[BenDover]

This author, Kevin Phillips, is a well-known economic geographer, former staff member in the Nixon White House and a traditional republican....although certainly not enamored with the neocon variety that is so prevasive today.

This column is a rational, intelligent and objective explanation of what the hell went wrong with the original emergence of the republican majority amongst the electorate that started in the 1960s and was realized in the 1980s.

This piece is absoultely brilliant, thought-provoking and, in my opinion, right on the money. I'd like to hear comments.

Even if you don't want to comment, READ IT. He's got a new book out that I think I simply have to read as well.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/01/AR2006040100004.html

[FDRfollower]

Hi BenDover, haven't seen you in awhile.

Interesting article. Nothing new really, but it's good to see more, and more conservatives, coming out of the closet, ;) so to speak, and raising their voices.

You REALLY have to be deaf, dumb, and blind to foolow Bush and Cheney these days, with articles like this.

[JamesP]

2 points from the article that strike oil (of many):

The republican party has become the first religious party in American history

&

Unfortunately, three of the preeminent weaknesses displayed in these past declines (of empires) have been religious excess, a declining energy and industrial base, and debt often linked to foreign and military overstretch. Politics in the United States -- and especially the evolution of the governing Republican coalition -- deserves much of the blame for the fatal convergence of these forces in America today.

[MAGI]

:toast:

I hope Gip is tuned in!

The program of the "greedy priviliged unconsionable elite" is ALL on POL TODAY!

:loveit:

[wimzkl]

As a conservative vitally interested in liberty and the preservation of out system of Separation of Powers, Kevin Phillips' article has confirmed many of my basic positions in today's political world. It is one of the main reasons that I can no longer back the Republican Party. Our liberty and that of our children and their children is under a dual threat. First is corporate America and second is the religious right. They control the Republican Party, so we must take control of the government out of their hands.

[MAGI]

As a conservative vitally interested in liberty and the preservation of out system of Separation of Powers, Kevin Phillips' article has confirmed many of my basic positions in today's political world. It is one of the main reasons that I can no longer back the Republican Party. Our liberty and that of our children and their children is under a dual threat. First is corporate America and second is the religious right. They control the Republican Party, so we must take control of the government out of their hands.

Molly Ivins says it well with :

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060530_molly_ivins_reform_the_system_or_lose_the _democracy/

"Posted on May 30, 2006
By Molly Ivins

HOUSTON, Texas—A Houston jury convicted both Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling, despite the fact that Kenny Boy packed his Bible to the courtroom every day.

Since it is a long and noble Texas tradition for the accused to fight all allegations by finding Jesus, this indicates a major degree of guilt. (While on trial for murder, T. Cullen Davis, the Fort Worth millionaire, not only found Jesus but also threw a big party to celebrate at the mansion, with piles of shrimp and BBQ and a soundtrack that announced over and over throughout the grounds that night, “The son of Stinky Davis has found the son of God.")

Meanwhile, Houston reacted as though the Rockets had won the NBA championship.

Many a thoughtful analyst has given us to understand that Lay and Skilling are guilty of arrogance and hubris. Actually, they were convicted of fraud—massive, overwhelming and monstrous fraud. They also stole money and looted pension funds. They rigged energy markets and almost drove California (seventh-largest economy in the world) into bankruptcy.

And all along the way, this monstrous fraud was connected to government. Enron bought the politicians who bent the rules that let them steal, con and gyp. Lay and Skilling talked state after state into following the California model and deregulating electricity. Happy summer, everyone."

The rest of the story............
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060530_molly_ivins_reform_the_system_or_lose_the _democracy/

[Jennifer_SFBA]

Hi, Magi. I love Molly Ivans! I really do. Right on, Molly! You go, girl! Thank you sharing that Molly Ivans article. It helped make my night. Now I'll sleep more soundly because of it.

[wimzkl]

Some favorite quotes:

"Men readily believe what they want to believe."
-Julius Caesar

"Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know."
-Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

"Practical politics consists in ignoring facts."
-Henry Brooks Adams

"So potent was religion in persuading to evil deeds."
-Lucretius

"The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted."
-James Madison

"Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak."
-John Adams

"Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad."
-James Madison

“Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. ...But then I repeat myself.”
-Mark Twain

"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."
-John Adams

“There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.”
-Plato

“Every political good carried to the extreme must be productive of evil.”
–Mary Wollstonecraft (The first women’s libber.)

“When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other in order that the people may require a leader.”
-Plato

"History is past politics, and politics is present history."
-E. A. Freeman

[FDRfollower]

Hey everyone, I found this at www.congress.org of all places! I thought it was so amusing, that you should see it, to get a chuckle at our hapless brethern on the other side of the political street, especially with the hot button gay marriage issue being used again. :puke:

The Bible and Marriage
by Vaughn Roste

The son of two Lutheran pastors, Vaughn Roste has since worshipped and worked in Episcopalian and Presbyterian Churches, but his current employment is in a United Church. Holding degrees in theology and music from two different church institutions, he currently freelances as a writer and musician in Edmonton.

-------------------

We've heard a lot about "biblical marriage" lately, largely as a defensive reaction against same-sex marriage. I read one letter to the editor written by a Lutheran pastor that claimed that "the Bible clearly teaches that marriage is the God-ordained covenantal union of one man to one woman." How very applicable to the contemporary situation, I thought. If the Bible really teaches that (and in such modern language too!), then we all should be paying the Bible a lot more heed.

So I picked up my Bible and looked up all the passages that have anything to do with marriage (I had help: I used a concordance). I examined the scriptural use of all the words I could think of related to marriage: marriage, marriages, marry, marries, married, wedding, weddings, wed, husband, husbands, wife, and wives.

All told I looked up over 800 references. Exempting the references which are narrative (e.g. "Adam named his wife Eve" Gen 3:20) or metaphorical (Christ's marriage to the church, Rev 21:9), I was able to distil those 825 verse references into 12 general principles: 12 Biblical "rules" or guidelines regarding marriage which encompass the gamut of scripture. I hereby present the list, with the applicable references.

12 Biblical Principles of Marriage

1. Marriage consists of one man and one or more women (Gen 4:19, 4:23, 26:34, 28:9, 29:26-30, 30:26, 31:17, 32:22, 36:2, 36:10, 37:2, Ex. 21:10, Judges 8:30, 1 Sam 1:2, 25:43, 27:3, 30:5, 30:18, 2 Sam 2:2, 3:2-5, 1 Chron 3:1-3, 4:5, 8:8, 14:3, 2 Chron 11:21, 13:21, 24:3).
2. Nothing prevents a man from taking on concubines in addition to the wife or wives he may already have (Gen 25:6, Judges 8:31, 2 Sam 5:13, 1 Kings 11:3, 1 Chron 3:9, 2 Chron 11:21, Dan 5:2-3).
3. A man might chose any woman he wants for his wife (Gen 6:2, Deut 21:11), provided only that she is not already another man’s wife (Lev 18:14-16, Deut. 22:30) or his [half-]sister (Lev 18:11, 20:17), nor the mother (Lev 20:14) or the sister (Lev 18:18) of a woman who is already his wife. The concept of a woman giving her consent to being married is foreign to the Biblical mindset.
4. If a woman cannot be proven to be a virgin at the time of marriage, she shall be stoned (Deut 22:13-21).
5. A rapist must marry his victim (Ex. 22:16, Deut. 22:28-29) - unless she was already a fiancé, in which case he should be put to death if he raped her in the country, but both of them killed if he raped her in town (Deut. 22:23-27).
6. If a man dies childless, his brother must marry the widow (Gen 38:6-10, Deut 25:5-10, Mark 12:19, Luke 20:28).
7. Women marry the man of their father’s choosing (Gen. 24:4, Josh.15:16-17, Judges 1:12-13, 12:9, 21:1, 1 Sam 17:25, 18:19, 1 Kings 2:21, 1 Chron 2:35, Jer 29:6, Dan 11:17).
8. Women are the property of their father until married and their husband after that (Ex. 20:17, 22:17, Deut. 22:24, Mat 22:25).
9. The value of a woman might be approximately seven years’ work (Gen 29:14-30).
10. Inter-faith marriages are prohibited (Gen 24:3, 28:1, 28:6, Num 25:1-9, Ezra 9:12, Neh 10:30, 2 Cor 6:14).
11. Divorce is forbidden (Deut 22:19, Matt 5:32, 19:9, Mark 10:9-12, Luke 16:18, Rom 7:2, 1 Cor 7:10-11, 7:39).
12. Better to not get married at all - although marriage is not a sin (Matt 19:10, I Cor 7:1, 7:27-28, 7:32-34, 7:38).

How many of these Biblical principles are followed by Christians today? Not a single one [with the possible exception of number 3 - some Christian women may still have no choice in their marital partner]!

Nowhere in the Bible does it say that "marriage is the God-ordained covenantal union of one man and one woman;" in fact, it says explicitly to the contrary! The Bible lists at least 15 polygamists (not including Herod, who is known from the historical - but not Biblical - record to have had 9 wives), and in not a single place does polygamy carry with it any sense of opprobrium. Unfortunately, the pastor mentioned above would have been far more correct to say that "the Bible teaches that marriage is a covenantal union of one man to as many women as he might want and can afford."

So the next time your favourite politician or preacher claims to use the Bible in support of traditional marriage, ask him or her which of these 12 principles he or she is actually advocating. Probably none. Anyone who claims to use the Bible in support of a strictly monogamous union of one male and one female based on love, mutuality, and commitment will be hard pressed to find 2,000 year-old Bible verses in support of that very modern position. In fact, I daresay they cannot. The Biblical view of marriage is not monogamous: it is not necessarily based on love, nor on any amount of mutuality.

[Jennifer_SFBA]

Hi, FDRfollower. I found that extensive biblical research very important too in the debate over Mariage Equality. I posted the same thing in Gay Rights as follows:

Is There a Biblical Basis Constitutional Amendment for Marriage Between1 Man&1 Woman?

Jennifer_SFBA 05/29/06 09:25 pm
by Jennifer_SFBA

There is the Religious Right, and there is the Religious Left, both faith based. The author of that piece, Vaughn Roste, holds a degree in theology. He wrote what he wrote not to prove the Religious Right wrong, but to undersand what the Bible does say about marriage in a search for truth that took many hours of time to assimilate, analyze and write for the purpose of quieting dissention among the faithful and promoting peace, while, in the process, seeking, with an open heart to discern God's plan that is in the diversity of humankind and in all life whom and that God created so that people may be filled with great wonder and great awe in the revealment of it, and come to know too, in their hearts, that the left hand of God is love.

[Jennifer_SFBA]

Vaughn Roste asks a rhetorical question based on his study of marriage in the Bible and goes on to explore the meaning of his reading in his effort to understand God's purposes and God's intention:

... But if we concede that our concept of marriage has evolved, is it not potentially arrogant to summarily discount the possibility that marriage should continue evolving, or even that it might be God's will that it do so?

From the looks of the above list, it's a good thing our perspectives have changed from the Biblical model. Thus as we continue to dialog and prayerfully discern God's will in the area of same-sex marriages, we obviously cannot consider 2,000 year old statements made in other cultures and contexts to be all that is important. Please do not misinterpret that I am claiming that the Bible is not important - of course it is. It is central to my faith, as it should be for any Christian. But to rely on solely the Bible is to dangerously ignore two millennia of progress in the areas of science, technology, and human rights, a sin which we dare not let ourselves commit if the church is to remain relevant to contemporary society at all.

To rely solely on Scripture for church policy is to ignore the possibility that the Holy Spirit has been active at all in the sixteen centuries since the canon was closed in 405 CE. Indeed, we need to consider that the Holy Spirit may be actively encouraging us today to move beyond a literal reading of the Bible and to refuse to become modern Pharisees.

[FDRfollower]

I'm really thinking of getting married now! Especially a CHRISTIAN woman. I'll have a lot of girlfriends on the side, and if she want's a divorce, I'll just...

Look! It's in the the Bible!! What, you're not a christian?? ;)