I just realized he's not here anymore either. I know some disliked his posting style, but I don't know of anyone with a bad word to say about him. I hope he's doing well.

GoHomeLeg said:

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I have mostly been a lurker here. It seems as of late that many of the posters on here who provided good topics have gone silent. Not much to see here anymore.

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Clearly we've solved all the world's problems and there is nothing left to discuss.

Booboo was good people. Drove me nuts trying to talk to him. . . . but he seemed like good people.

Maybe someone can stir something up between the various factions. It has been a little dull around here. Who was it that posted the genius list of the factions and team-ups a few months back? I want to say it was you, Kurt.

Solo Tetherball Champ said:

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Maybe someone can stir something up between the various factions. It has been a little dull around here. Who was it that posted the genius list of the factions and team-ups a few months back? I want to say it was you, Kurt.

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I think it was AstroAg

Solo Tetherball Champ said:

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Maybe someone can stir something up between the various factions. It has been a little dull around here. Who was it that posted the genius list of the factions and team-ups a few months back? I want to say it was you, Kurt.

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Oh, where is seamaster when you need him?

I believe you're right.

Trump vs HRC. I'm a Christian and plan on voting for Trump, mostly based on SCOTUS. Not easy. What say you? Somebody light this candle.

wasn't me

GoHomeLeg said:

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Trump vs HRC. I'm a Christian and plan on voting for Trump, mostly based on SCOTUS. Not easy. What say you? Somebody light this candle.

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I'm a Christian and not voting. Neither of the major candidates espouse worldviews that are remotely compatible with Christian teaching, so I could not consider supporting either. But, that's not why I don't vote though.

RetiredAg said:

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GoHomeLeg said:

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Trump vs HRC. I'm a Christian and plan on voting for Trump, mostly based on SCOTUS. Not easy. What say you? Somebody light this candle.

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I'm a Christian and not voting. Neither of the major candidates espouse worldviews that are remotely compatible with Christian teaching, so I could not consider supporting either. But, that's not why I don't vote though.

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Man up. Vote!

RetiredAg said:

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GoHomeLeg said:

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Trump vs HRC. I'm a Christian and plan on voting for Trump, mostly based on SCOTUS. Not easy. What say you? Somebody light this candle.

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I'm a Christian and not voting. Neither of the major candidates espouse worldviews that are remotely compatible with Christian teaching, so I could not consider supporting either. But, that's not why I don't vote though.

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Vote for a write in at least. I'm going to vote after work today to cancel out GHL's vote.

Too easy. Take that to the poli board.

If we're going to light a fire in this board, we've got to get all the bases involved. How can we simultaneously provide a catalyst for the protestants of all stripes, catholics/orthodox, jewish types, atheists, agnostics, and idiots (if you have to ask... you're one of them) and get this place turnt up?

kurt vonnegut said:

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RetiredAg said:

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GoHomeLeg said:

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Trump vs HRC. I'm a Christian and plan on voting for Trump, mostly based on SCOTUS. Not easy. What say you? Somebody light this candle.

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I'm a Christian and not voting. Neither of the major candidates espouse worldviews that are remotely compatible with Christian teaching, so I could not consider supporting either. But, that's not why I don't vote though.

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Vote for a write in at least. I'm going to vote after work today to cancel out GHL's vote.

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Good start.

kurt vonnegut said:

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RetiredAg said:

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GoHomeLeg said:

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Trump vs HRC. I'm a Christian and plan on voting for Trump, mostly based on SCOTUS. Not easy. What say you? Somebody light this candle.

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I'm a Christian and not voting. Neither of the major candidates espouse worldviews that are remotely compatible with Christian teaching, so I could not consider supporting either. But, that's not why I don't vote though.

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Vote for a write in at least. I'm going to vote after work today to cancel out GHL's vote.

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I doubt my write-in for Jesus would be counted in the official tally. It may even set off all sorts of alarms. I mean, voting for a Middle Eastern man that was a refugee at one point?

aggiesuite said:

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RetiredAg said:

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GoHomeLeg said:

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Trump vs HRC. I'm a Christian and plan on voting for Trump, mostly based on SCOTUS. Not easy. What say you? Somebody light this candle.

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I'm a Christian and not voting. Neither of the major candidates espouse worldviews that are remotely compatible with Christian teaching, so I could not consider supporting either. But, that's not why I don't vote though.

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Man up. Vote!

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Nah, I can't. Goes against my belief system.

He is a Jew.... doesn't get refugee status.

Jews don't get to play the oppressed/refugee card any more, not since 05/15/1948.

Edit: corrected because I used the past tense for Jesus. Don't want the condemnation of a couple, nay a handful of you on me.

Solo Tetherball Champ said:

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He is a Jew.... doesn't get refugee status.

Jews don't get to play the oppressed/refugee card any more, not since 05/15/1948.

Edit: corrected because I used the past tense for Jesus. Don't want the condemnation of a couple, nay a handful of you on me.

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That does remind me of something I had seen at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. They talked about the stories where boats full of Jewish refugees fleeing Europe were being sent away by country after country, including the US. I had heard of this before, but to hear/see these stories in the context of the Holocaust museum was certainly heartbreaking.

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That does remind me of something I had seen at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. They talked about the stories where boats full of Jewish refugees fleeing Europe were being sent away by country after country, including the US. I had heard of this before, but to hear/see these stories in the context of the Holocaust museum was certainly heartbreaking.

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That is very true.

I'm not voting rather because I'm not in favor of democracy.

k2aggie07 said:

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I'm not voting rather because I'm not in favor of democracy.

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Do tell

I think we can all agree that a benevolent dictatorship with STC at the top would be the best arrangement for all.

Solo Tetherball Champ said:

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I think we can all agree that a benevolent dictatorship with STC at the top would be the best arrangement for all.

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You laugh, but I'm a big proponent of a Catholic Benevolent Monarchy...if you can believe it.

You guys have tried that before. What makes you think you'll get it right this time?

Solo Tetherball Champ said:

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You guys have tried that before. What makes you think you'll get it right this time?

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because this time I'D be the monarch!!!!

I'd already laid claim to the supreme leadership position.

I don't feel like typing so much today, so I'm going to plagiarize my own email to someone else...

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The Liberals were the guys who applied the philosophy of the Enlightenment thinkers to politics. They were the original small-p progressives - they were against (then) conservative values like hereditary privilege, state religions, and monarchy (by extension). They took a founding position of liberty and equality as the two fundamental basics of human beings. From there, it followed that a government was a social contract between individual "kings" who themselves possess natural rights to life, liberty, and property -- and that since the government was formed by these individual kings, it couldn't violate those rights.

The Declaration of Independence was very much a Liberal document in that it took these Enlightenment philosophical points and applied them in a political way. I agree entirely that Jefferson was intentionally (and provocatively) suggesting that these things (life, liberty, property / pursuit of happiness) very much applied to all men as opposed to citizens of various nations. Think of the difference - British subjects derived their political privileges and immunities from the divine right of the crown (God->Church/King->subjects) while he was suggesting that there shouldn't be any intermediary (God->Men). Thus, the entire raison d'etre of our country was to establish a government based on these "new" ideas about men, and social contracts. It had never been done before.

(Aside - is it any wonder when viewing it through this lens that the folk religion of America evolved the way it did? Doesn't this succinctly explain the first amendment? Forget the Reformation rejecting the pope as intermediary for theological matters; the Enlightenment rejected any intermediary, political or otherwise -- and irony of ironies, most of them were deists or theists, strongly opposed to organized [or state] Christianity. Some - like likely Hobbes or Hume - were atheists. The immediate and inevitable consequence that followed in Europe was the modern Humanist and Nihilist movements which scrapped this whole bother of God altogether. We're getting there in the US by a different and more insidious way. Rather than reject God, we simply reverse the equation from God->Man to Man->God and recreate God in our own image. Voila! Modern American Folk Religion is born: nondenominational evangelicals.)

Liberty and equality -- and remember what Tocqueville said: Equality was our true watchword. Right off the bat, there is a sense of cognitive dissonance between our founding documents. We have this white paper of sorts more or less acting as a manifesto of why we're doing what we're doing (equality and liberty for all men) and then the practical application of it in the law of the Constitution (equality and liberty for all citizens). Immediately there are two "faults" - some have liberty but no equality (citizens vs free non-citizens, i.e., non-property owning whites, women) and others have neither (slaves). Universal white male suffrage was accomplished by 1856. Slaves of course were freed after the civil war and racial limitations on suffrage followed. Universal suffrage regardless of sex was done by the 19th amendment in 1920. In hindsight, to me, these seem inevitable.

Even if the founders as Liberals (then progressives) would have been shocked at the 1920 suffrage ideal, people born in 1850 wouldn't have been. And to people born in 1920, universal suffrage is as American as apple pie. Since the penning of the Declaration the difference between man and citizen has been steadily decreasing. The amendments to the US Constitution are a timeline of testimony to this. I suspect shortly (in a global political sense) it will decrease further.

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Based on that, my basic position is that the US was never founded to be a democracy, but the Liberal side was "baked in". It was passed as a republic - aristocratic republic - but it had the "seeds" of democracy inseparably within it's own DNA.

If you read books like Aristotle's Politics and Plato's Republic you can begin to get a sense that political systems are compromises and designed machines. Our machine was designed for limited suffrage, limited federal power (no standing army!), limited individual representation, etc etc etc. Changing suffrage, direct election of senators, etc completely broke the whole thing, and pretty quickly.

Plato on the democratic city state:

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Think of the considerateness of the city, its entire superiority to trifles, its disregard of all those things we spoke of so proudly when we were founding our [ideal] city; we said that, except from altogether extraordinary natures, no one could turn out a good man unless his earliest years were given to noble games, and he gave himself wholly to noble pursuits. Is it not sublime how this city tramples all such things under foot, and is supremely indifferent as to what life a man has led before he enters politics? If only he asserts his zeal for the multitude, it is ready to honor him.

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It was true then, it's true now. Democracy doesn't work. It never has, it never will.

Solo Tetherball Champ said:

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Maybe someone can stir something up between the various factions. It has been a little dull around here. Who was it that posted the genius list of the factions and team-ups a few months back? I want to say it was you, Kurt.

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I've only been lurking lately due to the slow pace of things, so I must have missed this. Anyone have the link?

I agree that there was a strong "natural aristocracy" segment of the elites in the colonies who wanted very limited voting rights (predominantly from the Middle Atlantic and Lower South), but the first political party called themselves the Democratic-Republicans for a reason. The Revolution unleashed a democratic impulse that wasn't going away. Pennsylvania's constitution, for instance, was as close to pure democracy as you'd find in the 18th century.

Yes you could make a case that Quakerism is the roots of modern progressivism..

im a huge fan of limited voting rights

Sq16Aggie2006 said:

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im a huge fan of limited voting rights

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In what way? What voting power should the average joe have?