USA - A Christian country?

Originally posted by whodey
Skimming through Revelation is appears that the state becomes so intrusive that you will need a "mark" to buy or sell. Looking at the left today and how they try to micromanage our every move, they seem to fit the bill, but who knows.

In the U.S. where you live you have the freedom to...

~ do whatever you want
~ be whatever you want
~ think whatever you want
~ say whatever you want
~ associate with whoever you want
~ follow whatever career you want
~ educate your children how you want
~ believe in whatever God you want
~ travel wherever you want
~ live where you want
~ buy what you want
~ engage in whatever business or activities you want

Which of these freedoms do not exist? That's right: they ALL exist in a very real and practical sense and are exercised by hundreds of millions of American every single day. Some current political dispute about how health care is funded and provided in your country ~ no matter how chip-spittingly angry it makes you ~ does not change the facts of the matter.

So, when you consider the degree to which your freedoms are real and exercised widely, how can your "every move" in any way be described as being "micromanaged" by your government? Does your government have one person designated to micromanage the every move of each person? How many tens and tens of millions of government employees are engaged in carrying this out?

It's just self-pitying paranoid claptrap passing itself off as political analysis and discourse. And now here you are seeking to legitimize your hysterical hyper-partisan retail-politics hyperbole with some kind of contorted Christian mumbo jumbo?

Originally posted by FMF
In the U.S. where you live you have the freedom to...

~ do whatever you want
~ be whatever you want
~ think whatever you want
~ say whatever you want
~ associate with whoever you want
~ follow whatever career you want
~ educate your children how you want
~ believe in whatever God you want
~ travel wherever you want
~ live where you want
~ buy w ...[text shortened]... ical hyper-partisan retail-politics hyperbole with some kind of contorted Christian mumbo jumbo?

If the US is such a great place to live, why do you reckon Obama wanted to fundamentally change it?

The left is an odd bunch. They try to prop up those in power they like by proclaiming how great things are, but at the same time, demand change because things are so terrible, like with the top 1% wreaking havoc on everyone's lives.

Like any country, the US has its strengths and weaknesses. I just so happen to want to defend the strengths by trying to preserve what freedoms I have and are ones I feel slipping away. It's weaknesses are many, like the over 50 million abortions since Roe vs. Wade, the fact that America is ruled by a Congress with a perpetual approval rating hovering around only 10%, and a nation divided by an all powerful central government. Some love it, some hate it.

That aside, the question I was asked originally is regarding the mark. As I have shown, it will be presented like everything else is presented, which is for our benefit.

As C. S. Lewis aptly wrote, "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"

Originally posted by whodey
If the US is such a great place to live, why do you reckon Obama wanted to fundamentally change it?

The left is an odd bunch. They try to prop up those in power they like by proclaiming how great things are, but at the same time, demand change because things are so terrible, like with the top 1% wreaking havoc on everyone's lives.

Like any country, the ...[text shortened]... r own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"

Yet again you simply sidestep what I am saying to you and instead ~ yet again ~ spray out more of your partisan U.S.-retail-politics blather.

Originally posted by Suzianne
But expecting Republican states to pick up the bill and the responsibility for most of what the Federal Government does is crazy talk. It would result in a direct loss of quality of life for roughly half of the people in these Republican states.

As bad as anyone perceives the Federal Government to be, giving their aegis to the states instead would be di ...[text shortened]... nd a balanced budget amendment for the Feds" has absolutely nothing to do with "states' rights".

There is a high price to pay for freedom. It demands that you provide for yourself. It demands that you protect yourself. It demands that you are subject to a wide range of ills, including abject poverty.

Some slaves in the deep south lived rather well, depending on their duties and on their task masters. Some probably were happy the way things were, rather than be given their freedom and forced to make ends meet in a hostile racist country that would force them to live in poverty for over a century. But wasn't freedom worth it?

So what if the states in question are willing to cash in their Obamacare for a life that provides more misery initially? What is your beef with them? It's there life, not yours. If they choose to live in a state where they are free to make their own decisions about such things as health care, even if it ruins them, what do you care?

Originally posted by FMF
Yet again you simply sidestep what I am saying to you and instead ~ yet again ~ spray out more of your partisan U.S.-retail-politics blather.

It is you who is side stepping what was originally said.

This whole conversation began by me being asked about the left and the rise of the beast on Revelation.

If you wish to continue to side track the conversation, perhaps the debate forum is a better place.

Originally posted by whodey
It is you who is side stepping what was originally said.

This whole conversation began by me being asked about the left and the rise of the beast on Revelation.

Our whole conversation began with me responding to this by you: Looking at the left today and how they try to micromanage our every move on page 3, and your evasions and spamming ever since would seem to indicate that even you realize that it's mere partisan claptrap augmented by pseudo-Christian mumbo jumbo, and that you have been called out on it

Originally posted by whodey
If the US is such a great place to live, why do you reckon Obama wanted to fundamentally change it?

~ do whatever you want
~ be whatever you want
~ think whatever you want
~ say whatever you want
~ read and write whatever you want
~ associate with whoever you want
~ follow whatever career you want
~ educate your children how you want
~ believe in whatever God you want
~ believe and not believe whatever you want
~ travel wherever you want
~ live where you want
~ buy what you want
~ engage in whatever business or activities you want

Take each of these fundamental and very real freedoms in your country and explain how your current president has ~ or has tried to ~ "fundamentally change" it.

Originally posted by FMF
~ do whatever you want
~ be whatever you want
~ think whatever you want
~ say whatever you want
~ read and write whatever you want
~ associate with whoever you want
~ follow whatever career you want
~ educate your children how you want
~ believe in whatever God you want
~ believe and not believe whatever you want
~ travel wherever you want
~ ...[text shortened]... ountry and explain how your current president has ~ or has tried to ~ "fundamentally change" it.

I've already addressed many of these.

Talking to you is like beating your head against a wall, only, your head hurts worse when it's all said and done.

Originally posted by whodey
I've already addressed many of these.

Go through them then. You're a purveyor of daft jaundiced misanthropic attention-seeking hyperbole, so I don't think you can, and I don't think you ever have. 😉

Originally posted by FMF
Go through them then. You're a purveyor of daft jaundiced misanthropic attention-seeking hyperbole, so I don't think you can, and I don't think you ever have. 😉

French thinker and philosopher says what I am trying to convey better than I ever could.

He explained that the tyranny that most endangers a society is a soft tyranny. It is the gradual imposition of radical egalitarianism which is disguised as a democratic and administrative utilitarianism. It is the belief in the infinite ability of elected officials to perfect life by ensuring its proper regulation. He wrote this about the administrative states of Europe in the 1800's, and marveled how the once decentralized government in the US seemed to escape it.

He wrote, "Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if like that authority, it's object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood; it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of their happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances; what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living! Thus it every day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself. The principle of equality has prepared men for these things, it has predisposed men to endure them and often to look on them as benefits.

After having thus successfully taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd."

Originally posted by whodey
French thinker and philosopher says what I am trying to convey better than I ever could.

He explained that the tyranny that most endangers a society is a soft tyranny. It is the gradual imposition of radical egalitarianism which is disguised as a democratic and administrative utilitarianism. It is the belief in the infinite ability of elected officials t ...[text shortened]... better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd."

So, as I thought. You can't go through them. And you can't substantiate your claim about your country's current president. 😕

Originally posted by whodey
I've already addressed many of these.

Talking to you is like beating your head against a wall, only, your head hurts worse when it's all said and done.

Smile anyway, whodey.

Originally posted by FMF
Your slogan "micromanage our every move" trips off your tongue easily and frequently. But isn't it just hyperbole? Don't you ~ in fact ~ have almost complete freedom to do whatever you want, and be whatever you want, and think whatever you want, and say whatever you want, engage in whatever business or activities that you want etc. etc. in the U.S.? You say "eve ...[text shortened]... y move" is micromanaged. But every time you say it, it just sounds like daft paranoid hyperbole.

Don't you ~ in fact ~ have almost complete freedom to do whatever you want, and be whatever you want, and think whatever you want, and say whatever you want, engage in whatever business or activities that you want etc. etc. in the U.S.?

No. But since your own daft hyperbole was framed in the form of a question, can it still be considered daft hyperbole... or was it just a dumb question?

Originally posted by lemon lime
No. But since your own daft hyperbole was framed in the form of a question, can it still be considered daft hyperbole... or was it just a dumb question?[/b]

whodey, as ever, is unable to substantiate any of his claims about the existence or non-existence or disappearance of the very real, practical and empowering personal and political freedoms that you have in your country and that I have listed. How can a list of basic freedoms be "hyperbole"? How can me asking him to substantiate his claims be "dumb"?

Originally posted by FMF
You have presented no evidence that everything you do in your life is managed by your government. It'd just ludicrous hyperbole that probably belongs on the Debates Forum.

Anyone one who lives in the U.S., whether they are right or left leaning, or religious or not, can tell you they are not free to do anything and everything they want to do. No civilized country in the world can make that claim. Can you name one country in the world where all the people of that country are free to do what ever they want to do?