Haha! Still not a hint of recrimination against Joe Biden or California's "Marsha Law" Harris. They can't bring themselves to do it! ;-)
Yes, I think that the U.S. government should take over the entire illegal drug trade. That will certainly destroy it!
But why not? A clever organization could sell the idea as a way of raising massive revenues to be redistributed as a basic income option for the needy! Of course, administration costs will take the usual 90%, but addicts could be guaranteed consistent dosages and the majority of crime will be rendered unnecessary.
You heard it here, first!
-QQuerius
October 12, 2020
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The most important point in this election is the economy and getting people back to work and school. It should have happened already. With Biden it won't happen for a while and we cannot afford that.
Perhaps the only point Biden is good on is the legalization of marijuana on a federal scale. That would add new tax revenue and put a big dent in the overcrowding in jails and prisons.ET
October 12, 2020
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Wordfence is still there.kairosfocus
October 12, 2020
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JVL, have you pondered further on Mr Churchill? KFkairosfocus
October 12, 2020
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28 Querius
Notice that JVL is completely deaf to the complaints about Biden’s sexual aggression and creepy behavior with underage girls, documented racist comments, and documented corruption. That’s apparently not an issue.
You aren't suggesting JVL is a massive hypocrite, are you? :)Truthfreedom
October 12, 2020
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Well, you've all been very clear and thanks to Vividbleau for being specific regarding policies.
We'll see how things play out. I hope that whoever the loser is that they accept the will of the people with grace.JVL
October 12, 2020
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Folks, as members of a world of finite, fallible, morally struggling, too often stubborn and ill willed creatures, we have no other choice than the lesser of evils. KFkairosfocus
October 12, 2020
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Q
I’m trying to stay away from personal issues and focus on policy but Chauncey Gardner has huge baggage of his own for sure.
BTW the real Dem nominee for President is K Harris.
Vividvividbleau
October 11, 2020
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Vividbleau @27,
Notice that JVL is completely deaf to the complaints about Biden's sexual aggression and creepy behavior with underage girls, documented racist comments, and documented corruption. That's apparently not an issue.
Very revealing.
-QQuerius
October 11, 2020
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“I tell you what, come Election Day your ballot will have more than two candidates on it. “
Technically true but in the real world a non vote for Trump is a vote for Biden
“The question now facing the nation is not, “Does Donald Trump have an exemplary moral character?” or, “Does Donald Trump have flaws?” or even, “Do I like Donald Trump?” The question is, “Which of two package deals is better for the nation?”
(a) Donald Trump and Republican policies or
(b) Joe Biden and Democratic policies?
There are no other choices. The nation will either have the option (a) or option (b) as a whole package for at least the next four years, and probably longer. If I withhold support from Trump, that makes it easier for Biden to win, and thereby for Democratic policies to bring (in my opinion) great destructiveness to the nation (more specifics below.)” Wayne Grudem
“ And if you’re more interested in winning or having an economic policy you agree with than you are in the moral stance of the leader of your country then aren’t you taking an ethical stance that is in conflict with Christian values?”
To echo Grudem
“On the other hand, I fail to see how an evangelical Christian who believes in the moral values of the Bible could support the increasingly far-left Democratic Party. How could Christian in good conscience support a party that promotes laws and policies that
- allow abortion up to the moment of birth,
- authorize the use of our tax money to pay for abortions and gender reassignment surgery,
- cripple our economy with ever-increasing government control and taxes,
- further cripple the economy with expensive Green New Deal energy regulations,
- increase unemployment,
- weaken our military in the face of increased aggressiveness by China,
- promote a Jimmy Carter-like foreign policy of appeasement,
- abandon Israel to fend for itself,
- nullify the Senate filibuster rule (both Obama and Biden have recently spoken about this) so that all legislation can be passed with only 50 senators plus the vice president casting the tie-breaking vote,
- support the rising influence of judges who are not constrained by the original meaning of the words of the Constitution or of the laws, perhaps even adding six additional seats to the Supreme Court in order to be able to give the court a new 10-5 majority of such justices (this could be done with control of both the House, the Senate, and the presidency)
- grant statehood to both Washington DC and Puerto Rico, thus adding four more Democrats to the U.S. Senate (I have heard three US senators already predict that the Democrats would do this if they had the votes)
- support draconian laws that compel an artistic professional or a professional counselor to affirm the validity of same-sex marriage even when that is contrary to the professional person’s conscience,
- reinstate the Obama-era guidelines that required schools to allow biological males who claim to be transgender females to use girls’ bathrooms, locker rooms, and showers (the guidelines were canceled by Trump),
- allow biological males to compete in women’s sports, setting new statewide records in women’s track events and other sports
- pass multiple new, extremely strict green energy laws that will massively increase energy costs and therefore will also increase the cost of everything that is made or transported with the use of energy,
-seek to defund the police (to be precise, Biden has said he favors “redirecting” some police funding to other programs, which is a partial “defunding” of police, which will lead predictably to a substantial increase in crime),
-use violence and intimidation to nullify freedom of speech (in practice) for those who disagree with them politically,
- support open borders and sanctuary cities in defiance of the law, and that
- promote a complete federal government takeover of our healthcare system.
It is not the fault of evangelical Christians that Republican party policies have increasingly favored policies consistent with Christian values, while Democratic Party policies have increasingly strayed from Christian values (this happened initially and most notably over the issue of abortion rights but then it spread to many other policies). Since that has happened, it seems to me that evangelicals face an easy choice of which party to support. (In fact, many of the policies favored in the 2016 Republican Party platform are the same as those advocated in my book, Politics According to the Bible.)”
I would add two more things one Christian related the others not.
1) The promotion of the teaching Critical Theory.
2) The second amendment.
“You should listen to the debate I linked to.”
I did. Orangeman bad, got it.
Vividvividbleau
October 11, 2020
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Querius: As I said, the lesser of two evils.
So, being thrice married and having paid off a couple of women who made claims about his infidelities is the lesser of two evils? Trump's undenied record of talking about grabbing women by their genitals is the lesser of two evils?
I tell you what, come Election Day your ballot will have more than two candidates on it. You don't have to vote for Donald Trump or Joe Biden. If you find them both evil then why not support one of the other candidates? And if you're more interested in winning or having an economic policy you agree with than you are in the moral stance of the leader of your country then aren't you taking an ethical stance that is in conflict with Christian values?
What's the most important point in this election?
You should listen to the debate I linked to.JVL
October 11, 2020
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JVL,
That's easy. People who support Donald Trump appreciate him taking effective executive action on facilitating a robust economy, prison reform, lowering unemployment and higher employment of minorities at historical levels, firing people who are not cutting it, fast track on getting a COVID-19 vaccine to final trials in record time, and bringing troops home from all over the world. I almost forgot to mention his tougher negotiations to get Americans a fair deal with other countries.
But you raise an important point.
When Bill Clinton was caught in sexual abuse of a young female intern from his position of power and then lying about it, behavior that would get most executives fired, I remember listening to long NPR discussions about whether a president's "personal life" should be considered when evaluating what a wonderful job he was doing as president. The conclusion of the deep discussion was that Bill Clinton's presidency was not affected by his personal life. And similarly, the allegations by a number of women regarding unwanted sexual behavior by Joe Biden have been smothered by the press as has his creepy behavior toward little girls, his offensive racial stereotyping, his complicity in the fabricated collusion plot with Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama, and others, not to mention the obvious onset of dementia or quid pro quo dealings protecting his son's dealings in the Ukraine or the mysterious multi-mullion dollar gift to his son from the wife of the mayor of Moscow.
Of course, I'd expect that you harshly criticized these horrible behaviors as well, didn't you?
As I said, the lesser of two evils.
-QQuerius
October 11, 2020
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Kairosfocus & Querius:
So, not sure if you've actually listened to the point made in the debate, you support Trump because you're afraid of the Democrats? Really? You'd support a misogynist, womaniser because . . . .JVL
October 11, 2020
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I've always wondered why I'm always having to choose between the lesser of two evils.
-QQuerius
October 11, 2020
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JVL, lesser of evils in an evil day. KFkairosfocus
October 11, 2020
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A very interesting episode of Unbelievable? . . . at least I think so:
https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-Should-Christians-vote-for-Trump-Eric-Metaxas-vs-David-FrenchJVL
October 11, 2020
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Q, Hitler was also funded by others including it seems Ford, Krupps etc. I guess they imagined he was an ordinary dirty pol. KF
PS: The lead-up to your clip is also significant:
In April 1945, when Adolf Hitler died by his own hand in the rubble of Berlin, nobody was much interested in what he had once believed. That was to be expected. War is no time for reflection, and what Hitler had done was so shattering, and so widely known through images of naked bodies piled high in mass graves, that little or no attention could readily be paid to National Socialism as an idea. It was hard to think of it as an idea at all. Hitler, who had once looked a crank or a clown, was exposed as the leader of a gang of thugs, and the world was content to know no more than that.
Half a century on, there is much to be said. Even thuggery can have its reasons, and the materials that have newly appeared, though they may not transform judgement, undoubtedly enrich and deepen it. Confidants of Hitler. such as the late Albert Speer, have published their reminiscences; his wartime table-talk is a book; early revelations like Hermann Rauschning's Hitler Speaks of 1939 have been validated by painstaking research, and the notes of dead Nazis like Otto Wagener have been edited, along with a full text of Goebbels's diary.
It is now clear beyond all reasonable doubt that Hitler and his associates believed they were socialists, and that others, including democratic socialists, thought so too. The title of National Socialism was not hypocritical. The evidence before 1945 was more private than public, which is perhaps significant in itself. In public Hitler was always anti-Marxist, and in an age in which the Soviet Union was the only socialist state on earth, and with anti-Bolshevism a large part of his popular appeal, he may have been understandably reluctant to speak openly of his sources. His megalomania, in any case, would have prevented him from calling himself anyone's disciple. That led to an odd and paradoxical alliance between modern historians and the mind of a dead dictator. Many recent analysts have fastidiously refused to study the mind of Hitler; and they accept, as unquestioningly as many Nazis did in the 1930s, the slogan "Crusade against Marxism" as a summary of his views. An age in which fascism has become a term of abuse is unlikely to analyse it profoundly.
His private conversations, however, though they do not overturn his reputation as an anti-Communist, qualify it heavily. Hermann Rauschning, for example, a Danzig Nazi who knew Hitler before and after his accession to power in 1933, tells how in private Hitler acknowledged his profound debt to the Marxian tradition. "I have learned a great deal from Marxism" he once remarked, "as I do not hesitate to admit".
kairosfocus
October 11, 2020
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Kairosfocus @18,
Yes, and there's some interesting evidence that Hitler early on was funded by the communists and that he launched the Munich Putsch timed at their orders. He decided to split from the communists after its failure, his arrest, and his imprisonment.
Hermann Rauschning, for example, a Danzig Nazi who knew Hitler before and after his accession to power in 1933, tells how in private Hitler acknowledged his profound debt to the Marxian tradition. "I have learned a great deal from Marxism" he once remarked, "as I do not hesitate to admit". He was proud of a knowledge of Marxist texts acquired in his student days before the First World War and later in a Bavarian prison, in 1924, after the failure of the Munich putsch. The trouble with Weimar Republic politicians, he told Otto Wagener at much the same time, was that "they had never even read Marx", implying that no one who had failed to read so important an author could even begin to understand the modern world; in consequence, he went on, they imagined that the October revolution in 1917 had been "a private Russian affair", whereas in fact it had changed the whole course of human history! His differences with the communists, he explained, were less ideological than tactical.
Q, yup. I would say, Hitler by the July plot 1944 was full blown with whatever devils rode him. In 1945, the reports were he was a very sick man, with tremors and looking visibly ill and aged on or about his birthday. He had a quack who was propping him up with injections and the like. Unbearable stress was breaking him and he was in dubious touch with reality but still controlled the totalitarian apparatus. He did not seem to realise how shattered the army units he was trying to move around on maps were. His December 1944 winter offensive shot his bolt, never mind that his troops proved they could still put on a meat grinder in the Hurtgen forest. That said, his remarks in a book written from prison in the 1920's, were a chilling portent on coming events. KFkairosfocus
October 10, 2020
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Haha. Actually, he posts more like hit and run assertions, and when a challenge is raised for him to support one of his assertions and things get interesting, it's crickets and he's off to a newer post. ;-)
-QQuerius
I'm actually curious as to whether Seversky has studied Mein Kampf before posting his assertion.
-QQuerius
October 7, 2020
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Amusing, but in the end sad.kairosfocus
October 7, 2020
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Seversky,
Where did you get the idea that early Hitler was different than later? Have you studied Mein Kampf or are you just assuming your assertions to be true?
-QQuerius
October 5, 2020
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Who exactly is calling Trump out for his narcissism? Why it’s other narcissists. Is it a case of it takes one to no one, or is it because narcissists are blind to their own self-righteous egotism and hypocrisy?john_a_designer
October 5, 2020
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Wow. Talk about fear-mongering based on ignorance. What leader isn't narcissistic? Obama is. Clinton definitely is.
What autocratic tendencies has Trump shown as President? What is the evidence that he ran his businesses as a dictatorship?ET
October 5, 2020
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I don't think Trump now is like Hitler at the peak of his power but then neither was the early Hitler. As I've said before, Trump has been effectively a dictator within his privately owned companies most of his life. I think he is displaying alarming signs of narcissistic and autocratic tendencies and I fear that, given the wrong circumstances, he could be the type of man to bring about the very catastrophe that some here are warning about.Seversky
October 5, 2020
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Similar to the German General Erwin Rommel, General George Patton knew how to lead men into extreme danger and courage by example and a heroic image. Of course, successful and colorful generals tend to become a threat on the political stage and might later be elected to something, such as U.S. President, for example. So Patton needed to be brought down by the hysterical press and threatened politicians.
General Patton later suggested that if the Soviets refused to evacuate Eastern Europe, he'd be happy to throw them out, knowing that the Soviet army was extremely vulnerable to supply interdiction, mass starvation, and surrender. There are some who are convinced that General Patton was actually assassinated as a result of this threat.
Of course nowadays, it's different. We still have a hysterical press, but they don't bother to publish stories that even remotely represent the truth. In today's world, political threats usually become suddenly despondent and conveniently commit suicide instead. Much tidier.
-QQuerius
October 5, 2020
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It should be obvious by now that the secular progressive left, or the so-called “woke” virtue signaling left, has a difficult time tolerating strong personalities. Their response is to vilify and demonize such people. And one of the ploys they use is to associate anyone on the so-called right who speaks out forcefully about their political philosophy as promoting a fascist ideology.
Victor Davis Hanson, a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, thinks that this type of thinking goes back a long ways. He refers to a predominant part of our society as the therapeutic society. For example, in a recent lecture, he cites some of the 1940’s “main stream medias” almost hysterical coverage of General George S. Patton who was well known for his colorful personality, “out spokeness,” and outright egotism. Specifically there were three incidents during the Allie’s Sicily campaign which were blown way out of proportion by the American press covering the news during WWII.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJsC-buIkSE
The first was shooting and throwing a couple mules, owned by a poor Sicilian peasant that were blocking the U.S. column, off a bridge. Allegedly, Patton dispatched the mules personally with one of his customized ivory handle revolvers. That sounds bad but at the time the column was being strafed by Luftwaffe fighter-bombers. The last thing you want to be under such circumstances is a “sitting target.” However, I do hope that the U.S. Army compensated the poor peasant for the loss of his mules.
The second and third incidents were for slapping a couple of unwounded soldiers who were convalescing in the hospital for other reasons. (One had malaria the other was suffering from what we now call PTSD.) Yes, Patton was clearly wrong here. But was removing one of our more capable generals from his command really the right course of action? What would have been wrong with just a stern public reprimand?
Patton as commander of the Third Army after the Normandy breakout more than proved his worth…
The point is just because someone has a strong personality or temperament doesn’t make them a fascist or a potential fascist. Patton was fighting fascism. I’m glad we had him on our side.john_a_designer
