Progressives (Liberals)

@hightor,

hightor wrote:

The idea that the proper conclusion of the Mueller report can only be charges directly leading to impeachment -- or the whole process was just a waste of money -- is incomprehensible to me.

That was the reason why Democrats pushed to get a special prosecutor appointed. Democrats like to abuse the law to persecute people who do not agree with them.

hightor wrote:

It just feeds into the whole stupid "witch hunt" meme and ends up helping Trump to make his pathetic "they're out to get me" case.

It is the nature of facts to support other facts.

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Who in his/her right mind gives a flying rat's ass about a few million $ when what's at stake is the fate of the American democracy?

The only threat to our democracy here is the Democrats' abuse of the law to persecute anyone who does not agree with their extreme ideology.

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@hightor,

Quote:

The idea that the proper conclusion of the Mueller report can only be charges directly leading to impeachment — or the whole process was just a waste of money — is incomprehensible to me. It just feeds into the whole stupid "witch hunt" meme and ends up helping Trump to make his pathetic "they're out to get me" case. Exactly the kind of thing that warms Putin's heart.

One might conclude that this is precisely the purpose.

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@Olivier5,

Not to mention that with the seizure of Manaforts assets, the Mueller report has actually made the country money.

Hasn’t cost us a single dime.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Quote:

What do you mean by "fundamental (flawed) Christian"?

I just meant I believe in the Bible as a Holy Bible and believe the things written in it really happened as it was written and put together. However, I question parts of it and I always have, hence the flawed fundamental Christian.

I put that out there because a pretty good while back, someone accused me of hiding my religious views and I was attempting to explain how I could believe in the Bible and yet still support same sex marriages ECT. It is because I have always since I understood such things believed in separation of Church and State and that goes for even issues which are contrary to my beliefs.

You asked.

1 Reply

@snood,

I wasn't familiar with Tulsi Gabbard either so of course I looked her up. This is what I found.

Quote:

However, the Iraq War veteran has received consistent support from right-wing politicians, who are usually hostile to pro-environment, pro-gun control Democrats like Gabbard, because of her unorthodox foreign policy stance. Her isolationist position, criticism of former President Barack Obama’s foreign policy agenda and support for Trump’s rapprochement with North Korea have won her friends in unlikely places.

NW

I can see it with Bannon as he is an islationist and thinks we should get out of all wars as well. I don't know the connection with David Duke. That article doesn't say.

1 Reply

@revelette1,

Quote:

I just meant I believe in the Bible as a Holy Bible and believe the things written in it really happened as it was written and put together.

Including the parting of the red sea, the global flood, and the creation of the world in 6 days?

Edit: I'm not trying to disparage you or anything like that, just trying to understand my neighbor better, as a first step to, you know, loving my neighbor like myself etc... As for me, I am an atheist Christian, in that I disbelieve the mythology, the virgin birth, the angels, the resurrection, but I value the guy's message from a moral and philosophical standpoint.

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@Olivier5,

Quote:

Including the parting of the red sea, the global flood, and the creation of the world in 6 days?

Yes. I don't really like getting into Bible debates, been there, as I know most of the other sides arguments so to speak. Also, I don't pretend to be a biblical expert so I would be at a disavatage as most atheist or agnostics seem to know Bible and other related historical books way better than I do.

But speaking for myself, if I was going to believe there was a man who spoke all those words, I would have to believe in the scriputres where I learned of the man in the first place. Unless I learned of the man from other historical books at the time.

I guess it all comes down to one particular quote that usually comes to my mind on this discussion. To paraphrase without going to the trouble of getting an exact quote. "what did you come to the mountain to see."

2 Replies

@Olivier5,

Textual analysis shows that the parting of the Red Sea is the most ancient part of the Bible.

That doesn't mean that it was parted exactly as people typically envision, with a wall of water held back on either side, but it seems likely that a small group of slaves did escape and make it back to the land of Canaan, where they were then celebrated in songs and stories.

There is some question as to whether the location in the story is really the Red Sea:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yam_Suph
"While traditionally understood to refer to the Red Sea, (the saltwater inlet located between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula), the appropriate translation of the phrase remains a matter of dispute; as does the exact location referred to. It is now often translated as Sea of Reeds - with several competing theories as to where this was."

It could well be that the slaves merely waded across a body of shallow water that chariots couldn't pass through.

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@revelette1,

thanks, rev
Sooner or later I'll get around to getting familiar with Gabbard but that's a good intro.

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@maporsche,

Quote:

Hasn’t cost us a single dime.

He has cost us our faith in equal justice. That is, or was, priceless.

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@revelette1,

Quote:

I don't really like getting into Bible debates, been there,

Nor do I. Very, very few end up anywhere valuable.

But there is, for me, enormous value in studying how religious ideologies form and evolve and particularly in how communities function within a society. Of course, this is an anthropological address to the matter but it is likely to be where enlightenment is available.

1 Reply

@blatham,

Quote:

Very, very few end up anywhere valuable.

However watching those Jehovah's Witnesses shrink back and cringe when my now long departed mother would go toe to toe with them on scripture. She would usually come up with verses that indicated the JWs were off the mark.
(she might have been able to do this with folks of other religions, they didn't make housecalls though)

Quote:

...value in studying...

True. I also use it as a tool to figure where voters are coming from in their fervor to uphold or reject an idea or politician.

2 Replies

This one has troubled most of us, I expect. Paul's conclusion is, at least in many cases, accurate.

Quote:

Paul Krugman
‏Verified account
@paulkrugman
A belated thought about Tucker Carlson and all that. I used to believe that public figures who spewed venom were cynically playing to the nastiness of their audiences. But it turns out that many such people really are as vile as the characters they play.

1 Reply

@blatham,

Quote:

Paul Krugman

Only hacks listen to hacks.

0 Replies

@Sturgis,

Yes. I admit three or four instances where I grew impatient and went after folks like those. I resist the urge now.

By the by, you might enjoy this video of three Mormon missionaries taking LSD for the first time. It's really quite beautiful though there is a sadness in the fellow on the right for understandable reasons.
‏

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@Sturgis,

Quote:

However watching those Jehovah's Witnesses shrink back and cringe when my now long departed mother would go toe to toe with them on scripture.

In my younger days I let some JW's in my house early one morning, before 9AM. We sat down. I got a beer and started rolling a joint. They left and I never saw them again.

1 Reply

Why am I not at all surprised

Quote:

Who Bankrolls Tucker Carlson's Hateful Propaganda? Why the Kochs of Course.
Fox News' Tucker Carlson is under fire this week for racist, sexist, and homophobic comments he made while chatting on "Bubba the Love Sponge" a shock jock radio show between 2006-2011. Groups are scrutinizing Fox's advertisers and demanding that they drop Carlson's show.

But Carlson also publishes The Daily Caller, a controversial online media outlet with ties to white nationalists that has infamously peddled everything from climate denial and anti-Islamic tropes to false prostitution charges and violence against protesters.

Carlson's moonlighting as an extremist at The Daily Caller is heavily bankrolled by -- you guessed it -- the Koch brothers. An investigation by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) finds that the Charles Koch Foundation has poured more than $2.7 million into the Daily Caller's non-profit "charity" since 2012, which generates the lion's share of the "news" that the Caller publishes.

Indeed, in 2016, Koch cash accounted for 83 percent of the The Daily Caller News Foundation's $1.1 million in revenues.

PRWatch

1 Reply

@coldjoint,

My last involvement with a JW was when they came by on a Saturday afternoon. At the time I was a heavy smoker and addressed them through a partially open door, flicking ashes at their feet every so often and blowing smoke at them.

Never saw them again.

0 Replies

@revelette1,

I like at least some Bible debates, those touching on placing the text within its historical context as far as wd can surmise it. That's of course an atheist pursuit but it doesn't follow (in my case at least) that it's non-spiritual. I'm not trying to prove the Bible's all wrong; rather, I'm interested in how scripture (including non-canonical) came to be written, rewritten, shared and passed on, because I am interested in what scripture says. About history, about us people, about how we deal with others... How our values, or lack thereof, serve us well or not so well in certain circumstances, how interpretations change over time.

An atheist can do one of 2 things with scripture: either throw it away as rubish, or treat it as meaning something important but that meaning is not necessarily what the text says literally. I chose the second path, even if that means I have to interpret and cherry pick. But we all do that with scripture, believers and non believers alike.

0 Replies

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