This is a little long bt it bears listning to. For those iterestes in how free republics perish, Congressman Paul gives as good a summation as any.
Ron Paul’s Valedictory: Good-bye to Liberty
November 17, 2012 by
Ones Who Fight Alone
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Romney Shut Out in 37 Precincts
http://www.cdobs.com/archive/featured/really-romney-shutout-in-37-chicago-precincts/
“The List”, Obama Voter Fraud
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2960108/posts
THE BIG LIST of vote fraud reports
http://www.wnd.com/2012/11/the-big-list-of-vote-fraud-reports/
22 Signs That Voter Fraud Is Wildly Out Of Control And The Election Was A Sham
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/22-signs-that-voter-fraud-is-wildly-out-of-control-and-the-election-was-a-sham
Video: Rampant Voter Fraud Witnessed by Poll Watcher in VA
http://nicedeb.wordpress.com/2012/11/16/video-rampant-voter-fraud-observed-by-poll-watcher-in-va/
Mittens was a mistake…get over it.
I thought so at first, but not anymore. The dependancy dynamic that exists in the US today would have made it impossible for a Reagan to be elected. It’s basically over, there are just too many people with their hand out, some deservedly so, others not.
HOW SAD—LIVING IN SOME KIND OF DREAM WORLD
Great speech.
Regarding living in a dream world, I became an American citizen because of the ideals of this country–ideals that are being betrayed today by ignorance, tribal politics and, I will say it, Leftists who refuse to learn from history.
So, you’re all going to just fold up and let them take over? I, for one, refuse to give up in despair.
Well,I’m not the biggest Ron Paul fan since even if he is right on some of the defense questions he still blames US intervention for the hit of 9-11, They would have hit US anyways since they don’t like US. He’s medocre on immirgation and his son Rand has a strange legalization scheme which neither party will expect. I agre with him on states right’s and while Paul complains about liberty he use to run around with some far left types since they were ant-war and some of his followers were involved with occupy proteest and Occupers are the biggest destroyers of a market economy.
The concept of blowback, which Ron Paul believes in, is a concept formulated and believed by many in the CIA. In fact, the founders of the US warned us that blowback was a consequence of interfering in the affairs of other nations. This is why they suggested the Republic to be friendly will all nations but not to entangle herself in cumbersome alliances.
Secondly, Ron Paul was and is against amnesty for illegals, his son suggests a temporary amnesty for illegals that are already established in the US, and then to crack down in a second wave. This idea isn’t really a controversial one at all. It has been touted for years, and represents a legitimate compromise that may ease a little of the upheaval that Obama succeeded to inflame to win the elects.
And finally, the anarho-socialist Chomsky-ites that make up the loudest of the libertarian party or the wall street protesters cling on to Ron Paul because his staunch stance on the 10th Amendment. He doesn’t prescribe to their belief system. He is neither a free-for-all libertine i.e. he is not pro-gay marriage, pro abortion, or pro-drugs, but would assume to have all these questions handled locally and remove all aspects of them on the federal level for the same reason our founders did.
This stance doesn’t make him liberal, it makes him a Constitutionalist. You can find weaknesses in this argument like any, but there is no cogent argument(s) to the effect of him being liberal. Because he’s not. If anything, the mainstream GOP showed just how out of touch they were by labeling him as ‘soft’ on these topics, and they totally missed an opportunity of stealing these ‘anarchist’ folks from the democratic party, which Ron Paul so effectively did. He had folks who would normally look to the Dems, looking to the GOP for the simple fact that the Democratic Party used to promote States’ rights for things like habeas corpus and marijuana legalization. As we stand, both parties could give rats’ tail about habeas corpus.
Let’s not kid ourselves. The GOP is a lost cause as we speak. They either look to the Ron Paul movement, and re-establish itself as a party, or they look to Marco Rubio, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal, or Jeb Bush and continue to loose.
You had me up until the last paragraph. The GOP lost because demographically we’ve crossed the tipping point. More people in the wagon than pulling it.
And what is it in that last paragraph, more specifically, those candidates in the last paragraph will do to change the number in the wagon?
They will continue to spend and fill the wagon with those seeking hand outs. Let’s not fall for the rhetoric any longer George. People in local politics get elected solely on the fact that they dress up and look like Palin and not because there’s any content to their politics. Not that Palin actually provides us with any content or actual work to the prove us wrong.
Unless we seriously cut the spending home and abroad (let me repeat this. home AND ABROAD) we are done as a free market nation – and neither Rubio, Gingrich, Palin, Jindal or Bush will do anything serious other than talk and say things that sound like they believe in the free market. I would bet you 100 bucks that these guys haven’t even heard about Austrian Economics let alone do anything implement it.
Point taken. It’s impossible to expect Ron Paul-like libertarians running for office if the people don’t want true liberty. Many in the GOP have only succeeded in staving off the worst excesses of progressivism. They failed for the most part but not for lack of trying. Think Barry Goldwater in 1964 –the biggest loser in presidential election history. That’s all I’m trying so say.
Well – I would expect the Orthodox community to be fully behind Justin Amash from Michigan. He is one of the several, now, free market-conservatives in the House and Senate and an Orthodox Christian to boot.
Getting Justin to the Speakership in the House should be a goal. If this happens, lots may change.
Down votes for supporting Amash?
Two down votes for asking whether there were down votes for supporting Amash? 🙂
What of the roughly 100 million people who could have voted, but did not? Why all this hand wringing about about a difference of 3 million out of 100 million votes cast? The elephant in the room is that every other person you see did not vote, but could have. Had only 4 in 100 such people voted for Romney he would have won. 4 in 100. Why does this question not get answers?
This is misleading. A lot of it depends on where those 4 in 100 lived. A million more votes in, say, Alabama or Texas would not have led to a Romney win at all. Most people that I know who don’t vote refuse to do so because they feel it is all rigged anyway; they choose not to endorse a fraudulent system by participating in it. Perhaps many more people just don’t care at all. But that isn’t the issue. The issue at hand seems to be that there is an urban stranglehold on the rest of the nation.
No, George; it was fraud. The demographic argument has merit, but it’s not the proximate cause of the “loss.”
Just because Willard needed this deluded excuse to shift blame from the GOP and himself for losing the election, doesn’t mean you have to follow suit. Who are these people in the wagon getting a free ride? How about naming names, some numbers, etc.
Let’s start here: 1 in 7 Americans are on food stamps. That’s 15% of the population.
Cynthia, You say you are for states rights. Then are you for Colorado, Washington state and Mass which voted to decriminalize marijuana? Then are you for the states that voted for gay marriage? If so, that’s great, but if are you only for states rights when they agree with your political outlook – like when 2 weeks ago Alabama, Montana and Wyoming voted that Obamacare doesn’t’ apply in those states – then you are a hypocrite. There might be a way out of this mess, but it is certainly not by replacing one big government statist with another of a republican flavor. It’s states rights, county rights, city rights, individual rights. We must stop trying to control people.
If I may, I am for States Rights as well and if those states want to do the things they do, then I’m fine with it. One big caveat however: the 14th Amendment must be revisited and the Equal Protection Clause must be gutted, otherwise it has been used to foist one state’s legalizations on another. As in the case of so-called gay marriage.
Sure, but how do you get there? Hope the 9 black-robed deities in the supreme court begin to fix the problems they caused over the decades? Romney court nominees wouldn’t have been enough to fix it (anyway, look at John Roberts). We are way past that. States and other “lesser” governments and individuals need to begin defying the federal use of force against them, be ready to stand up against the feds (peacefully) and live with the consequences (at least start by stop taking federal handouts). This can only be fixed from the bottom up.
Mike R. While I don’t agree with some of the actions the states took, they have the political right to do so. George is correct, however, the sledgehammer application of the 14th Amendment is a problem. Even there if the states will stand firm against federal tryanny and for Constitutional government, we have some hope. The list of problems is long and extend so far beyond Obamacare
At least at the state level, there is some chance of voters actually getting to meaningfully participate. No chance for that on the Federal level. Too many ‘rotten boroughs” in which one party or the other is pretty much automatic on the Presedential vote so it comes down to what two or three state decide.
Either way we still have to deepen our Christianity in an ontological manner, not a legalistic manner–cultivating an heart full of thanksgiving for God and all of the gifts he gives us (especially when we don’t like them at first). http://glory2godforallthings.com/2012/11/11/a-life-of-thanksgiving/
I agree. It’s hopeless to think we will get answers from the Feds. They can take a nickel from everyone in 49 states to hand a $15 million boondoggle to another. The boondoggle is much more visible than the nickel you don’t see, so there is no feedback loop or accountability mechanism. But this is not so w/ localized governments. You will notice the $1,000 they take for that boondoggle and then you can vote to decide whether or not it is worth it.
Switzerland is a good example. While they have a very high “socialist” tax rate, they are all administered locally because Switzerland is effectively a collection of city states. Politicians see their constituents in the pew, on the street or in the bar. They must face their victims and the age old feedback mechanism known as “shame” impacts their actions.
People that are interested in this should look into State Nullification to learn more.
http://youtu.be/jOAPnrchEy4
http://youtu.be/g7hYg561pfA
I hope this little spark of liberty is not snuffed out. But if it is, so be it. We are only sojourners here and of politics are our highest priority we are missing something.
You’ve hit on one genius of the electoral college… Dead or illegal voters can’t steal more than their state’s votes.
And actually the electors are not required to follow the popular vote.
Well, I see little need to comment, but here goes.
Waa, waa, boo hoo. I made it through 11 minutes. Business class 101… If the message takes too long to deliver; part of it is wrong.
Romney’s real 9% tax rate was sure burdensome on his liberties to build a car elevator in one of his stately mansions.
Ron Paul is a pessimist and that is why he will not be President and his child will live with that shadow, too.
Americans too much liberty drove the housing collapse.
Ron is wrong about liberty.
As a caveat, he is not wrong about the spending, but taxes are too low.
Soak the Rich Game
A small tax increase wouldn’t bother people with 100k+ agi.
Pay the bill and cut spending.
That is it.
No half hour argument.
Why stop there? Since people behave rationally, let’s ask poor single women to not have sex out of wedlock. That would decrease AFDC, Welfare, SNAP, and future criminality, wouldn’t it? See how easy that was?
Don’t exclude the men from your request for abstinence.
Correct. I don’t in my latest essay. I know what I am about to say is sexist but in the old days it was always the woman’s prerogative to say “no.” That usually stopped 98% of men dead in their tracks.
How about rich women?
George.
This comparison between sex n taxes is funny, but we all know one is pleasure and the other more like a fly in the room.
Basil’s argument that raising taxes results in tax avoidance is equally humorous. Suggesting everyone just finds ways to avoid the bill reminds me of an old Republican acquaintance when the dinner bill appeared. Poof!
The argument holds water in high taxation, but raising Romney’s 9% real rate for 2011 on 13mil to say 13% results in avoidance?
You are suggesting the rich are not patriotic Basil.
That ain’t true.
Dan,
Studies show that increasing taxes on the rich leads them to put their money in off-shore tax havens and use other tax minimising strategies, reducing revenues collected by government, whereas taxing them at reasonable rates leads them to invest in productive enterprises at home, thereby creating more jobs for the middle and lower classes and increasing the tax revenue for government while at the same time distributing the tax load fairly and in the long run reducing the tax burden on the lower and middle classes, letting them keep mor eof the money they earn. Unfortunately, by the time the Left gets taught a real life education in economics, it will be too late. Socialism, whether of the soft or hard variety, is the road to serfdom, not prosperity; in the end the ones who will suffer most are those at the bottom of the pile whom the Left purports to care about.
Anyone who believes that raising taxes on the rich will solve our government’s budget problems is living in a fantasy land. Every time that congres raises taxes they do not spend the extra money on reducing the deficit, but waste it on more governmental programs that do not work. We have a deficit not because the American people do not pay enough taxes, but because the government spends too much money. I firmly believe that if we got rid of all the waste and corruption that we could balance the federal budget without denying the American people necessary services.
The problem is that every time that Congress has raised taxes they have not cut spending or paid down the national debt. Instead, they use the extra money for pork legislation. The real problem is that congressmen get reelected based on how much money they can get the federal government to spend in their dictrict.
Now that I know how you feel, I am sure that Ron Paul was right about most things.
This person called me an ignorant putz because my car elevator, horse dress up story is too much writing on the wall that say Americans have LoTs of liberty.
To suggest the housing collapse wasn’t enhanced or created by the ability to do whatever banks wanted, whatever loan officers wanted, whatever buyers wanted, whatever Arnault wanted, whatever appraisers wanted and that is license, not liberty is not well thought out.
The name calling I get.
It is what you’ve got to do when the other guys arguments overwhelm.
Ron Paul has credible arguments that I agree with, but because I didn’t fully agree, you namecall.
Classy.
The housing collapse was caused by the federal government and members of Congress like Barney Frank pressuring banks and other lending institutions to make loans to people who could not repay them or bought more house than they could afford. It was not caused by too little federal regulation. It was caused by too much federal regulation. When the government pressured lending institutions to make subprime loans to people who could not prove that they had the income to pay their mortgages, the makret collapsed. The Bush administration tried to regulate the market and reform the practices of Fanny May and Freddie Mack, Frank and other friends of the institution prevented Congress from passing reform legislation.
Follow the money good priest.
Arnault gave the Bush inaugural ball 750k.
That money didn’t come from or go to Barney Frank or any pofolk.
In fact, to be lawful, it had to come from three separate corporations, but they were allsolely controlled by Arnault.
Ameriquest CEO.
Blame the Democrats..Blame the government…I will credit the profiteers. You stick with the faux news story.
Mr. Fall, you usually have well reasoned arguments, especially when you argue about homosexuality in the Church. I disagree with you almost always, but I can respect your position. How in the heck can you say, in this case, too much freedom caused the housing bubble and subsequent collapse? Pray tell Mr. Fall, who kept interest rates artificially low? I know I didn’t vote to keep them that low? Where did the banks get the balls to undertake all that risky business with our hard earned money? or to give out subprime mortgages? Banks have known for almost 80 years that one all-powerful federal agency would be there to rescue them if and when they made crooked and stupid decisions? Mr. Fall, it is called the moral hazard. The big banks, who surprisingly give tons of money to both republican and democrat candidates for their campaigns, know they pretty much have a free hand to do what they will with honest folks’ money. They know that whatever they do, there will always be the FED there to save them from taking responsibility for their messes. So, who was responsible for the bubble and subsequent crisis: fundamentally the FED for encouraging banks, through artificially low interest rates and the promise to rescue them, to play risky games with their clients’ money; the greedy CEOs of the major banks (also major contributors to Obama AND Romney), and the gullible people who thought they could get something for nothing.
What needs to be done is old fashioned progrsssive trust busting. No enterprise shold be allowed to become “to big to fail.” No one corporation should be allowed to control so much of the market that its failure would wreck the entire national economy. At the same time, no labor union whould be allowed to become so powerful that it can destroy a whole business as the baker union has done to Hostess causing 18,000 people to lose their jobs. Anytime that any elment of society gets too much power, whether it be government, big business or big labor, it is a threat to the whole society. Free enterpreise and competition is the only way to preserve freedom and insure the economic welfare for all. Under Obama, we are allowing government to gain too much power over our lives. What is really happening is the same thing that happened in the Soviet Union. One reason that Communism failed, besides its base in Marx’s so called scientific materialism, was that it created a special class of government officials who ran society but was not accountable to the people. Centralized economic planning by so called experts never works and has never worked because inevitabely the govenment officials put their own speical interests above those of the people. . Under Obama, we are in danger of the same thing, allowing government officials to control every aspect of our lives. Government elites think that we know better than the idividual what they should eat and how they should live their lives. Obama’s reelection was a victory for those who want the government to give them free stuff at the expense of others. But more than anything, it was a victory for big government that will suck up the resources of our society to enrich themselves.
Fr. John, I agree with you 100%. However, I get the feeling, and I could be wrong, that you feel things might have been better with Mitt in the white house. Again, you didn’t say that, but I’ve had plenty of rounds with die hard republicans who think Mitt, or a republican, in the white house would have been the salvation of our country. Wrong. Both parties love, love, love to spend money we don’t have. Under Mittens we would have no doubt seen a rush to war within the first 100 days in office. That alone would have cost the US tax payers another 15-20 trillion dollars by 2025. I also predict Mittens would have done even more to pay back his backers at Goldman Sachs and Bank of America by going along with Bernanke’s arbitrary and artificially low interest rates, which would have meant some crazy speculation and risky behavior by banks, which would meant a bubble, followed by a huge bust, followed by a bailout for the banks, and millions left out in the lurch.
I also think the parallel you draw between the Soviet Union and the state of our Union is very apropos. Here’s a quote from a book of interviews with Soviet Baby Boomers:
“However, I must say to you with some sadness, and this might be offensive to you as an American, that I now have the impression, as do many of my friends in the States and here, that in the States a certain social order is beginning to emerge, which much more fully embodies that which once existed in the Soviet Union. Except that we had, you might say, a dilettante’s approach, whereas there everything is done more professionally. That is, this postdemocratic period might come to resemble Sparta. I also had this feeling”
Taken from: Russia’s Sputnik Generation
What makes you think that Obama is not beholden to the wealthy. He did not raise $1 billion from poor and middle class people. If anything, his policies have favored big business and big labor. All the regulation is driving their smaller competitors out of business, .leaving Obama’s large contributors in control of the market. Obama’s people like that because it gives them more power because they have fewer enterprises to control. Obama is not really a socialist. he is a stateist who believes that the government or more specifically he and his people should control all aspects of society.
Yes Romney is not a Christian. But, is Obama? Frankly I doubt that he is a Christian, at least as we Orthodox would define a Christian. He is radically pro-abortion and pro-gay. His administration has been the most anti-Christian administration in American history. Under his leadership the very existence of Orthodoxy in the Middle East is threatened because either by design or incompetence he has allowed Islamic radicals to come to power in one country after another. His complete withdrawal from Iraq and later Afghanistan will throw away all that we have accomplished there and as they did in Vietnam,give the country over to enemies of America and most importantly of human freedom. He supports the rebels in Syria who will establish an Islamic state in the home of the Patriarchate of Antioch, threatening the existence of the Church of Sts. Peter and Paul. I you get a chance watch the movie 2016. It tells a lot about Obama and his agenda.
Fr., everything you said about Obama is 100% true. However, I cannot disagree with you more about how much blame to lay at the feet of Obama, especially as it relates to the shrinking of Christian populations in the Middle East. I also disagree with you about the so called “accomplishments” in Iraq and Afghanistan and Vietnam for that matter. The USA has absolutely no business trying to tell other nations how to live their lives. It does, nevertheless, to the detriment of us all.
Let’s take the middle east. In 53 Eisenhower (republican) gave the green light for the Kermit Roosevelt (CIA) to overthrow the democratically elected and overwhelmingly popular Mossadegh in Iran. Why? to satisfy Churchill thurst for Iranian oil. The rouse was that Mossadegh was a communist, but there is nothing in the historical record to even remotely link him to communism. Mossadegh was ousted, the pro-USA Shah took over and for the next 25 year he was a faithful servant of the USA: repressive towards his own people and lenient toward American oil corporations. That lead to the radicalization of Muslims in Iran, which gave rise to Ayatollah Khomeini and the Islamic revolution. Before 53, Iranian’s admired American constitutional democracy. But after, they felt betrayed by the USA and harbored hatred, and rightly so. Then comes 79, and the Shah is run out of Iran and hostages are taken after the USA takes him in. To get back at the Iranians we pour millions into the pockets of none other than Saddam Hussein so he can kill and torture his own people as well as Iranians. Then, miracle of miracles, Saddam Hussein is one of the Middle East’s strongest men and tries to throw his weight around by invading Kuwait, in full knowledge and tacit agreement of the POTUS. Somewhere along the line, we thought throwing hundreds of millions of dollars to islamic fundamentalists would be a good idea (Carter: Democrat) . Bush 1.0 (Republican) tries to throw of the Vietnam syndrome by invading Iraq. Clinton (Democract), does his part in “desert fox”, fortuitously at the same time his was in impeachment hearings. Then 2001. The islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan use the hundreds of millions of American tax-payers dollars to train, arm, and plan the most deadly terrorist act on American soil. They planned it and executed it, American presidents gave them the money to carry it out.
Bush 2.0 (Republican) blatantly lies to the American public and the world and facilitates the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent women and children simply to get back at Saddam and get at Iraqi oil. Obama (Democrat) furthers the cause of American hegemony by taking us back to 1980 where we are funneling millions of dollars to Islamic fundamentalists to spread “American Democracy” in a “backwards” region of the world.
So you see, both Democrats and republicans have equal blame in bringing us to our present crisis in the Middle EAst. I ask you, Father, what was Christian about any of the aforementioned acts by American presidents. I can see none. The “everything is 20/20 in hindsight” argument won’t cut it. The historical record proves quite definitively that the presidents at the time of making those fateful decisions, had more than ample intelligence to act otherwise.
That’s just the middle east. Don’t get me started on Vietnam, Korea, and Japan or even Latin America. No, Fr. John, America has made NO progress, and has not contributed to those countries. In fact, American involvement in the affairs of those countries has actually kept those countries back, impoverished, and resentful of the USA. If our revolution was fought for the right to self govern, what gives us the right to deny that right to other countries. Yet, we have been in that business for well over 100 years, starting with Hawaii in 1893.
do not be deceived.
One slight amendment here. The Islamic fundamentalists of AFGHANISTAN, i.e., theTaliban, are indeed largely the creation of the United States of America; however, it was NOT the Taliban or ANY Afghans that trained, armed and planned the most deadly terrorist act on American soil, but the Saudi Arabs, especially that aristocratic Saudi, Osama Bin Laden. EVERY member of the 9/11 attack group was Saudi. And, in summing this up, I feel you overlooked the role of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia and the United States of America are, in fact, the most senior same-sex wedded pair in history. Every American President since Eisenhower has “renewed their marriage vows.’ That wedding is much older than the adulterous same-sex coupling of Israel and the U.S.A. The non-American spouses and cohabiters, though, seem to have an unwritten agreement NOT to make a big deal of this adultery. Both couples, though, are devoted to destroying or preventing ANY alliance or productive relationship of the U.S. with Iran. The U.S.’s spouse, Saudi Arabia, finds the Iranians to be heretics, while the U.S.’s Israelite co-miscreant resents mightily the disloyalty of Iran’s large and prosperous Jewish community, which is millennia older than Israel’s community, and resists leaving their ancient homeland as they did at the time of Cyrus the Great (whom God, according to Isaiah, calls His “Christ”).
But Osama Bin Laden was among those “freedom fighters” on the receiving end of our largess in Afganistan in the 80’s. With American tax payers dollars in hand he could pocket his own or at least “invest” it in other ways. Either way, $500 million or so, planted and watered the seeds of what we now call Al Quaida. Why the POTUS and the CIA refused to work with secular freedom fighters like Abdul Haq is beyond me. He was widely popular in Afganistan but his refusal to be The POTUS’ puppet made him useless.
One might also argue that the millions the PsOTS have given to Saudi Arabia over the years found their way to Bin Laden and his group of terrorists or at least those funds were used so that Bin Laden and his ilk could save their own dollars.
Abdul Haq ? He wasn’t secular.
He was a little more tolerant-minded than some, but a staunch Muslim still.
Virtually ALL Afghans ARE, despite a decade of deprogramming
at the hands of America.
Before the American occupation, there were really almost NO secularists in Afghanistan, besides the shadowy Maoist groups in the north.
The only militant secularists were – guess who ? The 2 factions of the Soviet-backed Afghan Communist Party,
Khalq and Parcham ! Even these people were what I wrote in an article
as “radish Communists” : red on the OUTSIDE, white inside.
There was and is also the semi-socialist/middle of the road/supposedly intellectual Afghan Millat, but these people weren’t remotely involved
in fighting the Soviet occupiers. Just a small collection of Afghans who emptily chattered about “democracy”.
Where do you know about Abdul Haq ? I did interview him at the height of his fame.
While all the Western journalists raved about him, I was not impressed, having met and interviewed many others of the major resistance leaders and fighters I felt better about.
I am surprised to see anyone on HERE talking about Abdul Haq !
By the way, as an ethnic Pashtun, he was hardly popular throughout the
country. Only in certain Pashtun areas. And not even that much there.
Like I say, his reputation was built up mainly by WESTERNERS ! Quite a different phenomenon. Unlike Massoud, who was made into
a bigger force than he really was by French journalists and doctors, and Edward Girardet of The Christian Science Monitor,
Abdul Haq was not a nationwide hero.
For the US to have backed him would have made zero difference.
Further, some resistance leaders came to appear moderate LATER, only when juxtaposed with the Taliban regime. So no one would have figured out
who was a good horse to back then.
Actually, Gulbuddin was by far the most favored of all the groups by
America and Pakistan.
to be sure, secular is used loosely. I don’t think he wanted to outlaw music, dancing, and calling for the completing blacking out of females.
Thumbs-up equals agree
thumbs down equals disagree
The gospel applies equally to nations as well as to individuals.
1. The Gospel does not apply to indviduals at all. To the extent that we are ‘indivdual’ we are outside of the Gospel community to which we are called by God. We cannot, as individuals, respond to the call of God. That was, IMO, the sin of Annanias and Saphira–they acted as individuals.
2. Nations only follow the spiritual state of the people who make up the nation. Nations have no separate ability to ‘follow the Gospel’.
3. If enough of the people in a nation follow the Gospel, the policies and acts of the nation will more closely reflect the Gospel commands. However, the nation will never be synonomous with the Church, nor should it be.
4. The wickedness of the people in rebellion against God leads the nation in which they live to a greater wickedness than would otherwise be the case.
5. Yet, we can always hope:
Sorry folks, you’re overthinking this way too much.
First, your 1 is inconsistent with 3. “1: The Gospel does not apply to individuals at all.” Then “3. If enough of the people in a nation follow the Gospel, …”
I start with the Gospel where I am called to repent. I must transform and transfigure myself to be in accord with the will of God. I am baptized into Christ and put on Christ. I confess and seek forgiveness of my sins. I commune for the remission of my sins, not those of my neighbor.
And I sure hope that my eternal salvation is not dependent upon the actions of an amorphous contrivance that is a “nation” — or even my “community,” however that is defined, including but not limited to my parish.
There is, of course, a personal, intimate interrelationship with Jesus Christ that is called for and required, but that is precisely why we are not saved as individuals. As soon as we are Chrismated we are part of a community that is only strengthend and deepened each time we receive Holy Communion appropriately.
The world would tell us that community means nothing or that the unique human person means nothing. I, for one, am totally incapable of withstanding the world on my own as an individual. I need each an everyone who loves God and each and everyone needs me. Not in the sense that I or anyone else is indispensable, God forbid, but that the more we love God, the more we love each other and that love sustains us. It is precisely in that community that I am freed to be more of who God made me and share my gifts.
There is a reason why we forgive everyone at the Forgiveness Vespers at the start of Great Lent, so that we can be stronger during the Fast together.
OUr brother, Michael Bauman says:
<<2. Nations only follow the spiritual state of the people who make up the nation. Nations have no separate ability to ‘follow the Gospel’.
<<3. If enough of the people in a nation follow the Gospel, the policies and acts of the nation will more closely reflect the Gospel commands. However, the nation will never be synonymous with the Church, nor should it be.
<>
Indeed. As I left a pre-Christmas office party Saturday evening, I was struck by the the extravagant homes–5,000 square feet, inhabited in some cases by single retired people and seldom by couples with more than two children. Few can afford such dwellings unless they are being purchased by two full-time professional, executive level salaries–which means no one at hom to make a raise a family or even to enjoy the home and its musuem-like furnishings. Many have pets, of course, instead of children.
The thought came that while we know that $1,000,000,000,0000 per year national government DEFICITS–i.e. spending money that we don’t have–is utterly unsustainable, so are the lifestyles many in our nation and the western world have adopted and come to associate with the “American Dream” are likewise unsustainable.
The Film 2016 made a good case for envy as a motivating vice of our presidents; it failed to admit that greed would appear to be ours. Our hearts are not pure and our passions–our disordered desires and self-centered pride–are the hooks by which Satan seeks to destroy us with our unwitting cooperation.
In addtion, to Michael’s pertient quote from II Chronicles, consider this from the opening chapter of Isaiah: “Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine yes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. Com now, and let us reason together, siath the LORD: though you sinse be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: but if ye refuse and rebel, he hsall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.”
The same message was given in Deuteronomy: “Behold, today I set before this Life and Death; therefore, choose Life.” or by our Lord Himself in St. Matthew’s report of the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount: “He who hears my words and does them shall be likened to a man who built his house upon the Rock.” “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” . . . “But my People would not heed my voice . . . so I gave them upon unto their own hearts’ lusts.”
Turn us, O Lord; heal us and we shall be healed. O Lord, may speed to save us; O Lord make haste to help us.”
lxc
Dear Sinner,
Michael Bauman is right. Each baby is born into a family. It comes from another human being and derives its identity from those who raise it. The notion of an “individual” is a false construct, a fiction really. No man is an island – that sort of thing.
Consequently, there is no such thing as an individual Christian either. All people require community. It is written into the very fabric of creation. Anyone who isolates himself from community loses his sense of self. Individual particularity is a function of community because no one person is self-sufficient of the needful things.
When the gospel is preached to all nations, it means the gospel is to be preached to all people the world over. The believers constitute a new nation that is in effect trans-national.
If a nation has people who seek righteousness, that nation is favored by God the scriptures tell us. But this is a function of concrete communion with the Risen Christ that manifests itself as obedience to Him. Dynamic life in Christ then can renew a nation, but to preach the gospel to the nations means to preach to the people who comprise it.
I guess my real question was: If I, O Hamartolos, am expected to do unto others as I would have them do unto me, should I vote for and support local representatives, senators, governors, and presidents who, in my name, enact and enforce policies that do the exact opposite of what I am expected to do? Specifically, If I would not throw even a spit wad at an Iraqi or Syrian, how can I vote for a president who’s policy it is to hurl thousands of bombs on innocent Iraqi or Syrians, in my name, supposedly? I truly don’t understand how Christians can support or elected officials that enact policies that harm others whom they don’t even know, when they would not harm them themselves. This is my predicament or dilemma with our government.
Put that way I see what you are driving at.
I rarely agree with Ralph Nader but on Obama’s foreign policy he is dead on:
“He’s gone beyond George W. Bush in drones, for example. He thinks the world is his plate, that national sovereignties mean nothing, drones can go anywhere.”
Worse case scenerio. Dollar loses world reserve currency status. Bric,EU and US flounder in econmic morass. World economic crash. IMF and World Bank consolidate the major currencies in IMF’s SDR’s (Special Drawing Rights.) This is a reboot of the pyramid scheme the US Federal Reserve, with the cash flow needed provided by the IRS,which is played out, due to the size of the national debt. The US cannot even pay the intrest on the debt. The new system is funded by a world wide replacement for the IRS’s role in the fiat, electronic money system, cash flow. Vat taxes, and the bogus carbon taxes will provide the needed cash flow for the UN World bank in a fractional reserve banking system that insures that the 1% that have 95% of the money in the world continue to exercise their unjust economic advantages over the average world citizen and the poor. The special interest of the Corperations control the polticians, who only pass laws that give more advantage to the privilidged. The Holy Scripture predicts the mark of the beast. The number of the man 666, which is the number the scripture describes as the taxes of Solomon. The marking may be a Verichip or a UPC tattoo upon the forehead or right hand. The implementation of acceptance of the mark will be exponential. It has already begun in the Obama Health Care laws in the US. The sever economic crisis is necessary to coherse the world to accept the mark. The infrastructure and the software are already created to install this system.It is reasonable to assume it will appear within a decade. Authentic Christianity will refuse to recieve this system, and the religion of the antichrist will teach them ,that killing the Faithful is doing God a favor. The bowls of God’s wrath start to afflict mankind when the mark appears, not before this, This is a cashless system and the electonic that it depends upon will be hindered and destroyed by the bowls of God’s wrath. Satlites and fiber optic’s are destroyed by X-class flares and the world earthquake.
Consider the Hispanic vote. Are Democrats winning Hispanics because they put forward a more welcoming face than Republicans do — one more in keeping with America’s tradition of assimilating migrants yearning to breathe free? Yes, up to a point. But they’re also winning recent immigrants because those immigrants often aren’t assimilating successfully — or worse, are assimilating downward, thanks to rising out-of-wedlock birthrates and high dropout rates. The Democratic edge among Hispanics depends heavily on these darker trends: the weaker that families and communities are, the more necessary government support inevitably seems.
Likewise with the growing number of unmarried Americans, especially unmarried women. Yes, social issues like abortion help explain why these voters lean Democratic. But the more important explanation is that single life is generally more insecure and chaotic than married life, and single life with children — which is now commonplace for women under 30 — is almost impossible to navigate without the support the welfare state provides.
Or consider the secular vote, which has been growing swiftly and tilts heavily toward Democrats. The liberal image of a non-churchgoing American is probably the “spiritual but not religious” seeker, or the bright young atheist reading Richard Dawkins. But the typical unchurched American is just as often an underemployed working-class man, whose secularism is less an intellectual choice than a symptom of his disconnection from community in general
Well, I don’t like Rubio well either because of immirgation .
Laurie Louise Paffhausen, younger sister of Metropolitan Jonah
Paffhausen of the Orthodox Church in America, passed away
at a hospital in Washington, D.C. with her brother standing almost
constant loving vigil this past week. As a paralegal, she worked on
many interesting cases. As a daughter, she tirelessly cared for her
parents in failing health even while her own health was frail, and was
a staunch supporter of her brother of whom she was very proud. She
was interviewed by Julia Duin in the classic article on the
Metropolitan. She always put other people first,
Her chrismation name in the Orthodox Church is Laura for Saint Laura
of Cordoba in Spain.
May her memory be eternal and may her soul dwell with the righteous!
Eternal Memory!
Well, I think that Republicans or conservatives need to convince people against gay marriage, its philosophical too. And a lot of churches whther they are Roman Catholic or Protestant or Orthodox have less influence on the young. Legalizing drugs is a hard one some think that it gets away from the black market but in Europe in countries legalzied you still have the black market. I’m opposed but some states will have a different opinion.