How To Live Under An Unqualified President by John Piper

[Agnostic_Gabe]

Nowadays we are treated to ‘advocacy journalism’ which means a news story is just used to promote a political stance or make a political attack - in other words, the ‘news’ becomes an ‘op-ed’ piece. Not what real journalism strives for traditionally.

Yes, real journalism is mostly extinct now. One of my chief complaints and one of the reason I hate (yes Hate!) the left AND the right. I literally hate them both. Most of the world would do good to to ignore the news and popular social media sites. They might just then view their fellow humans as more than just evil/good once they get to know them. There is a lot of mindless jumping on and off the bandwagon as a result of media and social media.

I am a techie and I was quite upset when I read an article on Arstechnica.com making fun of trump because he apparently (I say apparently, because the phrase could have been metaphorically used) didn’t know that stealth planes are not invisible to the eye, just radar. I thought of all things complain about Trump, you resort to petty and stupid things like this? Sad and quite pathetic.

Then years ago, I remember fox news saying Obama wasn’t an american because he drank tea instead of coffee. I remember at the same time, thinking the same thing. How petty?

Basically instead of talking about policies, they have made it personal.

George MacDonald said something beautiful in one of his sermons that relates to this:

“As far as we can see, the men of whom this was spoken were men who resisted the truth with some amount of perception that it was the truth; men neither led astray by passion, nor altogether blinded by their abounding prejudice; men who were not excited to condemn one form of truth by the love which they bore to another form of it; but men so set, from selfishness and love of influence, against one whom they saw to be a good man, that they denied the goodness of what they knew to be good, in order to put down the man whom they knew to be good, because He had spoken against them, and was ruining their influence and authority with the people by declaring them to be no better than they knew themselves to be. Is not this to be Satan? to be in hell? to be corruption? to be that which is damned? Was not this their condition”

People hated Trump and Obama so much, that they denied any good they did in order to put them down. MacDonald’s lesson holds true today. We no longer judge right from wrong, and instead are willing to call good evil, and evil good just because we hate a person. That is totally sad and pathetic and pretty much explains the far left and the far right. How “far” is debatable, but we can certainly take from Solomon’s wisdom found in Proverbs 18:17 “The first to plead his case seems right, Until another comes and examines him.” But many are not even interested in knowing the other side of a particular story.

It would be nice if our country could debate the issues, civilly and respectfully… But, I think we are long past that. I suspect as we become more and more diverse with tolerance for all cultures, we will become more and more divided until we implode. That isn’t to say I think tolerance is wrong, it isn’t… But too many groups want their hands in the pot and many are not willing to co-exist or compromise.

[Holy-Fool-P-Zombie]

Do I see a husband and wife dispute, in today’s BBC news item?

Melania backs NBA star after Trump insults

[anon12438761]

I’ll still vote for his Dem opponent in 2020

I’ll be interested to see how far left the Left can possibly go - I suppose communism would be the outer limit. Uncle Bernie (who is in the 1% if I heard correctly) and that latina Socialist who recently won an election, both are proposing programs that will cost about $32Trillion over the next 10 years.
I don’t know why noone is talking about the national debt. It’s more of a threat than any external enemy in many ways.

[anon12438761]

I have no respect for the GOP and haven’t for years.
Everyone talks a good game, everyone is preparing for their next election, few of them give a damn about us at all. Both parties. Imho.

[Moxieman]

I don’t do politics with other Christians and anyone who values their sanity and desire for happy ecumenism should avoid it. Not making a moral judgement, you have Christian freedom, but there is no left or right, libertarian or socialist in Christ Jesus. I went through this on Facebook and I can tell you, it’s soul wrenching and personally I find it useless. If you don’t mind being called all sorts of names and disfellowshipping with other brothers and sisters over a matter that is less important than the Kingdom of God, go right ahead. Personally I would rather not. I would rather keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace.

[anon12438761]

UH…okay. So I reckon you won’t be commenting further on this thread.

[maintenanceman]

Whoa. Good luck to you both

[Moxieman]

No political comments, nope.

[Paidion]

I don’t know why noone is talking about the national debt.

What would be the purpose in talking about it? The money systems of both U.S.A. and Canada are based on debt rather than credit. Money comes into existence through debt.
If you go to a bank and borrow $5000, they cannot loan the depositors’ money. They simply place $5000 in your account from no source whatever. The money is created on the spot. When you repay the 5 grand, the money goes out of existence again.

It is impossible for either country to pay its national debt. If every cent of money in the country were applied to the national debt, there would be no money at all remaining to purchase goods and services, and the country would STILL be deeply in debt.

The only solution is for the country’s banks to create money whose quantity balances the goods and services available. Then money would truly represent what you buy with it (which is what we mistakenly believe to be the case now).

The economic system that I am espousing here is known as “social credit.” If one takes a course in economics in our universities, social credit is one of the economic theories which is studied. This economic theory was developed by C. H. Douglas (1879–1952) who wrote a book entitled “Social Credit.” Very few people are able to fully understand the theory.

It was applied to the British Isle of Guernsey when the whole country was nearly broke economically. For the next 10 years, the country was prosperous! But unfortunately, it gradually degenerated from the credit system of economics to the debt system that we still have in United States and Canada.

Check out the Guernsey experiment here:
The Guernsey Experiment

Social Credit theory was at least partially applied in the province of Alberta, during the depression years, and brought Alberta out of depression to some extent. But there was too much opposition to Social Credit for it to continue to be practised.

For more information on this economic theory, do an internet search for Social Credit.

[anon12438761]

Very interesting, I will check it out.

[Cindy_Skillman]

As an SSI beneficiary through my husband (I’m not old enough yet), I’d tend to agree that benefits should go up… that said, who’s going to pay? Are you okay with another 2% off the top of everybody else’s (esp your own) paycheck? (If that could possibly pay the bill). And by the way, is it just me, or does everyone feel the government has done a WUNNERFUL job “investing” our forcefully taken money in… erm… what DID they do with all that money anyhow? Squander it all on enriching themselves? Surely not…

[Holy-Fool-P-Zombie]

The cap on SS taxable income should be removed or at least raised significantly.

Sorry. I hope I understand your position correctly. Are you promoting taxing SS income? If so, then as senior citizen and card-carrying AARP member - I strongly disagree. And I will work with any AARP lobby initiatives, as a social media and direct response copywriting, knowable chap - to publicize and promote their lobby efforts.

And here’s a good technique, to get the children to behave.

[maintenanceman]

As an SSI beneficiary through my husband (I’m not old enough yet), I’d tend to agree that benefits should go up… that said, who’s going to pay? Are you okay with another 2% off the top of everybody else’s (esp your own) paycheck? (If that could possibly pay the bill). And by the way, is it just me, or does everyone feel the government has done a WUNNERFUL job “investing” our forcefully taken money in… erm… what DID they do with all that money anyhow? Squander it all on enriching themselves? Surely not…

Well, I’m not sure how it works as far as what you receive vs what you put in. If you are knowledgeable, I for one would like to know about it… Sorry I know I am being lazy but you are right, WHAT did they do with the money.

I’m getting there, and fast I suppose I’ll have to be more vigilant.

Thanks.

[Holy-Fool-P-Zombie]

As our tax code works now, Jeff Bezos pays the same amount into SS as his dentist (assuming he has one). That’s not right. As pensions have all but disappeared, SS’ funding should evolve so that people can retire with dignity.

“I’m not messy. I’m organizationally challenged!”-- Garfield the Cat

[Holy-Fool-P-Zombie]

Randy, do you agree that the cap on taxable income to pay for SS should be raised?

Yes. Senior citizens are an endangers species - as it is. I’m all for what can make US senior citizens - more safe, healthy and comfortable. Unless the Trump supports here, have better ideas…on how to accomplish the same goal.

[anon12438761]

I would be very interested, if we have any participants here who are from Germany or England (Britain?), whether they could take an unbiased and non-political look at this and give us their opinion. I’m not looking to trash any group, I am concerned with the factuality.
Dick - you may/may not want to get involved, it’s up to you. @Sobornost
Any others please chime in if you are ‘over there’ or know folks over there.

The West’s Defeat - By Its Own Hand

[Sobornost]

I can’t really get involved in this Dave - but out of curiosity I have followed the German data about migrants referred to in the Breitbart article which Ann Marie in turn refers to. The non-ethnic German immigrants in the statistics are broken down as follows -

‘‘The three main countries of origin of migrants are Turkey, Poland and the Russian Federation. A total of 6.3 million had their roots in the former guest worker candidate states, especially in Turkey, Italy and Greece.’’

So the 40% referred to is not by any means all Muslim

[maintenanceman]

Yes. Senior citizens are an endangers species

I’m not sure I understand, there are more and more seniors entering the Social Security roll, and are deciding to take/accept SS at an earlier age. Much to the chagrin to the SS experts.

[Holy-Fool-P-Zombie]

I’m not sure I understand, there are more and more seniors entering the Social Security roll, and are deciding to take/accept SS at an earlier age

Why are they taking SS, at an early age? What’s wrong with this picture and how can we fix it?

As an aside, here’s an interesting article - from the BBC today:

Hacking the US mid-terms? It's child's play

[Holy-Fool-P-Zombie]

Well, as long as we are sharing news stories. Here’s an interesting one, from the BBC news today.

Will Trump remain bulletproof?