Article on the place of religion in government.

[Friday]

Bark, bark, bark.

Thank heaven I am one of 'you people', You know, the people that don't speak dog.

[Peanut the Wonder Dog]

Originally Posted by Friday

Bark, bark, bark.

Thank heaven I am one of 'you people', You know, the people that don't speak dog.

And I'm a dog that understands people.

Woof!!

[Dr. Fill]

Originally Posted by Dr. Fill

Do you think wealth is created by people or by the government?

Originally Posted by Burtimus

People, obviously. Now go ahead and throw a spear through my argument by citing a government with no people. Like business and commerce, Doctor, government is a uniquely human institution.

You’ve just said less than nothing. Government is made up of people, just as corporations are, but is not instituted (read: elected) to make money. Government can regulate money supply, adjust Fed interest rates, grant incentive loans, or even destroy wealth (taxes!), but it does not create wealth.

When you equate not taxing "rich white guys" upon their deaths with “taking millions out of the system,” you imply that the money belongs to government all along, not the private individuals who earn it or create it, and who should be able to do with it what they want.

Originally Posted by Burtimus

No, I am saying that the vast majority of rich Americans are white guys. If you quote me one person of color, I will name you fifteen who are Caucasian. The irony here, as you yourself alleged against me, is that you will find that, while we are all eligible for the Great American Dream, few non-whites actually succeed.

Thanks for the umpteenth regurgitation of DNC talking points that game the statistics and reinforce the old bigotry envelope. You neglect to mention that the vast majority of Americans, period, are indeed white. In 2001 (census figures in conjunction with the Home Job Survey) most black people were neither poor nor even close to it: by any estimation, middle-class blacks outnumber poor ones. And at last count, only one in five blacks lived in the inner city.

As for few non-whites ever succeeding, I’m sure Oprah, BET founder Robert L. Johnson, Vernon Jordan, Louis Parker, and countless other black executives (do I even need to mention black athletes and entertainers?) would disagree with you. We have more black politicians now than at any time in history, and the second black Secretary of State in a row. This is not progress?

Edited out personal attack ~ Modertor

[Miss Vickie]

Originally Posted by Dr. Fill

Government can regulate money supply, adjust Fed interest rates, grant incentive loans, or even destroy wealth (taxes!), but it does not create wealth.

I'm sorry but paying taxes is hardly destroying wealth. It's using the money we earn to pay for things we need (roads, schools and the like) or things we want (invasions on countries that were no threat to us).

It's called infrastructure, baybee. We need that stuff in order to get out and create more wealth.

[Friday]

The term 'Death Tax' was specifically chosen for it's distasteful connotations. The dead aren't being taxed because they have nothing or did you not get the memo about 'you can't take it with you'? As far as taxing those who are the lucky recipients of this unearned windfall? They've already received opportunities the rest of us can only dream of merely by the luck of being born into wealthy families. They have done even less to 'win' this money than a guy who wins the lottery. He at least makes a trip to the store and shells out a little hard earned cash to buy a ticket. He has to pay taxes, why shouldn't those who win the inheritance lottery?

[Burtimus]

Wow. This is getting mighty obtuse, for a discussion of the role of religion in government. It seems Observer and I could find a comfortable middle ground and place of agreement, and yet you (who are constantly dragging in arguments and "but-but" points outside the topic) accuse me of bluster and partisanship.

To each his own.

However, since you have intentionally avoided my points to you, allow me to straighten the record. From this point on, however, I will no longer respond along these lines in this thread. If you like, we can duke it out in another thread. I'd be more than happy to oblige.

Originally Posted by Dr. Fill

You’ve just said less than nothing. Government is made up of people, just as corporations are, but is not instituted (read: elected) to make money. Government can regulate money supply, adjust Fed interest rates, grant incentive loans, or even destroy wealth (taxes!), but it does not create wealth.

I disagree. Regardless of whether the state is classic-mold communist, where the means of production including resources are government-owned, or whether it is more democratic, which is supported by taxation, every government in human history has required money. Therefore, they are instituted, if only peripherally, to making money. Your argument is specious. No government can survive by the destruction of wealth, any more than an animal can survive without blood. Again, a completely false assumption.

Regarding your assertion that taxation is the destruction of wealth, anyone who has read a book or is capable of rational thought understands that it is the redistribution of said wealth, not its obliteration. You may disagree with the redistribution of wealth (and I assume you do, given the virulence with which you treat the subject) but it is nevertheless a necessary evil in a free society. It is the uses to which this wealth is applied that makes the major differences between the political parties (or had been).

If it were true (as you imply, having impugned me for failing to understand the "fundamental difference between seeking the truth and scoring points"), then where would our national defense come from? Will Bill Gates, Dennis Kozlowski, Lee Raymond and others step up to the plate to furnish the rest of us with a functioning military?

Again, I call bullshit. You may disagree with taxation; I can respect that. But your description and definitions are completely, fundamentally and irrationally incorrect.

Originally Posted by Dr. Fill

When you equate not taxing "rich white guys" upon their deaths with “taking millions out of the system,” you imply that the money belongs to government all along, not the private individuals who earn it or create it, and who should be able to do with it what they want.

This is precisely what I am saying, to a point. You may recall that the First Law of Economics is, "There is no such thing as a free lunch". The same is true of the potential for the creation of wealth in a free sociaty. You must pay for the privilege. What you don't seem to grasp is that not all of the money you make is taken away, only a portion of it.

And I was wrong about "taking millions out of the system". Forgive me. I meant to type, "billions".

As for the creation of wealth, there is a balance between the needs of state and federal governments and the individual citizen. This balance is upset by overtaxation, true, but undertaxation is equally culpable. As government is underfunded (or, in this case, criminally overspends), the reserves for things like infrastructure (used by both commerce interests and private citizens) diminishes. As infrastructure falls apart, prices increase. If you disagree, look at the price of gas four years ago and now.

Originally Posted by Dr. Fill

Thanks for the umpteenth regurgitation of DNC talking points that game the statistics and reinforce the old bigotry envelope. You neglect to mention that the vast majority of Americans, period, are indeed white. In 2001 (census figures in conjunction with the Home Job Survey) most black people were neither poor nor even close to it: by any estimation, middle-class blacks outnumber poor ones. And at last count, only one in five blacks lived in the inner city.

I assume the DNC has talking points, but I do my best to avoid them. Like so many other Democrats, I feel that a talking point is the defeat of the American political system. It is, as you pointed out, ignoring the truth in order to make a point. Talking points are a means of controlling the discussion by creating definitions whaich are untrue, such as, lemme see... ah! "Taxation is the destruction of wealth".

I "neglected" no such thing. I implied, and in fact meant to specify, that the number of wealthy white people are disproportionate to the number of wealthy minority folk. I will stand by this, and will (should you wish) supply you with the figures.

Originally Posted by Dr. Fill

As for few non-whites ever succeeding, I’m sure Oprah, BET founder Robert L. Johnson, Vernon Jordan, Louis Parker, and countless other black executives (do I even need to mention black athletes and entertainers?) would disagree with you. We have more black politicians now than at any time in history, and the second black Secretary of State in a row. This is not progress?

If they disagree with me, they can come and post to their heart's content. I'm sure Conrad would have no objections to Oprah posting here as a regular member (although, now that I think of it, that may not be true).

And, once again, I maintain that there are far more wealthy white people (speaking proportionally) than minorities.

As far as progress is concerned, sir, I would argue that the time is far past for things to be better than they are.

Originally Posted by Dr. Fill

I was simply augmenting your own statement that only “most” of your comments were of the smart-ass type. You can entertain yourself with your bluster all you want, but there is a fundamental difference between seeking the truth and scoring points.

Just so, Doctor. I could not agree more.

And since I was good enough to be self-effacing, would you do me the honor of letting me know of what discipline are you a doctor? I'm curious.

Originally Posted by Dr. Fill

No such evidence exists for that supposition except in your mind.

The supposition in question is that Republicans do not support the First Amendment. Here is my chain of logic:

a) The President is a Republican;
b) Republicans support the President;
c) The President authorized the Terrorist Surveillance Program;
d) The TSP was declared unconstitutional for violations of the First and Fourth Amendments, among others; ergo,
e) Republicans (who support the President) do not support the First Amendment.

I think it's a strong case. Where is the fault in my logic, Doctor?

[Dr. Fill]

Originally Posted by Burtimus

Regardless of whether the state is classic-mold communist, where the means of production including resources are government-owned, or whether it is more democratic, which is supported by taxation, every government in human history has required money. Therefore, they are instituted, if only peripherally, to making money. Your argument is specious.

The argument you quote is not mine, but your misinterpretation of it. Governments do require money, but taxation (or in extreme cases, total denial of private property) is how they get it--they don't "make money." Businesses are formed to make money in a way governments are never intended to. I never said “taxation equals the destruction of wealth.” To clarify, I oppose confiscatory tax rates which [i]inhibit[i] wealth creation in the private sector. Socialist styled wealth redistribution will not solve poverty, but will have a deleterious effect on the entire economy by discouraging investment and driving up inflation.

[Ericthonius]

Originally Posted by BBW Betty

It seems very few people are really happy with either the Democrat or Republican platforms concerning it.

Partisan politics aside, the 107-plus responses to this thread seem to point out that it's, DOGMA, that leads to discourse vis-a-vis religion and politics. My God says this... God says that, etc. used as evidence and impetus for whatever self-aggrandizing scheme people chose to undertake with a specific outcome in mind. It becomes grease for the wheels to move in a specific direction. If a politician was SO motivated to serve God, (A/K/A Gawd.), why bother with the political life as the three major religions in this country are hierarchical in and of themselves. Unless of course self same politician either wants to turn a country into a theocracy or use religion as a ruse, a way of motivating the population to do what the politician wants them to do and then tells them, 'Gawd tol me ta tell y'all'...

The public expression of religions, especially Christianity and Islam is a rather extreme tool of behavior modification to be used on strangers and others who do not believe similarly to the appellant making all the stink that things would be so much better and different if everybody would stop doing, ___________ . Whatever _____ could be, is arbitrary, not an actual extreme of human behavior. That is to say it's not free Heroin, mandatory 'Baronial Right', child immolation or other human sacrifice nor any other untoward and anti-social behavior that is proscribed by common sense as well as the Earth's more popular religions. That, 'X', is what makes the person trying to inflict or foist their religion on others, tick. It's what set them off in the first place. It's one of the MANY reasons why there are safeguards against it in the Constitution. Along with enough negative examples of it happening in the past that it's a way of life that isn't going to be embraced by the vast general populace without much coercion via threats of force and excommunication, an ostracism both politically and economically situated.

Do you really want to live in a theocracy? If not... Leave well enough alone.

Does anyone really want another civil war? If not... Leave well enough alone.

Who in their supposedly right mind would want a re-enactment of The Wars of Religion that killed so many in Europe?? If not... Leave well enough alone.

Inquisition? Keep right on spouting that religion and politics are supposed to be intertwined, you'll have one.

(A friend of mine actually has tattooed on her arm,"The last time we mixed religion and politics, women were burned as Witches.")

You may trust today's wannabe theocrats but what about in 50 or 100 years? Acton was right with the whole Absolute Power corrupting absolutely. It's human nature for it to happen. The US Constitution was designed to prevent that very scenario, whether the derivation for power of those governing is ecclesiastical or secular, to prevent someone from becoming too powerful. Why it took 37 amendments to put a term-limit on the Office of President is beyond me. Yet it does say something about the Founders of America and the Framers of the Constitution: They weren't clairvoyant yet they knew something might happen in the future that they wouldn't dream of, (Like someone actually wanting to be President for more than two terms), so they added the Amendments, to let the lawmakers protect the population at large from any possible despotism in the future.

The fact that the system may have been corrupted by the current crowd running things is both debatable and that debate is still legal, for the moment, anyway. But if you're criticizing the Government of Gawd? You're running a risk there, Boyo! Yet even if it IS subversive, this current regime, it's taken a group over 200 years to crack the safe and have all the people in place to rob the piggy bank and abuse the system as it stands now. And if it's proven that they hoodwinked Justice? There's prison for the guilty. In a religious/theocratic government? Dissention is by default heretical and heretics are punished for their sins, n'est-pas?

The law in America was written over two centuries ago to ignore religions so as to put them and their practitioners all on equal footing and make no belief compulsory. As opposed to England in the 18th Century with it's state church or contemporaneously the Ottoman Empire with it's Dar al Islam and Dar al Harb. It's a consensus, the law, a compromise neither favoring nor disparaging anyone because of their religious beliefs, as opposed to the Dhimmitude of non-believers of al Islam yet still participants of a monotheistic belief system, They're referred to as,'People of the Book, the Dhimmi. (Pagans, BTW, are called,'Infidels', and are fair game to destroy without mercy), these residents of Dhimmitude can't testify against a Mussulman nor can they sue for redress any Mohammedan because they are sub-standard and outside Allah's Justice. That's a little tidbit as to why our laws were written as they were. So since no one is higher than anyone else there's an equality that in a theocracy is impossible with supposedly infallible God, Jesus, Allah, FSM, (Whatever), as judge and jury. How could you appeal anything done by, for or IN His name?

Doesn't paint a pretty picture, does it? Leave the law secular and it's one less argument that argument-prone humans, and we're all argument-prone, it's part of human nature, need fight.