Election rigged? Nah ;)

Harte

Senior Member
Messages
4,562
Re: Election rigged? Nah ;)

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(\"Zoomerz\")</div>
Harte;

I know you directed your comments to K@t5, and I don't mean to interupt. I would like to make a comment on one of your statements above...


While I agree that it would be very difficult for a *believer* to seperate his/her political views from their religious ones, I disagree that the same holds true for an athiest. That is, unless you are specifically refering to their views on religion in government. Since an athiest's moral values are not based (or derived from) the word of a god, there truly is \"nothing to seperate\". Most often, an athiest's views on a subject are formed from logical deduction, or some other rational (or irrational!) process. *Atheism* is not a religion. It has no scripture or point of reference.

It has been argued (albeit unsuccessfully in MHO) that all moral values are somehow tied to religious tenets (through the generations), and there may be *some* truth in that. However, I would submit that most of a person's values are assimilated through environmental experience (including a person's upbringing), and directly related to the amount of *love* they receive from others.

Therefore, I believe you would find a much wider range of views from a group of athiests on a given subject, then you would from a religious group. While the religious group would most often be of like (or similar) mind, athiests must form opinions without the influence of a god, and therefore are likely to have more diverse opinions.

I think this is a very important distinction, in that, as you say, the majority of people in this country are Christian, and therefore have *like-minded* views and moral values. It would be much harder for athiests to organize into a politically motivated group and gain a similar influence in government due to this diversity.

Again, sorry for the intrusion!

Z-[/b]

Zoomerz,

Thank you for pointing that out to me. I guess you're right. Often I try to use extremes to illustrate a point. In this case I used athiest as an opposite when in fact is is not. Appreciate you calling me on that.
 

Zoomerz

Member
Messages
218
Re: Election rigged? Nah ;)

Those are great words Paul. It really is too bad that choosing "the path of light" (or goodness) and being compassionate towards your fellow man doesn't quite provide clear answers to issues that divide us.

As always, your words inspire me!

Z-
 

Zoomerz

Member
Messages
218
Re: Election rigged? Nah ;)

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(\"Harte\")</div>
Thank you for pointing that out to me. I guess you're right. Often I try to use extremes to illustrate a point. In this case I used athiest as an opposite when in fact is is not. Appreciate you calling me on that.[/b]
I promise to be really really careful if I ever post in the "Creation of Man" thread again....
 

Judge Bean

Senior Member
Messages
1,257
Re: Election rigged? Nah ;)

Those are great words Paul. It really is too bad that choosing "the path of light" (or goodness) and being compassionate towards your fellow man doesn't quite provide clear answers to issues that divide us.

As always, your words inspire me!

Z-

Thank you, Mr. Z, but I'm really not too sure about what you say. The answers are there, and sometimes even the worst ones in power manage to at least ask the right questions.

For instance, Bush supposedly asked Cheney and the rest of his handlers whether they really needed to cut the richfolks' taxes in 2002, and Cheney told him, Hey, we won the elections, it's our due.

The issues that divide us are artificial ones erected by these authorities and meant to divide us. The lit path shows us each other in true light, and gives pretty clear answers.

One answer is sacrifice. You don't grab more than your due and call it the law, but rather let others get what they need. That's the end of a lot of our problems right there.

This Schiavo case-- look how the government played us! Some of the most sacred ideas people hold were bandied around like episodes of Reality TV, all in order to institutionalize an imaginary "rift" or "demographic."

Americans may not agree on what to do when a spouse is hanging onto life with a tube, but we sure do agree that the president has no place telling us what's right and wrong about what is done in such a case.
 

Zoomerz

Member
Messages
218
Re: Election rigged? Nah ;)

Paul;

Thank you, Mr. Z, but I'm really not too sure about what you say.
I was just making a comment on your very eloquent definition of the foundation of Christian ethics. While I may call it something else because I'm not Christian, I was just pointing out that even compassionately moral people don't all agree on solutions to complex issues. They often can't even agree on the very nature of the issues themselves, or their relative importance to each other in pursuit of an answer.

So my comment was only intended to point out that choosing the path of light and being compassionate does not guarantee a true understanding. It's not a claim to the truth in it's own right.

Z-
 

Judge Bean

Senior Member
Messages
1,257
Re: Election rigged? Nah ;)

Just as in the end we're all going to realize that we aren't "liberals" or "conservatives" so much as plain old regular patriots and citizens, I think the day will come when we realize that we're all more or less Christians at heart.

And Moslems, and Buddhists, etc. These things are not strictly-controlled labels issued by some central authority. If you look to the essential ideas in various spiritual systems, you cannot distinguish one from another.

The things we ought to most value are the things we share and have in common-- this includes the bad stuff we can agree to discard, such as extortion and decapitation.

We'll find that we hold in common the sanctity of life and the primary necessity for justice, and the duty to see to those who are in need. "If you have done these things to the least of these," that is, if you care for the sick, the condemned, the weak, and the poor, "you have done them unto me."

That's about all the Christianity you need.
 

StarLord

Senior Member
Messages
3,187
Re: Election rigged? Nah ;)

If every person in this world truly treated every other person in the world as they would wish to be treated, why there would be enough happiness to go around for everybody, plus a cookie.
 

CaryP

Senior Member
Messages
1,432
Re: Election rigged? Nah ;)

I found this today. It's a good article on what my have happened with the elections and what happened to those who tried to get to the bottom of it. Lots of links at the bottom of the article.

Cary

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/a...article8484.htm



? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ?By Chris Floyd
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ?04/07/05 \"Moscow Times\"
- - Let\'s face the facts. The game is over and we -- the \"reality-based community,\" the believers in genuine democracy and law, the heirs of Jefferson and Madison, Emerson and Thoreau, the toilers and dreamers, all those who seek to rise above the beast within and shape the brutal chaos of existence into something higher, richer and imbued with meaning -- have lost. The better world we thought had been won out of the blood and horror of history -- a realm of enlightenment that often found its best embodiment in the ideals and aspirations of the American Republic -- is gone. It\'s been swallowed by darkness, by ravening greed, by bestial spirits and by willful primitives who now possess overwhelming instruments of power and dominion.
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
A gang of such spirits seized control of the U.S. government by illicit means in 2000 and maintained that control through rampant electoral corruption in 2004. The re-election of President George W. Bush last November was a deliberately shambolic process that saw massive lockouts of opposition voters; unverifiable returns compiled by easily hackable machines operated by avowed corporate partisans of the ruling party; and vast discrepancies between exit polls and final results ? gaps much larger than those that led elections in Ukraine and Georgia to be condemned as manipulated frauds. Indeed, a panel of statisticians said last week that the odds of such a discrepancy occurring naturally were 959,000 to 1, the Akron Beacon-Journal reported.
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
The copious documentation of the Bush fraud keeps growing. Last month, experts using actual machines and returns from the 2004 election showed Congress how a lone hacker could skew a precinct\'s results by 100,000 votes without leaving a trace. More than 40 million votes in 30 states were cast on such computer systems, BlackBoxVoting noted.
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Late last year, Congress heard sworn testimony from Florida programmer Clint Curtis, who created vote-rigging software in 2000 at the request of Tom Feeny, a Bush Family factotum. Feeny wanted Curtis (a fellow Republican) and his employer, Yang Enterprises, to produce untraceable programs that could \"control the vote\" as needed, investigator Brad Friedman reported. Feeny also told Curtis of Bush plans to \"suppress the black vote\" with \"exclusion lists.\" This is exactly what happened. BBC investigator Greg Palast has shown that tens of thousands of legitimate African-American voters were deliberately \"purged\" from the rolls by a private Republican-controlled corporation hired by Florida Governor Jeb Bush. Afterwards, Feeny -- who had been Jeb\'s running mate in his first gubernatorial campaign -- was rewarded for his dutiful service with a plum congressional seat.
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
In 2002, Raymond Lemme, a Florida state government inspector, took up Curtis\' charges, which included other corruption allegations involving Feeny, Yang Enterprises and a Yang employee charged with peddling military technology to the Chinese. In June 2003, Lemme told Curtis he had \"tracked the corruption all the way to the top\" and that \"the story would break in a few weeks.\" On July 1, 2003, Lemme was found dead in a Georgia hotel room, just across the Florida border.
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Local police ruled that Lemme, a happily married man eagerly planning his daughter\'s wedding, had suddenly decided to slash his wrists. At first they said there were no photos of the death scene; but then the pictures turned up on the Internet and were confirmed as authentic by the embarrassed police. The photos clearly contradicted the original suicide report on several points -- presenting evidence, for example, that Lemme had been beaten before his death. The investigation was reopened after Curtis\' Congressional testimony -- and then abruptly shut down after local police spoke to a never-identified \"someone\" in the Florida state government.
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Needless to say, nothing has been done to clarify the murk surrounding Lemme\'s convenient death. Nor has there been any action toward rectifying the highly profitable degradation of the American electoral process -- beyond the appointment of yet another \"blue-ribbon panel\" of Establishment worthies to oversee \"election reform.\" The seriousness of this endeavor can be seen in the man appointed to co-chair the effort: James Baker, the notorious Bush family fixer (and Saudi bagman) who spearheaded the sabotage of the 2000 vote in Florida. Baker\'s presence on the panel ensures that nothing will be done to lessen the ruling clique\'s chokehold on power.
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
So let\'s have no illusions about where we are. Gangsters are in charge, and nothing and no one will be allowed to challenge their dominion. They are waging aggressive war to cement their position and that of their allies: the energy barons, the arms merchants, the construction and services cartels, the investment bankers. These power blocs now command monstrous resources and unfathomable profits; they can buy out, buy off or bury any force that opposes them. Meanwhile, they use the loot of the stolen Republic -- its blood and treasure -- as fuel for their ever-expanding war machine: Bush now has a \"secret watch-list\" of 25 more countries ripe for military intervention, the Financial Times reported.
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
With more war crimes afoot, last month Bush issued an official \"National Defense Strategy\" that openly declares \"judicial processes\" as one of the enemies confronting the United States, actually equating them with terrorism, The Associated Press reported. Law is \"a strategy of the weak,\" says the Bush Doctrine, in a chilling echo of Hitlerian machtpolitik: Might makes right. The judicial process must not be allowed to \"constrain or shape\" American behavior in any way, the gangsters declared.
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Think of it: Law is now the enemy. Democracy, as we\'ve seen above, is the enemy. This, the demented code of criminals and tyrants, has become the ruling doctrine of the United States -- replacing the Constitution, replacing the noble struggle for liberty and enlightenment with the howl of the beast, with a freak show of avarice and death.
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ?Annotations
? ? ? ? ? ? ?<a href=\'http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001243.htm\' target=\'_blank\'>The ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Death of Raymond Lemme</a>
? ? ? ? ? ? ?Bradblog.com, March 8, 2005
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ?<a href=\'http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001047.htm\' target=\'_blank\'>Clint ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Curtis Testifies Before Judiciary Committee Panel</a>
? ? ? ? ? ? ?Bradblog.com, Dec. 13, 2004
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ?<a href=\'http://www.blackboxvoting.org/\' target=\'_blank\'>Report to ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Judiciary Committee: Diebold Machines Hacked</a>
? ? ? ? ? ? ?Black Box Voting, March 8, 2005
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ?<a href=\'http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/11284237.htm\' target=\'_blank\'>Exit ? ? ? ? ? ? ? poll analysis points to 2004 election corruption</a>
? ? ? ? ? ? ?Akron Beacon Journal, April 1, 2005
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ?<a href=\'http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/GC30Ag01.html\' target=\'_blank\'>US ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Scatters Bases to Control Eurasia</a>
? ? ? ? ? ? ?Asia Times, March 30, 2005
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ?<a href=\'http://news.ft.com/cms/s/da4ba358-9fc7-11d9-b355-00000e2511c8.html\' target=\'_blank\'>US ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Draws Up List of Unstable Countries</a>
? ? ? ? ? ? ?Financial Times, March 28, 2005
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ?<a href=\'http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050404/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_yushchenko\' target=\'_blank\'>Bush: ? ? ? ? ? ? ? U.S. To Bear Burden of Iraq Costs</a>
? ? ? ? ? ? ?Associated Press, April 4, 2005
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ?<a href=\'http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=1504&e=6&u=/afp/20050404/bs_afp/commoditiesenergyoil_050404183838\' target=\'_blank\'>Oil ? ? ? ? ? ? ? prices soar above 58 dollars for first time</a>
? ? ? ? ? ? ?Agence France Press, April 4, 2005
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ?<a href=\'http://www.pnnonline.org/article.php?sid=5862&mode=thread&order=0\' target=\'_blank\'>US ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Taxpayers Give Lion\'s Share To Military</a>
? ? ? ? ? ? ?PNN Online, April 4, 2005
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ?<a href=\'http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/03/18/national/w144024S57.DTL\' target=\'_blank\'>National ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Defense Strategy: Legal Challenges, Terrorism Threaten U.S.</a>
? ? ? ? ? ? ?Associated Press, March 18, 2005
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ?<a href=\'http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation\' target=\'_blank\'>Defense ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Strategy OKs First Strikes</a>
? ? ? ? ? ? ?Los Angeles Times, March 19, 2005
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ?<a href=\'http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/21656/\' target=\'_blank\'>The ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Bush-Cheney Media Enterprises</a>
? ? ? ? ? ? ?AlterNet, April 3, 2005
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ?<a href=\'http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1451167,00.html\' target=\'_blank\'>US ? ? ? ? ? ? ? relied on \'drunken liar\' to justify Iraq war</a>
? ? ? ? ? ? ?The Observer, April 3, 2005
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ?<a href=\'http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/000453.html#more\' target=\'_blank\'>Long ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Before WMD Panel, Evidence Showed Bush Wanted War Despite ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Intelligence</a>
? ? ? ? ? ? ?A Tiny Revolution, March 31, 2005
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ?<a href=\'http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=5436\' target=\'_blank\'>If ? ? ? ? ? ? ? You Build It, They Will Kill</a>
? ? ? ? ? ? ?TomDispatch, April 1, 2005
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ?<a href=\'http://www.thenation.com/blogs/outrage?pid=2297\' target=\'_blank\'>Military ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Bases Abroad are Expanding</a>
? ? ? ? ? ? ?The Nation, March 31, 2005
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ?<a href=\'http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/3/31/115039/228\' target=\'_blank\'>Coordinated ? ? ? ? ? ? ? attack on your voting rights happening Now</a>
? ? ? ? ? ? ?Daily Kos, March 31, 2005
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ?<a href=\'http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/03/29/BUGGABVRQ91.DTL&type=printable\' target=\'_blank\'>Bechtel ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Sees Record Revenue in 2004</a>
? ? ? ? ? ? ?San Francisco Chronicle, March 29, 2005
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ?<a href=\'http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/\' target=\'_blank\'>The ? ? ? ? ? ? ? New Aristocracy</a>
? ? ? ? ? ? ?Providence Journal, March 28, 2005
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ?<a href=\'http://www.dcexaminer.com/articles/2005/03/22/news/d_c_news/02newsdc23kkr.txt\' target=\'_blank\'>Top ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Bush Insider Joins Halliburton</a>
? ? ? ? ? ? ?Washington Examiner, March 22, 2005


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