" reasonable suspicion " = Driving While Looking Latino.
What a sad day for Arizona.
It's About Time Something Was Done.....
by Sam Whiskey 18 Replies latest jw friends
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Robdar
Are you talking social or politcal conservatism? If social, then yeah, I suppose you are a conservative. But I've always understood political conservatism to mean conservatism regarding fiscal policy which avoids deficit spending and the reduction of government spending, national debt,, etc. It was also my understanding that fiscal conservatism supports lower taxes, free trade, etc. I didn't think it had anything to do with the Bible or Christianity. I could be wrong. Correct me if I am.
Just as a side note, I one time asked the same question of a loud mouthed Christian who came into the art gallery I was working at. He proceeded to rip, snort, do an Elvis twitch of his hips, and condemn me straight to HELL. It was amusing for a little while but then I had to calm him down by threatening to call security. Ah, such good times.
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DanaBug
Because I grew up in a bible-based, legalistic environment and I see the same thing from conservatives and right-wingers. I hated it, black-and-white thinking is not a good way to govern anyone. That experience made me wary of anything that resembles it. My values are basically this: do unto others and stay out of people's personal decisions when they don't infringe on the rights of others. What appealed to me in that religion though was the idea of worldwide brotherhood, God accepting all people, and Jesus showing compassion for the ones who were thought of as the worst. I don't see that from right-wingers at all, and a lot of what I hear from them reminds me of the GB.
Maybe it's just that we think differently though. I'll have to dig it up, but I once read an article that explored that. You might like it too.
ETA It's Jonathan Haidt, ever read his stuff? Morals Authority
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WontLeave
Oh, great... Here come the "The Bible supports my political party" arguments. These are always entertaining. The proverbial pots calling the kettles black. Jesus argued against Bet Hillel and Bet Shammai, which were respectively uber conservative and uber liberal. Many here already fell for the false dichotomy of "We can prove other religions are wrong, so we must be right on everything" argument from JWs and now you're doing it with your political parties. Republican and Democrat are just 2 more cults you've been suckered into. "Third-party" or "Independent" parties might seem like the best of the bad, but they're not the answer and will just become corrupted with power and popularity. Getting into politics is like trying to polish a turd (even though Myth Busters managed to do just that).
The morsel of truth that brought most of us into JWs is that only God's kingdom can fix things. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. If you have given up on God's kingdom, then you have no hope for mankind and all is vanity and a striving after the wind. Obsessing over false solutions will just frustrate you and distract you from real solutions. That's what the purpose of false religion and politics is - Satan's tools of distraction to keep you so active in the movement that you never stop to think whether it really is the truth or the answer. And if you do believe in God's kingdom, why even try to slow the decline of society when you know God will step in once things deteriorate enough? You'd just be attempting to delay the inevitable and prolong the misery.
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whereami
Just ask yourself this: if good old jesus was to come around again, which party would he most likely agree with?
Think about that long and hard.
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DanaBug
Obsessing over false solutions will just frustrate you and distract you from real solutions.
But I see your solutions as false. I often wonder how much we could accomplish ourselves if less people were waiting on God's Kingdom to fix everything. We've already accomplished a lot without it. It's perspective.
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DanaBug
If you have given up on God's kingdom, then you have no hope for mankind and all is vanity and a striving after the wind.
This I also think is false. I have great hope for mankind, and it doesn't involve God in the least.
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Vidiot
The 21st Century Right Wing has done such a thorough job (re)defining "conservatism" as being Biblical literalist, pro-lassais-faire-capitalist, and anti-everything-else, that at this point, it is (ironically) virtually unrecognizable to "conservatism" as it was envisioned by its 20th Century forbears.
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Vidiot
WontLeave - "If you have given up on God's kingdom, then you have no hope for mankind and all is vanity and a striving after the wind."
DanaBug - "This I also think is false. I have great hope for mankind, and it doesn't involve God in the least."
This, I suspect is one of - if not the - major problems at the heart of the Right/Left conservative/liberal authoritarian/non-authoritarian dichotomy;
- conservatives/right-wingers/authoritarians take it as an axiom that human beings are, at their core, fundamentally bad, and thusly need to be kept on a short leash for their - and everyone else's - own damn good...
- liberals/leftists/non-authoritarians - on the other hand - tend to believe that humans, while flawed, are inherently decent and good, and for the most part, can be trusted to do the right thing even if they're off the leash...
In my experience and observation, conservatives are "glass-is-half-empty", whilst liberals are "glass-is-half-full".
And I suspect that the further into the 21st Century we get, they farther apart - and more irreconcilable - both "sides" will become ideologically; and what's more, it will be virtually impossible to not choose a side - our individual psychological makeups have (for all intents and purposes) already "chosen" our respective sides for us.
I could be wrong.