Displaying 1,051 To 1,080 Of 3,237 Comments A word about being a non=partisan voter. What does that mean in practical terms? Being part of one the small, splinter third parties that often make principled stands and occasionally win a local election, but do not emerge from the fog of larger elections except, in rare cases because they are well funded and/or capture the popular imagination function as spoilers- think Nader, think Perot and the impact they had on the election of Bush and not Gore, of Clinton and not Bush. Again, the ideal that your call represents is clear and it is noble but I want to know how it functions in the world of power politics. » Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On June 12, 2014 @ 6:38 pm Part II…. You have a nice flourish when it comes down to rhetoric calls to arms….and I think you make a strong case but I fear that you may be too far down the road in your assertion that in 225 years we have breached liberty, breached the protections of the constitution in the name of “enemies” to be dealt with. A quick walk through U.S. history points to many such violations. Here are a few. The Alien and Sedition Acts in the early days of the Republic. Your righteous outrage at the Bush administration (and also it should be at the Congress that supported it) and by extension to the Bush administration has real foundations but the actions of those administrations and the Congresses that empowered them are not unique or isolated. » Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On June 12, 2014 @ 6:33 pm Your 2005 epiphany and the creation of the Freedom Clock is fascinating. I remember that period of time as well and I have to admit that your presentation of the period makes it clear to me that I did not pick up anywhere near the cues you did. Your case is compelling. The Bush administration admitted that it had become lawless. It reminds me of the period immediately following WWII when the first waves of regret broke over the internment of the Japanese. More in my second comment. » Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On June 12, 2014 @ 6:21 pm An Open Letter To Any And All “Conservatives” Fergie- LCA is the Lutheran Church in America which is made up of both the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Lutheran Church- Missouri Synod. » Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On June 12, 2014 @ 6:22 am You wrote: Christian right or religious right is a term used in the United States to describe right-wing Christian political factions that are characterized by their strong support of socially conservative policies. Christian conservatives principally seek to apply their understanding of the teachings of Christianity to politics and public policy by proclaiming the value of those teachings and/or by seeking to use those teachings to influence law and public policy. This is what I mean’t by Christian Conservative, I’m surprised you appear to not be aware of the Christian Conservative movement in this nation. Prior to that you wrote: I guess that goes double for Christian Conservatives. 🙂 AND THAT WAS IN RESPONSE TO MY POINT ABOUT ZEALOTRY Not all conservatives are zealots. Not all Christian Conservatives are zealots. BUT, I admit that many area. In my area, most of those who are Baptists are certainly Conservative but the tinge of zealotry that comes with those most often the most conservative is less common than one would think. I get your point but in my part of world having some sense of the spectrum on which conservatives stand is both necessary and useful. » Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On June 12, 2014 @ 6:18 am You left this elsewhere for me at the end of a thread: Murph wrote: “He is now on social security and medicare.AND HE IS TOTALLY OPPOSED TO THOSE DAMN TAKERS AND THE SOCIALIST WELFARE STATE!” In cases like this I pause to consider the truth of Ron White’s axiom. ================== » Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On June 11, 2014 @ 10:34 pm In a sense, yes. It depends on what you mean by “Christian”. If Christian means fundamentalist, biblical literalist, domininionist, definitely…. If you mean LCA, or Episcopal, or, in my case, Christian humanist, no. » Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On June 11, 2014 @ 10:29 pm I think it is much more a function of the filters in place created by fear, anger and anxiety. » Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On June 11, 2014 @ 10:23 pm You left this comment for me but I cannot find it on the scroll here: “Murph, you should remind him that Chrysler and GM are the “damn takers” not the workers.” He and I have chatted about this and his point is that when HE worked at Chrysler people actually earned what they got and built American (and thus he earned his SS, his Medicare as well). As for the bailout, that was needed to rescue workers from the greed of wealthy guys at the top (like the right wing heroes, the Koch’?) and bad government regulation (although he can name any). I asked about unions and he tells me that in his day they were not liberal and political. Completely cut off from history, even his own. » Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On June 11, 2014 @ 3:33 pm Good to see you are still here. We did not finish our discussion yesterday. Issues. I laid them out. » Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On June 11, 2014 @ 3:29 pm Oh, choke….sacrilege! sacrilege! HaH! » Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On June 11, 2014 @ 3:24 pm and snark and denial get us nowhere but a long walk in a small circle… » Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On June 11, 2014 @ 3:22 pm We are so glad to have you with us. Welcome. And enjoy. » Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On June 11, 2014 @ 3:21 pm Boy, did you pick the wrong place to plant your flag. A response empty of any reasoning, any narrative of its own normally indicates the person either does know how we engage each other here, or he/she knows but chooses not to, or he/she is an empty vessel and has nothing to say. If your post was submitted without knowing how we conduct ourselves in this on-line community, then ask that it be deleted and resubmit a post that invites real engagement and discourse. » Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On June 11, 2014 @ 3:20 pm I went looking for that person and he/she never responded to a second post. Facts and logic to “conservatives” are like daylight and garlic to vampires. » Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On June 11, 2014 @ 12:45 pm One of the folks in my coop is a retired auto worker. He was with Chrysler when it was bailed out. He was a union man all the way through. He is now on social security and medicare. AND HE IS TOTALLY OPPOSED TO THOSE DAMN TAKERS AND THE SOCIALIST WELFARE STATE! Yeah, I know from whence you come. » Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On June 11, 2014 @ 12:43 pm The way to handle this is to restart the dialogue a couple of steps up. Go back to an earlier comment form the person you are speaking with and then post your newest reply there. The reason why the number of steps-in that the dialogue boxes take is that the boxes get too narrow to be easily read. P.S. I agree with your observations about our new members. I am activity recruiting as well. » Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On June 11, 2014 @ 7:32 am And the lies from Fox are so obvious, so transparent, so easily deflated that most of those on the right have learned that they cannot engage in a serious discussion without losing so they choose not to engage. » Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On June 11, 2014 @ 7:29 am This is one of the characteristics of the zealot. Living in a bubble, standing in a circle speaking to and listening to only those who reinforce their world view. » Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On June 11, 2014 @ 7:27 am We had a conservative join us here at the Planet last week. That person wrote a piece in which he/she challenge us to defend several “liberal” positions. I took up the challenge and then asked him/her to do the same for the GOP. I got back a restatement of the original post. I push back and then nothing. I suspect that this person’s tenure here is done. That is the dance we do with those on the right. Your description of your friends fits right in with this does it not. I have a similar experience. I live in a red state and swim in a sea of red water. » Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On June 11, 2014 @ 7:25 am REGARDING CONVERSATIONS WITH CONSERVATIVES I belong to a conservative site where I post under another name . I am often censored (i.e., my posts do not publish or they publish and disappear). I have been banned by other sites previously. Those site exist, more and more to reinforce unchallenged positions in support of ideology. At Planet POV we welcome conservatives, but when they come, they do not stay. Why? The challenges they get, they cannot refute effectively. They are not up to the test. I do not know Daily Kos well enough to speak to this there yet. So far, i have seen few voices from the other side and I suspect that the reason is the same as at POV. I can tell you this – hang out at conservative (really on right wing, which is different) sites and you pick up on conversations that make it clear that mingling with libs and progs is discouraged as contaminating. I saw the impact of this at HP where fewer and fewer of my contacts with conservatives resulted in a real conversation- a give and take and a sharing of perspectives. This has hardly happened since Nov. 2012. I would love to figure out how to reengage across the spectrum….so far no flashes of insight. This is the kind of conversation that also needs to happen. » Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On June 11, 2014 @ 5:36 am D-Day: My Dad and His LSM Bombarding Omaha Beach Connecting to your story. One of my neighbors has a son who served two tours in Iraq and two in Afghanistan. He is 25 now and lives with his folks. His dad tells me that he does not seem to be able to focus on anything long term. He has no goals. No plans. He tried to work and live on his own when he left the army last year- having been in uniform from 18 to 25. He failed. He began drinking, lost two jobs and then was pushed out of his apartment for not keeping up on the rent. His mom insisted that they take him back in. He is now working with his dad on the farm. I have met him. He looks SO young still but his eyes are old. His dad tells me that he does not talk about his war experience but he knows he saw a lot of action because he was in a special combat unit. He is supposed to be getting counseling from the VA but that is not going well. » Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On June 11, 2014 @ 11:10 pm Hello Wemble….just got back to the comments here… Your narrative is one I can resonate with. Your dad seems to have really suffered from the war’s impact on him. Twice wounded and then having left the service with a disabling wound…. My dad was only hit once and that was a graze wound across the top of his head which left him bleeding a lot and with a part in his hair that was there the rest of his life. He told us he got it when he took off his helmet to get his binoculars adjusted. A sniper in the jungles hit him (in the Marshall Islands. His CPO, after it was clear that the wound was superficial, apparently told him that he was lucky to have a lesson like that. I think that career navy guys had a chance to process their war experience and many did not struggle with PTSD as a result- my theory which a VA psych I know thinks has merit. Civilians could not understand and vets learned to keep quiet. Bottling up the pain hurt them even more deeply. Thank you for sharing your story. » Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On June 11, 2014 @ 11:03 pm What an extraordinary journey and what a particular and unusual place for you to stand within U.S. society….as participant and critic. Says a lot about what, why and how you post. Glad you have joined us. Do you know this book: http://www.amazon.com/Letters-Laurie-Series-American-Studies/dp/0295987456 and this one http://www.amazon.com/Go-Broke-Warriors-Conquered-American/dp/0979689619/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_y I have spent some time with both. The first is especially good but the second has its moments. » Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On June 8, 2014 @ 8:16 pm Oh Kalima- have I hurt you? If so, more than sorry. You are an extraordinary person in so many ways and that does not just happen. I am sorry that you were not able to be with him in his final days….I have had a similar experience. Heartrending but not something I could control As always, and with great appreciation. » Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On June 8, 2014 @ 8:06 pm And I have had the same reaction to the truths you have told. » Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On June 8, 2014 @ 12:10 am I have often said that his generation recognized that war is only acceptable when all else had failed to do what had to be done; undertaken when it was so undeniably true that no other option remained in the face of an evil so great that the evil that is war must be applied. By Vietnam, we seemed to have forgotten the lessons of those day. » Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On June 8, 2014 @ 12:09 am They were all in that Greatest Generation having endured the Great Depression, fought the Greatest of Wars and then rebuilt much of the broken world……men and women alike. » Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On June 8, 2014 @ 12:01 am Kalima, as you may know, I went to school in the UK from the age of 12 through 16 and then returned for graduate school. As a kid, the British seemed so proud of their sacrifice in the two wars but by the time I returned to England, 20 years later- the mid 80’s- they seemed embarrassed by the whole thing. Of late that seems to have turned about again. I know that my love of British history is rooted in my years there but my admiration of Churchill and Roosevelt is primarily about their partnership joining our two nations. Gold was as hard on the Brits as Omaha was on the Americans. My dad had to be coaxed to tell his story AND he was a man of many words who spent most of his working life in the Navy. I got him to tell the story because I convinced him that he owed it to history. Even his LSM association had too little of its own history written down. I think that as the number of men and women in that generation has rapidly declined the rush to gather their personal histories has accelerated rapidly. Your father’s return to Germany and the rest….just plain amazing! And we get to thank him for YOU! » Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On June 7, 2014 @ 11:59 pm And they performed at levels unmatched before or since. The most decorated unit for its size and length of service in the history of American warfare. » Posted By MurphTheSurf3 On June 7, 2014 @ 11:46 pmComments Posted By MurphTheSurf3
The suspension of most of the bill of rights in the Civil War.
The recreation of Jim Crowism in the South post reconstruction.
The seizure of Indian Lands, despite treaty guarantees.
The wars of expansion in the Southwest and in the Pacific.
The suspension of legislative practice in the New Deal.
The previously mentioned Japanese internment camps, the arrest and detention of suspected German agents, martial law throughout the U.S. during WWII.
Cold War Red Scare and the Communist Purges; the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities.
The lies that led to and maintained Vietnam.
and I could go on.
What is Ron White’s Axion?
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