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Title: High School tennis stars score religious liberty victory in Washington state
Source:
The Daily Sheeple
URL Source: https://www.thedailysheeple.com/hig ... y-victory-in-washington-state/
Published: Aug 31, 2019
Author: Sean Walton
Post Date: 2019-09-01 12:24:22 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 7724
Comments: 185
Siblings Joseph & Joelle Chung Two high school tennis stars scored a religious liberty victory in Washington state after being kicked off the court for their faith. The Chung siblings, Joseph, 15, and Joelle, 17, both Seventh-day Adventists, a Protestant denomination that observes Sabbath on Saturday as recorded in the Bible, sued the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) earlier this month after Joelle was disqualified from her final state tennis postseason competition because she doesn’t play on Saturdays. The Chung family, represented by Becket, a religious liberty law firm, filed a motion to withdraw their federal suit on Tuesday after WIAA agreed to add religious observance to its reasons for missing games without being penalized. Paul Chung, Joelle’s father, told “The Ingraham Angle” earlier this month that his daughter, who was undefeated on the court, valued her commitment to God more than tennis. “She was disappointed that she couldn’t help the team but she shouldn’t have to choose between religion and playing tennis,” Chung said. Joe Davis, Becket counsel and attorney for the Chungs, told Fox News Friday “it’s an important win for religious student-athletes in Washington and sets a favorable precedent nationwide.” “It’s common sense that Sabbath observers shouldn’t be excluded from any postseason sports competition at all just because of the hypothetical possibility of a schedule conflict somewhere down the line—and after the rule change, they won’t be.” WIAA denied her family’s request for a religious accommodation last season because WIAA’s previous rules stated that if an athlete could not commit to playing in every level of the tournament, barring injury or illness, they were not allowed to participate at all and would be subject to penalty. WIAA had no exception for sincerely-held religious beliefs. “For the Chung family, keeping the Sabbath holy is a serious commitment,” Becket, a religious liberty law firm, wrote in a complaint filed Aug. 6. The Chungs, both playing for William F. West High School, had conflicts with the WIAA’s state championship schedule, which included a Saturday. While Joelle had to sit out her final postseason play, Joseph, a rising sophomore, was set to have the same fate this year before the rule change. “We’re hopeful that the WIAA will take the next step and eliminate the schedule conflicts altogether, as the law requires,” Davis added. Delivered by The Daily Sheeple
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#133. To: Tooconservative (#130)
What Jesus said, properly translated and taken as a whole (he contradicts himself in places), filtered through my own conscience, is the only aspect of the Bible I accept as binding authority. The opinions of the various Apostles in their letters are interesting, and often persuasive authority, but they are not law. Ditto for the entire Old Testament. Ditto for the various opinions of the Catholic Church over the years. I'll consider all of it, the same way I consider newspaper articles or other editorials. But the only things that I accept as binding legal authority are what God the Father or Jesus said in the Gospels and Revelation, as interpreted by me.
Well, there goes your defense of Sabbath.
Status quo centrists have never achieved anything in history. They just don't. Truths: (1) I could go back to several masses at my own church and the priests are either not going to notice that I've come up for the eucharist at each mass, or they won't care - the rule of "one eucharist per day" is a formal one that few pe people know pe people know (including priests, probably), and that nobody enforces. (2) I don't particularly like going to Church, more than a little bit of starts to feel like a waste of time. I definitely would not waste my time going to multiple masses - it would bore me to tears. (3) Status quo centrists win the wars, kept the country from dissolving in the Civil War, kept us from going either Nazi or Communist during the Great Depression. Kept us from a race war in the 1960s. Kept us in Vietnam until the treaty, and kept us from going back in after we withdrew. Kept Reagan and the Republicans of the 1980s and since from privatizing Social Security or Medicare. Eventually, centrists will get us to universal Medicare WITHOUT socializing everything the way the Left would have us do, but without giving the health insurers what they will always want.
To me, slavery is an attempt to overcome the curse, where God says... Evil lazy men seek to avoid the thorn, thistle, and sweat...by making others endure it for them. What a massive failure for humanity that has been! Since slavery has been outlawed, evil lazy men have conjured other ways to avoid the thorn, thistle, and sweat...namely roundup ready GMO's. And again, what a massive failure for humanity that is turning out to be!
It's why I have such contempt for them and have no time or patience for an anything they say. I know God through miracle, I recognize God in Jesus. I despise the Christian Ch Churches because every time I speak to them, they ignore what I have to say ab about Jesus to go on a Ch Churches because every time I speak to them, they ignore what I have to say ab about Jesus to go on a tear about some stupid made up shit they came up with th that Jesus didn't say. My rejection of them is CATEGORICAL. They DISGUST me. I I do not see them as agents of good, but as agents of oppression who oc occasionally do something I I do not see them as agents of good, but as agents of oppression who oc occasionally do something good, like a blind squirrel finding a nut. I hold the Catholic Church is about the same light, but Catholics don't press their religion on me and I like to sing. The pretty churches and music are nice - for the same reason art museums and European cities are nice: it's an art art form. (So when others scream "idolatry" I've already written all such scre screamers art art form. (So when others scream "idolatry" I've already written all such scre screamers off as bad guys and don't listen to a word they say, but when the Opus Opus Dei crowd get all strange and technical ("Jesus is present in the euch eucharist, but he is no longer present 15 seconds after you swallow him") I roll roll my eyes also. Religious nonsense irritates me. God doesn't. Only very rarely do the twain me meet in my mind. The Churches in Europe died because "When Britain first at heaven's command arose from out the azure main..." and "God and my right!", and "Error has no rights!", and "One faith, one law, one God, one King!", and "Gott Mit Uns!", and "G and "God Save the Tsar!", etc., etc. Lather, rinse, repeat in every great na and "G and "God Save the Tsar!", etc., etc. Lather, rinse, repeat in every great nation nation and paltry principality all over Europe. Now have these nations, eve nation nation and paltry principality all over Europe. Now have these nations, every one pr one protected by God, hurl themselves in isometric battle to the death in W one pr one protected by God, hurl themselves in isometric battle to the death in World War I, War I, and then do it all over again, and by the end of it, people don't b War I, War I, and then do it all over again, and by the end of it, people don't believ believe those lies anymore...and why SHOULD they? (They shouldn't.) Hearing me rage about religion is pointless. Who cares, besides me, what I th think? Nobody. Christianity is dying out, rapidly, everywhere. The only thing that can save it is a laser-beam focus on Christ, just him, because he is the only think wo worthwhile in the whole religion. The men have been murderous shitheads when th they have wielded power. When they just wielded the word, all the way back to Pa Paul, James, Jude and John, they wrote such a confusing and contra Pa Paul, James, Jude and John, they wrote such a confusing and contradictory mess of of letters that, frankly, one can believe anything one pleases, i of of letters that, frankly, one can believe anything one pleases, including a bu bunch of things that contradict Jesus. Given that "Christ"-ianity is supposed to be all about CHRIST, I take it that it makes the most sense to listen to HIM, and to reject every doctrine, every belief, everything, that contradicts anything he said. This means discarding a great deal of the Bible, which drives idolators whose idol is the Bible insane. No skin off my nose. I used to enjoy fighting these battles, but then, Christianity as an organized religion used to be big and important. Now, it's falling apart. Thanks to Mexican immigration the background radiation of religion - the religion of the lower classes - is becoming Catholic, and that I find friendly and warm, unlike the prickly old Protestantisms that I never liked but had to deal with. As they die off, I don't - and that suits me. This is why I think you're off the mark on this Adventist thing. Yes, the Supreme Court DID defend the Catholics' right to be Catholic, back in the day, and did defend freedom of conscience. But no, the Supreme Court has not been in the business of disrupting the society left and right. I see a clear, logical arc in their decisions over history - and given that I'm a status quo centrist, I find myself in agreement with most of what they did. The institutions of America generally do what I want them to do and expect them to do, because the overall temper of this land, written large, is very much like me, and very much NOT like the crabby insane Protty fringe (no matter how much they scream and bleat, to themselves, that THEY founded it and it was all about THEM back in the day). (Truth is, they LED the founding of things, but as soon as they behaved stupidly, as religious fanatics do, that was the end of much of their power: Massachussetts' religious establishment was HEAVILY limited after the Salem witch trial lunacy - MOST people came to America se seeking economic opportunity. Religious freedom is nice, but once religion st starts getting overmighty, Americans pull off fangs, wings and limbs of the re religion and reduce it to a social function, because Americans are not for the mo most part religious fanatics. mo most part religious fanatics. Gay rights were pushed ahead by the Supreme Court because it was a matter of making a broad, stubborn, backwards-thinking quasi religious society accept what what it did not want to: the freedom of secular people to have sex with whom they they please, and to marr they they please, and to marry whom they please. And the more the religious tried to u to use levers of power, to u to use levers of power, the more the court made the point of tearing off wings and and fangs and limbs un and and fangs and limbs until the religion was, once again, neutered. The wedding cake issue cut the other way. There, aggressive gays were trying to to use the law as a club to impose on a private cake artist doing something sp specifically against his will. The Court, unsurprisingly, stepped in and st stopped that nonsense. So, an Adventist - member of a fringe cult - has decided s/he "can't" break sa sabbath because of a sports events, and demands that a whole aspect of American cu culture be chan cu culture be changed to suit her fringe. This is unreasonable. It was not unreasonable for blacks to demand absolutely equal rights, and that businesses have to serve them. It was not unreasonable for gays to demand the right to sex, and ultimately to form unions that allow them old age protections of married people. It was unreasonable, however, that gays demand to make non-gay religious gay religious cake artists decorate their cakes. And it's unreasonable for a fringe cult member to expect the whole sports culture of culture of society to cease because of that cult's peculiar beliefs. It's not reasonable reasonable by my lights, and my lights seem to line up very well with the Centrist st Centrist status quo, which the courts have upheld. gay religious cake artists decorate their cakes. And it's unreasonable for a fringe cult member to expect the whole sports cu culture of society to cease because of that cult's peculiar beliefs. It's not re r re reasonable by my lights, and my lights seem to line up very well with the Ce Centrist status quo, which the courts have upheld. There are different views of right and wrong.
The computer really stutters a lot lately. Something to do with the link, I t think.
I appreciate the appreciation. However, I've posted about the mischief of heresy and false doctrines caused by misuse of the OT about as many times as you've posted about red letter quotes. Certainly, it's a tune I've sung many times online at LP and here at LF. So don't act quite so surprised. But thanks for the concurrence.
I am just as ready to defend the Adventists and their right to enjoy their distinctive sabbatarian doctrine as ever. I admit I was exploring the level of hostility that other Christians hold toward a sabbath throughout this thread. And it is considerable. Right until someone starts talking about holding those high school sports on Sunday instead. Then things take on a hostile undertone.
Religion is a great thing until someone decides to organize it. They only say that to keep the kids from thinking about what your body turns the wafer into in 24 hours or so. For such questions, you need stone-faced nuns with a yardstick so that such questions don't get asked. At least, not more than once. I think it was a long generational process that was instigated by the huge losses Europe experienced in the two world wars. They were bled out. It caused the younger generations to doubt everything element of European traditions as matter of habit. It was a death by a thousand doubts (more like a thousand million doubts). The ancien regime truly died at last and that is part of post-modernist thinking. They're only nominally Catholic. And even less so every day they spend in America. I think you do know this. As for not liking Prot pricks, well, who can blame you? Other than the fabled Prot work ethic, what has it produced really? Nothing of any particular consequence. Even the work ethic is overrated. How can you type that? The Court has spent the last century constantly disrupting American society in decision after decision. It has been a century of unbridled radical court activism, constituting a 9-member super-legislature on the Court. No one can seriously look at the changes in American life instigated by the Supreme Court over the last century and try to portray them as "status quo centrists". Not without people starting to giggle. It was two Adventists. The first played the previous year and observed the sabbath and couldn't complete the scheduled matches but did raise objections to their scheduling, establishing the claim to complaints received by the WIAA. The younger Adventist went to court to demand that the school make reasonable accommodation to allow Saturday sabbatarians to participate before the younger Adventist was also forced to make the choice between religion (First Amendment) and mere weekend sports that are entirely extracurricular. The court found, exercising its due diligence, that the Adventists were correct and that the WIAA could have scheduled the matches outside the weekend sabbath days. And that is why the WIAA lost and why they would continue to lose if they didn't have lawyers to tell them to shut up and not appeal the case to a higher court where they would lose again and set an even more damaging precedent. The case itself wasn't that complex: don't stack weekend extracurricular sports events, held when school is officially closed, against the free exercise of religion, especially not in public schools funded and regulated under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX from 1972. I'm not sure that even a private school could get away with it but any public school league would get in hot water quickly. Which they did at the hands of these two bloodthirsty Adventists who were taking no prisoners. So it's fine for them to get married as long as they don't say "Bake me that cake, bitch!" to some bakery employee. Well, okay. I thought that was the more fun part. I do notice they don't try to pull this crap on any Muslim bakeries. Yeah, there they aren't so brave and sassy, are they? I thought maybe you were dictating by voice your posts on a cellphone or something. I wasn't sure because even posting like that wouldn't result in these rather awful posts you've been making in recent weeks. Your prose quality has nosedived this last month. Surely you're not posting from a desktop computer, are you? If so, you need to replace it or fix it. It's not getting any better and you are a knowledge worker with a need for a reliable working computer. Your thought process should not be interrupted by the need to keep re-editing stuff. That was not the issue before the court. The Adventists never asked the court to do that at all. I'm trying to have the last word or at least a quip but I'm drawing a complete blank.
You should have taken some courses in economics. Bad as the current system is, Medicare for all can only mean one thing. Healthcare rationing and very strict price controls for the medical industry and Big Pharma. Keep in mind, people are finding it harder and harder to even get a doctor if they have Medicare because the doctors say it pays too little and they can't take so many charity cases. There is one real bulwark that I see beyond the medical lobby and Big Pharma that makes me confident that Medicare For All will never happen: the trial lawyers will fight it tooth and nail, top to bottom, state court and legislature all the way to Congress and the Supremes. But all the talk of MFA may lead to the election of a prez/Congress that would tinker with ZeroCare even more and make it even more unworkable. Of course, I am an incurable optimist. Things will probably turn out much worse than I expect.
Certainly, it's a tune I've sung many times online at LP and here at LF. So don't act quite so surprised. But thanks for the concurrence. But THIS time you didn't tangle it up with some "defense of MY doctrine" or Catholic-bashing nonsense. You fired off a well-aimed torpedo and it went right up the poop-chute of your target and exploded. Boom! Slam dunk!
Fencing tournaments worldwide are held on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays - so Muslims, Jews and Christians all have to sacrifice their "day of rest" to participate in the sport. So what? God doesn't care.
No one can seriously look at the changes in American life instigated by the Supreme Court over the last century and try to portray them as "status quo centrists". Not without people starting to giggle. Give me your list.
Even when I re-edit things to get rid of the stu stutter stuttering, the edited messages edit edited messages themselves get scrambled. I am using two two desktop computers. Makes me wonder if this is what happens to Boris To BoRIS (ok that was me me me me).
I rarely blamed Rome for things that the Prots had clearly done. After all, so much of this happened well before there was enough Catholic population in this country to influence anything. Besides, I still have plenty of ammo for Rome when I'm in the mood.
You need a proper technician. In a Blue state they cost more than a plumber but it won't take them long to straighten it out. A few hours, probably less than $200 if they can fix both machines at once (assuming you don't have some hopelessly complex proprietary software on it). Create multiple full backups of all your documents. And get a good tech to come fix them both at the same time. You know, you could just have some malware. Also Windows 10 has known keyboard stuttering problems. Some people report it as being especially bad with dual monitors. Others complain of seconds of delay from striking a key and seeing it on the screen, that sort of thing. I couldn't speculate more without seeing it in person.
Yeah, probably not. Just thinking about typing such a list makes my fingers hurt. There is nothing moderate or centrist or collegial or consistent or principled or courageous about this Court. When will you admit it, when they legalize polygamy and group marriage?
No, you don't care. I don't think you speak for the Jews, Muslims and Christians who observe the Saturday sabbath. You might as well just say, "Well, if I don't mind then they shouldn't either." Which misses the point entirely. OTOH, how many devout Jews/Muslims/Christians pursue a lily white sport like European fencing anyway? A handful? Even fewer than the number of Asian Adventist tennis players.
I took plenty of economics, and work in finance. I've experienced Medicare for ALL; the French system. It's much better than what we have. I think that, just as the issue of black rights finally truly demolished the old Klan South, and just as the issue of gay rights and prosperity gospel really demolished the Moral Majority, that this stalwart refusal to get good medical insurance to all will demolish the Republican Party. They are dug in on this, and things only get worse. It reminds me very much of the way that the Republicans dug in with regards to economic reform at the time of the New Deal, and dug in with isolationism before World War II. In the first instance, the people elected FDR and a Democrat New Deal supermajority in Congress, and FDR frightened the Supreme Court into submission, and didn't lose power again until 1994... In the second instance, the Japanese bombed us and Hitler declared war anyway, permanently discrediting the isolationist sentiment. I think that the stubborn refusal to provide health insurance to about 20% of the population, and the excruciating cost of what we do have to another 20-30% (and rising) will break the power of the Republicans. I think they, armed with the levers of government, will fight to the death on this one, as they did on those other ones, and I think their eventual political defeat on the matter will be calamitous, and will be accompanied by nearly revolutionary changes, including things like a wealth tax (which we do need) and free college (which we don't need). Simply put, you cannot deny a huge and growing portion of the population affordable (to them) health care and expect to hold the line. Racists deluded themselves into believing they could hold the line on race. Christians deluded themselves into believing they could hold the line on sex. Laisser-faire capitalists believed they could hold the line on regulation and taxation. And isolationists believed they could hold the line on military involvement with the world They were all dead wrong - foreseeably so - and when they finally fell under the weight of overwhelming pressure, the entire superstructure went down with them: they never were able to get back up, because they were not simply politically defeated but intellectually discredited. Christianity may fail, but that doesn't mean that the Aztecs will ever get another bite at the apple.
I didn't say the Jews, Christians and Muslims don't care. I said GOD does not care. And he doesn't. People care, because their old political organizations - aka temples, churches and mosques - have erected a series of traditions which they have ground into superstitious heads come from God. They don't come from God. God isn't going to defend the various religious sabbaths, and he isn't going to crush the nations that don't follow them. Never has - except for Israel (because that was a TERM OF A LAND CONTRACT for them) - and never will. No matter how much the superstitious bleat, bray and crow. Now, it might be that the religious still have a sufficient grip on the American Supreme Court to be able to get a "Sabbath Rule" for public school sports. But as I've said before, I doubt it. Sports in America have been happening Friday evenings and Saturdays, and sometimes Sundays, for as long as anybody remembers. The Supreme Court is not going to plow under all of that traditional aspect of the society for a dubious and unworkable accomodation. Sabbaths cannot be accomodated. They can't be done during the school week without interrupting school time and study time. Both days of the weekend are somebody's Sabbath. So, there is no reasonable accomodation: the weekends are when competitive sports need to be done. They're weekends BECAUSE they were somebody's Sabbath. Students have to choose between Sabbath-keeping and sports because there is no other time when sports can be reasonably done. Religion loses.
I'm sorry. I don't follow what this means.
Well, we might accept that you are speaking for your God. Unless you get struck by lightning soon. You don't get to speak for them. Or dictate their policy or theology. Because they do have freedom of religion. No, they haven't. Public high schools went national only a century ago. And the Court is well aware of its short tenure. As I said before, you can play all the sports you want by just adding about two weeks to the school year. I can't imagine you would need 3 weeks to accommodate it. It's not as though teens work any more. At least, I rarely see one with a job even here in a rural area. And none of those teens have a right to work 3 months a year. I do find it humorous that the local schools do close at the first sign of a snowflake hitting the ground. They look for any excuse to do it. That is, unless there is a sporting event. Then they'll brave most any blizzard hazard rather than cancel the school day and therefore the sports event. This is true of football and basketball anyway. Damn, I recall country school when I was a kid. We attended 7 months a year for some of those years and had a 5-month summer break. When we merged with the local town school, most of us were reading 2-5 years above grade level and thought the townies were kind of stupid kids. Which was true.
And France is a very small quaint country with its population conveniently concentrated. As with passenger rail systems which work well in small countries like France or Japan, you cannot easily scale that continental masses like America or Russia or China. And American longevity varies considerably by zip code, something you must already know. It is very difficult to compare the two in any fair way. Or something else will happen. The worldwide system of 800+ American bases is massively expensive even if they don't incur many casualties at present. But we do spend more than the next half-dozen Great Powers combined. And we are facing dangerous enemies who have secret or public nuclear weapons systems. That requires a very hard reckoning of where we spend defense dollars and how many we spend. The petrodollar which has stabilized petroleum at a lower price due to America becoming the world's leading oil supplier a year or so back. But the ongoing Boomer retirement and constantly escalating medical costs for their care is already a huge problem. SS/Medicare are, in fact, bankrupt and the prospect for improvement in their financial stability is dismal. Entire sectors of the economy are due to be overturned radically with the introduction of AI, drones, machine intelligence. We've barely seen the beginnings of what will happen over the next ten years. The future of the American workforce is about like the future of the workforce of most cloud computing centers or credit/debit cards processing centers: a few dozen workers on duty 24/7/365, tending the machines which are configured in a fail-over design. This will result in major expansion and capital investment but without the attendant employment. Large industries growing ever larger but without the cost of people working there. That is a reality that has already arrived in some sectors. We see the same patterns of blending bad mortgages with good mortgages as we saw prior to the 2009 crisis. And the same vulnerability to foreign-instigated currency destabilization. We are vastly overextended militarily around the world. We have a huge ongoing commitment to retirees that is only growing and the SS/Medicare/Medicaid system continues to grow. We are on the verge of seeing vast numbers of working class and middle class jobs simply disappear. And we are vulnerable to the same financial crises that brought us down in 2009, just as we remain quite vulnerable to non-state terrorism like 9/11 whose risks have been barely abated. We are running a trillion dollar deficit this year. We've been running high deficits for some time with national debt doubling in the last decade. We are seeing the end of the road in deficit financing as the steady growth of debt and the revolving interest payments start to suck the federal budget dry. You may hope for a crisis in which they choose (again) to vastly devalue the dollar but think of the retirees on fixed income, of the small farmers and small businessmen and all the rest. The elites and their servant class of professionals may feel immune to these things but I'm not so sure how far you can push Granny. There is considerable volatility in the system and a pervasive sense that things simply cannot continue along this trajectory. And the working class and middle class are not going to take it well when informed that they will just have to take it on the chin again. And that is what is different today than in some of the other issues you mentioned. Think about it. How else would a person like Donald Trump become president? There is real unrest in America across many sectors of society. And we are at the height of internal division in this country with over 40% of the residents being foreign-born and many determined never to assimilate. That never augurs well for the future. Yes, I think the future is more isolationist than at present, certainly multipolar again as it was in the Cold War and with the same opponents with up to a half-dozen new regional nuclear powers. I think medical costs will spiral as more people find it hard to find doctors and services. The oil boom will continue and will ease a little of the pain but even with very high tax rates, it cannot make up for the decades of irresponsible spending by scumbag pols in both parties who usually conspire for their own short-term gain at the expense of the public 10-20 years later. I think we might see a permanently unemployed class of Americans of 50 million or more in the next 10 years. I expect it will be at least 20 million. And the bulk of Boomer retirement is already over so you can't just hope the surplus workers will just retire (and live off the welfare system). So don't fool yourself. All these cards are still on the table, even if you want to pretend they aren't. And there is great unease and a crisis of confidence which really does help explain how Trump beat (the repulsive) Xlinton witch. The elites keep trying to cram their internationalist/interventionist crap down our throats and we don't want it. They regulated everything to death. They have no concern for mounting debt because they're confident they can retreat to their estates and just let the U.S. become a Third World country, overrun by invading hordes that they welcome into the country. There are inevitably, despite any arguments for open borders or heavy regulation, a level at which such practices poison the body politic. And I think Donald Trump's election tends to prove that point. Look at his policies on the wall and immigration, at deregulation, at fast-tracking pipelines and oil/energy exports. Those actually did help get him elected and will keep much of his base very loyal because he did deliver on those promises or at least went all out for them. Because of McStain, he did fail to defund 0bamaCare entirely, missing it by one vote in the Senate. The Stain's dying revenge on us all for electing that crude Trump character. He was a petty man which is why it was probably better that he never became prez. He was far worse than he ever accused Trump of being. And he was a fundamentally corrupt personality, like many of our inbred elites. In truth, these two plucky young Adventists are one of the few rays of sunshine on a darkening horizon. BTTT. We've devolved into general philosophic chat.
You've always had me wrong. I am one of the most realistic people on this site, or any other site you have been on. For example, when you say, above, that Social Security is bankrupt, I reply that it most certainly is not. Rather, it WOULD go bankrupt in the future, if nothing were done. The whole system can be made permanently solvent by eliminating the cap on Social Security, and hitting every dollar of wages earned by anybody in America (as opposed to every dollar of wages up to $132,000 per year), with the Social Security tax. Do that, and the system will be awash in money. It only goes bankrupt, eventually, if we do nothing, which is not going to happen. As far as the military position goes, we are in the best shape that we have ever been militarily. In the distant past, we relied on oceans to keep us safe. In the age of nuclear weapons, long range bombers and nuclear submarines, those moats no longer protect us from destruction. Back in the day, had the British, French or Germans decided to jump the ditch and invade America, they may not have been able to conquer it, but they could have done grievous damage, now, it's completely impossible. If every other nation in the world united in alliance against the US, the US Navy would sweep the seas of every other ship of every other nation, and rule the waves more completely than Britannia ever could hope. The British maintained a navy sufficient to defeat the next two navies compbined. Had France and Germany allied, the British had a navy sized to beat them. The American navy is sized to defeat the combined naval strength of the entire rest of the world. No other nation has ever had anything like the military preponderance, and therefore the security, that the USA currently enjoys. In truth, if we are realistic, only one other nation on earth can threaten our existence: Russia. The next two nuclear powers, France and Britain (in that order) have fewer than 300 weapons, total, and it would be impossible for them to ever muster the will to attack the United States, or even be able to secretly plan doing it without the US knowing in advance and taking counter-measures. China has perhaps 200 weapons, total, and only 90 missiles than can reach any part of the USA, assuming they can launch them without us first taking out many of them, and assuming we can't shoot many down. China could do us a nasty ravage, probably, but the response from us would be the end of the China. The small number of nuclear weapons available to India, Pakistan and Israel, and perhaps North Korea, cannot be delivered on US soil other than by terrorist acts. They lack the missiles to reach us. So, that leaves Russia as the one and only TRUE existential threat to the USA, if they were willing to commit national suicide. Even under Stalin they never contemplated that. By contrast, the American nuclear arsenal IS an existential threat to the countries that still might disturb the peace: Red China, Iran, North Korea - our list of enemies is actually quite thin now (contrary to your belief that we live in a dangerous world full of enemies). Only those four, plus perhaps Cuba and Venezuela (and, of course, Russia), and some benighted holes in Central Asia and Africa, are not already in the world alliance system, the Pax Americana, which is not an empire in the classical sense, but a world security organization. All we really need to do is make a firm and lasting peace with ONE country - Russia - and the rest of these pissant country issues fizzle out, except for China, which is well contained with Russia and America seeing eye-to-eye. Get the peace with Russia (bad for the American military-industrial and intelligence complex, good for the US economy overall because of what comes next), and the Cubas, Syrias and Irans fall in line. Only China remains, and China can be bargained with to protect its neighbors. We are on the cusp of a world security situation that can be a permanent Pax Americana at a much lower cost. That is what I want to drive for, and that is where I see our policy driving, ESPECIALLY given that Trump really does understand the Russia part of the equation. You're right about the fiscal situation, but there is a simple and necessary solution to that: tax wealth. That will impose a tax, for the first time, on securities holdings, which is the primary means of holding wealth in America (real estate is second, but that is already taxed). Taxed securities portfolios and bank accounts, and bullion and art holdings, at the same rate as homes are taxed (approximately 2%), and the fiscal problems dissolve. And with them you have the resources available to provide guaranteed minimum income and health insurance and education to all of those 50 million plus permanently unemployed people you envision thanks to the technical revolution. Sure, the rich are not going to cooperate gladly with wealth taxation, sure, it will take a middle and working class political shift by the majority to cram down a wealth tax upon them, but it will come, sooner or later, because it makes sense. The status quo that I support is that of the Middle Class/Working Class American dream. That will inevitably mean that the overweening, overly wealthy Upper Class American dream will be brought down a bit from its historic highs. There will be measured wealth redistribution without socialist revolution. The wealthy will bitch, but they will have nowhere to go, really. You see a bleak future. I see a future that is pretty bright, in which NONE of these fringy dreams - not of the rich, not of the religious nuts, not of the apocalyptics - wins out, but in which Middle and Working Class America simply assert their broad political power to shore up their own position, and thereby ensure the survival of the American Middle Class lifestyle as a thing to be preserved.
I am. And he's the only one that's REAL.
I must drive down to the City now, to spend the night with family and have a nice meal. I am sure we will speak again on these topics. I would say that, as the years have passed, I have become more directly assertive about what I personally, directly believe, because it has borne out so many times. In the process, I have become less and less tolerant of the flaws in my erstwhile "allies" on the Right, because having, for the most part, prevailed on the crucial battlefield of national security and control of the seas and skies, there is nothing of great importance required yet on the Right, but the human needs required from the Left have become more and more severe, and the Right has become a positive obstacle to that. So, we're going to keep the Pax Americana, but we're going to be sweeping aside the excessive wealth concentrations in the top in favor of a better budget situation and greater social services for many more people. That's the future. And it looks great by my lights. If I were wealthy, with the same God, it would still look ok. If I were wealthy without a redistributive God, it would look rather bad - a diminution in wealth and power is ahead (not a total eclipse). Fine by me. Some religious wing nuts here will come out of the woodwork. so I figure I'll just sign off for awhile. Not interested in a debate. I'm not presenting argument. Something a whole lot more like...prophesy, really.
No, we won't. In fact, it has already failed. There are some who just refuse to admit it. Pax Americana is headed to the scrap heap to join Pax Britannica. History tells us this is inevitable. Regime loyalists are always the last to admit it. But take heart, SoS Mike Pompeo today rushed to the microphones to declare We have “succeeded” in Afghanistan. Essentially, he's saying that al-Qaeda is (temporarily) extinct in Afghanistan so we should declare victory and run for the hills before they do return to their old alliance with the Taliban. The Taliban celebrated our victory in negotiations (with an official terrorist group) by staging a car bomb in Kabul, killing 12 including one American service member. We'd better get out fast, however many Pax Americanas you want to invoke.
If you asked them, they would tell you that you worship a false god. Not that I am their spokesperson but they aren't shy about making such statements.
I've long said the same thing. It will only happen after something as start as the Great Depression sets in, IOW when it's too late to shore up the present system of retirement welfare programs like SS/Medicare/Medicaid. The U.S. Navy makes no such claims. Just the opposite. With ballistic and cruise missile threat growing from shore batteries, they are more vulnerable than ever. Just as WW I demonstrated the futility of all major battleships and made them too vulnerable and too expensive to risk in battle, a new world war would likely reveal that navies are extremely vulnerable to minor military powers. And that is before you get to our opponents who are designing systems to sink our carrier groups and other major naval assets. The future is likely to contain no navies. Too expensive, too vulnerable. Any exchange of nuclear weapons will cause vast environmental damage. An exchange of as few as 100 nuclear weapons detonated in close succession, even if aimed only at military targets like remote island bases, would still likely cause billions of deaths as civilization breaks down as its tight chains of supply break under the disruption of a major nuclear exchange. So it might be Iran/Israel. Or the Norks. Or the Saudis and the Iranians. Or the Pakis and the Indians. Or the Indians and the Chinese. It really is very cute that people think the world can only end if America is involved but civilization could easily end with a death toll of 5 billion or more within a year if any of these lesser powers became involved in a substantial nuclear exchange. And with more nuclear players, the odds of detonation go straight up vertically. Nuclear war is now more likely than it was at the heights of the Cold War (Cuba crisis, 1973 crisis, etc.). This is made worse because so few people recognize how dangerous these weapons still are. Miscalculation and overreaching become much more possible. I've seen some potential for this but many regions are not placated by American policy and are responsive to their own interests or their own regional rivalries. Most often, America gets itself tied down in some pointless military waste production scheme like the war in Iraq or the war in Afghanistan, some "Crusade For Democracy" where the "natives will greet our invaders as heroes" or some such laughable nonsense. Both Russian and China are producing a rather awful new generation of weapons and we are, overall, falling behind them. We have only a temporary advantage in dirt-cheap launches but they are quickly trying to copy the SpaceX success and they will succeed since it has been obvious for 25 years that we had the technology needed to build re-usable launchers. You're really starting to sound like Comrade Sanders. I suppose it could come to that to fund a universal basic income if we endured 10 years of hard recession, like the Great Depression, and had 20%-30% of the public out of work permanently. But it would have to be truly dire and not just an attempt to address a short-term problem. The system will already have entirely collapsed before you pass a national wealth tax in America. You are also subjecting wealth in the form of property to dual taxation, at the local/state level and a new national tax on top of that. You forget a simple solution that would appeal to the elite more: move all assets overseas, crash the economy, distract the masses until they forget That Dangerous Idea that you advocate. C'mon, outright Marxism is an easier sell in America than permanent wealth taxes. They have plenty of places to go, all over the world. The world would be very happy to have them and their capital. But I doubt they would just abandon a continent like America. Too much wealth left to extract. They would transfer most assets overseas and then play all their cards against any such laws. I see no signs of the working class or middle class having the political will that you imagine. Nor do I see the climbers of the upper class or the elites as giving in so easily as you imagine. History tells us that we must bet against the empire. Any empire, including our own. That is what happens to empires, however fondly their greatest loyalists are about them. And loyalty to the empire is falling fast, at about the same rate as Christian churches are closing their doors. It's a problem with selling God-and-country to the populace for so long. When faith in either one falls, the other suffers as well. After a certain number of decades, people become suspicious of anyone trotting out these hoary bromides to get political support.
Move assets overseas, and they are still taxed by the US tax system: it's global. Currently, income tax is global. Gross wealth tax can be made global.
Not that I am their spokesperson but they aren't shy about making such statements. I know they're not. I simply say that I'm Catholic, to avoid religious discussions. With civilized people that works. With others, it seems to be taken as an invitation to tell me what's wrong with Catholicism, which then is an opening for me to tell them what is wrong with their cranky beliefs. Then we're off to the races.
So the guy who pays $100,000 into Social Security every year will get the same as the guy who paid $5,000 into the system when they retire? Or will you increase the payout -- you know, to be fair. Here's an idea. Stop using Social Security funds to pay for disabilities (SSDI). That money should come from the general fund since it goes to all ages. There's $200 billion a year right there. Or raise the retirement age.
No, but the guy who pays $2 million per year in Social Security taxes will get the same as the guy who puts in $8500 a year. Social Security is a retirement program that should pay retirees enough to live securely at a middle-middle class standard of living. Nothing luxurious, but not penurious either. That means wealth redistribution, obviously. Always has. All taxation is ultimately wealth redistribution.
Obviously. FYI. Anyone who is required to who pay $2 million per year in Social Security taxes is smart enough to figure out how not to pay $2 million per year in Social Security taxes.
To pay that, somebody would have to be earning about $32 million per year. Tax codes have been structured specifically to give the escape valves for the r rich. Those escape valves need to be shut.
If they're earning that much they're being paid in stock, stock options, dividends, or some other form of compensation that is not subject to FICA.
And I prophesy that Vic will tell you that all those loopholes should be entirely eliminated along with a lot of other scammy tax deductions. Never say never, look how Trump capped the deductabiity of state/local taxes on federal tax forms (the so-called SALT deductions). I never thought any Republican would push that through but he did. There was a real hit on Blue states and their taxation patterns which forced the entire country to subsidize their high rates of state/local taxation.
Indeed. The purest taxation system is a unitary gross wealth tax, without deductions, set at the rate necessary to ensure that the country runs a balanced budget with a tiny surplus (to more rapidly reduce the debt). All taxes are taxes on wealth. Income taxes tax new wealth. Sales taxes tax the exchanges of wealth. Property and estate taxes tax static wealth. The loopholes in the system are those things that avoid taxation. Yes, close those. One unitary rate on all gross wealth, no additional taxes.
You'd be surprised how many conservatives/Republicans you could get to agree with you. Except they have extreme distrust toward the pols. The spending never gets cut, the waste, fraud and abuse go on virtually without interruption (or a few token prosecutions are held to great media fanfare to try to convince the rubes that the pols kept their promises).
Liberals and Independents too. The tax RATE is the same for the homeless guy as Bill Gates: let's say 3.5% of total wealth. That MEANS no sales tax, no income tax, no capital gains tax, no estate tax, no excise taxes and no separate car registration or property taxes. It actually COULD mean no fees for public transportation, no bridge tolls - the whole apparatus of government operating off of the tax base. It's FAIR, because EVERYBODY pays the same tax rate, on everything - wages are wealth, so yes, there is, in effect, an income tax, but not as such: it's a wealth tax. The massive concentration of power in America does not come from high wages, but from the concentration of WEALTH, and all of the taxes in the tax code attack wealth ACCUMULATION - making it harder to accumulate it - while leaving accumulated wealth - other than middle class wealth (houses and cars) untaxed. If you JUST tax wealth instead, directly, at a low rate, without any exemptions, you can ensure that everybody is in the system), you collect more money, and it doesn't warp the system; it DOES encourage investment, because a pile of money sitting in a bank account now not only ebbs in value from inflation, but is drawn down by 3.5% per year in taxes. Money is driven to be invested. Capital gains are no longer an issue, in the sense that the capital gains taxes currently severely warp the economy by setting people's behavior. There's no incentive to hold property in one form versus another, nor to time transactions or create great complicated spaghetti bowls of corporate structures to evade corporate taxes. Offshoring becomes pointless: the US taxes globally, so you'll be taxed on the wealth you hold offshore just the same. It's simpler to monitor. In effect, it gives the working and middle classes a huge tax break, because currently those classes pay about 40% of their earnings to the government. Note it's a GROSS wealth tax, not a NET WORTH tax. A net worth tax gives one a tax break for debt, and encourages debt as a tax shelter. None of that. You know, I can wax large on the beauty and practicality of such a system, and on its eminent fairness, how it sets the right burden, at the same percentage, on everyone (and is thus fairer than any other taxation system). But you're right: regardless of HOW you tax, what you spend the money ON, and at what levels, will end up being more important. After all, you can have my perfect and fair tax system, and end up giving the wealthy back the taxes they paid with corruption and stockjobbing contracts, so what have you really done? I don't think that in a republican democracy it really is possible to prevent that, other than through a system that forbids the government to keep any confidential records. And that's not workable in a world in which all are not within the Pax Americana (and probably even then...)
You're full of it Vic. 8 And he said unto them in his doctrine, Beware of the scribes, which love to go in long clothing, and love salutations in the marketplaces, 39 And the chief seats in the synagogues, and the uppermost rooms at feasts: 40 Which devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayers: these shall receive greater damnation. 41 And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much. 42 And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing. 43 And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury: 44 For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.
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Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestI knew you'd like it. You're a big fan of that red text. : )
#134. To: Tooconservative (#125)
It becomes an excuse to pretend the OT is still relevant
#135. To: Tooconservative (#129)
But you could float from church to church, gobbling all the Eucharists you like. So there is that.
#136. To: Tooconservative (#125)
So you have, for instance, the defenses of American slavery using passages from the Old Testament,
Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,
#137. To: Tooconservative (#131)
The churches are paying the price for their past excesses as enacted into public laws. It may finish off the churches in America, just as it largely did in Europe.
#138. To: All (#137)
#139. To: Vicomte13 (#132)
Target achieved. Exactly right. Perfect. What he said.
#140. To: watchman (#134)
Well, there goes your defense of Sabbath.
#141. To: Vicomte13 (#137)
It's why I have such contempt for them and have no time or patience for an anything they say.
but when the Opus Opus Dei crowd get all strange and technical ("Jesus is present in the eucharist, but he is no longer present 15 seconds after you swallow him") I roll roll my eyes also.
The Churches in Europe died because "When Britain first at heaven's command arose from out the azure main..." and "God and my right!", and "Error has no rights!", and "One faith, one law, one God, one King!", and "Gott Mit Uns!", and "God Save the Tsar!", etc., etc. Lather, rinse, repeat in every great nation nation and paltry principality all over Europe.
Thanks to Mexican immigration the background radiation of religion - the religion of the lower classes - is becoming Catholic, and that I find friendly and warm, unlike the prickly old Protestantisms that I never liked but had to deal with. As they die off, I don't - and that suits me.
This is why I think you're off the mark on this Adventist thing. Yes, the Supreme Court DID defend the Catholics' right to be Catholic, back in the day, and did defend freedom of conscience. But no, the Supreme Court has not been in the business of disrupting the society left and right.
So, an Adventist - member of a fringe cult - has decided s/he "can't" break sa sabbath because of a sports events, and demands that a whole aspect of American cu culture be chan cu culture be changed to suit her fringe. This is unreasonable.
It was not unreasonable for blacks to demand absolutely equal rights, and that businesses have to serve them. It was not unreasonable for gays to demand the right to sex, and ultimately to form unions that allow them old age protections of married people. It was unreasonable, however, that gays demand to make non-gay religious gay religious cake artists decorate their cakes.
gay religious cake artists decorate their cakes.
And it's unreasonable for a fringe cult member to expect the whole sports culture of society to cease because of that cult's peculiar beliefs.
There are different views of right and wrong.
#142. To: Vicomte13 (#135)
Eventually, centrists will get us to universal Medicare WITHOUT socializing everything the way the Left would have us do, but without giving the health insurers what they will always want.
#143. To: Tooconservative (#139)
I appreciate the appreciation. However, I've posted about the mischief of heresy and false doctrines caused by misuse of the OT about as many times as you've posted about red letter quotes.
#144. To: Tooconservative (#140)
I admit I was exploring the level of hostility that other Christians hold toward a sabbath throughout this thread. And it is considerable. Right until someone starts talking about holding those high school sports on Sunday instead. Then things take on a hostile undertone.
#145. To: Tooconservative (#141)
How can you type that? The Court has spent the last century constantly disrupting American society in decision after decision. It has been a century of unbridled radical court activism, constituting a 9-member super-legislature on the Court.
#146. To: Tooconservative (#141)
Your thought process should not be interrupted by the need to keep re-editing stuff.
#147. To: Vicomte13 (#143)
But THIS time you didn't tangle it up with some "defense of MY doctrine" or Catholic-bashing nonsense.
#148. To: Vicomte13 (#146)
Even when I re-edit things to get rid of the stu stutter stuttering, the edited messages edit edited messages themselves get scrambled. I am using two two desktop computers.
#149. To: Vicomte13 (#145)
Give me your list.
#150. To: Vicomte13 (#144)
Fencing tournaments worldwide are held on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays - so Muslims, Jews and Christians all have to sacrifice their "day of rest" to participate in the sport. So what? God doesn't care.
#151. To: Tooconservative (#142)
(Edited)
#152. To: Tooconservative (#150)
#153. To: Tooconservative (#140)
Then things take on a hostile undertone.
#154. To: Vicomte13 (#152)
I didn't say the Jews, Christians and Muslims don't care. I said GOD does not care.
Now, it might be that the religious still have a sufficient grip on the American Supreme Court to be able to get a "Sabbath Rule" for public school sports. But as I've said before, I doubt it. Sports in America have been happening Friday evenings and Saturdays, and sometimes Sundays, for as long as anybody remembers.
Sabbaths cannot be accomodated. They can't be done during the school week without interrupting school time and study time. Both days of the weekend are somebody's Sabbath.
#155. To: Vicomte13 (#151)
I've experienced Medicare for ALL; the French system. It's much better than what we have.
They were all dead wrong - foreseeably so - and when they finally fell under the weight of overwhelming pressure, the entire superstructure went down with them: they never were able to get back up, because they were not simply politically defeated but intellectually discredited. Christianity may fail, but that doesn't mean that the Aztecs will ever get another bite at the apple.
#156. To: Tooconservative (#155)
So don't fool yourself. All these cards are still on the table, even if you want to pretend they aren't.
#157. To: Tooconservative (#154)
Well, we might accept that you are speaking for your God.
#158. To: Tooconservative (#155)
#159. To: Vicomte13 (#158)
So, we're going to keep the Pax Americana...
#160. To: Vicomte13 (#157)
I am. And he's the only one that's REAL.
#161. To: Vicomte13 (#156)
The whole system can be made permanently solvent by eliminating the cap on Social Security, and hitting every dollar of wages earned by anybody in America (as opposed to every dollar of wages up to $132,000 per year), with the Social Security tax. Do that, and the system will be awash in money.
If every other nation in the world united in alliance against the US, the US Navy would sweep the seas of every other ship of every other nation, and rule the waves more completely than Britannia ever could hope. The British maintained a navy sufficient to defeat the next two navies compbined. Had France and Germany allied, the British had a navy sized to beat them. The American navy is sized to defeat the combined naval strength of the entire rest of the world.
The small number of nuclear weapons available to India, Pakistan and Israel, and perhaps North Korea, cannot be delivered on US soil other than by terrorist acts. They lack the missiles to reach us.
We are on the cusp of a world security situation that can be a permanent Pax Americana at a much lower cost.
You're right about the fiscal situation, but there is a simple and necessary solution to that: tax wealth.
And with them you have the resources available to provide guaranteed minimum income and health insurance and education to all of those 50 million plus permanently unemployed people you envision thanks to the technical revolution.
The status quo that I support is that of the Middle Class/Working Class American dream. That will inevitably mean that the overweening, overly wealthy Upper Class American dream will be brought down a bit from its historic highs. There will be measured wealth redistribution without socialist revolution. The wealthy will bitch, but they will have nowhere to go, really.
You see a bleak future. I see a future that is pretty bright, in which NONE of these fringy dreams - not of the rich, not of the religious nuts, not of the apocalyptics - wins out, but in which Middle and Working Class America simply assert their broad political power to shore up their own position, and thereby ensure the survival of the American Middle Class lifestyle as a thing to be preserved.
#162. To: Tooconservative (#161)
#163. To: Tooconservative (#160)
If you asked them, they would tell you that you worship a false god.
#164. To: Vicomte13 (#156)
The whole system can be made permanently solvent by eliminating the cap on Social Security
#165. To: misterwhite (#164)
So the guy who pays $100,000 into Social Security every year will get the same as the guy who paid $5,000 into the system when they retire?
#166. To: Vicomte13 (#165)
That means wealth redistribution, obviously.
#167. To: misterwhite (#166)
Anyone who is required to who pay $2 million per year in Social Security taxes is smart enough to figure out how not to pay $2 million per year in Social Security taxes.
#168. To: Vicomte13 (#167)
To pay that, somebody would have to be earning about $32 million per year.
#169. To: misterwhite, Vicomte13 (#168)
If they're earning that much they're being paid in stock, stock options, dividends, or some other form of compensation that is not subject to FICA.
#170. To: Tooconservative (#169)
And I prophesy that Vic will tell you that all those loopholes should be entirely eliminated along with a lot of other scammy tax deductions.
#171. To: Vicomte13 (#170)
Indeed. The purest taxation system is a unitary gross wealth tax, without deductions, set at the rate necessary to ensure that the country runs a balanced budget with a tiny surplus (to more rapidly reduce the debt).
#172. To: Tooconservative (#171)
You'd be surprised how many conservatives/Republicans you could get to agree with you.
#173. To: Vicomte13 (#172)
It's FAIR, because EVERYBODY pays the same tax rate,
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