REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Trump Challenges the 14th Amendment

POSTED BY: SHINYGOODGUY
UPDATED: Friday, May 12, 2023 14:28
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Friday, August 28, 2015 7:28 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Trump has been asked about the 14th Amendment AND his favorite part of the Bible. We've seen this schtick from Trump before, of course. He's stunningly ignorant, and routinely refuses to answer whenever someone asks about a factual detail more than an inch below the surface. Needless to say, he refuses because he doesn't know, but he always pretends it's for some other reason. "I don't want to insult anyone by naming names," he'll say, as if this isn't his entire stock in trade. Or, in the case of his favorite part of the Bible, either Old or New Testament, "It's personal," as if he leads a deeply spiritual life that he never talks about.

The interesting thing is that this schtick shows how lazy he is. It's been evident for several days that someone was eventually going to ask him for his favorite Bible verse, but he couldn't be bothered to have one on tap. Ditto for everything else, including the 14th Amendment or the cost of enforcing Trump's immigration policy. Trump will get Mexico to pay for a wall and that's the end of Trump's discussion of money. Even when he says something that's going to raise obvious questions the next day, he never bothers to learn anything about the subject. He's got people for that.

Of course, there is an advantage to handling things this way. For example, by shutting down the Bible talk completely, he guarantees he'll never have to talk about details again. I mean, somebody might want him to name the Ten Commandments. It's obvious that he hasn't cracked open the Bible in decades (he has clergy for that), learned any Constitutional law (he has lawyers for that), or done any budget arithmetic (he has accountants for that). Better for lazy Trump to shut down questions about "details" right away.

Trump will talk "details" after he is President and not before Inauguration Day 2017.

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Friday, August 28, 2015 10:51 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


The collection of your arguments against repealing the 14th Amendment:

1) Trump is a psychopath, a baboon, and a hypocrite, and so are his followers. And evangelicals are even worse.

2) People are prejudiced against anyone who looks Hispanic

3) Illegal labor is so cheap! And besides, it would cost too much to get rid of them, so their presence nets out to be economically positive.

4) Whatever happened to ... "Give me your tired"?

5)
Quote:
Let me get this straight. Illegal immigrants crossed the border, left their families and their homelands, put a gun to the heads of upstanding, law-abiding Americans and forced them out of their jobs. Is that what you're saying?


6) (see (1)) Trump is an ignoramus and a psychopath.

7) (see (3)) But they're so exploitable!

8) (see (2)) USAns are prejudiced against anyone who looks and sounds different.


Did I miss anything?

---------

1) It seems to me that you spend a lot of your time bashing Trump and I have no interest in explaining or defending Trump. But let's start another thread about Trump, he deserves to be discussed in detail, and not just about this.

2) SGG, this is what you experienced, and I feel sorry for you that it happened. But what you experienced was prejudice and bullying, and that's not caused by immigration policy and therefore not resolvable by changing the policy. Some kids will find ANY reason to bully, whether it's your skin color or accent, or that you're too fat or too tall, or socially awkward, or gay, or wimpy, any number of things. As far as prejudice is concerned, I think our entertainment media have something to do with that: They pick out who the "bad guys" are , or who the butt of all the jokes is going to be. If you're constantly being shown ignorant tatooed gangbangers speaking Spanglish, or violent young black men, that's what you'll come to expect. All I can say is: Imagine being an Arab Muslim in the USA about now! That needs to change, but it's not immigration policy that's going to change it.

So, are you a citizen? If yes, good for you. If NOT, have you lived in the USA for more than 15 years? MY policy would require you to become a citizen within 5 years, 10 max. Oh, and I'd straighten out the bag of snakes which is our naturalization process, which is really just a way of slow-walking people who are over our "quota". Because, in exchange for making English the official language and eliminating birthright citizenship, I'd offer full-on amnesty for anyone who lived here, crime-free, for 15 years or more. Actually, better than amnesty, I'd make citizenship a requirement.

3) Illegal immigrants are cheap. When liberals wind up on the side of exploitation, with corporations, I think it's time to really stop and see what it is you're trying to do. As far as the "expense" of getting rid of them... Let's see, we can "afford" to spend more than $600 billion per year "defending our way of life" in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and Sudan, and we can't afford to spend $50 billion over ten years (less than 1% of the DoD budget per year) defending "our way of life" at home?

4) "Give me your tired". This is the only argument that's internally consistent. All I can say is: When I hear all of those dewy-eyed stories about how the natives provided the first settlers with food on that life-saving Thanksgiving, or watch the Disney version of Pocahontas, I just want to jump up and scream that "the natives" should have shot the settlers asses so full of arrows that there would be no one left alive to carry word back to the Old World about that wonderful "new" world to the west. THEY welcomed the immigrants, and look where it got them! Welcoming a mass migration generally doesn't work so well for the original inhabitants unless there's enough water and land and other resources for everyone, the original folks have equal or superior weaponry... and the "new folks" don't have intentions of taking over.

5) OF course nobody put a gun to anyone's head. However, as you and I (and the corporations) know, illegal immigrants are willing to work for less than minimum wages because they know they shouldn't be here. And competition for scarce jobs will do the rest, and drive wages down.

6) see TRUMP

7) I'm not on the side of exploiting people. Anyone who works for a living should know that cheap labor may mean cheap goods for the time being, but it also means cheap wages and higher unemployment.

8) Prejudice is not immigration policy. There are a lot of people in the USA who aren't immigrants who experience prejudice. Changing immigration policy won't help.

----------------

Just a couple of other comments. One of the things I find amusing is the Hispanic identification with the aggrieved native. They seems to think they have a common historic cause, and yet the reality is that the Spanish Conquistadors committed a genocide that was as great - if not greater than- the genocide in north America. Over 90% of south, central, and Caribbean native Americans died as a result of introduced disease, or brutal war and massacre. The Spanish priests were especially assiduous about destroying all of the written native books and bringing down buildings of cultural significance (cultural genocide). Natives to this day are STILL at the bottom of the post-colonial totem pole. Brazilians (conquered by the Portuguese) still pay land tax to the "original" familial property owners, who were granted vast estates by the King, who clearly gave away land that wasn't his.

The fact that the conquerors interbred with (raped or dominated) native women doesn't erase the genocide. The only reason why Hispanics get away with thinking of themselves as "natives" (with Hispanic surnames, and speaking Spanish!) is because there aren't enough natives left to remind ANYONE of who the natives really are (or were). What Hispanics and natives have in common is a grudge against the economically and military-dominant USA culture, but historically they were mortal enemies. I don't find Hispanics or Portuguese to be historically morally superior to Anglos when it comes to immigration.

----------

Finally, as you may have read, there's a similar migrant crisis in Europe, and I think looking at that would help us understand the source of ours.

A survey of the illegal immigrants coming into central and eastern Europe reveals that they are almost entirely and equally made of Iraqis, Afghanis, and Syrians, and with a few Libyans, Turks, and Sudanese thrown in. If we were to look at western European immigrants hitting the shores around Gibralter and clustering around Calais, it would be Eritreans, Libyans, Malians, and Sudanese, with many coming thru Libya and taking off from Libyan shores.

Now, it's no accident that the vast majority of illegal immigrants are coming from nations which the USA (and it's "coalition of the willing") destroyed.

ALL mass migrations are about economics. In the past, they were driven by natural catastrophe - multi-decade droughts, primarily, which precipitated wars. Or just outgrowing the natural resources of an area.

The human instinct is to just go someplace else when one area plays out. But the reality is that the entire globe is overburdened, and we have to adopt an attitude of fixing up where we live.

PEOPLE CAN SOLVE THEIR OWN PROBLEMS, provided that they're not interfered with by greater powers. That's why it's so important that the USA (and Europe, and China) institute a hands-off military and economic policy.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Friday, August 28, 2015 5:06 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Well, it happens in all directions. Our DD has a friend whose family is Cuban. All of that generation speak English and understand Spanish. The mom and dad speak fluent English AND Spanish. The grandparents (altho only one is alive now) only speak Spanish.

We were invited to friend's house for her birthday party, and all of the relatives... aunts, uncles, cousins, parents and grandparents ... were perfectly comfortable speaking Spanish around DD and me, and not speaking a word in our direction. I was curious as to how long this would go on, so I sat it out for an hour to see whether anyone would even attempt to be a polite host ... should I reiterate that we were invited guests? ... and then finally tried out my Spanish (I'm trying to learn Spanish) and it was like the dawn broke, and suddenly our presence was acknowledged. Yanno, my parent's generation and older spoke Polish at home, but if a non-Polish-speaking guest was invited, they would never have been so rude as to ignore them for hours at a time.

I didn't mind so much, but DD, who is brain-damaged, had a hard time making sense of the situation and I was frustrated and upset on her behalf.

I have a Jewish co-worker who married into an Hispanic family, and the lengths of rudeness that the Hispanic sister-in-law will go to to dis the Jewish woman ... to the point of shoving her in public ... is amazing. This seems to be a case of Hispanic pride gone haywire.

Anyway, you don't have to be of a different color to be targeted. I was picked on when I was little, too. There's nothing new or unique about bullying, and prejudice flows freely in all directions. There is no group that I know of that's innocent.

How about if we focus on getting rid of exploitation and dominance, no matter who's doing it and who's the target?



--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Saturday, August 29, 2015 1:30 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


So, apparently, getting rid of exploitation and dominance isn't a good idea, because I'm not hearing any ringing endorsements of the idea???

Hey, yanno what?

We've all got dirt on our historic souls, expect maybe Brenda. But I get that the USA has got years of bad juju to make up for. My opinion is that unless the USA is willing to tackle the SOURCE of the problem ... ie, a history of maintaining "south of the border" as a colony for the convenience of our corporations and banks .... economic migration will keep on happening.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Saturday, August 29, 2015 4:47 AM

SHINYGOODGUY


I agree. Getting rid of exploitation and dominance is vital to the survival of the human race. No advantage for anyone. PERIOD.

Is that ringing enough for ya'

Fuck historic dirt and pointing fingers. That will not move us forward, but only prove to stymie progress and peaceful coexistence. The whole holier than thou mentality will only serve to sink this country if we continue down that path.

It's that European/Anglo mentality or Monarch mentality that will doom us as a nation. The "I'm mightier because of my skin color" syndrome. And now it's language. We could argue and produce story after story of "bullying" and "rudeness" until Doomsday, but it will make no difference because either of us has 1 more story than the other. We must use history as a guide so as not to commit further
crimes and misdemeanors against one another. As long as one person uses "HATE" speech to attempt to put down another for their cultural differences, and we as a people allow it to fester and grow. Well, we will always have battles and wars.

Those Cubans, as my mother would say (God rest her soul), had a bad upbringing.
Had it been me to commit such an obvious and shameful act, I would have heard an earful from her. She taught us to treat guests better than family. It was her way, it is our way (in the old days as I was growing up). She taught me to introduce my friends to the family and surrounding friends at gatherings so as to make them feel at home. My girlfriend, as a teen, was of Irish/Scottish/American descent and both her and my mother fell instantly in love. They were friends until my mother's passing.

We lost touch over the years, but had we stayed together, we would have had those kids of mixed race, and God help anyone who would have brought any kind of harm to one of them. I spoke of my upbringing not to foster any type of sympathy, but to illustrate a point. It shouldn't matter what you are, but who you are. I was born here (my country was "conquered" by the Americans, and so we are American citizens. But that's another point for another discussion) and raised by two women who mean everything to me - my mother and grandmother. They raised me right. I love this country, I believe in the Constitution, PERIOD.

You want to repeal the 14th Amendment. You have every right to pursue that goal.
Will that change things, probably, but I don't think it will. Why?, because we have too many knuckle heads who feel that they are better than anyone. Starting with that megalomaniac Trump. He is the epitome of what's wrong with this country.
Do you really think he is what he says? Do you think he's out to help the average American? Do you think he cares, really cares about women? Do you think, even for a moment, that he's cracked open a bible since he was a kid? Do you believe that deporting 11-12 million immigrants will actually help this country, in any form?

Fuck history! Let's look forward.........shall we!?

"The right-leaning American Action Forum calculated the cost of deporting 11 million people." from an article in The Atlantic, posted March 6, 2015.

"The answer, researchers found, is quite a lot, both to taxpayers and the economy more broadly. Removing all 11.2 million undocumented immigrants, both forcibly and through Mitt Romney's infamous "self-deportation" policy, would take about 20 years and cost the government between $400 billion and $600 billion. The impact on the economy would be even larger, according to the study: Real GDP would drop by nearly $1.6 trillion and the policy would shave 5.7 percent off economic growth. Researchers Laura Collins and Ben Gitis also write that their estimates are conservative, since they do not include, for example, the cost of constructing new courts, prisons, and other buildings that might be needed to process and detain millions of immigrants."

My figures were WAAAAYYYYY off. Below I'm attaching the link to the article.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/03/the-conservative-c
ase-against-enforcing-immigration-laws/387004/


SGG


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So, apparently, getting rid of exploitation and dominance isn't a good idea, because I'm not hearing any ringing endorsements of the idea???

Hey, yanno what?

We've all got dirt on our historic souls, expect maybe Brenda. But I get that the USA has got years of bad juju to make up for. My opinion is that unless the USA is willing to tackle the SOURCE of the problem ... ie, a history of maintaining "south of the border" as a colony for the convenience of our corporations and banks .... economic migration will keep on happening.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Saturday, August 29, 2015 5:03 AM

SHINYGOODGUY


I will not respond because we could go "tit for tat" until the Rapture and get nowhere.

Suffice it to say that this world has gotten smaller and that our problem as human beings is no longer isolated. What affects one, affects all.

Sending everyone back to where they came from to "reshuffle" the deck, will be that and nothing more. A reshuffling.

The world will keep on spinning and shrug us off at a moment's notice.


SGG

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Saturday, August 29, 2015 5:59 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
. . . we have too many knuckle heads who feel that they are better than anyone. Starting with that megalomaniac Trump. He is the epitome of what's wrong with this country.

Do you really think he is what he says? Do you think he's out to help the average American? Do you think he cares, really cares about women? Do you think, even for a moment, that he's cracked open a bible since he was a kid? Do you believe that deporting 11-12 million immigrants will actually help this country, in any form?
Business can deal with Trump's constant shifting by binding him with contracts. Voters will have no written contract with Trump. All his words before election are words that he can and will disown after inauguration. He has done that in real estate all his life. It is in Trump's book The Art of the Deal. Say whatever to close the deal because those spoken words evaporate away, leaving only the words in the contract. President Trump will be bound only by his innate character, not by his spoken campaign promises.

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Saturday, August 29, 2015 10:59 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
. . . we have too many knuckle heads who feel that they are better than anyone. Starting with that megalomaniac Trump. He is the epitome of what's wrong with this country.

Do you really think he is what he says? Do you think he's out to help the average American? Do you think he cares, really cares about women? Do you think, even for a moment, that he's cracked open a bible since he was a kid? Do you believe that deporting 11-12 million immigrants will actually help this country, in any form?
Business can deal with Trump's constant shifting by binding him with contracts. Voters will have no written contract with Trump. All his words before election are words that he can and will disown after inauguration. He has done that in real estate all his life. It is in Trump's book The Art of the Deal. Say whatever to close the deal because those spoken words evaporate away, leaving only the words in the contract. President Trump will be bound only by his innate character, not by his spoken campaign promises.


Trump is a scary guy. It's even scarier how many people are ready to follow him.

But what that means is that this society is coming apart at the seams. People are willing to scapegoat a relatively powerless group of people (illegal immigrants) who, while being "a" problem, are not THE problem. Assuming there are 10 million illegal immigrants in the USA, and that each one makes $10,000 per year (man, woman, and child) that only comes to $100 BUSD income, with nearly $0 in savings (wealth). In the grand scheme of the USA economy, that's not much.

The REAL problem is that group of ultrawealthy ... Gates, Soros, Dimon, Buffett, Ellison, the Koch bros, the Walton family etc and their troupe of merrie politicians - Dems and Repubs alike -who they've been buying since Bill Clinton days.

Surely, you won't find Trump pointing the finger at people like himself!

I hate to Godwin the thread, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law but I'm going to:

The closest analogy I can find to Trump is Hitler.

Who, BTW, was elected by the German population in times of extreme economic duress. (You may remember something about "hyperinflation"? It happened in Germany, right before Hitler was elected.) So yep, I "went there", all on my own. I think it's a close enough parallel to warrant being worried. USAns, for all their "freedom" bumper stickers, are notorious cowards who will bend over and go fascist any time they get a little frightened. Just look at how quickly people were willing to hand over their telecom privacy, to protect them from the big bad terrorists.

To go back to Trump, and what his popularity means. It means that the population of America is so thoroughly propagandized that they can't tell bullshit from beer. That a large part of the population has been so dumbed down (by religion, by adverts, by very poor education) that they will lap up even Trump-swill. It means there is a fairly large aggrieved group of people who feel that their interests aren't being represented ... that the bright promise of the Tea Party was thwarted by establishment (corporatist) Republicans, and that part of that betrayal is the internationalization of business and the loss of jobs. It means that for MANY people, the "economic recovery" is a mirage of phonied data (it is). But because they have been so trained to NOT respond to extreme differences in wealth ("more power to 'em" seems to be the response) Trump is able to capitalize on that inchoate and thwarted anger.

-----------

Which is why it's so hard to say ... yanno, Trump has a point there.

ANY nation needs to be able to control it's borders. Even with the BEST of intentions, it would be impossible to maintain economic and internal policies under a flood of immigrants. (Yes, I realize that Trump doesn't have the best of intentions.)

Now, we can discuss the problems and limitations of nationalism. Perhaps some of you think we should all be one big happy family together. But the reality is, unless we collectively have a say about our future - which we don't- all we will be is one big group of slaves together. Reforming a nation is possible, but reforming an international business- not so much.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Saturday, August 29, 2015 11:35 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Who, BTW, was elected by the German population in times of extreme economic duress. (You may remember something about "hyperinflation"? It happened in Germany, right before Hitler was elected.)
Bad history is very widely accepted out there. No, the 1923 hyperinflation didn’t bring Hitler to power ten years later; it was the Brüning deflation and depression in 1930-1932. Hard money and a gold standard obsession, not excessive money printing, was the proximate disaster.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_Republic#Br.C3.BCning.27s_policy_
of_deflation_.281930.E2.80.931932.29
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Which is why it's so hard to say ... yanno, Trump has a point there.

ANY nation needs to be able to control it's borders. Even with the BEST of intentions, it would be impossible to maintain economic and internal policies under a flood of immigrants. (Yes, I realize that Trump doesn't have the best of intentions.)
Why believe what Trump or any other Republican candidate says about immigration? They have had enough time since Reagan to shape immigration policy to your satisfaction and, in all that time, building a wall paid for by Mexico is as deep as their thinking goes. You need to know why they would do what they do and it is not a tidy explanation.

Donald Trump, with his multiple marriages and casinos, is the preferred candidate among Republican evangelicals. Others are shocked to see a crude mercantilist make so much headway in the alleged party of free markets. What happened to conservative principles?

Actually, nothing — because those alleged principles were never real. Conservative religiosity, conservative faith in markets, were never about living a godly life or letting the invisible hand promote entrepreneurship. Instead, it was all as Corey Robin describes it: Conservatism is “a reactionary movement, a defense of power and privilege against democratic challenges from below, particularly in the private spheres of the family and the workplace.”

It’s really about who’s boss, and making sure that the man in charge stays boss. Trump is admired for putting women and workers (and Mexicans) in their place, and it doesn’t matter if he covets his neighbor’s wife or demands trade wars.

The point is that Trump isn’t a diversion, he’s a revelation, bringing the real motivations of the movement out into the open. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/26/the-reactionary-soul/

Krugman, who wrote that, lives in NYC, out of Republican control, but I live in Texas and I'm sure Krugman correctly diagnosed the soul of the Republican Party, at least in my part of Texas.

With the particular Texas Republicans I'm familiar with, it is never about solving problems or clearly explaining your motives for what you are doing. And I'm talking about both GOP voters and politicians. It has always been about the GOP listening to demons whispering in their heads. So it is no surprise the GOP is attacking the weakest people in the USA. (I do know Republicans who are not afflicted with the strange mental quirks very common in Texas. They live in Lincoln, Nebraska.)

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Saturday, August 29, 2015 12:08 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Bad history is very widely accepted out there. No, the 1923 hyperinflation didn’t bring Hitler to power ten years later; it was the Brüning deflation and depression in 1930-1932. Hard money and a gold standard obsession, not excessive money printing, was the proximate disaster.
Hard money and the gold standard were a reaction to the hyperinflation of the Weimar era. And the Germans are STILL reacting to hyperinflation, which explains a lot about their policies towards Greece.

Quote:
Which is why it's so hard to say ... yanno, Trump has a point there. ANY nation needs to be able to control it's borders. Even with the BEST of intentions, it would be impossible to maintain economic and internal policies under a flood of immigrants. (Yes, I realize that Trump doesn't have the best of intentions.) -SIGNY

Why believe what Trump or any other Republican candidate says about immigration? They have had enough time since Reagan to shape immigration policy to your satisfaction and, in all that time, building a wall paid for by Mexico is as deep as their thinking goes. You need to know why they would do what they do and it is not a tidy explanation. -SECOND


Who says I believe what Trump says? I've been saying the same thing about immigration for years, on this forum. Here, from 2011:
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=19153&p=1
You really should check it out. This was when there were, like, 50X more participants on this website, and the discussion was quite robust. And the comments are real eye-openers.

My explanation of who promotes illegal immigration isn't tidy. There is a combination of exploitation (by corporations, farms, construction companies, garment manufacturers, households etc), guilt, and empathy. My SOLUTION to the problem isn't tidy either, and it sure doesn't involve building a wall, or deporting people en masse.

Quote:
KRUGMAN
Donald Trump, with his multiple marriages and casinos, is the preferred candidate among Republican evangelicals. Others are shocked to see a crude mercantilist make so much headway in the alleged party of free markets. What happened to conservative principles?

Actually, nothing — because those alleged principles were never real. Conservative religiosity, conservative faith in markets, were never about living a godly life or letting the invisible hand promote entrepreneurship. Instead, it was all as Corey Robin describes it: Conservatism is “a reactionary movement, a defense of power and privilege against democratic challenges from below, particularly in the private spheres of the family and the workplace.”

It’s really about who’s boss, and making sure that the man in charge stays boss. Trump is admired for putting women and workers (and Mexicans) in their place, and it doesn’t matter if he covets his neighbor’s wife or demands trade wars.

The point is that Trump isn’t a diversion, he’s a revelation, bringing the real motivations of the movement out into the open.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/26/the-reactionary-soul/

Krugman has been wrong about many things, including in his specialty (economics). He's a shill for the banks, as far as I can tell. In this particular assessment, I happen to agree with him.

Quote:
Krugman, who wrote that, lives in NYC, out of Republican control, but I live in Texas and I'm sure Krugman correctly diagnosed the soul of the Republican Party, at least in my part of Texas.

With Republicans, it is never about solving problems or clearly explaining your motives for what you are doing. And I'm talking about GOP voters and politicians. It has always been about the GOP listening to demons whispering in their heads. So it is no surprise the GOP is attacking the weakest people in the USA.


OTOH, you won't find Democrats actually solving our problems either. They are BOTH protecting the wealthy.

I heard a very interesting talk about Bill Clinton yesterday ... who I've already pointed out many times is one of the sources of many of our current economic problems (NAFTA, CAFTA, repealing Glass Steagall, signing Commodities Futures Modernization Act, "reforming" welfare, signing Digital Millennium copyright Act, signing Defense of Marriage Act) and this lawyer pointed out that under Reagan, over 1000 bankers went to jail for fraud because of the S&L crisis, but that Clinton invented "deferred prosecution" which allowed him to give "get out of jail free" cards to corporate abusers. It was Clinton's way of "moving to the middle" (i.e. settling comfortably into the oligarchy)... paying off Wall Street for continued flow of donations. And Obama and Hil the shill are the same. Don't expect them to do anything about widespread corruption of our political process, or to have your back!

MAYBE it's time that other candidates take the wind out of Trump's sails, and say ... "Yes, yanno what? Trump has got a point there. Maybe we should get rid of birthright citizenship and make English the official language, and in return we will regularize all of these longstanding, law-abiding residents by making them citizens"

It's a win-win, as far as I can tell.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Saturday, August 29, 2015 12:42 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


I don't understand the strong reaction against repealing the 14th. It was enacted to solve a particular problem, and that problem no longer exists. But it's causing its own problems now.

Perhaps it's because there are people who are thinking 'wow - if either, or both, of my parents would have had to become a citizen for me to be a citizen ... it might never have happened' ... ??? or 'why punish the children and keep them from the benefits of the US just because the parents are non-citizens' ... ???

I've read all the posts and I still can't get to an answer.

Maybe someone can explain to me what the problem is.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

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Saturday, August 29, 2015 2:02 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Bad history is very widely accepted out there. No, the 1923 hyperinflation didn’t bring Hitler to power ten years later; it was the Brüning deflation and depression in 1930-1932. Hard money and a gold standard obsession, not excessive money printing, was the proximate disaster.
Hard money and the gold standard were a reaction to the hyperinflation of the Weimar era. And the Germans are STILL reacting to hyperinflation, which explains a lot about their policies towards Greece.
This is so easy to shoot down. Whether or not you back down says everything about how clear you think. Did USA have hyperinflation to justify a gold standard? No, but it was also on the gold standard when Germany was. Circa 1930 key decision-makers in USA and Germany had spent years equating adherence to gold not just with prosperity, but with morality, decency, civilization itself, that they couldn’t even contemplate breaking with that orthodoxy — even in the face of total catastrophe. You know it was NOT a catastrophe when Roosevelt and Hitler ended the gold standard? You know why they did it if you know anything about how a nation's money supply works, right? Germany and the USA remain off the gold standard. There are simple reasons that have to do with the quantity of gold in existence.

Same applies to the 14th Amendment. It is equated with morality, decency, civilization itself, that they can’t even contemplate breaking with that orthodoxy — even in the face of total catastrophe.

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Saturday, August 29, 2015 9:15 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
This is so easy to shoot down. Whether or not you back down says everything about how clear you think. Did USA have hyperinflation to justify a gold standard? No, but it was also on the gold standard when Germany was. Circa 1930 key decision-makers in USA and Germany had spent years equating adherence to gold not just with prosperity, but with morality, decency, civilization itself, that they couldn’t even contemplate breaking with that orthodoxy — even in the face of total catastrophe. You know it was NOT a catastrophe when Roosevelt and Hitler ended the gold standard?


Wha... WHA???

Why are you throwing down the gauntlet on some irrelevant side issue (the gold standard)?

And what does this have to do with the 14th amendment?

I'm not an expert on German finance, my point was that the German economy was in extremis before WWII.

As far as the gold standard is concerned, the cause of hyperinflation in Germany is that it took itself OFF the gold standard before WWI. (World War One) Hyperinflation didn't hit until some time in the early 1920s. This is a quick gloss of what I understand happened at the time ...

Quote:

On the onset of the war, Germany made two critical financial mistakes: it took the mark off the gold standard and financed the war entirely through borrowing without raising taxes.

At the end of the war, Germany had its war debts and on top of those the reparations demanded by the Allies. The Mark fell from 1 US dollar to 8.91 Marks in 1918 to 1 US dollar to 60 Marks in 1921.

The Allied Reparations Commission insisted on payment in hard currency or foreign currency, not paper Marks. While Germany made its first reparations payment in June 1921, it did not have enough gold or foreign exchange reserves to cover the Versailles reparations or maintain faith in its war debt.

Germany began buying foreign currency to cover the reparations and entered into vicious circle, buying foreign currency drove the Mark down and the cost of covering the reparations up. The Mark slid to 330 Marks to 1 US dollar.

The bottom fell out when international negotiations on the war reparations failed. The Mark plunged to 8000 Marks to 1 US dollar. France, fearful that Germany would default on its war reparations, occupied the Ruhr and demanded repayment in goods if not in hard currency, touching off outrage and a general strike in Germany that further stoked hyperinflation as the Weimar government printed more money to cover striker’s salaries.

Hyperinflation was finally tamed by issuance of a new currency indirectly pegged to gold bonds. The Allies curbed their reparation demands and eventually forgave most of the war reparations it had imposed.

https://www.quora.com/What-were-the-causes-of-the-hyperinflation-in-th
e-Weimar-Republic

OK, so hyperinflation ends, but the economy tanks.

MOST empires - back to the days of Rome and Byzantium - and nations were on some sort of gold or silver standard until the development of international computerized banking.

ETA: The USA was founded on a silver standard, but wobbled back and forth between gold and silver (or both) throughout most of its history. There was, as I recall, a famous speech by Jennings Bryan about not crucifying mankind on a cross of gold (the gold standard), which was an argument to take the USA from the gold standard to a gold AND SILVER standard. What Roosevelt did was CONFISCATE gold. The USA didn't go off the gold standard until 1973 or thereabouts, under Nixon.

But the gold standard is not an answer to economic growth. Economic depressions have occurred during times of "hard money" as well as times of wildly inflating fiat money. There have been inflationary depressions as well as deflationary ones. The cause of depressions isn't what form of currency is being used, but its distribution (or concentration) throughout society, IMHO. It's a wonderful topic that deserves discussion.

But I have no idea what you're trying to say, I can't see any connection between the 14th Amendment and the gold standard.

So, what was your point? And can we get back to discussing the 14th Amendment, and immigration policy in general?



--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Saturday, August 29, 2015 11:52 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


The Corporate church teaches their flock to stand up in what you believe in and pound it into the non-believers brain until they succumb.

Oh, I forgot to reply SGG

What I find very very peculiar about x-tians is how often they refer to the ot and ignore the nt.

I belong to a credit union in a galaxy far, far away ... just kidding (of course). But the nearest branch is MILES away while the sister credit union - christian community cu - is less than a mile. So of course I go there.

One of the things that really caught my eye were the posters on the wall, all from the ot, about how you're supposed to work hard and be frugal with your money ... I've been so tempted to ask why they doesn't put up the quote beginning with 'regard the lilies of the field ...', or 'give up all you have and follow me ...', or 'it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle ...' or any number of examples where Jesus specifically said you were supposed to not focus on money.

Or, if you don't want to be a scold, and prefer to be positive, you could have two framed quotes on either side of the entrance 'love god above all else' and 'love your neighbor as yourself'.

But b/c they're a cu and not a bank, and ridiculously close by, I was curious about joining them. Apparently you can't be catholic or just claim to go to church. Nope. You have to be REGISTERED as a member in good stead of a very short list of congregations. Of course I thought about all the nt messages about loving your fellow man, and not focusing on the cinder in your brother's eye while ignoring the log in your own, he who is without sin .... and so on.

But at least the person who told me how much they excluded the wrong sort of people had the grace to look abashed, as if they had some dim awareness that, just maybe, that's not what jesus would do.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

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Monday, August 31, 2015 4:22 AM

SHINYGOODGUY


I've often heard or read this somewhere: you could go into church, but does church go into you. It took some thinking to understand what that meant, but I finally unraveled the meaning.

I think that many Christians still haven't gotten over the Bush Betrayal back in 2000 election. They have become far more political in modern times, and their catch phrase seems to be to put God back into America, sort of what Trump uses in his stumping campaign - Make American Great Again! This country was built on some basic principles and on religious freedom (which has come to mean something entirely different today).

It really irks me when these ignorant politicos use the Bible thumpers as so much canon fodder. They have totally distorted the meaning behind religious freedom, as described in the Constitution. They've become as bad as those ugly Americans that beat their chest and proclaim, to any who'll listen, "I'm American and better than all you peons from anywhere else."

They are the same ones who assume that our laws trumps (no pun intended, although it somehow fits perfectly) any of those overseas. Of course, that's a handful of people and doesn't represent the majority of good folk from here. Same goes for the evangelicals, it's just a handful of vocal people.


SGG


Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
The Corporate church teaches their flock to stand up in what you believe in and pound it into the non-believers brain until they succumb.

Oh, I forgot to reply SGG

What I find very very peculiar about x-tians is how often they refer to the ot and ignore the nt.

I belong to a credit union in a galaxy far, far away ... just kidding (of course). But the nearest branch is MILES away while the sister credit union - christian community cu - is less than a mile. So of course I go there.

One of the things that really caught my eye were the posters on the wall, all from the ot, about how you're supposed to work hard and be frugal with your money ... I've been so tempted to ask why they doesn't put up the quote beginning with 'regard the lilies of the field ...', or 'give up all you have and follow me ...', or 'it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle ...' or any number of examples where Jesus specifically said you were supposed to not focus on money.

Or, if you don't want to be a scold, and prefer to be positive, you could have two framed quotes on either side of the entrance 'love god above all else' and 'love your neighbor as yourself'.

But b/c they're a cu and not a bank, and ridiculously close by, I was curious about joining them. Apparently you can't be catholic or just claim to go to church. Nope. You have to be REGISTERED as a member in good stead of a very short list of congregations. Of course I thought about all the nt messages about loving your fellow man, and not focusing on the cinder in your brother's eye while ignoring the log in your own, he who is without sin .... and so on.

But at least the person who told me how much they excluded the wrong sort of people had the grace to look abashed, as if they had some dim awareness that, just maybe, that's not what jesus would do.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

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Monday, August 31, 2015 1:43 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


One of the things that really caught my eye were the posters on the wall, all from the ot, about how you're supposed to work hard and be frugal with your money ... I've been so tempted to ask why they doesn't put up the quote beginning with 'regard the lilies of the field ...', or 'give up all you have and follow me ...', or 'it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle ...' or any number of examples where Jesus specifically said you were supposed to not focus on money.

So, literally, just to be complete, when I was @ CCCU today I copied down the posters they prominently put up:
Remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the ability to produce wealth.
Deuteronomy 8:18
The wise man saves for the future, but the foolish man spends whatever he gets.
Proverbs 21:20 LB



I think it would have been more in keeping as followers of Christ to post:
Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
You must give up all you have and follow Me.



SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

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Monday, August 31, 2015 2:12 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


SGG

I've been watching The Incredible Dr. Pol on Nat Geo Wild, and for the moment I'll take the people in the show as accurate portrayals of the majority of rural people in the vast 'flyover' country from north to south. (Of course we don't see any alcoholism, addiction, spousal abuse, child abuse, shootings, family dysfunction, racism, sexism, religious imperialism, poverty, or other human ails. And, fwiw, I know there are many places where people pretend to be reasonable in front of strangers, but if they think you're one of them - and being a dumpy old white woman, they do - they'll let their hair down and talk about cleaning out the niggrahs or other impolite topics.)

As they're broadcast, they're basically kind, decent, hardworking, responsible and hospitable. Given that, what I see is a religion that's been meshed with rural culture, modern technology, consumerism, patriotism, politeness and propriety, cultivated ignorance, political conservatism, and thrift as one big blob, where people smoothly and easily transition between the obvious internal contradictions within their beliefs, depending on circumstance.

I don't find them bad people. But they seem extremely provincial in their perspective, and lacking the practice of examining their beliefs for meaning, and lacking in the practice of examining the meanings for coherency.

The message of Jesus was and is radical, and is diametrically opposed to our economic system.

And I don't begrudge people their beliefs. I just object to their assumptions - made without any attempt at looking into them - that they're the word of Jesus, they're holy, they bless all the people do, they're superior to other beliefs, and they give the people and their country license to trample on other people.

And also, their lack of reflection and easy self-regard makes them targets to manipulate. All you have to do is wave enough of the right words at them.


SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

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Monday, August 31, 2015 3:19 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


SGG

And finally, as a separate topic, since you seem to be the one most attached to the 14th amendment, I was wondering if you could explain to me what you find valuable in it. I believe you have beliefs, hopes ... good things attached to it. I was hoping you would tell me what they are.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

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Tuesday, September 1, 2015 10:57 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
SGG

I've been watching The Incredible Dr. Pol on Nat Geo Wild, and for the moment I'll take the people in the show as accurate portrayals of the majority of rural people in the vast 'flyover' country from north to south. (Of course we don't see any alcoholism, addiction, spousal abuse, child abuse, shootings, family dysfunction, racism, sexism, religious imperialism, poverty, or other human ails. And, fwiw, I know there are many places where people pretend to be reasonable in front of strangers, but if they think you're one of them - and being a dumpy old white woman, they do - they'll let their hair down and talk about cleaning out the niggrahs or other impolite topics.)

As they're broadcast, they're basically kind, decent, hardworking, responsible and hospitable. Given that, what I see is a religion that's been meshed with rural culture, modern technology, consumerism, patriotism, politeness and propriety, cultivated ignorance, political conservatism, and thrift as one big blob, where people smoothly and easily transition between the obvious internal contradictions within their beliefs, depending on circumstance.

I don't find them bad people. But they seem extremely provincial in their perspective, and lacking the practice of examining their beliefs for meaning, and lacking in the practice of examining the meanings for coherency.

The message of Jesus was and is radical, and is diametrically opposed to our economic system.

And I don't begrudge people their beliefs. I just object to their assumptions - made without any attempt at looking into them - that they're the word of Jesus, they're holy, they bless all the people do, they're superior to other beliefs, and they give the people and their country license to trample on other people.

And also, their lack of reflection and easy self-regard makes them targets to manipulate. All you have to do is wave enough of the right words at them.


I read your post alternating between chuckling and with my head in my hands. what I thought was profoundly revealing

But they seem extremely provincial in their perspective, and lacking the practice of examining their beliefs for meaning, and lacking in the practice of examining the meanings for coherency

and

their lack of reflection and easy self-regard makes them targets to manipulate. All you have to do is wave enough of the right words at them.

It could describe 99.9% of the people currently on this board.

It's late, and I have more to do. Later.


--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Tuesday, September 1, 2015 11:04 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by ElvisChrist:
You can, of course, eliminate birthright citizenship.

The only thing it takes is a constitutional amendment.

Think about it. We couldn't pass one for women's equality, but I'm sure more people hate immigrants than hate women (although a substantial portion - a majority, really - of conservatives hate both with a passion).


Constitutional Amendments are nothing more or less than a potential future scar.

Personally, I'm thrilled that on a National level the issue of Gay Marriage is being handled how it is, instead of how GWB promised voters it would be if they re-elected him in 2004, which was to prohibit it with a Constitutional Amendment. An Amendment that I'm quite certain would have been repealed by 2016.


This isn't Wikipedia... our Living, breathing document.....

Amendment XVIII

SECTION. 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.


Amendment XXI

SECTION. 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.



Forgive me for saying it, but that is a SCAR on a document so important.

IF GWB were to have successfully amended the constitution so that Gay Marriage was illegal in the US, it's almost certain that our next amendment would have read as follows:

Amendment XXIX

SECTION. 1. The twenty eighth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.




Let me ask you something....

Just how many times do you think this shit can happen before nobody believes in the document at all anymore?

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Wednesday, September 2, 2015 4:15 AM

SHINYGOODGUY


Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think it's happened since the repeal of Prohibition. But you make a valid point, Amendments should be left for matters of National importance and not treated lightly.

I agree that, although the Gay Rights issue is of National concern, it was handled appropriately. Sometimes these issues are better off being handled through the courts, especially that our country is known as being a country of laws. My other thought is that Congress has failed miserably at effectively guiding the nation.

In order for government to work, there must be some form of common sense. I don't see a great abundance of that at the moment.


SGG


Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:
Originally posted by ElvisChrist:
You can, of course, eliminate birthright citizenship.

The only thing it takes is a constitutional amendment.

Think about it. We couldn't pass one for women's equality, but I'm sure more people hate immigrants than hate women (although a substantial portion - a majority, really - of conservatives hate both with a passion).


Constitutional Amendments are nothing more or less than a potential future scar.

Personally, I'm thrilled that on a National level the issue of Gay Marriage is being handled how it is, instead of how GWB promised voters it would be if they re-elected him in 2004, which was to prohibit it with a Constitutional Amendment. An Amendment that I'm quite certain would have been repealed by 2016.


This isn't Wikipedia... our Living, breathing document.....

Amendment XVIII

SECTION. 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.


Amendment XXI

SECTION. 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.



Forgive me for saying it, but that is a SCAR on a document so important.

IF GWB were to have successfully amended the constitution so that Gay Marriage was illegal in the US, it's almost certain that our next amendment would have read as follows:

Amendment XXIX

SECTION. 1. The twenty eighth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.




Let me ask you something....

Just how many times do you think this shit can happen before nobody believes in the document at all anymore?

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Wednesday, September 2, 2015 5:03 AM

SHINYGOODGUY


I must start out by saying a couple of things as background for my prior comments:

1: When I was a kid in the Catholic religion, I had questions and doubts, but I didn't dare succumb to them. I thought I would go to Hell.

2: As an adult, I did question, but at one point decided to please others and made an attempt at becoming a Christian

3: But I have always, since I was a kid (around 11-12 years old) had doubts as to the validity of my fellow man keeping the faith. And so therefore, concluded that
this was better left to those who's heart was firmly entrenched in that belief system.

I deduced that this is how God made me, and therein lies the paradox of my belief and the system. The Corporate church and man. This is a simplified version of that, but, suffice to say, it is a complicated subject.

I agree in principle that Christians oftentimes, take matters quite literally when it comes to scripture. It has been my contention of late, that faith and science often contradict each other. Faith is a matter of belief, and to me it is a sacred bond of trust between the individual and God. That is MY belief. No one can tell another how to believe in God. Science is something that is measured and calculated, faith is not.

Can I tell you there is no God? No, because it's a matter of faith, not science.
Yet, this is what I find many Christians doing, telling people they MUST go to church or they will burn in Hell. Really!? And you know this how? Because the Bible tells me so, they often reply. But if that person doesn't believe it to be so, well, they won't believe it. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. If he's not thirsty, he won't drink. Christians think it's so simple, but that relationship with God is, for me, private and individual.

As far as that other thing goes; people being hospitable and accommodating, then suddenly turning into Trumps............well, there's precedent for that type of behavior. I came across some reading that described how back in 1920s & 30s Californians prejudged people from Oklahoma - I'm talking white folk vs. white folk - because the Californians felt the "Okies" were slightly inbred. They didn't want "their kind" mixing in with Californians. Imagine what they thought of Mexicans and Blacks. They also tried mass deportation, but in a unique way. Not through government so much, but through organized social measures - local police, sheriffs and general people forcing them out of jobs and pressuring them to voluntarily leave. They "encouraged" bosses to hire whites only, etc.

These measures are then justified by finding scripture to proclaim righteousness. All wrapped up in a pretty neat bow. To me organized religion, for the most part, is a sham.

But, having said that, I must say, this Pope surprises me.


SGG


Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
SGG

I've been watching The Incredible Dr. Pol on Nat Geo Wild, and for the moment I'll take the people in the show as accurate portrayals of the majority of rural people in the vast 'flyover' country from north to south. (Of course we don't see any alcoholism, addiction, spousal abuse, child abuse, shootings, family dysfunction, racism, sexism, religious imperialism, poverty, or other human ails. And, fwiw, I know there are many places where people pretend to be reasonable in front of strangers, but if they think you're one of them - and being a dumpy old white woman, they do - they'll let their hair down and talk about cleaning out the niggrahs or other impolite topics.)

As they're broadcast, they're basically kind, decent, hardworking, responsible and hospitable. Given that, what I see is a religion that's been meshed with rural culture, modern technology, consumerism, patriotism, politeness and propriety, cultivated ignorance, political conservatism, and thrift as one big blob, where people smoothly and easily transition between the obvious internal contradictions within their beliefs, depending on circumstance.

I don't find them bad people. But they seem extremely provincial in their perspective, and lacking the practice of examining their beliefs for meaning, and lacking in the practice of examining the meanings for coherency.

The message of Jesus was and is radical, and is diametrically opposed to our economic system.

And I don't begrudge people their beliefs. I just object to their assumptions - made without any attempt at looking into them - that they're the word of Jesus, they're holy, they bless all the people do, they're superior to other beliefs, and they give the people and their country license to trample on other people.

And also, their lack of reflection and easy self-regard makes them targets to manipulate. All you have to do is wave enough of the right words at them.


SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

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Wednesday, September 2, 2015 9:23 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:

. . . Christians oftentimes, take matters quite literally . . .
The Simpsons "PREDICTED" a Donald Trump presidency

The Vigilant Christian wrote on Aug 27, 2015
Quote:
Once again the Simpsons have been caught brainwashing the masses with more satanic predictive programming. In this video we look at how Donald Trump became President in an episode that also featured the first woman president being Lisa (Hilary). Wake Up! Please share this video! God Bless, STAY VIGILANT & FEAR NO EVIL !!!



The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Thursday, September 3, 2015 12:21 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


So, as I mentioned several times already, there is a similar refugee crisis in the EU, which is being flooded by refugees from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan (in eastern Europe) and Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Mali etc in western Europe. The flood of needy, desperate people is engendering two immediate responses

Pity the poor refugees! and Keep them out, our lifeboat's already full.

How can anyone possibly have any reasonable solutions ... or even intelligent discussion... on the problems of refugees, mass migrations, and immigration unless we get past REACTING to the situation and get to analyzing the causes and therefore coming up with a plan???

Even with the DIRECT cause of the immigration crisis in the immediate rearview mirror, has no one in Europe realized that these people are fleeing nations which were destroyed by the USA, with the willing and at times even gleeful help of France (Libya) and the Coalition of the Willing/ Billing/ Shilling* (Afghanistan and Iraq) and the anti-Assad forces (Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the EU)?

Does anyone think that the clusterfuck that was generated (and is continuing) across the Middle East and North Africa ... with blowback in the form of millions of refugees across the Middle East and hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants/ refugees in Europe ... is preferable to the situation that was? How is our "intervention" helping anyone?

Oh, that's right- it isn't.

The clusterfuck that the USA generated was done for geopolitical reasons, and all of the lies and rationalizations for our "interventions" such as being "pro-democracy" or for "R2P" or against "WMD" or for "free enterprise" or "fighting terrorism" have blown away in the winds of reality and left the truth naked for anyone who cares to see: there was no thought at all for the betterment of the nations so destroyed, or for the people who lived in therein. And therefore, a refugee crisis.

So now the EU has a refugee crisis which it had a hand in creating... altho several of the impacted nations are relatively blameless in the grand scheme of things*, like Greece and Austria, who wisely stepped back from the military-esque idiocy.

I read an interesting solution to the refugee crisis in the EU:

Send them all to Brussels, which is the HQ not only of the EU but of NATO. Let those who created the problem have to deal with the consequences, starting with Britain and France.

-----------

Which brings me to the USA and it's illegal immigration problem: There is a saying about Mexico, pointing out the USA's hand in reducing Mexico to poverty: Poor Mexico, so far from God ... and so close to the USA.

The USA's "illegal immigrant crisis" is a self-created problem, at least partly. IF the USA had not actively and violently blocked grassroots development movements, and had the USA not actively and violently supported banks, big business, the ultra-wealthy, and the military dictatorships required to enforce such extremes in wealth ...

Had the USA not roped and hogtied these nations into "free trade" agreement which stripped everyone except the very wealthy of their jobs...

We would not now be facing such a problem. And if we did, we would not feel any sort of moral obligation to make up for "our" bad behavior (altho the USA population had fuck-all to do with it).

-----

Which brings me back to a line of poetry that has really stuck with me, and serves as something of a touchstone for how I look at economics ...

"Pity would be no more, if we did not MAKE somebody poor" - William Blake

During the industrialization of England, many cottagers were tossed off their land and reduced to either working on plantations or scrabbling for jobs in the grimy underbelly of cities, so that SOME people (textile magnates, landholders, railroad magnates, shippers, etc) could get fabulously wealthy. The wealthy of the day would at times "pity" the poor, and set up trivial alms-giving operations, altho they never cared so much as to disturb the source of their power and wealth. It's like Bill Gates and his foundation. But if those people hadn't fostered a system which robbed the population of its wealth and power to begin with, there wouldn't be a need for pity.

Or, to take a line from the Hippocratic Oath

"First, do no harm"

Instead of trying to spread our way of life/ democracy (typically at the point of a gun or the end of a bomb) maybe if we just STOPPED fucking people up all over the world, the whole world would be a happier more prosperous place.

Because IMHO, if you have to enforce your ideology at the point of a gun on masses of people, it must not have been a very good one to begin with. Or see my tagline.

Not screwing nations over and making their situation a living hell ... How about if we not do that?? Since the USA is the largest military in the world and the largest military bootprint, it stands to reason that we have the largest hand in creating the current problems. We would probably do more good by doing NOTHING than by all the well-intentioned (well-intentioned by the populace, anyway) meddling that we've done over the past 70 years.





*Coaliton of the Willing/ Billing/ Shilling to destroy Iraq
Afghanistan, Albania, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom, Uzbekistan, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Kuwait, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Mongolia, Palau, Portugal, Rwanda, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Uganda.

--------------

You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Thursday, September 3, 2015 3:59 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
-----

Which brings me back to a line of poetry that has really stuck with me, and serves as something of a touchstone for how I look at economics ...

"Pity would be no more, if we did not MAKE somebody poor" - William Blake
You are assuming that most Europeans truly care what happens to Muslim refugees from Syria, Libya, or wherever. I have an example of people pretending to care, slightly, but caring not enough to expend their own money. When slavery in the Northern States of the USA was no longer acceptable, most slave owners did not free their slaves. They sold their slaves to Southerners. That is how much Northerners cared about real people who were their slaves – not enough to avoid a going out of business slave sale. Money triumphs over morality.

Getting back to Trump. When you hear of his plans for America, take note that Donald Trump has lost between $1 and $6 billion over his business career. No one knows how much was lost because Trump is a liar about his net worth, as pointed out in detail by Forbes, Bloomberg, NYTimes reporter, banks, courts, et etc.. www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/09/donald-trump-has-lost-between-1
-and-6-billion-over-his-business-career

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Friday, September 4, 2015 4:20 AM

SHINYGOODGUY


My response to this paragraph of your contribution is literally a perfect match:

"And I don't begrudge people their beliefs. I just object to their assumptions - made without any attempt at looking into them - that they're the word of Jesus, they're holy, they bless all the people do, they're superior to other beliefs, and they give the people and their country license to trample on other people."

This is what I find most troubling about religion, and particularly, the Christian religion. The assumption that they're right and the rest of the world is wrong and going to hell. They don't pause and say "what if they don't believe as I do," it's as though it never occurred to them that someone may have a different thought on the matter.

It is arrogant and subject to hubris, and I equate it to the mentality exhibited by such regimes as ISIS and those fascists in Syria. They are in the midst of "cleaning" their country of all who think differently than they do. It is a type of colonial mentality that threatens to rewrite history for the worse, and rearrange the cultures of the world. The type of thinking that leads to mass murder and the lowest common denominator. I was once told that I MUST go to church to be saved and go to heaven, and to be able to communicate with God.

I told my friend, "isn't God everywhere, and doesn't he know your innermost thoughts." Then if I choose to commune with God in private and seek his presence
in other than the church, well that's between me and Him. It is a matter of choice.


SGG

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Friday, September 4, 2015 8:13 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:

This is what I find most troubling about religion, and particularly, the Christian religion. The assumption that they're right and the rest of the world is wrong and going to hell.
You are blaming America's religiousness when the fault is in America's love of Freedom.

If there's one thing America loves, it's... well, war. But if there's two things America loves, it's war and torture. But if there's three things America loves, it's war, torture, and genocide. But if there are several dozen things America loves, they are war, torture, genocide, chattel slavery, apartheid, assassination, poverty, institutionalized bribery, remote-controlled flying death robots and somewhere down the list, between prison labor and lagoons of toxic hog manure, there is almost certainly a special place in America's heart for Freedom. Take Libya for example.

And so it was that the United States was fighting to free the Libyan people from the Libyan people by killing the Libyan people. The situation was fairly straightforward, after all - Libya faced a humanitarian crisis, and the only way to address a humanitarian crisis was to bomb it with hundreds of cruise missiles. I'm told that the American Red Cross delivered bottled water and medical supplies by duct-taping them to the nose cone of outgoing Tomahawks. More importantly, the Libyan people were oppressed by a bloodthirsty dictator - a dictator who killed his own people - and the least America could do was kill those people itself. How, I ask, could America stand idly by and allow people to be slaughtered by a ruthless tyrant when America could be slaughtering them instead?

You may ask, what makes getting killed by America any better than getting killed by Qaddafi? Because America was killing for a great American cause, in the name of Americanness. Libyans, in their last moments, as their houses were burnt and their schools destroyed and their neighbors incinerated and their families turned into hamburger, came to know American values of liberty and of Freedom.

Labels: eaters of the dead, everybody loves a winner http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/humanitarians-of-year.html

www.deviantart.com/art/Firefly-crew-558045286

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Friday, September 4, 2015 10:58 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Which brings me back to a line of poetry that has really stuck with me, and serves as something of a touchstone for how I look at economics ...

"Pity would be no more, if we did not MAKE somebody poor" - William Blake =SIGNY

You are assuming that most Europeans truly care what happens to Muslim refugees from Syria, Libya, or wherever. I have an example of people pretending to care, slightly, but caring not enough to expend their own money. When slavery in the Northern States of the USA was no longer acceptable, most slave owners did not free their slaves. They sold their slaves to Southerners. That is how much Northerners cared about real people who were their slaves – not enough to avoid a going out of business slave sale. Money triumphs over morality.


One of us isn't understanding the other. Do you think that I'm saying that Europeans have to run around with their panties in a twist?

I'm saying that if Europeans (and Americans) want to avoid immigration crisis in the future, they should do .... NOTHING .... militarily, at least.

Yep, NOTHING.

Save their blood, sweat, tears, cash, bodies, bombs, and bullets and sit it out. Yeah, I know it's hard to sit back when the internet and MSM is blaring "Remember the Maine!" or "Do you want the next smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud?" or Responsibility to protect!" but there is only ONE use of force that makes any sense, and that it when there's a IMMEDIATE threat to national security ... And no, I don't mean a threat 8,000 miles away.

If the USA and the EU had simply REFRAINED from destroying four large secular middle east nations (one of which - Libya- was the most prosperous and developed nation in Africa) FOR NO GOOD REASON WHATSOEVER, the EU would not NOW be facing an "immigration crisis".

I'm not suggesting sacrifice and care, rather,

I'm suggesting a future of targeted indolence and self-interest. That's something we could be good at!

We run into trouble when TPTB provoke and bedevil us into thinking that destroying someplace is a good cause. We do more harm under impression that we're doing great good than if we just said "What the hell, we're taking their oil"! (Just as an aside, RAPPY used to point out that Saddam gassed 8000 Kurds, which made him a brutal dictator. Well, we killed a million Iraqis, so what does that make us?)

As far as the current immigration crisis is concerned, I think the responsibility for taking in these refugees should be in proportion to each nation's involvement in the destruction of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya (which had a terrible follow-on effect of scattering jihadists south and west into Africa, as well as northeast into Syria, putting Mali, Chad, Tunisia etc at risk) Yemen, and Sudan, and the ongoing efforts to destroy Syria. ("Because Assad", yanno?)

I would add up the military contribution of each of the nations involved: The USA, England, France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the remainder of the "coalition of the willing/billing/shilling" ... and make each of those nations take a proportionate number of refugees. From the USA all the way down to Palau. That's on the basis of whoever cause the problem should bear the cost.


Quote:
Getting back to Trump. When you hear of his plans for America, take note that Donald Trump has lost between $1 and $6 billion over his business career. No one knows how much was lost because Trump is a liar about his net worth, as pointed out in detail by Forbes, Bloomberg, NYTimes reporter, banks, courts, et etc..


The interesting argument that I heard is that Trump would be a great President for the USA because he knows how to declare bankruptcy, since he's done it so many times before. And since, under the collective wisdom of the former Republicans and Democrats in office, the USA is technically BROKE by a few trillion dollars, and has been so for the past... since whenever ... maybe we should try something new and declare insolvency. It's not like the previous Presidents and Congress have done any better than Trump, since they unerringly steered the ship of state into insolvency!

Trust me, I'm not for Trump. But I don't think that the intelligentsia has any idea of just how RIDICULOUS the past ten Presidents have been; they may not sound as bizarre as Trump, but look at where we are now and ask yourself how we got into this ludicrous mess?

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Friday, September 4, 2015 11:59 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Ok, one more follow-on thought.

Once we STOP FUCKING PEOPLE OVER AND MAKING THEIR NATIONS A LIVING HELL, and once we stop creating the main source of refugees, we can, if we wish, go on to actually HELPING other nations deal with other causes of mass migration and refugee creation, and that includes water shortages (the initial cause of Syrian unrest was a drought which destroyed the livelihoods of farmers throughout northeast Syria), climate shift, natural disaster (I don't include climate change as a natural disaster since we did that all by ourselves!), overpopulation, and lack of opportunity.

But not with the military. NEVER using the military, because .... REALLY, because .... no, REALLY REALLY because ...


You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Saturday, September 5, 2015 12:47 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


SGG

Thanks for your post about religion.

The one thing I find is true about all religious teachings is that they are based on a self-contradiction that goes like this
1) god/s are unknowable and powerful
2) but we've got it figured out so you need to do what we say.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

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Tuesday, September 8, 2015 10:22 PM

SHINYGOODGUY


No, don't put words in my mouth. Religion is not exclusively an American problem, but, having said that, it was my contention that, in America, the Christian religion has lost it's collective mind. They have strayed, far and away, from the teachings of Christ and God.

Gone is the belief that we are all God's creation, and that his plan calls for unconditional love:

John 3:16 - For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

You always hear of this passage, this Bible verse, that so fittingly describes the true meaning of the religion. But, it has been perverted, like so many religions throughout the world. You have a handful of people wishing to impose their interpretation of religion.

Gone too is the belief we were all created in his image. For he so loved the World; not just whites, or brown, red or even yellow people. The World. It used to mean something profound.........and now they're just words. And that "whoever believes in him" has come to mean something so different than it's original meaning. Christians want to convert the non-believers, come hell or high water, and if you don't succumb, they force their so-called belief down your throat by subjecting others to God's Law regardless of commitment.

Is it the only problem in America? Far from it.

Freedom is only perfect when the people fight for it. We may not always achieve it, but that shouldn't stop us from trying.

Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's.

SGG


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:

This is what I find most troubling about religion, and particularly, the Christian religion. The assumption that they're right and the rest of the world is wrong and going to hell.
You are blaming America's religiousness when the fault is in America's love of Freedom.

If there's one thing America loves, it's... well, war. But if there's two things America loves, it's war and torture. But if there's three things America loves, it's war, torture, and genocide. But if there are several dozen things America loves, they are war, torture, genocide, chattel slavery, apartheid, assassination, poverty, institutionalized bribery, remote-controlled flying death robots and somewhere down the list, between prison labor and lagoons of toxic hog manure, there is almost certainly a special place in America's heart for Freedom. Take Libya for example.

And so it was that the United States was fighting to free the Libyan people from the Libyan people by killing the Libyan people. The situation was fairly straightforward, after all - Libya faced a humanitarian crisis, and the only way to address a humanitarian crisis was to bomb it with hundreds of cruise missiles. I'm told that the American Red Cross delivered bottled water and medical supplies by duct-taping them to the nose cone of outgoing Tomahawks. More importantly, the Libyan people were oppressed by a bloodthirsty dictator - a dictator who killed his own people - and the least America could do was kill those people itself. How, I ask, could America stand idly by and allow people to be slaughtered by a ruthless tyrant when America could be slaughtering them instead?

You may ask, what makes getting killed by America any better than getting killed by Qaddafi? Because America was killing for a great American cause, in the name of Americanness. Libyans, in their last moments, as their houses were burnt and their schools destroyed and their neighbors incinerated and their families turned into hamburger, came to know American values of liberty and of Freedom.

Labels: eaters of the dead, everybody loves a winner http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/humanitarians-of-year.html

www.deviantart.com/art/Firefly-crew-558045286

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Tuesday, September 8, 2015 10:47 PM

SHINYGOODGUY


Water, or the lack of, will be the next great resource that will be at the center of the next World War.

No, religion is the driving force behind the latest mass exodus. And climate change is a natural disaster affected by the knuckleheads who refuse to listen to scientists, plus the lack of governments getting involved and affecting change.


SGG


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Ok, one more follow-on thought.

Once we STOP FUCKING PEOPLE OVER AND MAKING THEIR NATIONS A LIVING HELL, and once we stop creating the main source of refugees, we can, if we wish, go on to actually HELPING other nations deal with other causes of mass migration and refugee creation, and that includes water shortages (the initial cause of Syrian unrest was a drought which destroyed the livelihoods of farmers throughout northeast Syria), climate shift, natural disaster (I don't include climate change as a natural disaster since we did that all by ourselves!), overpopulation, and lack of opportunity.

But not with the military. NEVER using the military, because .... REALLY, because .... no, REALLY REALLY because ...


You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Tuesday, September 8, 2015 11:04 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
Water, or the lack of, will be the next great resource that will be at the center of the next World War.



NO matter what anyone says, SGG.....

WATER is everything.

WATER is eternal.

Anyone who is preaching otherwise is naive....

There's a new world coming....




It's like this, but "I'm going Thirsty"

(Eddie and Scott before Pearl Jam and Soundarden)

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Wednesday, September 9, 2015 7:43 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


“When you start studying yourself too deeply, you start seeing things that maybe you don’t want to see,” Mr. Trump once told Time. “And if there’s a rhyme and reason,” he continued, “people can figure you out, and once they can figure you out, you’re in big trouble.”

Donald Trump on why he never served in Vietnam:

“My number was so incredible, and it was a very high draft number. Anyway, so I never had to do that, but I felt that I was in the military in the true sense because I dealt with those people.”
www.nytimes.com/2015/09/09/us/politics/donald-trump-likens-his-schooli
ng-to-military-service-in-book.html

If it's Donald Trump's lottery number, then it's just got to be the very best. Low draft numbers are for losers.

And Trump's service at the New York Military Academy, an expensive prep school for boys, is military service "in the true sense". Trump served his country as 13 year old and thus he should be Commander-in-Chief.

Proud little soldier Donald Trump can be seen in uniform at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3168648/Donald-Trump-pictured-
uniform-cadet-captain-dodged-Vietnam-draft-four-deferments-bone-spur.html

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Friday, September 11, 2015 2:33 AM

SHINYGOODGUY


It's not just the 14th Amendment, it's the Constitution in it's entirety. It is the document and it's people following the tenants of that document that make this country great, but mostly it's the people. The huddled masses yearning to be free.

Yes, I believe in that hokum, partially because there's a modicum of truth in it. We are a great nation of immigrants, a nation of travelers from throughout the world. All striving towards one goal - FREEDOM. Everything else is just plain BULLSHIT!

Now, if the Amendment is to be changed or modified, then I say change and modify the lot. How is it that the 14th is deemed obsolete, inadequate and stale but the 2nd is not? Both were written at a time in our history that is quite different from today's. The 2nd Amendment was ratified in 1791. Do you think that it may be stale and inadequate in regards to modern times? It talks of militias and state rights rather than it's import to the nation. The right of the people to keep and bear arms, is that really necessary in today's America? The language in the amendment was deliberately left vague and ambiguous. Why? Whom did it serve? What does this portend? What was going on in our country in 1791, that prompted it's creation?

Are we a nation of freedom? We must look closely at the history of our nation to determine the cause and the affect of these, and other, amendments. Trump obviously is playing to the crowd, but what of the affect of the 14th Amendment or of the Bill of Rights? No, I say leave them alone or review and change them all, to address the needs of the nation and match those in modern times.

This revolution is far from over.


SGG


Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
SGG

And finally, as a separate topic, since you seem to be the one most attached to the 14th amendment, I was wondering if you could explain to me what you find valuable in it. I believe you have beliefs, hopes ... good things attached to it. I was hoping you would tell me what they are.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

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Friday, September 11, 2015 9:34 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
It's not just the 14th Amendment, it's the Constitution in it's entirety.

Now, if the Amendment is to be changed or modified, then I say change and modify the lot.
I think a completely new constitution in an old country is a very strong risk for disaster rather than improvement. Old constitutions are rewritten after old governments are defeated in war or revolution. Those are the most likely events before the U.S. Constitution is completely rewritten.

A rewritten constitution is likely to be similar to the existing constitution, but worse, following the path of the Constitution of the Confederate States; March 11, 1861.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_csa.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_States_Constitution#Slavery

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Friday, September 11, 2015 12:46 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
It's not just the 14th Amendment, it's the Constitution in it's entirety. It is the document and it's people following the tenants of that document that make this country great, but mostly it's the people. The huddled masses yearning to be free.

Yes, I believe in that hokum, partially because there's a modicum of truth in it. We are a great nation of immigrants, a nation of travelers from throughout the world. All striving towards one goal - FREEDOM. Everything else is just plain BULLSHIT!
SGG, I believe that you're a well-intentioned guy who just wants the best for people, and what I would like to know is... what do you mean by "freedom"?

What are people trying to leave behind ... specifically? Or what are they aiming for, specifically? Examples would be great, because I seem to understand best thru understanding the details.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Friday, September 11, 2015 1:08 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

SGG, I believe that you're a well-intentioned guy who just wants the best for people, and what I would like to know is... what do you mean by "freedom"?
"some Republicans can be accused of loving liberty and freedom too much — or at least using those words as rhetorical crutches. Donald Trump is not one of them. The current GOP presidential front-runner rarely uses the words “freedom” or “liberty” in his remarks at all. Trump didn’t use the words “freedom” or “liberty” in his announcement speech. He didn’t use those words in his Nashville speech on August 29, or his Nashville rally on August 21, or his appearance at the Iowa State Fair on August 15, or his rally and news conference in New Hampshire on August 14, or his news conference in Birch Run, Mich., or his press conference in Laredo, Texas, on July 23. He didn’t use those words while discussing his signing of the Republican National Committee’s pledge last Thursday, or in his contentious interview with Hugh Hewitt the same day."

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/423819/donald-trump-speeches-no-
liberty-freedom

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Saturday, September 12, 2015 10:16 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
My understanding of Freedom and the forming of the United States was to get away from religious persecution and the ability to make a better life for themselves and their children.-BRENDA

What you describe, Brenda, could perhaps be better described as opportunity. BTW- when you read the histories of the Founding Fathers (the signers of the Constitution) you will realize that very few actually came to the colonies for religious freedom.

That may have been true of some of the northeastern colonies, which were settled by Puritans, and Pennsylvania which was settled by Quakers, but MOST of the FF were plantation owners, merchants, bankers, businessmen, landowners/speculators, and adventurers. Many of them were looking for "freedom" ... not from persecution, but from the East India Trading Company (a Crown Corporation) and from an aristocracy which already owned all of the land in Europe. Washington himself stood to gain a lot of land (for speculation purposes) since he was the surveyor of the Ohio Valley. The thing that was holding him back was the British King, who wanted to keep the land for the natives.

In fact, I think land ownership (for the little guy) and land speculation (for the wealthy) was the big drawing card.


Quote:
"some Republicans can be accused of loving liberty and freedom too much — or at least using those words as rhetorical crutches. Donald Trump is not one of them. The current GOP presidential front-runner rarely uses the words “freedom” or “liberty” in his remarks at all.- SECOND
I guess Trump isn't as dishonest as some people make him out to be. Usually, when a politician uses the word "freedom" it's to promote the something else entirely. Entirely overused by TPTB.

Still I'm sure SGG has something in mind, and for him it's an honest and passionate statement of belief and not a catch-phrase, and I wonder what that might be.


--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Sunday, September 13, 2015 10:39 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Don't think I knew about Washington and the Ohio Valley. Excuse me for saying this but I just can't believe that the British Crown wanted the land for the American Indian there.
East India Company for you and in Canada it was the Hudson Bay. Land and furs in Canada.


BRENDA

I recall reading that the reason King George didn't want to disturb the Iroquois people isn't because he was such a grand guy, but he was fighting the French, and since the French were allied with the Hurons, he allied with the Iroquois Five (then Six) Nations. Call it a proxy war.

Quote:
During the French and Indian War (the North American frontier of the Seven Years' War), the Iroquois sided with the British against the French and their Algonquian allies, who were traditional enemies. The Iroquois hoped that aiding the British would also bring favors after the war. Few Iroquois warriors joined the campaign. In the Battle of Lake George, a group of Catholic Mohawk (from Kahnawake) and French forces ambushed a Mohawk-led British column; the Mohawk were deeply disturbed as they had created their confederacy for peace among the peoples and had not had warfare against each other.

After the war, to protect their alliance, the British government issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763, forbidding Anglo-European (white) settlements beyond the Appalachian Mountains. Colonists largely ignored the order, and the British had insufficient soldiers to enforce it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroquois


It was a complicated time, but the settlers were on the whole much more anti-First Nation than King George, because the natives were directly defending their land and resources against the white folk, and King George was far, far away.


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Sunday, September 13, 2015 10:42 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
It's not just the 14th Amendment, it's the Constitution in it's entirety. It is the document and it's people following the tenants of that document that make this country great, but mostly it's the people. The huddled masses yearning to be free.

Yes, I believe in that hokum, partially because there's a modicum of truth in it. We are a great nation of immigrants, a nation of travelers from throughout the world. All striving towards one goal - FREEDOM. Everything else is just plain BULLSHIT!
SGG? Care to elaborate on what you mean by "freedom"?

SECOND
I was just scrolling up. Hey, how did I miss this gem???

Quote:
You are blaming America's religiousness when the fault is in America's love of Freedom.

If there's one thing America loves, it's... well, war. But if there's two things America loves, it's war and torture. But if there's three things America loves, it's war, torture, and genocide. But if there are several dozen things America loves, they are war, torture, genocide, chattel slavery, apartheid, assassination, poverty, institutionalized bribery, remote-controlled flying death robots and somewhere down the list, between prison labor and lagoons of toxic hog manure, there is almost certainly a special place in America's heart for Freedom. Take Libya for example.

And so it was that the United States was fighting to free the Libyan people from the Libyan people by killing the Libyan people. The situation was fairly straightforward, after all - Libya faced a humanitarian crisis, and the only way to address a humanitarian crisis was to bomb it with hundreds of cruise missiles. I'm told that the American Red Cross delivered bottled water and medical supplies by duct-taping them to the nose cone of outgoing Tomahawks. More importantly, the Libyan people were oppressed by a bloodthirsty dictator - a dictator who killed his own people - and the least America could do was kill those people itself. How, I ask, could America stand idly by and allow people to be slaughtered by a ruthless tyrant when America could be slaughtering them instead?

You may ask, what makes getting killed by America any better than getting killed by Qaddafi? Because America was killing for a great American cause, in the name of Americanness. Libyans, in their last moments, as their houses were burnt and their schools destroyed and their neighbors incinerated and their families turned into hamburger, came to know American values of liberty and of Freedom.


I laughed my ass off thru the whole thing! That, and I had my head in my hands too!

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Monday, September 14, 2015 3:43 AM

SHINYGOODGUY


FREEDOM!

That something in mind is a little thing called "The American Dream." It is as elusive as it is undefined, but I'll take a crack at it. It is somewhat religious freedom, but it's more an ideal. A place whereby our dreams, both individually and collectively, we can pursue and fulfill our needs and wants. That's very general and somewhat simplistic but it's my overall take on freedom. Both as a people and as individuals we can pursue what will make us, and those close to us, happy.

For example: we can worship as we please, without fear of control or retribution. That's freedom. This nonsense of religious "persecution" that folks like Huckabee and others on the right have conjured, is such a farce. They want to impose on others what "they" feel is right for everyone. That, to me, is the opposite of freedom. How can you force me to believe as you do? Or, for that matter, worship and follow your rule of law under your God? What if I believe differently than you do? This is a great reason why the Pilgrims came to North America, for the freedom to express their beliefs as they saw fit.

The Constitution, written with the truth of the times in mind, addressed these and other issues of freedom. The 14th Amendment addressed an important issue that threatened the very fabric of our collective quest for freedom. And so, we come to full circle. Religion is just one of the freedoms that the Constitution speaks to.
That self-same ideal is being threatened yet again, and there are those who feel that God and the Christian faith is the only true way to save this country. But in their fervor, the Christian right is distorting the very nature of that ideal, as well as, violating the tenants of Christ's teachings. Let go and Let God!

The freedom to pray and worship as any man, woman or child sees fit. It is your right to choose, in every aspect of American life; that is freedom. It is not YOUR right to choose how I should live. That is tyranny! Just ask the Pilgrims.


SGG


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
My understanding of Freedom and the forming of the United States was to get away from religious persecution and the ability to make a better life for themselves and their children.-BRENDA

What you describe, Brenda, could perhaps be better described as opportunity. BTW- when you read the histories of the Founding Fathers (the signers of the Constitution) you will realize that very few actually came to the colonies for religious freedom.

That may have been true of some of the northeastern colonies, which were settled by Puritans, and Pennsylvania which was settled by Quakers, but MOST of the FF were plantation owners, merchants, bankers, businessmen, landowners/speculators, and adventurers. Many of them were looking for "freedom" ... not from persecution, but from the East India Trading Company (a Crown Corporation) and from an aristocracy which already owned all of the land in Europe. Washington himself stood to gain a lot of land (for speculation purposes) since he was the surveyor of the Ohio Valley. The thing that was holding him back was the British King, who wanted to keep the land for the natives.

In fact, I think land ownership (for the little guy) and land speculation (for the wealthy) was the big drawing card.


Quote:
"some Republicans can be accused of loving liberty and freedom too much — or at least using those words as rhetorical crutches. Donald Trump is not one of them. The current GOP presidential front-runner rarely uses the words “freedom” or “liberty” in his remarks at all.- SECOND
I guess Trump isn't as dishonest as some people make him out to be. Usually, when a politician uses the word "freedom" it's to promote the something else entirely. Entirely overused by TPTB.

Still I'm sure SGG has something in mind, and for him it's an honest and passionate statement of belief and not a catch-phrase, and I wonder what that might be.


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Monday, September 14, 2015 10:24 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
FREEDOM

That something in mind is a little thing called "The American Dream." It is as elusive as it is undefined, but I'll take a crack at it.
Thank you.

Quote:
It is somewhat religious freedom, but it's more an ideal.
Okay, free to believe in and worship whatever deity you choose ... or not. OTOH, there are limits even there. If your religion requires human sacrifice or sex with children or allows marrying more than one person, you'll fall afoul of our laws pretty quick! So, freedom- but within the ethical and legal limits of our culture.

Quote:
A place whereby our dreams, both individually and collectively, we can pursue and fulfill our needs and wants.

That's a lot of things wrapped up in one sentence, so let me try to de-construct it:

"Our dreams, both individually and collectively"

In all places, collective dreams and individual dreams conflict. It's impossible to always fulfill both at the same time. What the USA has is a rationale (excuse?) ... a not-realistic way of doing away with that conundrum ... by saying that individuals acting in their own best individual interest will create a better society. It's not explicitly in the Constitution, but it was developed from Jean Jacques Rousseau's "The Social Contract" in which he postulates that individuals give up some of their individual freedoms to take advantage of society's benefits. That train of thought later morphed into the idea that individuals, acting in their own self-interest, will create a self-regulating market.

So the USA has a fairly strong culture of individualism (versus a culture of collectivism). Is that what attracts you to the USA? Individualism?

"we can pursue and fulfill our needs and wants."
People can pursue their needs and wants anywhere. In fact, they have to, or they won't survive. It's more a question of HOW they pursue those needs and wants, and whether or not they'll be successful.

So, in what realm what specifically do you think the USA has the advantage over other places?

Quote:
That's very general and somewhat simplistic but it's my overall take on freedom. Both as a people and as individuals we can pursue what will make us, and those close to us, happy.
Again, people can do this anywhere. Not only "can" they, they MUST. Is it the emphasis on individualism that is attractive? The overall level of wealth that allows a more successful pursuit of "happiness" and overall better lifestyle?

Quote:
For example: we can worship as we please, without fear of control or retribution. That's freedom. This nonsense of religious "persecution" that folks like Huckabee and others on the right have conjured, is such a farce. They want to impose on others what "they" feel is right for everyone. That, to me, is the opposite of freedom. How can you force me to believe as you do? Or, for that matter, worship and follow your rule of law under your God? What if I believe differently than you do? This is a great reason why the Pilgrims came to North America, for the freedom to express their beliefs as they saw fit.

The Constitution, written with the truth of the times in mind, addressed these and other issues of freedom. The 14th Amendment addressed an important issue that threatened the very fabric of our collective quest for freedom. And so, we come to full circle. Religion is just one of the freedoms that the Constitution speaks to.
That self-same ideal is being threatened yet again, and there are those who feel that God and the Christian faith is the only true way to save this country. But in their fervor, the Christian right is distorting the very nature of that ideal, as well as, violating the tenants of Christ's teachings. Let go and Let God!


But there are other freedoms built into the USA Constitution, such as freedom of assembly, right to privacy, right to a fair and open trial (as opposed to a Star Chamber type of proceedings), right to vote etc.

For you, religious freedom seems to be a winning argument. Do you feel that you wouldn't be able to pursue your religion in any other American nation?


Quote:
The freedom to pray and worship as any man, woman or child sees fit. It is your right to choose, in every aspect of American life; that is freedom. It is not YOUR right to choose how I should live. That is tyranny! Just ask the Pilgrims.
Every day, someone has decided how you should live, and - for the most part- you do just as "they" say. So what freedoms does the USA offer SPECIFICALLY that you feel don't exist in other nations. Examples of specific European and American hemispheric nations would be nice (Let's skip Russia and China, that's not even on the same spectrum.)

Thanks in advance for your thoughtful reply.

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Monday, September 14, 2015 10:27 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Oh BTW BRENDA, I answered your question about King George and the Iroquois, several posts up. I hope you find it interesting.

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Wednesday, September 16, 2015 6:59 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Anyway, SGG, in lieu of a specific reply as to what you mean by FREEDOM ... except for freedom of religion ... I'm leaning towards thinking that what YOU mean by FREEDOM is actually OPPORTUNITY.

The reality is that life is nicer here in the USA than a lot of other parts if the world ... the standard of living is higher and there is less day-to-day corruption ... thanks, in large part, to the USA pretty much stealing from everyplace else and enforcing dictatorships elsewhere ... and that people are coming here for the chance to make a "better life" (wealthier living standard) for themselves and their family.

It's a worthy goal, but it's not "freedom", by even the loosest definition. So, if you think my interpretation has missed the mark in some way, let me know.


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Wednesday, September 16, 2015 7:08 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Oh BTW BRENDA, I answered your question about King George and the Iroquois, several posts up. I hope you find it interesting. - SIGNY

I did see it and read it. I had sort of forgotten that the British and the French were using the Indians as Allies of a sort to suit their wants. Then when they were done, The French were a little better at keeping bargains than the British. The French were more accepting of their half-blood children than the English.- BRENDA


Curiously, at first it seems the English court (i.e. royalty) was accepting of the First Nations ... all kinds of First Nation leaders went to Britain to visit the lords and ladies of the day.

As far as the native north Americans under foreign rule ... The fairest comparison would be to compare how natives fared in USAn territory (exterminated, mostly), how they fared under British rule (most of Canada except in Quebec) and under French rule (Quebec). My guess is that natives did badly under USAn government, perhaps not quite as badly under British rule, and maybe somewhat less badly under French rule. But I'm not really familiar with the history and policies of France and Britain, so I'll leave it to you to tell me what happened.

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Thursday, September 17, 2015 4:35 AM

SHINYGOODGUY


Of course WE are not truly free. It just doesn't exist anywhere in this world. And yes the freedom here in the USA IS better than any where in this world, but that is a manufactured freedom.

You state, correctly so, that everywhere else life is difficult and, in comparison, WE'VE got it made. Why even here freedom comes in various colors and degrees, with varying attitudes and norms. Opportunity being just one. Each of us determines the type of freedom that exists within our individual worlds. You have yours, I have mine. That determination, at least for me, is constantly changing.

I used religion as an example, only as a type of measuring stick. But for some that is all that they need to define their freedom. For others freedom is expression or lack of constriction, free thinking, writing or movement. Freedom is a ship and a star to guide her by. Yep, each of us choose. Freedom is not being a slave. And for others is not having responsibilities. And for others is being able to travel from one part of the country to another without the need for "papers."

The direction in which public discourse in this country is going, that may be gone in the not-so-distant future. To me freedom is doing all of the above without fear of reproach.


SGG




Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Anyway, SGG, in lieu of a specific reply as to what you mean by FREEDOM ... except for freedom of religion ... I'm leaning towards thinking that what YOU mean by FREEDOM is actually OPPORTUNITY.

The reality is that life is nicer here in the USA than a lot of other parts if the world ... the standard of living is higher and there is less day-to-day corruption ... thanks, in large part, to the USA pretty much stealing from everyplace else and enforcing dictatorships elsewhere ... and that people are coming here for the chance to make a "better life" (wealthier living standard) for themselves and their family.

It's a worthy goal, but it's not "freedom", by even the loosest definition. So, if you think my interpretation has missed the mark in some way, let me know.


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Thursday, September 17, 2015 5:09 AM

SHINYGOODGUY


"Our dreams, both individually and collectively"

In all places, collective dreams and individual dreams conflict. It's impossible to always fulfill both at the same time. What the USA has is a rationale (excuse?) ... a not-realistic way of doing away with that conundrum ... by saying that individuals acting in their own best individual interest will create a better society. It's not explicitly in the Constitution, but it was developed from Jean Jacques Rousseau's "The Social Contract" in which he postulates that individuals give up some of their individual freedoms to take advantage of society's benefits. That train of thought later morphed into the idea that individuals, acting in their own self-interest, will create a self-regulating market.

So the USA has a fairly strong culture of individualism (versus a culture of collectivism). Is that what attracts you to the USA? Individualism?

"we can pursue and fulfill our needs and wants."
People can pursue their needs and wants anywhere. In fact, they have to, or they won't survive. It's more a question of HOW they pursue those needs and wants, and whether or not they'll be successful.

So, in what realm what specifically do you think the USA has the advantage over other places?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have always been exposed, since I was a kid, to that lofty goal of American Dream. Only coming to understand, to some degree, it's full meaning. It is an ideal, one that we choose to believe in, or not, and one that we choose to pursue, or not. That is "a chicken in every pot" type of dream. That is both a collective goal and a individual goal that we, as a nation and as individuals choose to strive towards. The promise of a better life - a house, car and money to burn.

There are those that DO NOT believe that goal exists for them, but others that do believe in that lofty ideal. And, depending on our circumstances, we choose. I'm not talking about markets, but of goals, dreams and ideas. What you speak of is of monetary status and position. Class.

You say that it doesn't exist or it's not real, that may be so but there are those that do believe and strive for it. For them it's real! They have heard of it all their lives, and so believe it to be real. I was in that number, but have come full circle and know that it's just that.....a dream, a carefully orchestrated marketing ploy. Clever, elusive and effective. Keep your shoulder to the wheel, they say. Work hard, others say. Streets paved with gold, yet others say. An American Dream.


SGG

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Friday, September 18, 2015 11:43 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


No, BRENDA, far from it! I appreciate the info. It sounds to me that one of major differences between the French and British approaches to the "New World" was that there didn't seem to be a large-scale desire by the French to actually move here. No mass migration. The French seemed content to stay at the level of traders, trappers, and priests, while the Brits seemed intent on moving their troublemakers to the new world (or perhaps the British people themselves were intent on moving here). Anyway, for whatever reason, far fewer French settled in North America.

Hey, I was going to post this is the RAIN! thread, but while I have your attention ... found a new show on TV called Roadway Through Hell, or something like that. It's a little like Deadliest Catch and Ice Road Truckers, but this show is about "heavy vehicle rescuers" ... the people with the extra-big tow trucks who pull jackknifed 18-wheelers out of the ditch, or right overturned trucks. The "roadway" they're talking about is the Coqihalla (sp??). It sounds really awful in the wintertime... yanno, like it's closed at least an hour a day due to some mishap!

Have you ever driven it? Is it as bad as they say?

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Friday, September 18, 2015 11:49 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
I have always been exposed, since I was a kid, to that lofty goal of American Dream. Only coming to understand, to some degree, it's full meaning. It is an ideal, one that we choose to believe in, or not, and one that we choose to pursue, or not. That is "a chicken in every pot" type of dream. That is both a collective goal and a individual goal that we, as a nation and as individuals choose to strive towards. The promise of a better life - a house, car and money to burn.

There are those that DO NOT believe that goal exists for them, but others that do believe in that lofty ideal. And, depending on our circumstances, we choose. I'm not talking about markets, but of goals, dreams and ideas. What you speak of is of monetary status and position. Class.

You say that it doesn't exist or it's not real, that may be so but there are those that do believe and strive for it. For them it's real! They have heard of it all their lives, and so believe it to be real. I was in that number, but have come full circle and know that it's just that.....a dream, a carefully orchestrated marketing ploy. Clever, elusive and effective. Keep your shoulder to the wheel, they say. Work hard, others say. Streets paved with gold, yet others say. An American Dream.


SO, not coming here for FREEDOM, but for a better life.

I can understand that ... most people in the world want a better life, seeing as aspirations tend to move up even as people achieve their previous dream.

But THIS thread isn't about the American Dream and whether we believe in it or not, or whether it even exists at all. THIS thread is about the 14th amendment, immigration, and immigrants. So, in relation to the 14th amendment ... does the USA have an obligation to open its borders to everyone who wants to move in to pursue that dream? What if the dream of those who want to immigrate conflicts in a very real way with the dream of the people already here? i.e. one dream can't be achieved without ruining the other?

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