Who Are We/Who Am I?

[bybee]

As I read political commentaries and listen to the words of newscasters I wonder about the current, apparent, identity qualifications of those of us blessed to be Americans?

The rampant, demanding, invasive, pervasive tentacles of political correctness has already redefined what is permitted in thought, word and deed by American citizens.
Many in the far Left would do away with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Our government has been restructured so that the federal government is in control of every aspect of our society.

The middle class is being squeezed out of existence and The Age of Entitlement is firmly entrenched.

Many on the far Left show immense contempt for their own Country and would have America liable and responsible for everything that goes wrong in the world. Yet, not willing to give credit to all that is good and noble that American's have sacrificed to help the rest of the world to fight tyranny and enslavement.

Have we, like Sodom and Gomorrah, become so depraved that there is no health in us?

Those of us who continue to don the Armor of God to fight the good fight may well have become hopelessly outnumbered in this world.
Yet we continue because we know from whence comes our reward.

I pray that Almighty God shall put an embankment around the slippery slope of depravity down which we are sliding as a society
so as to halt our fall and give respite and strength to the remnant who still belong to Him.

Of course, I speak as an old woman who believes that with God all things are possible.

 

[Town Heretic]

As I read political commentaries and listen to the words of newscasters I wonder about the current, apparent, identity qualifications of those of us blessed to be Americans?

US? Haven't we always been a motley and mongrel crew?

The rampant, demanding, invasive, pervasive tentacles of political correctness has already redefined what is permitted in thought, word and deed by American citizens.

:think: You know how much I hate the term PC, which too often seems to me an excuse for uttering what a decent upbringing would otherwise silence while attempting to wrap it in the clothes of public virtue...that said, I suppose it's always been that way. If you lived in one day you'd be careful who you spoke to about economic inequity for fear of being labeled a communist or a radical. Same with racial equity and on and on. There's always a guy pushing new ideas and expanding freedoms and there's always another clutching a handbasket and yelling at him to get out of the yard as though it belongs to him.

That's America, isn't it.

Many in the far Left would do away with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Go far enough in either direction and that's true. But most people of either camp value our law and letter, I suspect.

Our government has been restructured so that the federal government is in control of every aspect of our society.

It's sort of inevitable given how we went from a migrant, disjointed society to an intimately interconnected and dependent compact.

The middle class is being squeezed out of existence and The Age of Entitlement is firmly entrenched.

I don't think you'll find the poor doing most of that squeezing though. The richest end of our people are gaining more and more. I don't think that ongoing shift in economic reality can be set at the feet of the left.

Many on the far Left show immense contempt for their own Country and would have America liable and responsible for everything that goes wrong in the world.

The answer would be that many (the truly powerful) on the right have rigged the game and the evidence is in their ongoing siphoning of our economic might into their concentrated hands and that this is the true mark of contempt for the middle class.

Yet, not willing to give credit to all that is good and noble that American's have sacrificed to help the rest of the world to fight tyranny and enslavement.

I don't know of many outside of the extremes of our society who aren't grateful to live in a free compact, one of laws and the idea of equality in right and opportunity, even if the last part of that is seriously in question. Else...after WWII things changed. We'd awoke as an economic engine that could and the military that was disproportionately the root of that became a necessary player in an ongoing effort to expand an economic empire.

In that pursuit we let too many of the inevitable sociopaths guide policy and frequently betrayed our ideas for a profitable and powerful world wide bottom line. It's been a long time since American values drove American action abroad.

Have we, like Sodom and Gomorrah, become so depraved that there is no health in us?

A cry every generation hands to the next. It was true in my father's day and his father's day. It was likely true of some lamenting British loyalists.

Those of us who continue to don the Armor of God to fight the good fight may well have become hopelessly outnumbered in this world.
Yet we continue because we know from whence comes our reward.

Love God, seek His pleasure. I suspect if we follow that principle we'll be fine and the compact will continue to be what it has always been, a living thing with the requisite virtue and failings.

...speak as an old woman who believes that with God all things are possible.

As an aging member of another generation, amen.

 

[resodko]

if only we could get people who posture as "Christian" to stop voting for evil men and to stop supporting societal acceptance of perversion

 

[bybee]

US? Haven't we always been a motley and mongrel crew?


:think: You know how much I hate the term PC, which too often seems to me an excuse for uttering what a decent upbringing would otherwise silence while attempting to wrap it in the clothes of public virtue...that said, I suppose it's always been that way. If you lived in one day you'd be careful who you spoke to about economic inequity for fear of being labeled a communist or a radical. Same with racial equity and on and on. There's always a guy pushing new ideas and expanding freedoms and there's always another clutching a handbasket and yelling at him to get out of the yard as though it belongs to him.

That's America, isn't it.


Go far enough in either direction and that's true. But most people of either camp value our law and letter, I suspect.


It's sort of inevitable given how we went from a migrant, disjointed society to an intimately interconnected and dependent compact.


I don't think you'll find the poor doing most of that squeezing though. The richest end of our people are gaining more and more. I don't think that ongoing shift in economic reality can be set at the feet of the left.


The answer would be that many (the truly powerful) on the right have rigged the game and the evidence is in their ongoing siphoning of our economic might into their concentrated hands and that this is the true mark of contempt for the middle class.


I don't know of many outside of the extremes of our society who aren't grateful to live in a free compact, one of laws and the idea of equality in right and opportunity, even if the last part of that is seriously in question. Else...after WWII things changed. We'd awoke as an economic engine that could and the military that was disproportionately the root of that became a necessary player in an ongoing effort to expand an economic empire.

In that pursuit we let too many of the inevitable sociopaths guide policy and frequently betrayed our ideas for a profitable and powerful world wide bottom line. It's been a long time since American values drove American action abroad.


A cry every generation hands to the next. It was true in my father's day and his father's day. It was likely true of some lamenting British loyalists.


Love God, seek His pleasure. I suspect if we follow that principle we'll be fine and the compact will continue to be what it has always been, a living thing with the requisite virtue and failings.


As an aging member of another generation, amen.

I carefully read and consider your responses. They are reasoned and well thought. Yet, they are without passion.
The fact that others have lamented the same things is a way of diffusing the intensity and immediacy of today's laments.
I don't subscribe to that much reason!
Sufficient unto the day are the troubles therein!!! I would not water them down with comparisons other that to learn how to problem solve with tools already tried and true.

 

[Repentance]

What makes you think America is God's favoured nation? Or some kind of thing. American was founded by secular principles. All the founders of America were very secular in thinking and thus gave freedom of religion to everyone. Homosexuality, blasphemy, apostasy, adultery and fornication, pornography, racism, materialism and other vices are widespread. God is not evoked in public spaces. In fact the secular principles are manifesting itself to prohibit such things. Saudi Arabia is a nation of God, not America. Surely!

 

[PureX]

I carefully read and consider your responses. They are reasoned and well thought. Yet, they are without passion.
The fact that others have lamented the same things is a way of diffusing the intensity and immediacy of today's laments.
I don't subscribe to that much reason!
Sufficient unto the day are the troubles therein!!! I would not water them down with comparisons other that to learn how to problem solve with tools already tried and true.

'Passion' is a great attribute to have when you want to make a baby. But it's of very little use when you need to fix your car.

Socially speaking, we're in a "need to fix the car" situation, not a "need to make a baby" situation. It this instance, we need to set the passion aside, and start using our brains. One of our biggest social problems we have right now is that both the media and the politicians are stirring up peoples 'passions' and using them to manipulate them. In the media's case, it's to keep people paying attention to the advertising (that's how they make their money). In the politician's case it's to get their man elected by making us hate the other guy more (that's how they make their money). And unfortunately these agendas tend to overlap easily, creating a very powerful cultural engine. One that is not in the service of our 'better angels'. One that is setting us all against each other and is tearing the country and it's people apart.

I read TH's response closely, as well. And it was very measured, and very accurate. It exhibits exactly the kind of thinking we SHOULD be engaging in, right now, if we really want to try and fix the cultural, economic, and political things that are currently broken.

 

[resodko]

not surprising at all that th and purexcrement's thinking would be in accord when it comes to supporting perversion and moral decay

 

[Town Heretic]

I carefully read and consider your responses. They are reasoned and well thought. Yet, they are without passion.

I appreciate the consideration, but you're mistaken on the conclusion. The young and the openly zealous may often appear more passionate, but I think it's mostly a willingness to engage in and a penchant for the melodramatic. Maybe a cultural thing.

The fact that others have lamented the same things is a way of diffusing the intensity and immediacy of today's laments.

No, only contextualizing. Every generation has said to the next that their music, culture, ect. was degenerating. Change often feels like that, especially to those maintaining a reverence for the status quo.

I don't subscribe to that much reason!

Then I differ, if without the exclamation.

Sufficient unto the day are the troubles therein!!! I would not water them down with comparisons other that to learn how to problem solve with tools already tried and true.

I don't agree that's what I'm doing, of course, in offering an examination of what seems to be a common enough, generational complaint, but always good to bump elbows with you bybee.

:cheers:

 

[Town Heretic]

What makes you think America is God's favoured nation?

I don't.

American was founded by secular principles.

Aimed in large part at protecting religious freedom from the tyranny of the majority and/or empowered. We weren't always successful, but we're a work in progress.

Homosexuality, blasphemy, apostasy, adultery and fornication, pornography, racism, materialism and other vices are widespread.

Homosexuality makes up a pretty consistent portion of the population, blasphemy and apostasy come with free speech. People we differ with have the same right to their conscience that we do. I don't count that a weakness and I suspect any people who repress ideas aren't protecting ideas worth very much. As for the rest, again, freedom is a messy business and it's up to the individual to root out and contextualize.

You can't manage that for yourselves?

God is not evoked in public spaces.

He rather often is, by anyone who wants to.

In fact the secular principles are manifesting itself to prohibit such things.

Not really.

Saudi Arabia is a nation of God, not America. Surely!

Or not, supra. :e4e:

 

[bybee]

not surprising at all that th and purexcrement's thinking would be in accord when it comes to supporting perversion and moral decay

You are in error with your statements here.
Neither of these posters support perversion, nor do I.
What I do support and I believe both TH and PureX are with me in this, is the FREEDOM to make one's own choices so long as the vulnerable and the innocent are not harmed.
I differ with both of these posters more on implementation than in principle.

 

[bybee]

'Passion' is a great attribute to have when you want to make a baby. But it's of very little use when you need to fix your car.

Socially speaking, we're in a "need to fix the car" situation, not a "need to make a baby" situation. It this instance, we need to set the passion aside, and start using our brains. One of our biggest social problems we have right now is that both the media and the politicians are stirring up peoples 'passions' and using them to manipulate them. In the media's case, it's to keep people paying attention to the advertising (that's how they make their money). In the politician's case it's to get their man elected by making us hate the other guy more (that's how they make their money). And unfortunately these agendas tend to overlap easily, creating a very powerful cultural engine. One that is not in the service of our 'better angels'. One that is setting us all against each other and is tearing the country and it's people apart.

I read TH's response closely, as well. And it was very measured, and very accurate. It exhibits exactly the kind of thinking we SHOULD be engaging in, right now, if we really want to try and fix the cultural, economic, and political things that are currently broken.

I agree in principle but it takes passion to implement corrections and to implement changes.

Leave it to a man to declare that passion must be reserved for sex!

 

[resodko]

Neither of these posters support perversion, nor do I.

then you missed the way they both waved away your mention of depravity


when you mention depravity, i think of societal acceptance of perversions and moral decay like abortion, homosexuality, adultery, unwed pregnancies, etc, etc



were you referring to the depravity of disloyalty to the british royalty?

'cause that's how town waved it away


or were you referring to the depravity of media and political manipulation?

'cause that's what purexcrement focused on

 

[bybee]

then you missed the way they both waved away your mention of depravity


when you mention depravity, i think of societal acceptance of perversions and moral decay like abortion, homosexuality, adultery, unwed pregnancies, etc, etc



were you referring to the depravity of disloyalty to the british royalty?

'cause that's how town waved it away


or were you referring to the depravity of media and political manipulation?

'cause that's what purexcrement focused on

Personally, I am a believer in the virtues of behaving in accord with principles of the Bible germane to our day. I do go to church with my head uncovered and wear mixed material clothing. I love bacon and absolutely believe in equality of persons regarding the law.
BUT! I absolutely PASSIONATELY BELIEVE AND DEFEND THE FREEDOM OF CHOICE GUARANTEED TO ALL PERSONS UNDER OUR CONSTITUTION!!!

Because, you see, I wish to be free to make my own choices.

Don't you?

 

[resodko]

BUT! I absolutely PASSIONATELY BELIEVE AND DEFEND THE FREEDOM OF CHOICE GUARANTEED TO ALL PERSONS UNDER OUR CONSTITUTION!!!

so you're in favor of legalization of pedophilia?



no, probably not







what did you mean when you wrote "the slippery slope of depravity down which we are sliding as a society"?



were you referring to the depravity of the rejection of the british monarchy?


'cause that's where town went with it :idunno:

 

[resodko]

... I absolutely PASSIONATELY BELIEVE AND DEFEND THE FREEDOM OF CHOICE GUARANTEED TO ALL PERSONS UNDER OUR CONSTITUTION!!!

can you show me where in the constitution we, as american citizens, are guaranteed the choice to:

a. murder unborn children
b. engage in adultery
c. engage in homosexual behavior




'cause the guys who wrote it didn't see those guarantees there

 

[bybee]

so you're in favor of legalization of pedophilia?



no, probably not







what did you mean when you wrote "the slippery slope of depravity down which we are sliding as a society"?



were you referring to the depravity of the rejection of the british monarchy?


'cause that's where town went with it :idunno:

I am working desperately at behaving myself! You do cause me to shred my tongue at times!!!
I did state and I shall repeat myself "The vulnerable and the innocent must be protected".
You know the Sylvan Learning Centers do help people who have reading comprehension difficulties....

 

[resodko]

I am working desperately at behaving myself! You do cause me to shred my tongue at times!!!
I did state and I shall repeat myself "The vulnerable and the innocent must be protected".
You know the Sylvan Learning Centers do help people who have reading comprehension difficulties....

she says, failing to read past the first sentence :chuckle:


try again granny

what did you mean when you wrote "the slippery slope of depravity down which we are sliding as a society"?



were you referring to the depravity of the rejection of the british monarchy?


'cause that's where town went with it

 

[bybee]

she says, failing to read past the first sentence :chuckle:


try again granny

No

 

[resodko]

bybee, refusing to recognize that town minimized the depravity of modern society?

 

[PureX]

I agree in principle but it takes passion to implement corrections and to implement changes.

Well, I just think it's an odd choice of words in this instance. I think it takes a sense of responsibility. I think it takes both intelligence and wisdom to recognize the problems and come up with seasoned and measured corrections. And I think it takes persistence and patience to get enough other people on board to actually implement those corrections. And after all that, it then takes humility to assess the results of the corrections honestly; without letting one's own biased ego get in the way.

It seems to me that 'passion' is antithetical to nearly all these above-mentioned attributes. It's passion that increases the intensity of our bias and closes our ears, eyes, and minds to everything but the desired objective. It's passion that blinds us to a 'measured response' and encourages us to act impulsively and in the extreme. And it's passion that allows our egos to run away with us. Which is almost never a good thing, for anyone.

'Compassion' I would gladly accept as one of the attributes that we need to focus on, and in fact I'm soon going to start a threat on that idea as related to your thread, here.

Passion, though, is not all that it's so often cracked up to be. And I say this as an artist, even! :nono: