I think so too.
I don't know their position on the thing, or the response from business interests. But it seems to me something could be hammered out.
Judging the Mitchell Report
- Thread starter Town Heretic
- Start date
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
I'm glad we agree.
glorydaz
Well-known member
I will disagree with that appeal to his record for the reason that what we witnessed in his behavior is the man right now. Sure, maybe he will change when this is all over, but human experience teaches me that moments like what we witnessed in Kavanaugh's outbursts and low-balling attempts are life-altering crossroads that usually take one in a very different direction. The emotional toil coupled with clearly displayed abhorrent behavior becomes the triggering seed of a corrupt metamorphosis. Should Kavanaugh be confirmed, I fear he will take an agenda borne from the hearings experience with him on the way to SCOTUS.
As a citizen I would prefer, no...I demand, to not be burdened by all these maybes and fears, especially for someone that will sit at our highest court for decades. We should and can do better than this at the governmental level, moreover our elected representatives have a duty to see to it.
If Kavanaugh is not confirmed, as a Republican from my radiator to my tailpipe, I am not disheartened. Mme. Barrett sits in the wings and will do just fine.
AMR
You're being naive, AMR. Anyone nominated by Trump, Barrett included, will get the same treatment. That is if anyone is willing to stand before this slobbering horde.
The Judge's reaction was not only right, it was necessary. Righteous indignation should never be mocked as you and others have done. His deep sorrow for his family was raw, and nothing to be ashamed of. As a Judge, he is in impartial arbiter not a victim being dragged across the coals by evil men and women who would destroy this man and his family without batting an eye. He was roasted and stoned....a martyr for the very law and the constitution he loves.
Anyone who lets the angry mob influence them is a coward. And anyone who falls for this garbage is a fool. Mitchell was correct in everything she said. I say good for her.
Sounds like you could work it out. She can't tell us where this took place.
She can't tell us how she got there or back, sounds like you could figure out who's boat it was.
That's one more than she has.
An injury would cause bills and time to heal, you should be able to figure out when you got injured. Things would be different after that.
Her Tony and George don't recall this.Either late teens or early twenties (my age, not the year :mmphIt's been so long ago. Tony and George were my running mates. We kept getting together into our 20s. But by our mid 20s George was dead and Tony was in the Corps.
fool says;
TH replies;
No, that's not true, fool. If you aren't familiar with her testimony you should watch it. If you watched it again you have even worse memory issues than Mitchell or Ford.
She needs to figure out when and where this happened. Or she's making an unfalsifiable claim.
Probably. I mean I should be able to narrow it. There aren't that many rivers. Where along that, at which landing is, again, up for grabs. Where would she start?
Maybe she only went to this house the one time for the party.
I can't remember how I got there or how I got back. I'm not sure where it was. I don't know whose boat it was. I'm not sure what year it was...and yet it happened. There was a blue stripe on the boat. Tony and George were there. I was hurt. Decades ago. Awful day.
It might be. Or it might be that two other people remember it but aren't being honest. Or maybe only one. We don't really know.
What records would there be relating to her trauma? At the time, none. Unless she kept a diary.
Rather, the people with reason to recall have a vested interest in not admitting it even if they do. The others have no particular reason to remember one party out of how many decades ago...
All sorts of things we hold true can't be falsified. It' would be great if there was empirical evidence to support elements of the narrative, but it's not surprising at this point. She recalled Judge working at a store around that time and we know from his writing that he worked at the store. That's helpful. Could have been more helpful. With some of the things she wanted she could have done a better job.
Ask Mr. Religion
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Heh! I only wish I was young enough to lay claim to that label.
Wherein I have written have I demonstrated a scornful or contemptuous manner—mockery—towards Kavanaugh? I rarely weigh in on the politics, but I am confident that when I do I have taken the proper care to not just be a mocker. I genuinely feel for the man, but I am not going to let that color my view that he clearly undid himself.
Yes, the whole affair was an embarrassment upon all parties, scandalous, and unseemly. I have lived a few years and I frequently remark to my son that I have not seen anything like what has been happening since the primaries and Presidential election that can compare. I tell him how fearful I am about what I see and what he and his future generations will have to wrestle with long after I have departed. I am not at all happy about about the legacy my generation has wrought.
You have assigned Kavanaugh's behavior to righteous indignation, but the very definition of the word is to be found in the teachings of Scripture. Our Lord's driving the money-lenders out of the temple was righteous indignation. Was he sinning? No, for the very phrase righteous indignation assumes a purity of life including rectitude (conformity to a right standard) and a righteous act or quality (holiness). Righteous indignation is the only form of anger than Scripture permits. All other forms are sin, sin, sin.
By the Biblical standard, there was very little in Kavanaugh's eruptive behavior that anyone should label as righteous indignation. In the information age, where any thought that pops into someone's noggin is committed to online words, things like reticence and trepidation, have been replaced by certainty and daring. Accordingly, the phrase, righteous indignation nowadays appears to mean unbridled anger at any slight, real or imagined. Sigh.
There's but a letter difference between anger and danger. Kavanaugh demonstrated it to be so.
AMR
Maybe in your eyes but, in defense of ones honor I was totally behind Kavanaugh, and really if someones behavior was in question it was every democrat member of that committee which extended no respect, or even remotely conducted themselves with a shred of dignity. I say he treated them with the exact same contempt, lack of respect & decorum that they displayed....they got exactly what they gave, and for that good on him, I wouldn't have shown them a shred of respect either under the circumstances, they had not earned it... I am old school too, respect is earned, and doesn't come with a title.
I am sorry brother but, I am throwing down the bullcrap card, a man is being viciously attacked on a personal level by unsubstantiated, unverified ( and probably cannot be), uncorroborated tripe by a woman who cannot remember anything with any degree of accuracy, and he is supposed to show grace under fire while politicians who don't give a whit for him or her use this nonsensical fairy tale to tear his life apart for their political ends? And he is supposed to be silent & dignified through that circus side show? Please... Even I understood his ire... personally I understood it, and had no issue with it. Maybe you are a different breed of cat but , I can guarantee that if I felt it was my last stand while my honor was being dragged through the mud on a half rate political hit job I would probably been much more colorful with those charlatan senators. It is just my take anyway but, in my estimation of righteous indignation, Kavanaugh"s response to his attackers qualifies by definition.
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glorydaz
Well-known member
Heh! I only wish I was young enough to lay claim to that label.
Wherein I have written have I demonstrated a scornful or contemptuous manner—mockery—towards Kavanaugh? I rarely weigh in on the politics, but I am confident that when I do I have taken the proper care to not just be a mocker. I genuinely feel for the man, but I am not going to let that color my view that he clearly undid himself.
Yes, the whole affair was an embarrassment upon all parties, scandalous, and unseemly. I have lived a few years and I frequently remark to my son that I have not seen anything like what has been happening since the primaries and Presidential election that can compare. I tell him how fearful I am about what I see and what he and his future generations will have to wrestle with long after I have departed. I am not at all happy about about the legacy my generation has wrought.
You have assigned Kavanaugh's behavior to righteous indignation, but the very definition of the word is to be found in the teachings of Scripture. Our Lord's driving the money-lenders out of the temple was righteous indignation. Was he sinning? No, for the very phrase righteous indignation assumes a purity of life including rectitude (conformity to a right standard) and a righteous act or quality (holiness). Righteous indignation is the only form of anger than Scripture permits. All other forms are sin, sin, sin.
By the Biblical standard, there was very little in Kavanaugh's eruptive behavior that anyone should label as righteous indignation. In the information age, where any thought that pops into someone's noggin is committed to online words, things like reticence and trepidation, have been replaced by certainty and daring. Accordingly, the phrase, righteous indignation nowadays appears to mean unbridled anger at any slight, real or imagined. Sigh.
There's but a letter difference between anger and danger. Kavanaugh demonstrated it to be so.
AMR
Eruptive anger? Unbridled anger? He was crying for the pain being endured by his mother, his wife, and his children. He was genuinely crushed to see his life being destroyed by callous, ugly politicians.
I don't agree with you at all. He was "angry" just as our Lord was when He drove the money lenders from the temple. The only thing he didn't do was pick up a whip. It absolutely was righteous indignation. He knew he had never done anything like that. He was being falsely accused, and what you witnessed was exactly what any normal person would display who had been accused of such a horrendous thing. And you are being naive if you fall for the Dem's latest line of attack. Don't fall for lack of judicial temperament. He had been praised for his judicial temperament by all his colleagues on the bench.
Ask Mr. Religion
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I get that, brother, I really do.
The issue for me is that the "job interview" is for a position that carries great responsibility that requires detachment and temperament. These qualities are expected to be on display in the interview. If I go to an interview and am baited (many interviews these days are purposefully so), if I take the bait, the interview is over, simply because part of the interview is far more than just my credentials and accomplishments.
Just because someone draws first blood, I am not obligated to return the "favor", giving as good or better than I got on the same exact level of that which was given to me. I am not in doubt about Kavanaugh's treatment. It was sordid. I am also not in doubt that he should have risen above the fray keeping himself blameless. I will ignore the other matters wherein he became churlish and evasive when it came to his drinking habits. He could have easily answered these lines of questioning in a sober (heh!) matter.
Respect is not earned at all. Respect may be deepened or lessened. But respect is due wherein it is rightfully demanded (e.g., you are a parent, with children, no?) and is to be given to all. If you are not being treated respectfully, you are not compelled to return the disrespect in kind. You are compelled to comport yourself respectfully and do have the option of withholding your respect for another via polite detachment.
I suspect we are similar in many ways. Our natural inclination is meet fire with fire when one's sense of honor is at stake. Yet sometimes that inclination is actually cognitive dissonance or even mistaken ideas about honor, such that the accusations being made have a modicum of truth to them, yet our very being seeks to reject it vehemently. Surely most of us can recall examples where we were caught in a lie, yet our responses were not admission and contriteness, rather we simply redoubled our animated efforts to proclaim our truthfulness.
I have little complaints that Kavanaugh's reactions were proper when it came to calling out the sham all around. But when he mounted partisan complaints and became evasive, he revealed a level of attachment and temperament that is not suitable for the position he sought.
AMR
I supported him. I won't say I was totally behind him, or anyone in living memory nominated to the Court. At least not since I've been of age to vote.
I'd say that's overreaching, but that as a body they played politics with something more important and to their discredit. It's one reason I find it hard to respect politicians or their judgements/declarations these days.
See, that's just not right and, more, the judge knows it isn't because he lectured others on that point, before setting it aside to lecture others from a subordinate position.
Respect is often conferred with office and rank. That's why you don't get to dress down your commanding officer, even if you're certain he's wrong, even if you're sure he's being a class-A jerk.
And there you step into it. The truth of this is largely beyond us.
You may not credit her, but she has been clear on any number of points. She says that she knows what happened to her, and who did that to her. The rest is whether you find her credible or not.
As someone who has taken testimony and dealt with cases like this for years, I find her testimony consistent with what I'd expect to see in someone speaking the truth from her position. . . But I'm also old enough and experienced enough to be able to pull together a narrative for either of them wherein that truth is either fabricated or settled in another way. So I don't know. I found both of their testimonies on the point that brought us here believable.
Then the judge violated just about everything he once said should be required of a judge in terms of conduct. And he didn't do it because something new was suddenly sprung on him by the left. He prepared it.
He prepared remarks inconsistent with what I expect and what he declared essential for a sitting judge, let alone one on the highest court of the land.
Yes. Because this is fire he saw coming and knew the nature of. Yes, because he also knew there were more allies than enemies, men who would do that lifting and that sort of politicized fighting on the points. Yes. He should have dressed his character in the robes of the office he seeks.
Silent? No. Impassioned? Of course. But within the bounds of propriety and in keeping with the sobriety of the office he aspires to. He should look and sound like a Justice of the Supreme Court.
He did not. He acted like a politician. And we must expect more than that. He once told us so himself.
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nikolai_42
Well-known member
Heh! I only wish I was young enough to lay claim to that label.
Wherein I have written have I demonstrated a scornful or contemptuous manner—mockery—towards Kavanaugh? I rarely weigh in on the politics, but I am confident that when I do I have taken the proper care to not just be a mocker. I genuinely feel for the man, but I am not going to let that color my view that he clearly undid himself.
Yes, the whole affair was an embarrassment upon all parties, scandalous, and unseemly. I have lived a few years and I frequently remark to my son that I have not seen anything like what has been happening since the primaries and Presidential election that can compare. I tell him how fearful I am about what I see and what he and his future generations will have to wrestle with long after I have departed. I am not at all happy about about the legacy my generation has wrought.
You have assigned Kavanaugh's behavior to righteous indignation, but the very definition of the word is to be found in the teachings of Scripture. Our Lord's driving the money-lenders out of the temple was righteous indignation. Was he sinning? No, for the very phrase righteous indignation assumes a purity of life including rectitude (conformity to a right standard) and a righteous act or quality (holiness). Righteous indignation is the only form of anger than Scripture permits. All other forms are sin, sin, sin.
By the Biblical standard, there was very little in Kavanaugh's eruptive behavior that anyone should label as righteous indignation. In the information age, where any thought that pops into someone's noggin is committed to online words, things like reticence and trepidation, have been replaced by certainty and daring. Accordingly, the phrase, righteous indignation nowadays appears to mean unbridled anger at any slight, real or imagined. Sigh.
There's but a letter difference between anger and danger. Kavanaugh demonstrated it to be so.
AMR
I hope you'll forgive my jumping off of your apt post. You may not agree fully with my points but there is certainly something fundamentally wrong about the whole thing.
As someone who sees the Democrats on the committee (and Ford's representative - I can't recall her name) as typifying everything that is wrong in American politics today, I find the extreme polarization of the parties just as disturbing (Washington was prescient) - and the near sainthood apparently being conferred upon Kavanaugh as troubling. I would love to see a man of his stance and constitutional conviction (as I understand him to be) on the court. The Democrats, of course, don't want to tilt the balance in any direction that might risk Roe v. Wade and legislate-by-judge that has characterized much of the left in recent years. An originalist flies in the face of the progressive agenda and - more importantly - the enshrining of the right to moral anarchy. Watching the hearing only reinforce to me how much this generation has become driven primarily by feelings, sound bytes and professionally crafted images. The Democrats - to a man - fostered a touchy-feely atmosphere (that Ford, in my opinion, played into - victim or not) because they knew this was about PR. Their assumption of Kavanaugh's guilt after delaying the release of the story and then piling on the Republicans for not giving time for an investigation into the allegations was disingenuous at its very best - and heartlessly manipulative (of both Ford and the process) at its very worst. I could see it on Senator Feinstein's face when she was confronted with the delay. She knew what she was doing. If the Democrats really cared if Ford was telling the truth and believed that justice needed to be served, they would have acted on it immediately (in confidence).
But my larger thought is that the circus served only to obscure the real issues. Are Ford's allegations substantive enough to block Kavanaugh's appointment (I don't believe there is any positive evidence that they are) and is Kavanaugh fit to be a Supreme Court justice? The hearing was a show for the voters. And the degree to which the Democrats avoided any real scrutiny of Ford's claims and the Republicans apologized to Kavanaugh was almost embarassing. But people are making their decisions now based almost solely on emotion, images and the immediate. There has always been some degree of that with media, but in today's world it has run rampant. College students who need safe spaces and are not allowed to be exposed to views that differ from those who run the schools - they are voting. And they can't handle the dissonance. So they have to be fed pure emotion. And anytime there is an attempt at dealing with objective facts, images and emotion become the response. That's the only way the progressive media can respond. They've trained their audience well.
But another thing that is lost in all of this is that Kavanaugh is just a man. And I heard one lady on the radio saying he was standing for righteousness and was front and center in a spiritual battle. She had him at a point where he could have preached a sermon. The man admitted to being frequently drunk in school. He never blacked out, but he did drink - often more than he should have. He "enjoys beer". Possibly not enough to impair his ability to concentrate on and deal with the case when he has to, but nothing has indicated he has moderated his regular drinking. How can a believer treat such a man as though he is a brother in Christ? So righteous anger seems a misnomer to me, too. Having said that, I think he was probably told he needed to act that way for the voters. Again...images and emotion - even in the supposed context of vetting a potential jurist. The well has been poisoned. I wish someone had gotten up in the hearing and read Isaiah 59:1-15 -- that would have been a picture of a different sort.
Those are my concerns, anyway...
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
I couldn't have said it better myself.
Those who foolishly support Ford's testimony are the same ones who defend the dastardly actions of the Obama's Justice Department, FBI and CIA. These people claim to be wise but at the same time they can't even see the criminal behavior of those crooks.
Did we hear even a peep out of those who would dare judge Mitchell's testimony when Obama's secret police went after Fox New's chief Washington correspondent, James Rosen?:
"Journalists, First Amendment watchdogs and government transparency advocates reacted with outrage Monday to the revelation that the Justice Department had investigated the newsgathering activities of a Fox News reporter as a potential crime in a probe of classified leaks.
Critics said the government’s suggestion that James Rosen, Fox News’s chief Washington correspondent, was a “co-conspirator” for soliciting classified information threatened to criminalize press freedoms protected by the First Amendment."
Critics said the government’s suggestion that James Rosen, Fox News’s chief Washington correspondent, was a “co-conspirator” for soliciting classified information threatened to criminalize press freedoms protected by the First Amendment."
Idolater
"Foundation of the World" Dispensationalist χρ
We can infer some certainties though. It isn't a complete void of knowledge. We can say that Judge Kavanaugh here is either a victim, or that he is not a victim, and that there isn't a third option.
So if he is a victim, it is either due to mistaken identity made in good faith, or it is due to deliberate dishonesty; and either way, there is no reason to disqualify him for the job over this. His regrettable behavior in this case can be justly I think chalked up to him being a victim of a terrible inquisition. While the best among us could have handled it better than he has, I don't think that this trial is relevant to, or bears on, what his duty would be on the Supreme Court.
And if he is not a victim, then he is probably-to-certainly not who we the people of the United States are looking for in a Supreme Court justice.
lifeisgood
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It just dawned on me that there is NO LAW Roe v. Wade. No wonder the Democrats do not want a Republican president to nominate any judges for the Supreme Court.
If President Trump had nominated a woman to the Supreme Court, she would have been cut to pieces by these same women screaming bloody Mary against Judge Kavanaugh.
If President Trump had nominated a woman to the Supreme Court, she would have been cut to pieces by these same women screaming bloody Mary against Judge Kavanaugh.
Idolater
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I see the opposite of moral anarchy in the Democrat agenda. Political correctness is nothing but moral stricture; a moral code of speech, and Democrats would like nothing more than to outlaw certain 'politically incorrect' speech. Furthermore, wrt your observation about the polarization of the parties, it has become more and more practically immoral to disagree with certain Democrat party planks. I understand that in the context here you're probably thinking about abortion when you say 'moral anarchy,' but Democrats are constructing a definite moral code in their work, and they are violating the First Amendment right to free speech and against the establishment of religion in so doing, in my view. While they insist that abortion ought to be freely available, and even funded publicly, they just as strongly push the notion that to be anti-abortion is immoral, according to their fabricated moral code.
We all have 'wordlviews,' Democrats included. Worldviews found 'narratives,' and it is Democrat narratives from which many people derive their 'tropes.' It is according to these tropes that people make their judgments.
I think, rather than condemning people for being 'emotional,' it's clearer to talk about worldviews and narratives and tropes, because I myself am also very 'emotional,' but, I reject the worldviews of many Democrats, and their narratives and tropes. I have my own. It is useful to know about what other people are perceiving however, so that you can talk to and about them, in terms that are understood. We can be more respectful.
I have not heard his testimony of Christian faith in the Gospel, so I am agnostic on the matter. Even serious sinners can still be Christians, since there are a wide variety of circumstances and conditions that can negatively affect our morals, and that are largely beyond our immediate control, including social pressures. Their objective sin remains so, but we cannot judge another's soul on the basis of their behavior, with the abundantly clear scriptural example of bona fide murder (cf. 1Jo3:15KJV) being an obvious exception. And nobody's accusing him of that.
lifeisgood
New member
All you said does not change the fact that Dr. Ford was the one who provided the 'alleged' whatever happened to her and her witnesses, and all her witnesses did not corroborate her claims, even her long life friend. I do not believe Dr. Ford provided her husband as a witness to her 'alleged' whatever happened to her, therefore, I believe that is why he was not called.
I still feel sorry for her though. I hope that all that advised her to be publicly humiliated will be investigated for their unprotection of their client. I, being their client, would sue the pants or skirts out of them, if I could for not advising me properly and making sure I knew that I was going to be dragged through the mud, exactly as Judge Kavanaugh.
nikolai_42
Well-known member
Not just on abortion, but on so-called homosexual marriage, the establishment clause, the right to bear arms, the outlawing of even offering to assist someone in reforming their deviance....the list goes on.
The moral anarchy to which I refer is possibly more accurately a moral usurpation. Political correctness as a substitute for a broadly Christian moral foundation. In practice, the United States has always been founded in the principles of Christianity. Her legal code and constitution find their grounding in scripture but don't require that a resident be an adherent. But American principles are historically Christian. The last 50 years has seen an active (and increasingly vocal) rejection of those principles - but since nature abhors a vacuum, something has to fill its place. And political correctness is - as you have said - the place where many are trying to find a moral replacement. It's anarchical in that it is based on man's own ideas of right and wrong absent God. But I would agree with you that much of Washington has submitted itself to PC thought.
When emotion and reaction to images is the foundation of the formation of beliefs and opinions, there is a serious problem. It is endemic to our culture, now. Not that all have capitulated to it, but it has insinuated itself into every facet of life - even institutions of higher learning. How do you reason with someone who has formed their beliefs based almost solely on emotions and images that have been prepared specifically for them? I'm not talking just political manipulation - I'm talking email, facebook, twitter, instagram etc... The narcissism that has been fostered is on a scale unimagined by previous generations. I grew up in the '80's and don't recognize where we are. If you offend someone (and it is oh so easy to do that today) you have committed the worst crime imaginable. You are literally in danger of being turned over to the authorities. That offense comes because everyone is worried about how they feel and have been brought up to believe that their self-esteem is the most important thing (even more important than learning). That's why bakers are being sued. That's why men are being allowed into women's restrooms. That's why parents will believe their preteens are the wrong gender (!!). Saying "no" just doesn't play well. It sounds bad and it hurts my feelings. So how do you reason with someone who can't take disagreement? Who is used to getting their way and manipulating things so that they do? That's what I'm talking about when I talk about emotion. And images play against the reason that the above emotion can't handle.
I realize this is a few steps removed from the Kavanaugh hearing specifically, but it's all symptomatic of a rotten system - a perverse people.
The scriptures say no drunkard will inherit the kingdom of heaven (I Cor 6:10). While sobering up won't save the drunkard, it is just those evidences that do serve to tell us who can be considered a brother or sister in Christ. And it is not in the way of judgment. There but by the grace of God go I. That said, I haven't heard enough to know if his drinking would affect his ability to serve properly (or if his drinking in college is far beyond what he drinks now). Just the fact that the mania is on both sides of the aisle. Kavanaugh is a judicial candidate with impeccable academic and legal credentials. But that doesn't make him a savior in any sense of the word (except maybe for a certain political agenda).
Ask Mr. Religion
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Thank you for weighing in, brother.
My support for Kavanaugh was based upon his views concerning Presidential powers and their extent. I tend to view Roe v. Wade as nearly black letter law. I may be wrong in that view and [MENTION=7640]Town Heretic[/MENTION], someone that actually knows the law, can set me straight, but I am not basing my support for someone like a Kavanaugh or a Barrett to overturn the established constitutional right to abortion on demand. Instead they will hopefully have other options to weaken Roe v. Wade by careful consideration about what "on demand" actually should mean.
At best, I pray that when related abortion issues reach SCOTUS there will be more movement towards mandated delays in abortion, further limits on the gestational bounds of abortion (less than the usual 22 weeks), more limits on undocumented minors seeking abortion, limits related to known birth defects in the unborn that often are used for abortion demand, more limits to reproductive rights, and more requirements for counseling/parental consent for minors seeking abortion.
I also would pray that SCOTUS would rule that the states are to make these decisions, that the woman’s right to choose whether and when to become a parent is not strong enough to overcome the state’s interest in protecting the unborn. These narrower lawmaking options are things to hope for given the precedents set by Roe v. Wade. If the court moves in these directions, Roe v. Wade will remain but be neutralized in a great extent, especially given laws on the books in many states that are triggered by future SCOTUS Roe v. Wade related rulings.
Do I pray that SCOTUS recognize the personhood of the unborn? Of course. We have had that opportunity in the past, but even Scalia would not venture to make the declaration.
It is disappointing as a Christian that such a law (Roe v. Wade) exists, but I am not so naive (heh!) to think Roe v. Wade is going to be completely undone. Instead I am more hopeful that right-to-life supporters on the bench will be circumspect and wise enough to not extend abortion rights beyond what Roe v. Wade now encompasses and will work to limit its reach.
Indeed. McLuhan was prescient, the medium is the message. I have already noted how fearful I am about the sea changes all around us today.
Yes, he is just a man. I feel for him. He has been through quite an ordeal. But I expected him to weather and prepare for the storm he fully new was coming. He went into the proceeding eyes wide open, else he is but a fool. Obviously he is not, so it is proper to examine how he prepared for what was to come. That should be what we are to consider. TH made a point I had overlooked above, that Kavanaugh prepared his remarks, deliberated upon them just as a good jurist should do. What we witnessed should give us pause to examine the expected detachment and temperament of a potential Supreme Court judge. Perhaps he became so emotional that he went off script. I do not know. I can only decide based upon what I have observed: a man seeking the highest judicial office in the land that could not control himself in the presence of those that have the authority to decide his future.
Isaiah 59:1-15 is apropos. Sadly, we are fast becoming a nation that has no room for God anymore. This is ironic in the context of this discussion. The law. The law which has its root in God's law. The law that developed out of the teachings of Scripture. We have forgotten our history. God have mercy upon us.
AMR
nikolai_42
Well-known member
This is not an easy subject or one that one can easily be neutral on - and I'm not normally very vocal on political matters - so I realize that there can be differences here. That said, I appreciate your gracious response.
I am with you on that. It would seem odd for the SCOTUS to overturn its own decision, so I would guess you are correct in how it could be weakenened. My (admittedly poor) understanding (and you allude to this later) is that it only took the power to decide from the states and gave it to the Federal Government. If that's the case, then it would seem to me that it would be harder to undo without the court reversing itself. But this is certainly TH's area of expertise - not mine.
I'm sure that's a definition that would have multitude repercussions.
The few things I have heard about the doctors and corporations involved in abortion leaves me speechless. I'm of the opinion that the real change - while partly legal - will be at the grass roots. It will have to be. A nation will not elect a leader that comes out against what it does.
There's an errant quote around that is attributed to Dostoyevsky :
Ravi Zacharias indicated Dostoyevsky said this but I could never find the proof of it. That said, it could be a paraphrase of some sort. At any rate, I've been struck at how accurate it has been. I suppose it could be a synthesis of quotes (including McLuhan).
I'm still not convinced that Kavanaugh wasn't told he needed to inject emotion into his presentation. I missed the original 30+ hours of questioning he underwent, but apparently he endured that with little emotion. So I wondered if maybe he was told that he needed (for the hearing) to be more...human.
It is indeed a fearful thing....
Idolater
"Foundation of the World" Dispensationalist χρ
I'm a bit confused what you mean by including the 'right to bear arms' in this list. Democrats believe that even the possession of certain weapons is criminal and immoral. That's part of their worldview, and their narratives. I'm with you on the other examples, with of course some caution about particulars that we don't have to get into.
Just for example, while I can and do support the right of people to enter into a marriage contract with someone of their same sex, I repel the consequent Democrat agenda to silence Christians in maintaining the objective immorality of samesex sexual behavior (SSB), and to pressure us all to declare SSM 'equal' in all ways to traditional marriages.
I agree with that.
Yes. I see the same thing, although probably it is not legally the same thing, since there aren't the other typical things we all associate with religion and religious behavior and practice, in what the Democrats are doing. It has the precisely same feel however to religious authorities pressuring people with material threats to abide by a religiously derived moral code. And that is illegal, and should be. The Reformation made an indelible imprint upon us, that religious liberty is a valid right, and the right does require that we not be subject to the use of force in order to abide by this or that morality.
Also and perhaps more distinctly, we have always believed that no religion ought to govern our civil authorities, and no laws should be made that reflect the establishment of any religion. We are free to govern and make laws independent of all religion and religious philosophy.
Largely because we have violated our own Bill of Rights in many cases you're referring to.
Well, I think that repealing and overturning laws that were unconstitutional was right and just, and that made our society more free, which is a good thing. But now, you're right, we are bending toward making new laws that replace the old laws, and that are just as unconsitutional. They aren't based on a recognized religion, which is how I believe they've crept into our codes, and they ought not be there. The PC agenda violates the First Amendment as I've said, in my view, and not that I want to say things that are not PC, but simply because it violates our right, just as the old laws based on Christian morality should have been redacted.
OK, I get the gist. Where totalitarianism is the opposite of anarchy though, Democrats are more totalitarian and less anarchic in many of the laws they make and want to make, in these matters we're discussing here.
Namely, every Democrat.
Our worldview comes from somewhere, and it can derive from emotions. But consider viewing discarded aborted fetuses. This can evoke very strong emotions, which can go on to form a worldview where abortion is immoral and should be outlawed. Or consider hearing the Gospel. I can get very emotional about this, and it has led to my own worldview, which demands that we protect the Church from unjust meddling, interference, and even persecution by civil authorities. The presence or absence of emotion might just be practically irrelevant, since whatever founds our worldviews and narratives and tropes, we act, speak, and vote accordingly. Where emotions are fluid and subjective, these things are concrete.
These have become the 'churches' of Democrat morality, in my view. Nowhere are dissidents treated more like how those bucking religious morality are treated in strictly religious settings, than in colleges and universities. Non-Democrats are handicapped and Democrats are favored in these places.
Emotions are the culmination of all of our thoughts and choices leading up to the moment we experience the emotions. I've never confronted emotions in myself or in others that are simply beyond our ability to talk about them. And anything that can be talked about, can be reasoned about too. Implications and consequences of our choices are good starting points, no matter whether our choices are governed by just our emotions, or by what we believe are strictly rational grounds.
Much like how Protestants in the 1500s must have felt.
I believe I've said my piece on the matter of emotion, but in answer to questions here; there is no reasoning with someone hellbent on being unreasonable and inflexible in their positions. But that's handled by voting. It's handled by defending free speech. It's handled by being able to try to persuade others to your way of thinking instead, those who aren't being purposely unreasonable. The 'independents,' perhaps.
Even many Christians are, strictly speaking, objectively perverse though, so we have to be careful with this analysis.
Scripture says lots of things, and then again it's silent on lots of things too. In order to interpret it correctly we must process all the available data, with proper weighting on that data to assist us. Protestants reject what is not either explicit in Scripture, or what can be easily reasonably inferred from it. Catholics and Orthodox Christians admit that the whole Word of God is not contained in and confined to just the Bible though, and receive reliable Apostolic oral traditions as equal to the scriptures in moral authority. The reason I included only bona fide murder as an exception to the general rule that we cannot judge another's soul based on their outward behavior, is because of the explicit overlap between what John writes in 1st John 3:15 KJV, and what Paul writes elsewhere, including 1st Corinthians. It's indisputable, whereas the reality of many Christians being objectively guilty of other serious sins, has some answer, at least in the most ancient authorized Christian teachings on the matter.
We're a bit far afield here but if you don't mean by what you write 'the way of judgment,' then I wonder what it is. For the Catholics, committing serious sins breaks communion with the Church, and submits us to judgment if we go ahead and receive Holy Communion without first reconciling with her. But otoh, do we require a bona fide Christian to do a good job as a Supreme Court justice? I can imagine Christians with less intelligence, with poorer morals, and nonbelievers with greater intelligence and greater morals, and I'd be more apt to go with the latter than the former in most professional positions. I'd prefer that everybody is good and a believer, but in civil matters it isn't necessary, or even necessarily advantageous or desirable, to have exclusively Christians manning the posts.
General Grant was a notorious drunk, and he won the Civil War. Supreme Court cases aren't nearly as grave.
Right. I've already revealed myself to be 'one-issue,' and what I need is a justice who's going to fight to defend the right of the people to keep and bear all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding, against Democrats and wrong-headed Republicans and independents. He could do that, but so could a number of other judges.