Freethinker Sunday Sermonette: election primer

Praise GOD and pass the ballot box.

I think I will write in Pat Paulson again.

Don't forget Max Von Sydow's words from Hannah and Her Sisters: "If Jesus came back and saw what's going on in his name, he'd never stop throwing up."

*sighs* Yeah. Huckabee truly terrifies me, but the others aren't exactly awesome in this regard, either.

When I heard the first second and a half of the music, I busted out laughing. Perfect choice, whoever came up with that is a genius.

Video stinks. Obama is clear about the Constitution and rights for non-believers (and I think Hillary is too). What bothers me is that people don't read and watch speeches from the candidates and base opinions on sound-bites and videos like the above. That's laziness. The sound-bite pandering needs to stop. One can dream....

Huckabee is scary the deeper you go.

Mike Gravel had the best comment early in the debates he said "you guys all scare me" regarding their position on Iran (all options are on the table). Nothing any of these people propose is more scary than the possibility they might attack Iran. Be ready for food and gasoline rationing if they do, or worse if other countries respond to our agression. Religion is the least thing we need to worry about with the pathetic choices left to us in this election (if we have one - the laws are in place that would allow Bush to call off elections if we had another terrorist attack on our soil - hmmm guess he would like that - he called 9/11 to be like winning the Trifecta)

I don't believe the Golden Rule is in the bible. But I could be wrong. Haven't read it in 50 years. As for the rest of it. No candidate who claims to be an atheist or agnostic or wiccan would have a chance to be elected at all, one who is Jewish or Muslim or Bhuddist would have little chance in this country of fatuous (and fake) believers ............

Actually, Oldfart, the golden rule is in the bible in two forms: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," and "Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them." Not that it matters though. Just about every religion has some form of it in their scripture, but it doesn't make up for the rest of the crap in there.

And to actually respond to the post:
I hate that pandering to the religious is required to have a chance in an election in this country, but it is. So I can't really be too angry at the democrats giving a nod to the believers. Barack's "kingdom on earth" bit is a bit unnerving, but using the language of religion isn't the same as being a religious kook who believes that this is a "Christian nation."

And that's what really terrifies me. The claim that we are a Christian nation is fundamentally false, but they're completely willing to repeat it over and over, until people really believe that they have a right to "take back this country for God." Hell, I know a lot of believers who are terrified at this. Most of us like our constitution and our freedoms just how they are, thank you very much.

The US election 08 clearly tells us that in America, no matter how qualified a woman is, she has very little chance of getting the top job, against a man who wants the same job.

It is much more important for the Americans to see how the woman looks, sounds or pleases them in some other way, than it is to see if she is the best qualified for the job.

We can all deny this but if we are really honest about it, we would all have to admit this as a fact.

It is like getting a male pilot with only one year training to fly a jumbo jet, because he is a man and "he inspires us", as opposed to a woman who has flown jumbo jets for decades and has weathered all kinds of storms, but "we do not like her".

But then that is how George W was elected.

Was he not the guy you could have a drink with?

Of course the fact that GW had no idea about running a country, was no problem as he could always "surround himself with the best"!

We deserve what we get and should not moan about it after the fact.

Going to give some air time to the Republicans? (I can hear the moaning now).

It's all like a broken record anymore, just keeps skipping and repeating itself. That's what gets to me, no one, except a few, see this horror film for what it really is.

Change? bull crap.
Religious leadership? bull crap.
The Muslim murderers have been masterful in helping to create this illusion. Now these guys are bouncing the ball around the court like they're on steroids.

Holy crap, if i wasn't paying attention to this election, if I saw that clip of Obama I'd have thought he was as crazy as Huckabee. They both may be Christians, but I think that Obama at least has the intelligence to realize that his religious views will not trump my lack of faith when he steps into the White House. And apparently I'm not as up to date as I thought I was. I used to view McCain as the innocuous republican candidate (maybe not militarily, but at least socially), but it's good to know that he unapologetically views this as a Christian Nation. Wackjob. Just as much of a danger as the rest.

If you bring you charged laptop into the voting booth you can just boot it up, surf over to the blog and use this information to cast you ballot.

And if your polling station happens to use electronic voting, you can connect your laptop to the voting machine and change the votes of others while you're at it!

Lea: Give me a break. The Republicans have had a monopoly on air time for 7 years. Thanks. And thanks for the religious leadership they've exerted. Sent us straight to hell.

paul: Obama isn't Huckabee. But the point is that he and all the others pandered to religion because that's what you have to do. I'll vote for him if he is the nominee. That doesn't mean I have to say Amen to bullcrap. And I won't. He gets called on it the same as anyone else.

birdflunewsflash: I'd vote for Clinton in a flash if she had politics I agreed with. Her vote on the war, her vote on the Iran resolution, her fearmongering campaigning are non-starters with me. Both Clinton and Obama are in bed with private health insurance so she gets no points there over him on that. It has nothing to do with her being a woman. Nor does her being a woman give me confidence she won't be a foreign policy reactionary. Consider Meir, Thatcher, Indira Ghandi. None were peacemakers. If she's the nominee I'll vote for her over McCain, but even less enthusiastically than for Obama. It's not her gender. it's her shitty politics.

Was he not the guy you could have a drink with?

or snort a line with.

avoid responsibility with?

run a business into the ground with?

hard to find friends like that.

nlightnmnt: And if your polling station happens to use electronic voting, you can connect your laptop to the voting machine and change the votes of others while you're at it!

Just like how you change the google main website by plugging in your computer to the internet?

India has the largest functioning democracy in the world, and they use electronic voting machines with very few problems.

Worded wrong I would suppose revere.
Wasn't supporting religious leadership. While my belief in God is strong I'm worn-out over hearing about the religious convictions of political leaders.

But the: "Change? bullcrap", was directed at Obama.

If any of the candidates on the video had any sense about themselves they could have said something like, "yes, I'm a person with religious beliefs however, that faith is for my personal life alone and will not, under any circumstances, be brought into my Presidency".
Now, a candidate that would have said something along those lines could have possibly caught my attention.

Regarding #4 in the video - favourite Bible verse - It would have been nice to hear one of them choosing Matthew 6:1, 5-6.

Matt6:1

"Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

Matt6:5-6
"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 6But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen.

And if only all candidate headed those particular words.

typo alert: heeded, not headed.

Anon, the voting machine companies Diebold and ESS have at their heads the brothers Todd and Bob Urosevich. These men are fundamentalist of the Reconstructionist kind. That means that they believe among other things that the Christian Church will rule the Earth for 1000 years and then the rapture comes. Do you begin to see the danger here. Their mission is to establish rule by the church (their version I presume) and not to allow democracy to flourish. People with a mission are really scary. The founder of this movement was "R.J. Rushdoony, the late theological leader of America's "Christian Reconstruction" movement, which advocates that Christian fundamentalists take "dominion" over America by abolishing democracy and instituting Old Testament Law. Rushdoony's Reconstructionalists believe that "homosexuals . . . adulterers , blasphemers, astrologers and others will be executed," along with disobedient children."

Do some googling on the brothers, on Rushdoony, on Christian Reconstructionists and you will learn more than you want to know and may be scared out of your wits.

I keep hearing this "The laws are in place to allow the President to call off the election if we have a terrorist attack." First of all, no, no law like that is in place. Maybe someone drafted an executive order to that effect and stuck it in a drawer, but nothing even remotely related to such a contingency has even been proposed in either the House or the Senate, let alone dicussed, let alone voted on, let alone passed, let alone signed into law. So no, there is no law to that effect.

Second of all, any such law would by definition be unconstitutional, and I have to believe that the nation as a whole would not obey it. The constitution sets the parameters for presidential elections, terms, and succession, and provides for no contingencies or exceptions. Any law that said "We aren't going to hold an election as the constitution prescribes," for ANY reason, would be unconstitutional, and the first federal jusge it landed in front of would issue an immediate injunction prohibiting it from being put into effect. So about five minutes after someone announced there would be no 2008 election, someone (maybe me) would be in federal court seeking an injuction, and that would be the end of it.

>>>The US election 08 clearly tells us that in America, no matter how qualified a woman is, she has very little chance of getting the top job, against a man who wants the same job.<<<

How the 08 election could tell us anything of the sort is beyond me. In order to learn how the US would respond to the prospect of a qualified woman being President, it seems we would first have to have a woman involved in the election who is remotely qualified to be President---and that we don't have.

This "35 years of experience" line is crap. First, it dates back to the year she graduated from law school, and nothing she did in that period would qualify anyone to be President. Being married to a Governor and then a President doesn't give you presidential experience, just like the Packers wouldn't let Mrs. Favre call plays in the huddle or take snaps. Hillary Clinton has been in the Senate for 7 years (during which time she has accomplished exactly nothing and spent 4 of those years doing nothing but running for reelection and for President). She had no relevant experience prior to her election to the Senate, and in fact, the few times she ever was put in charge of anything, she screwed the pooch so badly the whole idea had to be abandoned. She is a thoroughly unknowledgable person, convinced that if she can just get her hands on the Presidency, she can simply order everything to be the way she thinks it should be, with no regard to reality or how people are likely to respond to the changes she advocates.

These flaws do not make her that much different from all the other candidates, but they give plenty of reason to reject her other than the fact that she is a woman. In fact, a man who ran for President with such paper-thin credentials would be justifiably laughed out of the race (unless his name was Barack Obama), and the only reason she is taken seriously at all is that her last name is Clinton.

Let a qualified woman run for President, and then we'll see how the nation responds. Maybe you're right about the attitude, but the rejection of Hillary Clinton is no evidence for it---other factors explain it much more readily.

"K" has it right on target about Dominionists and Reconstructionists. Do a simple keyword search and read. I guarantee they will scare you so badly that you'll have a hard time getting to sleep. These people are deadly serious, and they have plenty of friends in very high places. Major threat to Constitutional government.

So about the candidates. Ask yourself this: Who among them believes in the methods and findings of science? Who among them is knowledgeable about same? Who among them will listen closely to the scientists and engineers in government and the universities?

Hucksterbee is a kook, and says he knows more about miracles than math, so scratch him off the list. McCain is an honorable man, but the kooks would probably claim they got him elected and so they own him: very tough for him to break out of that. Clinton and Obama both seem very much up to date on a range of scientific and technical issues, and both can be expected to ignore the kook faction. Between the two of them, my impression is that Obama could really pull off a clean sweep end-to-end.

Cureholder - laws, executive orders, signing statments - what does it matter to this administration. Pick at pebbles if you will while our constitution is being eaten away. Goodbye Habeus Corpus. Forget adhering to treaties. And so on. Bush thinks the constitution is "just a goddamned piece of paper!" http://www.comlinks.com/polintel/pi051214.htm

Read on to see what some minds are thinking

Gen. Tommy Franks says that if the United States is hit with a weapon of mass destruction that inflicts large casualties, the Constitution will likely be discarded in favor of a military form of government.

Franks, who successfully led the U.S. military operation to liberate Iraq, expressed his worries in an extensive interview he gave to the mens lifestyle magazine Cigar Aficionado

The rest at
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/11/20/185048.shtml

"laws, executive orders, signing statements - what does it matter to this administration".
It doesn't matter K because of the Federal Reserve.
They own you and they own me. The "Beast" is the Federal Reserve.

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were the only two that I know of right now that fought centralized banking.
Congress has the authority to shut down the Federal Reserve System.

I say let's all write-in PZ Myers. Honestly I don't know who to vote...

Whaddaya know, McCain is a mercury equals autism nut. I really just want to cry now.

The point is that not only is Obama clearly a novice in world affairs but also has shown to be less than honest, even during this honeymoon with the media.

Buying property in partnership with a person known to be under investigation for EXTORTION is of course a minor "mistake". This is after every one knew that this guy was to be prosecutes.

One racist friend is another mistake, but two of them in close proximity of the next President of the USA is more than that.

Then there is the fact that Obama as the Chair of the Afghanistan committee (in opinion of many to be the most important foreign relation task that the US has faced in decades) did not attend a single, (that is, not even one) meeting because he was busy trying to be the next President.

Of course the most interesting thing to have come to light recently is the "Obama Speak" for lying to the nation, about his proclamations about NAFTA.

What did his man tell the Canadians?

"It is more politics than policy"

Now that is what I call eloquent!

We all ignore the obvious problems with Obama and seem to sleep walk in to giving a complete novice the most powerful job on Earth.

As I said, they would you give the job of even flying a jumbo jet, to a novice pilot just because he speaks well and we like him?

We all deserve what we get.

However, it is people from all the nations from around the world, who have had nothing to do with this election, but never the less, will all be affected by this madness for years to come.

You're right BFNF, We all deserve what we get.

Ron Paul is against the Federal Reserve so they can't let him get elected, or if elected they can't let him take office.
Question, is the current financial mess a big f**k up or planned. Can't make up my mind whether they have some devious purpose in this or whether they are just short sighted idiots who fell in love with over stimulating the ecconomy so that the Ponzi scheme would fall sooner rather than later.

Obama the novice likely won't be running things. Zbignew Bryzynski is his advisor. He ran things under Carter regarding foreign policy. While I like him little, he is a smart man, not as stupid as Bush's advisors, and perhaps not as evil as Kissinger

Cureholder-Not so fast. Under a declaration of a state of emergency the President OR even someone as lowly as a Mayor can call of anything they want. Under martial law, you can suspend the Constitution.

There would be lawsuits filed and immediate action on the part of the judiciary if something like this came about.

BTW K, I like Zbig very little and had Carter acted a lot more decisively we might have not had to ride into Afghanistan a few years ago, or Iraq. Purely conjecture of course but the Russians DID take the country on their watch. Our response, no Olympics. Now that will teach 'em.

As for Bush's advisors I sure as hell wouldnt call them stupid K., they have successfully moved their agenda and in the face of an opposition Congress. That makes them pretty bright. Even the new domestic spying laws were put in. Great if Hillary is in there. She will spy and have Sandy Berger stealing documents not so becoming from the National Archives for her too.

All in a days work.

Ron Paul is the only decent person running for President K, and we have a public that doesn't even see it.

Truth, justice and the American way has been replaced by Lies, deceit and broken hearts. (and these people believe in God! go figure).

"As for Bush's advisors I sure as hell wouldnt call them stupid" No MRK, they're not stupid, it's the vast majority of Americans that are stupid for ever letting things go as far as they have.

MRK, Getting through the agenda you want in congress is something Bush's people are good at. Accomplishing your ends by so doing is something else. Not knowing for sure just what ends they are after it is hard to know if they are getting what they want. On the surface it seems that they are failing at all their stated aims in the Middle East. Time will tell, but frankly I think they are botching the execution of their plans.