Amaros
Posts: 1363
Joined: 7/25/2005 Status: offline
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quote:
Of course the conservatives have tried to fool people by defining any one against them as un-Christian. But we shouldn't allow them this victory. As a Christian I can say that many of the Bush administration's policies are immoral - and are good reasons to have rejected Bush last year. The Democrats need to re-claim religion as an organizing base. Why they haven't done so is a mystery to me... and may have cost them the election in 2000 and 2005. Precisely - which is why you should resist the urge to take it personally when the discussion is about public policy. This tactic has spread far and wide, and it's use as a disrupter is not always deliberate, but it is not a valid debate tactic. For instance, any discussion about the latest attempts by the Kansas School board to subordinate science to religion invariably ends up in one of these snits - religion, specifically the Chrstian religion, is behind it, but that isn't the same thing as saying every Christian is a superstitious nitwit - quite clearly, it a certian faction, but if you happen to belong to that faction, or even if you don't the fact that the debate is about public policy menas that the glove come off, you can't hide behind some presumed sancttity, and lob cheap shots from behind it - you can try maybe, but it doesn't tend to enhance your credibility. In fact, I think you are right, the ravings about how New Orleans "deserved what they got" was pretty much the last straw for me, organized religion has lost any shred of credibility it might have had right there as far as I'm concerned, but I can still respect all those Christians who have done their good deeds in secret, as it were - too bad a few loudmouthed morons have to get all the press and give you a bad name. At the same time, it's difficult to refrain from commenting as I have above, ascribing the whole thing to "Christians" - they are Christians, and speaking asChristians - if you don't like them speaking for you, you do need to mention that. I don't agree with eveything - or even most things liberals say and do, much of it I find wrong-headed or even embarrasing intellectually, but I have to put up with all the crap about liberals just the same, all I can do is describe my position. As the mans said, "I just want to get the conservatives out of the way so I can get to the liberals". As for the last part, it's pure right wing rhetoric that democrats don't uphold religious principles, it's just that they don't lie and promise to try and impose it as public policy - all the same, they often do, and in ways that are sometimes more draconian than anything a conservative could get away with, and democrats can get away with it because nobody belives their motivations might be religious, being godless commies and all, ya know. Some of Joe Lieberman's views are not far removed from Pat Buchanan's w/regard to mass media, but Lieberman is a mainstream democratic candidate, Buchanan is considered fringe right - so it goes.
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