The problem with politics and public policy discussions here

[William Thornton]

...is that a mere handful of people with established positions assure that discussions will be either short and unfruitful or long and tedious in repeating the same arguments.

I'm all for provocative lead articles being used. I'm just wondering what Keith expects when he using a piece with a headline that labels the Rebublican party a "cult". Scintillating, respectful discussion? A datafest accompanied by grave points being made by all participants?

There are two politically and economically conservative commenters on this forum: ET and me. ET excels far beyond me in economic knowledge, patience, data displays and the like, although I recognize a pile of economic crap when I see it and have said so. I ask, speaking only for myself, would forum mod/libs be happier if they had these discussions among their own socialist/liberal selves and not be bothered by alternative views? Say so. Rename the forum the "Liberal/socialist politics and public policy forum" and I will observe from a respectful distance and not interfere. ET may choose to continue but I sense he tires of the same crap here as I do.

Keith, whom I acknowledge as being widely read and knowledgable, has arrived at a conclusion about the gummit and economic policy one that I don't dispute was formulated by his sincere reading of the Bible and observation of life in America. Fair enough. No problem except that his tag line of being "informed by data" is blatantly false in that he is apparently informed by data he finds that agrees with his conclusions. That, in my opinion, makes Keith a purveyor of opinions with graphs attached. I would be pleased to be proven wrong on that but the proof would have to come by Keith recognizing some data that changes his conclusions, something I haven't seen him do in spite of ET giving him many opportunities.

Sandy just hates corporations and anything that has the prefix "big-" (pharma, corporations, oil, etc.). No problem there.

What I object to is not being called an "opinion machine" but rather the implication that my, or ET's 'opinions' are sinful. That is, if we were more believing of Scripture, we would be socialists, fascists, communists like those who disagree with us. We would also be compassionate, not calloused, and spiritual, not fleshly.

Let the graphologists do battle with each other. Reminds me of the old, simple card game we always called "battle," lay down one card each and see which is higher. Repeat, until you are out of cards.

There may be a good reason why only a very few people bother to discuss things here.

[Ed Pettibone]

Ed: Of course William your insistence on lumping together Mods and Libs does not improve the situation. I will agree that ET generally does a great job of presenting his position, right or wrong.

[KeithE]

[William Thornton]

Perhaps I should have limited my evaluation to economic issues. I take your point that you have changed your views on some of the other stuff. The sense I get is that you have a conclusion on economic matters, or you have a favored factoid that drives your research and thinking and selective supportive data always follows.

Economics is the dismal science which must either be ignored by engineers who are accustomed to fact based decisions or finessed.

The 911 stuff, GW, and most pure politics, I really don't do much with here.

I freely admit to sarcasm. If it is bothersome that is out of my control but within that of readers.

[Tim Bonney]

William, I don't see you as too polemical in your over all writing style. But you do tend to reduce anyone to the left of you to "liberals and socialists." Most Democrats aren't really that liberal and few are socialists. It is akin to me saying anyone more conservative than me is a fundamentalist. While I have days I feel like saying that I know it isn't true.

Overall you are in the position of being in a forum where the majority of folks happen to be left of center. Of course none of us are surprised at that. This isn't SBCNet. I'm sure at times this is uncomfortable for you.

As to ET, I wish you had another conservative ally here other than him. I don't see him as nearly as reasonable or nearly as gracious as you are. As I've said before, I hardly ever read him because his stuff is indeed polemical and filled with far right sound bytes and assertions. His stuff just gave me heart burn so I quit reading him.

[Haruo]

Ah, but in Seattle an actual Socialist (well, a member of the Socialist Alternative) has advanced to the general election for the first time in decades, and has been endorsed by the pastor of University United Methodist Temple, a major Seattle UMC church. If I were in the city I would probably vote for her.

[William Thornton]

Mod/libs is the usual moniker I hang on most folks here. While definitions vary and while some toggle back and forth between con and more lib positions depending o the issues, I would term most folks here as liberals. Keith is con on social issues, sandy is lib on economic issues.

There is no one here among the regulars I would call a conservative aside from ET and me (and I really don't see ET as being all that polemical, though he has taken a liking to a particular icon that expresses a lot of stuff put here).

Haruo, socialist endorsed by the Methodist? Is anyone surprised?

[Haruo]

I thought it interesting that an avowed Socialist (economics teacher at Seattle Central Community College, with her graduate degree from North Carolina State) with a recent arrest record would get 35% of the vote in a three-way race for City Council. Regardless of the denomination of her backers.

[Sandy]

I don't follow a party line in my political views. I don't consider myself to be anti-"big", I just think that big business should pay the share of expense and benefit that they take from government in order to do business and make the profit that they do. From a Christian perspective, since Jesus taught that one of the two greatest commandments was to love your neighbor as yourself, I see things like health care. agriculture reform and immigration reform as sanctity of life issues. And the Democrats are closer to those positions, so I tend to agree with their position on them. When it comes to things like educational choice, abortion, same-sex marriage, I tend to go the other way. But most discussions here usually get around to cutting and pasting sources which lack credibility and are hopelessly biased.

[Tim Bonney]

[Ed Pettibone]

[Sandy]

[Sandy]

[Ed Pettibone]

[Tim Bonney]

[Sandy]

[Tim Bonney]

As an American Baptist I know that a lot of the ABC churches in PA, depending on the area, were quite conservative too. But the NE jurisdiction of the UMC is known for being theologically progressive as is the NW ans SW jurisdictions. The South Central and South East are our more conservative areas. North Central Jurisdiction where the Iowa conference is is a mixed bag with some conference being more conservative and some being more liberal.

Just as an aside, the UMC has an extra layer of organization between the Conferences (what Baptist might think of as regional conventions) and the national body. Above the Annual conferences are the jurisdictional conference who, among other things, elect Bishops. And above that is the General Conference.

[David Flick]

[KeithE]

[Haruo]

[Dave Roberts]

I get amused when I am labeled as a mod/lib. Actually, I am more of a lib/con. I was a Republican until the party left me. Of course, I was more an Eisenhower/Rockefeller Republican. I have never become a Democrat, but I will live the rest of my life as an Independent. The current GOP with Speaker "No" and Majority Leader "NO, NO" do not help me to enter that. I would gladly support a flat tax (if you begin with Social Security Payroll Taxes lifting the cap. I am mostly pro-life, but that means all of life from womb to tomb, not just pre-birth. At the same time, I would not punish a woman for rape or incest by forcing her to bear the image of her rapist.

Economically, I am a mixed bag. I believe in both social and personal responsibility. Government is and is not the problem; it is and is not the solution to every problem. I believe in OT biblical ethics as well as NT ethics. When Amos thundered about "justice rolling down like waters," he was not just talking about personal ethics but the systematic marginalization of poor people by a society "stacked against them.

When posts become complex, I often don't join because I do not have the time for long argued syntax. I have given up discussing global warming because there are only two positions being taken--extreme and denialist, both of which I suspect are wrong. I have fun tweaking William and ET, but sometimes I agree with them. I have fun tweaking Sandy, but sometimes he is also right. I hope I am a true moderate who can recognize value in all civil discourse. I just don't see much of it in religious or political life. Being "right" seems to have become more vital than being "reasonable."

[Stephen Fox]

No surprise to William, I've voted for every Democrat that came down the pike in Presidential elections since George McGovern. And McGovern in large part because of my sophomore Furman Religion Proff Albert Blackwell, whose Father was long time President of Mars Hill, Hoyt Blackwell.

But Dave says it well, The Republicans My Grandfather W.D. Shorty Fox with all his Glorious East Tennessee noble Lincoln Republican history; the Republicans that were on the ballot for my Grandfather Fox disappeared when the fundamentalist takeover of the SBC Bircher latent White Citizen Council Jesse Helms artists put Ronald Reagan in office. And as I have mentioned to thornton before there is a plethora of material to back that up including Williams, Dochuk and Crespino. For beginners as I've been wailing on this board and elsewhere for five years or more, google the Mark Noll piece on Williams and Dochuk in the New Republic.

And I repeat, the 2nd greatest man to breathe the air of Alabama in the 20th Century, the Lincoln Republican Judge Frank Johnson, was a Republican. But only an idiot would say his ideology and that of current Bama Speaker Mike Hubbard are the same.

BTW I just happened to have a link near at hand for Judge Johnson, one that I shared with my nephew's facebook wall before I came to this site this morn:

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/24/us/fr ... all&src=pm

[Stephen Fox]

http://ethicsdaily.com/5-guides-for-con ... -cms-21011

The linked mentioned, I cannot overstate how important it is William Thornton read Marilynne Robinson's essay Wondrous Love in her Collection When I was a Child I Read.

I hope he blogs a review of the essay

I just read it last evening and it is sublime

I would hope Lee Saunders would read it, but my estimation of him has fallen considerably in the last five months. He refuses to concede the inadequacies of FBC Spartanburg, and they are grave given their influence and their dumbstruck, mute assessment of Trey Gowdy.

Every indication is they will not engage the insights upcoming from the World of Billy Graham conference one iota.

[KeithE]

[KeithE]