused with the Constitution. The constitution - among other things - is a short list of essential liberties which are to be "Above" the legitimate authority of Gov't .

The point of the "Creator" is not to base law on some religious belief .. but to say what Law "Can Not" be made .. what Gov't can not do - and you seem to be missing this distinction in your analysis.

Religion flourishes in greater purity without than with the aid of government.
-- James Madison, letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822, from Albert J Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom

Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any Manner contrary to their conscience.-- James Madison, explaining to Congress during the House Debate what the First Amendment means to him, 1 Annals of Congress 730 (August 15, 1789), That his conception of "establishment" was quite broad is revealed in his veto as President in 1811 of a bill which in granting land reserved a parcel for a Baptist Church in Salem, Mississippi (directly above this entry)

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-82

Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one-half the world fools and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-82

Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind.
-- John Adams, "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" (1787-88 ) , from Adrienne Koch, ed, The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society (1965) p. 258

As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?-- John Adams, letter to FA Van der Kamp, December 27, 1816

When philosophic reason is clear and certain by intuition or necessary induction, no subsequent revelation supported by prophecies or miracles can supersede it.-- John Adams, from Rufus K Noyes, Views of Religion, quoted from from James A Haught, ed, 2000 Years of Disbelief

The Founding principles - as per the "Declaration" - does two main things 1) essential liberty put above the legitimate authority of Gov't 2) explains where this authority comes from " consent of the governed" as opposed to "Divine Right .. God" which was the case in the past as you point out.

What you also correctly allude to is how irreligious people were - the Catholic Church was nearly kicked out of France - the people had had enough .. and the opinions of "Enlightened" folks such as Adams - Jefferson above - were far from unique .. especially among the elite.

One of the main purposes was to separate church and state .. Full Stop.

 

?? what do you mean by "conglomerates" but yes - Rockefeller family has diversified .. but this is not about "Rockefeller" - this is about the R&R consortia - Rothschild being the other R . along with the rest of the banking families who collectively own and control both oil and what you refer to as "conglomerates" along with the banks Military Industrial Complex - Healthcare and Insurance Oligopolies - Energy and so on.

The Big Money - is not in Conglomerates ..the Bond Market is way bigger than the Stock Market and the currency markets are the larger yet.

The Big Money is in the "Bank" Take 3 banks for example "State Street/ Melon/ Morgan" While they collectively have some 7 Trillion under "Investment" which would be stocks and so on .. Compare to the so called "Largest hedge fund on the planet" Blackwater at roughly 130 Billion --- these banks have over 100 Trillion under "Custody and Management"

Now that is obscene amounts of money - held by a few families. So while one person may not make the "richest man" list - mostly because the worth of these folks is not publicly known ... the Family is worth Trillions. .. which is way way too much money for any group to control. .. never mind this collective.

 

Yes, there are extremist in every religion and extremist atheist also. Islam these days seems to have more extremist than others. At least in the use of violence these days. Terrorism we call it. We have had a ton of others that used force to get others to convert to their religion. Wars and extermination. I would say for the most part it was government using religion to their advantage and to expand their territory and enrich themselves. More or less evil men using religion as a front.

I think we’ve change as a country and our perspectives about government. It use to be very few trusted government. Our country was built on distrust of government. Today, big government, an all-powerful government seems to be the solution to our problems. At least in some quarters. The two major parties are all for an all-powerful government, but they want to use that power in different ways and on different issues.

The problem today in my opinion way too many of us are willing to give up individual freedoms, liberties if the government can provide us with security. It may be security from foreign aggression, terrorist, from ourselves, security from want, a whole lot of different things.


We, in general seem more than willing to cede our freedoms if we know government will provide for us. Free us from our individual responsibilities to care for ourselves. "A government big and powerful enough to give you everything you want, is a government big and powerful enough to take away everything that you have." More a less a quote from Thomas Jefferson if he actually said that.


I was born right after WWII, the influence and control Washington D.C. had over our daily lives was basically minimal. D.C. might as well been on Mars. But since then Washington D.C. or government has taken control over so much more of our daily lives that for the most part, very few of us can live without an overall powerful, big government.

 

Oh you mean things like murder theft, rape, assault, and dozens of others, that were found in Leviticus and Exodus long before we had a constitution or a country? The Bible is the first legal code that applied the same standards to those from other lands that they did to the locals. And please outside of the Democrat party I don't know a single person asking for thought crimes legislation. Neither I nor any other Christian what evil crap you carry. That's between you and God come judgement day. As long as you don't act upon it I don't care.

As for the rest of your post yep government is at best a necessary evil made necessary only because human beings, on the whole, are such self serving horse's patoots.

 

No actually - I was talking about Essential Liberty - something you must not understand - as none of the things you mention are essential liberty.

Second I highly doubt you know enough about legal codes in the past to make that claim - but do feel free to support this claim - even though it has zero to do with anything I was discussing.

 

Yes you have thoroughly demonstrated in the passed that you have no idea whatever what the founders meant by liberty...I already voted exodus and Leviticus. There are even references to the founders understanding of liberty in the letters of Paul which is where I think they may have taken there understanding from along with Locked and Montesque. The founders on the whole seem to have been quite well and widely read gentlemen. Even drawing some ideas from Confucious' works on the nine relationships.

 

It was just one example of religious "creep" into government. It's a very long list, perhaps starting with the 1955 addition of "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance, and printing "In God We Trust" to our national currency.

 

LCD?

 

lowest common denominator.

 

Trump's downfall (secret camera in his secret bunker):

 

As a Dem, I miss Goldwater, Dirkson, Byrd: Say what you want about them, and I could say plenty, but I think it will be a long, long time till we see their like again. Sad for the party, sad for the country.

 

Don't try to pin your failings onto me sporty- It is you who has not figured out the distinction between essential liberty and crimes like murder rape theft - as evidenced by your previous post.

So don't blame me for your failings por favor.

 

Yes - these are example but these do not affect the liberty of individuals directly other than mouthing a few patriotic chants as a child.

Religious activism on abortion is a different matter .. these people want to force another human to make a life altering decision - on the basis of fallacious religious belief.

I was going to say "Religious belief" but in this case the God these folks claim to believe in - has no problem killing fetuses .. it is an absurd monstrosity in law ..an anathema both the founding principles and the teachings of Jesus. .. just obscene on any level.

 

It goes beyond "authoritarian". When the leader of a religious cult does something that is against the stated beliefs of the cult, they invariably find some way to explain it away. When a religious fanatic, one who believes that everything is controlled by God, sees something "evil", they always manage to explain away how God could let that happen. And this is to be expected in a religion... but, in politics??