I think that is the problem with Moyers position. First he lumps
all
Christians into one pile, sets up a straw man arguement, and then
states that we are all wrong. Convienent, but simplistic, and sad
commentary about a supposed journalist. But it also represents
the
error of a lot of liberal thinking, and they then cheer
themselves on in
their group support meetings.



ROFL

--riverman
(You DO see it, don't you?)




Hehehe! Good point :-)

It appears that riverman went fishing Frank, so it falls on you to
enlighten us who do not see it. I would appreciate your vision of what
is so funny. TnT

Well, it's just that you take Moyers to task for conveniently and
simplistically stating that you're "all" wrong, then you turn right around
and use Moyer's example to make a broad, sweeping statement about liberals
and their "thinking" yourself! If you're going to accuse Moyers of
simplistically lumping people into one pile, then you really ought to avoid
doing the same thing yourself, at least in the very next sentence ;-)

Scott Weiser says:
============
We are under no obligation to conform to your liberal
socialist agenda
================

I don't recall having said anything about "socialism". What suddenly
brought that up? Oh, and by the way, what do you mean by "socialism"?

Further, you're right: you are not under any obligation to conform to
anyone else's agenda. And, for that matter, neither is the elected
government of Afghanistan, for example, under any obligation to conform
to western ideals of human rights (including those of women and gays).
Or, maybe they are? What say you Scott Weiser?

All of the above notwithstanding, please do the rest of the world a
favor; don't foist your notions on us.

Cheers,
frtzw906

Scott Weiser says:
============
We are under no obligation to conform to your liberal
socialist agenda
================

I don't recall having said anything about "socialism". What suddenly
brought that up? Oh, and by the way, what do you mean by "socialism"?

Further, you're right: you are not under any obligation to conform to
anyone else's agenda. And, for that matter, neither is the elected
government of Afghanistan, for example, under any obligation to conform
to western ideals of human rights (including those of women and gays).
Or, maybe they are? What say you Scott Weiser?

All of the above notwithstanding, please do the rest of the world a
favor; don't foist your notions on us.

Cheers,
frtzw906

Scott Weiser says:
============
We are under no obligation to conform to your liberal
socialist agenda
================

I don't recall having said anything about "socialism". What suddenly
brought that up? Oh, and by the way, what do you mean by "socialism"?

Further, you're right: you are not under any obligation to conform to
anyone else's agenda. And, for that matter, neither is the elected
government of Afghanistan, for example, under any obligation to conform
to western ideals of human rights (including those of women and gays).
Or, maybe they are? What say you Scott Weiser?

All of the above notwithstanding, please do the rest of the world a
favor; don't foist your notions on us.

Cheers,
frtzw906

BCITORGB wrote:
Scott Weiser says:
============
We are under no obligation to conform to your liberal
socialist agenda
================

I don't recall having said anything about "socialism". What suddenly
brought that up? Oh, and by the way, what do you mean by "socialism"?

He usually does... That's his way of labelling everyone who's not as
explicitly extreme right wing politically as he is.

Don't dare to point out the obvious wrongs and shortcomings of the U.S.,
or he'll take this we're "superior" stance... and he probably believes
it as well. :-)

--
Wilko van den Bergh wilko(a t)dse(d o t)nl
Eindhoven The Netherlands Europe
---Look at the possibilities, don't worry about the limitations.---
http://wilko.webzone.ru/

Frank Bell wrote:

I think that is the problem with Moyers position. First he
lumps
all
Christians into one pile, sets up a straw man arguement, and
then
states that we are all wrong. Convienent, but simplistic, and
sad
commentary about a supposed journalist. But it also
represents
the
error of a lot of liberal thinking, and they then cheer
themselves on in
their group support meetings.



ROFL

--riverman
(You DO see it, don't you?)




Hehehe! Good point :-)

It appears that riverman went fishing Frank, so it falls on you to
enlighten us who do not see it. I would appreciate your vision of
what
is so funny. TnT

Well, it's just that you take Moyers to task for conveniently and
simplistically stating that you're "all" wrong, then you turn right
around
and use Moyer's example to make a broad, sweeping statement about
liberals
and their "thinking" yourself! If you're going to accuse Moyers of
simplistically lumping people into one pile, then you really ought to
avoid
doing the same thing yourself, at least in the very next sentence ;-)

Reviewing what I said, was that " a lot of liberals" not "all
liberals." Also I was refering to specific statements made by Moyer
regarding fundementalist Christians, and heartily endorsed by the
Hollywood left who have an apparent vitrolic hadred of the FC's. I
personally doubt that all liberals would endorse this hadred, and
actually would find it abhorent, if they trully understood what some of
their spokesmen were advocating.

I do appreciate your willingness to be open Frank, and to explain to me
my foopahs. If it sounded to you like I was saying all, I would agree
that brush is to wide. However it does appear that there are certain
voices in this neighborhood who seem to find Moyers statement
acceptable, and are also seemingly unwilling to repudiate them.

This concerns me if it represnts a deepening divide between reasonble
voices. I would on this point hope that I am totally wrong. I would
also maintain that this very prevailing attitude is probably what the
FC's sense from the liberal establishment, which causes the FC's to
seek advocates on the Right, and resulted in the recent Nov vote
outcome. Continuing hostility from the left, will not endear the FC's
to the liberal cause. If the liberal trully desires to establish any
inrodes into the FC camp, he might try an olive branch instead of ROFL.
TnT

Wilko wrote:
BCITORGB wrote:


Clearly, for you Americans, it is YOUR election and your
government.
Unfortunately, as a nation, you are so powerful and influential
that
who you elect has an impact on virtually every other soul on this
planet. YOU may have decided that the Bush right-wing agenda is
right
for America. Many (the vast majority) of us outside of the United
States do not agree.

Well said Wilf. It's funny to see people who are both politically
almost
off the far right side of the political scale complain about their
differences. It's troubling to see the ones representing them not
only
try to carry out those ideas inside the U.S. but also try to force
them
onto the rest of the world. It's even more troubling to see that they

are trying to export that what they call "democracy".

I find it curious and disheartening that America can be so out of
step
with prevailing global opinions. The rest of the western world is
clearly "blue". Likely we could color the prevailing
anti-intellectualism of places like Afghanistan and other
fundamentalist cultures "red".

It's very simple: the vast majority of the U.S. population just don't

care what anyone else outside the U.S. thinks. :-(
Being that out of touch with the rest of the world and behaving like
it
doesn't matter what anyone else thinks has one drawback though: it
does
have its consequences when other people get it in their heads to make
it
painfully clear to you that they have a differing opinion. Still,
nothing that can't be hidden (for a while) from the population
through a
thick layer of propaganda...

--
Wilko van den Bergh wilko(a t)dse(d o t)nl
Eindhoven The Netherlands Europe
---Look at the possibilities, don't worry about the limitations.---
http://wilko.webzone.ru/

Wilko, I have said on numerous ocassions, that I am very interested in
what you have to say. You are one voice in Europe, and so I identified
you as Euro, and got plonked for generalizing. And yet you just
acknowledged that we here in US are out of touch with the rest of the
world. That is a pretty big generalization for someone who is only one
small voice in Europe. It sounded to me like you were speaking for a
whole lot of Euro voices, and others. That is why I identified you as
Euro, and why what you say is important, if in fact that what you say
is true, we need to listen. There was no denigrating slur intended in
refering to you as Euro.

Now having said we need to listen, does not mean that we will accept
your premise. We have our own concerns whch we have to address as best
we can from our perspective. That does not mean that we are totally
myopic, anymore than others around the world. We each look out first
for number one. We have local concerns and worldwide concerns.

I understand that what we do affects others around the world. Maybe not
as well as you in your international travels. But I also know that some
bearded warlord in Afganistan does affect us as well. I suspect that
was part of the biggest shock to many Americans on 9/11. Our bubble
burst. We all live in a world where we affect one another. This would
be true whether our government was right or left, and there will always
be some in the world, who are further right or left than ourselves.
That does not mean that we should just go along with the other parts of
the world, but that we should attempt to influence them with what we
believe. Eventually we work out our differences one way or the other.
Much like personal differences, just on a bigger scale.

So am I unplonked? TnT

BCITORGB wrote:
Larry C says:
===============
The reason that I assert that the the the liberal left has lost touch
with America is that they have consisitantly lost ground in recent
elections to the Republic/moderate/right.

Frankly, I find the idea that since my guy didn't win, the people
that
supported the winner are stupid and gullible as elitist at best.

But it's pretty evident from
recent elections that the Republicans have presented a program more
to
their liking than the Democrats.
==============

Clearly, for you Americans, it is YOUR election and your government.
Unfortunately, as a nation, you are so powerful and influential that
who you elect has an impact on virtually every other soul on this
planet. YOU may have decided that the Bush right-wing agenda is right
for America. Many (the vast majority) of us outside of the United
States do not agree.

I find it curious and disheartening that America can be so out of
step
with prevailing global opinions. The rest of the western world is
clearly "blue". Likely we could color the prevailing
anti-intellectualism of places like Afghanistan and other
fundamentalist cultures "red".

frtzw906


frtzw906, I appreciate your starting statement - it is our election,
and our government. I would understand that you are not from the US, so
you do not find any obligation to identify personally with the results.


You say though that we are out of step with the prevailing global
position. Can you share what you feel that opinion generally would
amount to. I have heard so much scuttlebut about left and right, red an
blue, that I am interested in your fresh insight. That way we could
discuss specifics. Thankyou for your input, in advance. TnT

Wilko wrote:
BCITORGB wrote:
Scott Weiser says:
============
We are under no obligation to conform to your liberal
socialist agenda
================

I don't recall having said anything about "socialism". What
suddenly
brought that up? Oh, and by the way, what do you mean by
"socialism"?

He usually does... That's his way of labelling everyone who's not as
explicitly extreme right wing politically as he is.

Don't dare to point out the obvious wrongs and shortcomings of the
U.S.,
or he'll take this we're "superior" stance... and he probably
believes
it as well. :-)

--
Wilko van den Bergh wilko(a t)dse(d o t)nl
Eindhoven The Netherlands Europe
---Look at the possibilities, don't worry about the limitations.---
http://wilko.webzone.ru/

Hey Wilko, I don't know about this socialism thing, that has been
brought up. But I would be interested in knowing how your world view
would define the various political systems if not capitalism and
socialism. I am not so much interested at this time in the merits of
the various systems, just what the basic definitions would be. TnT

Scott Weiser wrote:
A Usenet persona calling itself Larry C wrote:

The reason that I assert that the the the liberal left has lost
touch
with America is that they have consisitantly lost ground in recent
elections to the Republic/moderate/right. That's just simple math,
look
at the makeup of Congress, the Governorships of the states, and the
trend in memberships in the state legislatures. I live in a state
that
is HEAVILY democratic, to the tune of 3 to 1, yet we now have a
Republican legislature and governor. Manipulated the Media? The
media
I saw were all heavily in favor of Kerry.

Want to know why this is happening, and will only continue to happen?

It's because lefty liberals are (not) breeding themselves into
extinction.

When liberals resolve to not have kids in order to save the planet,
where is
the next generation of lefty liberal tree-huggers going to come from
and
who's going to inculcate them into socialist dogma so they can take
over the
world?

Conservatives, on the other hand, view children as a positive benefit
to
society and they like making babies, who they then raise as
conservatives,
who then vote the increasingly endangered liberal/socialists out of
office.

It's the essence of "hoist on their own petard" for the liberals.


But to blame this swing on "fundamentalist christians" is
stereotyping
and scapegoating, frankly it sounds like a bunch of Nazis blaming
all
their troubles on the Jews, or the Klan on the Blacks.

Indeed. Particularly when they identify anyone who holds any sort of
religious Christian belief as "The Moral Majority" or the "Religious
Right"
or "fundamentalist Christians."

I'm none of the above, but even I know that, for example, the
Catholic
church (members of which comprise more than 20% of the US
population...some
65 million citizens) is just about evenly split these days between
liberals
and conservatives when it comes to politics.

Moyer
stated that there is a anti environmental element in the Protestant
Christian Religion, I say that it is absolute bull****.

I agree. He's a hack.

I don't see
armies of Christans wacking down trees to hurry the END. I've had
to
sit through many a sermon in my day, from Catholic to Pentecostal,
and
I have never heard anything like that from any of the pulpits. Do
the
"Christians" vote a more conservative social value than espoused by
the
Democratic Party? Yes, but mainly on issues like abortion and gay
marriage. But this is America and they do have the right to speak
and
vote for what they believe whether you agree with them or not.

Well put.


Frankly, I find the idea that since my guy didn't win, the people
that
supported the winner are stupid and gullible as elitist at best.
It's a
big country out there and people have a lot of different priorities
on
why they vote, many may not be yours. But it's pretty evident from
recent elections that the Republicans have presented a program more
to
their liking than the Democrats.


Yup. Democrats have radicalized their way right out of the public
favor.
--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

=A9 2005 Scott Weiser

Not only have they radicalized themselves right out of public favor,
but ironically, if all the aborted babies had lived to vote, they
probably would have pulled this last election away from the Right, and
they also would not have antagonized all the FC's in their support of
abortion over the last 30 years in the process. They probably did more
to mobilize the FC's than any other single source to their own demise!
TnT