PRISM

[TheBadger]

"In God we Trust", what on earth dose that mean?

This was added to currency (and also one nation under god to the pledge) as a response to modernism in the form of the soviet union. Obama and the progressive left prove that it is still needed. (See image I posted.)

I repeat, belief in "God" is not relevant to this discussion. Only making sure that men and state can not claim the authority of "God". And the only way to do that is the way we did it.

Some will argue that Europe has managed to do the same with-out "God" in your laws. But if you say that to me I will fall over laughing.

[cyphyr]

If the power of a god is not claimed only by God, then they can be claimed by anyone; Hitler, Stalin, the Emperors, the kings of England, France and Germany, the Pope... If you do not give God the power of God it will be claimed by others. (Belief in God is not relevant).

I'm pretty sure I don't understand this at all. Maybe we are talking about different things. If some bully starts pushing me about be they a king or a priest and saying that they are doing it because they have the power of God, they may believe this but I only see a deluded bully. I'll still try to duck their punches and if they have managed to convince a mass of other people that they have the authority of god I had better be careful since then they can get the mass to do their bullying for them. But they will still be men and I will still not believe them.

Well I guess it's a matter of perspective then. The people you speak of, Hitler, Stalin, the Emperors, the kings of England, France and Germany, the Pope (probably technically not Stalin) all claimed some sort of divine right to rule over us. Your president has to swear an oath of office on a bible. Doing so gives him a moral obligation and authority based on err ....... nothing at all.

I would rather a viewpoint that dose not have the concept of god in the first place. Yes it is a historical fact that people believed in gods and based their power on a derived right from these gods but that dose not mean we have to do the same today. We are entirely capable of a moral and ethical standpoint without resorting to the backup of a supernatural power.

Gravity has no moral or ethical position or power and exists due to the properties of Mass (and a couple of other things). It controls our actions no more than the wind. Also it makes no claim of control.

Gona make dinner now, Shepherds pie Mmmmm

laters

Richard

Only making sure that men and state can not claim the authority of "God". And the only way to do that is the way we did it.

Ah ok I can agree with that

[dandelO]

Pffft! I really can't keep reading this and continue to be quiet. This is the 3rd extensive reply I've made to this thread and thought 'nah, better not, I'll lose friends over this'. Frankly(I'll probably say that word a lot in the next few lines), to believe that the words 'the constitution' means *anything* for you, in this day and age, is nothing more than infantile and ignorant. I see a few folk saying here how democracy is broken and not working in this current political climate, really? Tell me when it ever did! You THINK it might have for a time but has only ever given you the choice of X,Y and Z. What happens if we want to choose A, B, Green, Iron, Path, Fart, Onion, or infinite others? Is that, or has any of them ever been an available choice for you? Really, grow up! And whoever said 'don't vote' here, well, obviously! Why would anyone choose any of these pathetic choices to live their, and their loved ones, lives by?
Frankly, I'm more shocked and disturbed at the shock and disturb expressed in this thread over the trivialty of the governments spying, than the subject! For fuck sake, people! And, yes, I do think that some of us posting here, especially on this side of the Pond, are being overly polite in they're posts to save other's feelings. Well, there'll be none of that politeness from me, sick to the back teeth of politics and pussy-footing around 'Honorable Friends', again, fucking grow up. Pathetic!
So before I'm censored, barred and air-lifted to Guantanamo, it's been nice rendering with you! But(frankly), if you're that big of a gullible twat in real-life, then I'm better off out of it, honestly, I'll get on much better without idiots and numbcunts in my life at all!

Good day!

[dandelO]

As for this 'God' aspect, fuck me! I truly despair!

[TheBadger]

I'm pretty sure I don't understand this at all. Maybe we are talking about different things. If some bully starts pushing me about be they a king or a priest and saying that they are doing it because they have the power of God, they may believe this but I only see a deluded bully. I'll still try to duck their punches and if they have managed to convince a mass of other people that they have the authority of god I had better be careful since then they can get the mass to do their bullying for them. But they will still be men and I will still not believe them.

Yes!
You still don't see what Im saying? I must just not be arguing well is all.

Gravity has no moral or ethical position or power and exists due to the properties of Mass (and a couple of other things). It controls our actions no more than the wind. Also it makes no claim of control.

I did not say gravity has moral power, I was saying it had more power than all of man kind. You did not mention morality when you brought it up.
But as for it not affecting us more than wind, go rock climbing with me. When you slip, (as I have), these argument Im making come into a different light.

DandelO
Martin, none of my close friends in life have ever agreed with me on anything philosophical. Really, none!. I have never invested my self in any kind of friendship on agreement of any thing like what we argue about in these threads. ONly on one question; If I look out for them, will they look out for me?
Your having deep and strong feeling against what Im saying does not hurt my feelings at all. Its personal stuff I think.
But what else can we do? You say its all Fu*%ed. So dose everyone else. But what does talking about it hurt?

clearly i have crossed some line here though. so ill stop with this. I wish some one told me sooner though.

[efflux]

You are right Badger. The whole point is that these rights are god given. I'm not even religious. I would probably be called an athesist but I would side with a Christian or Muslim or whoever believes that you have fundamental rights given by god and not by some bureaucrat.

But to say that there is a power that is higher that mankind is flawed and based on no empirical information anyone can show and to base a law on it makes no sense at all.
"In God we Trust", what on earth dose that mean? Its a great way of saying that we are not wise enough to come up with our own morals and standards, that we need some direction from above. And you can bet that someone will step up and start to say that they speak for the big G.

I think there are higher orders of principle at work in the universe than Mankind. Do we have all the empirical evidence to show how everything in the universe works?

To take what you say, it's common sense that some of these rights we have or have had should be above and beyond discussing their merits. They are simply obvious principles that shouldn't need to be questioned and that's why most religions have similar principles. Government says it can lock you up just on having suspicion that you are a terrorist. It should not even be discussed that another person can lock you up without any due process. That's surely a higher principle than needs to be decided by government. We don't need bureaucrats to codify that into law. It's obvious and it's why our common law system was based on very simple principles. It doesn't need thousands of pages of code to work out if you have or have not caused actual harm to another person.

The aim of the EU and most tyrannies is to outlaw everything that they have not codified into law. That's why you see this massive hundreds of thousands of pages of law on everything. It's the belief by bureaucrats that they can decide about everything and be like gods.

[efflux]

The point of the US constitution is not to restrict the people with laws but to restrict the government and anybody who says they speak for god is definitely not be to listened to. There was also a similar point of the British Bill Of rights, to restrict the power of the monarchy. None of these things are perfect but there is always a dynamic towards more freedom which in essense is the freedom to create which governments try to suppress. This is the real higher principle otherwise how would life on this planet have developed to where it is now? This is exactly what the creators of the US system understood and it's why the old tyrrants of Britian were against it because they knew that America could create itself into a wealthy power that could wipe out the old empire. Sadly, they didn't do a total job on that.

To those why say none of this matters, then why have we had more freedoms recently (at least in many western countries) than most past civilisations? We are in the trouble we are in because people have forgotten that without constant vigilance, tyranny arrives quickly. You don't escape it by simply saying voting doesn't matter, politicians are all corrupt, it's the way things are.

[cyphyr]

I honestly think we're pretty much in agreement here and we're arguing over semantics.

I think we all agree that our respective governments are corrupt. Yes?
I think we all agree that the invasive security measures (PRISM et al) are created around a false fear manufactured by said governments to control us. Yes?
As far as I can tell most of us believe that we should be allowed to do what we want as long as we don't cause harm to one-another, without oversight from a "nanny state". Yes?
So weather we like the term or not we are fundamentally anarchic. It is my belief that anarchy is a basic human state.
I think we can agreed that there are fundamental human rights, sustenance (food and water), shelter, freedom of movement, freedom of association, freedom of belief (there are problems with this one since some peoples belief is that I should burn in hell for example, fine as long as they don't act on it), freedom of expression, that all men and women are create equal. I'm sure there are a few more. We seem to disagree about where his freedom comes from but frankly dose that really matter? "We hold these truths to be self-evident ..."

Most of this argument seems to stem round what we should do about the fact that all of the above claims are either true or denied us.

Personally I don't think that a law written on a scrap of parchment means a great deal, IN PRACTICALITY, whether its a Bill of Rights, The Magna Carter (whichever version, there are at least 5!) or the Constitution (which has been re-written how many times?), or the "United nations declaration of Human Rights (which has no  legal bearing in any country!). Merely stating that I have "such and such" a right dose not stop a guy with a bigger stick in the pay of the "authority" taking that right away from me, probably by force. This will hurt, I don't like pain.

So we are back at the beginning again. What is there that we can actually do that will have any effect at all.

If I ever get any money I'm buying an island, you can all come and stay, we'll have render parties lol

Dinner is nearly done.

Later

Richard

[efflux]

Most people can agree in basics on what's right and wrong. Maybe this does develop over time. Maybe the concept of the Ten Commandments was some kind of revolutionary thing at the time but maybe it's also that people get away from using their basic intuition as part of a social species about what is right and wrong. That's why governments and bankers spend such huge amounts of money brainwashing people and it's why I think a crucial thing is that people stop getting their information from these sources. At the moment Obama has declared that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons. Why should anybody believe this? Haven't there been enough lies to show that these people will say anything and not just Obama. We have another idiot in the UK called Cameron who is on the same agenda. A quick search by anyone on this issue will reveal that it's almost certainly a fabrication for a host of reasons.

[dandelO]

Michael, I don't. And as usual, I'm guilty of being haughty-taughty, and apparently personalising my post towards yourself, which, btw, it isn't, I hope you'll know. I'm angry at this whole, accepting species, gladly putting control in the hands of the precious few who will smile and tell us all they work for us. I'm frustrated by the accepting many, who think that this is ok, and any way to run a World. I always get myself into shit, be it on or offline, with the brash way I eventually declare my points of view, I usually just duck out of these sort of things thesedays, especially online, for this very reason. I should really know better by now. I stand by these points, though. I REALLY, do think it is infantile and ignorant for any grown adult to put into ANY another's hands the choices, regardless of public acceptance, and welfare of one's own self and family. That is the lazy-minded-man's option. 'Let's just accept that Mr and Mrs Government know best how I should run me and my family's life, and go along with that.' Nu-uh! Why should I? Why should you? Somebody tells you there's such a thing as The Constitution, Glory-Glory, hallelujah! That is (frankly) a pathetic thing to base your life upon. Does nobody else see that? Maybe the morals and contents therein are very sensible, indeed, but as soon as this is GIVEN to you, and you willingly accept to accept that, you have already given yourself away! That to me is the most simple concept to grasp. And it (frankly) disgusts me that we humans will accept these non-existant things and concepts and base our lifes upon them.

I'm sorry, Michael. This is most definitely not a personal thing, I'm sure if we had a personal forum where everyone just spoke naturally to each and the other(and maybe that's not a bad idea), as opposed to an open discussion thread in some obscure graphics website, things would be as ordered as parliament!

As it stands, believe me, it is not personal, it is however strictly speciesal, no offence.

[TheBadger]

I honestly think we're pretty much in agreement here and we're arguing over semantics.

Agree mostly

I think I just used to much rhetoric. But I can't deny that I am as angry as I'v let on. And I sincerely believe this is all as bad as It feels (PRISM and the like). Especially the deliberate killing of children, and in particular American children by the US government.

I think we all agree that our respective governments are corrupt. Yes?
I think we all agree that the invasive security measures (PRISM et al) are created around a false fear manufactured by said governments to control us. Yes?
As far as I can tell most of us believe that we should be allowed to do what we want as long as we don't cause harm to one-another, without oversight from a "nanny state". Yes?
So weather we like the term or not we are fundamentally anarchic. It is my belief that anarchy is a basic human state.
I think we can agreed that there are fundamental human rights, sustenance (food and water), shelter, freedom of movement, freedom of association, freedom of belief (there are problems with this one since some peoples belief is that I should burn in hell for example, fine as long as they don't act on it), freedom of expression, that all men and women are create equal. I'm sure there are a few more.

Yes, agree!... Nearly completely.

We seem to disagree about where his freedom comes from but frankly dose that really matter? "We hold these truths to be self-evident ..."

Yes it matters! Where it comes from determines who can take it away, and in what manner they may take it. Truth is not subject to opinion. The truth is the truth regardless of if we know it or not, or believe it. That is why he used the word, and not something like, "We hold these beliefs to be important", or something like that.

Most of this argument seems to stem round what we should do about the fact that all of the above claims are either true or denied us.

Agree!

Merely stating that I have "such and such" a right dose not stop a guy with a bigger stick in the pay of the "authority" taking that right away from me, probably by force.

You are right! May I recommend an Ar15? Ill let you borrow one... So you see, that scrap of paper has some power after all... about 975 meters per second of power.

So we are back at the beginning again. What is there that we can actually do that will have any effect at all.

Yep!

If I ever get any money I'm buying an island, you can all come and stay, we'll have render parties lol

I hope you will let me come even though we are different! If theres one place I wont talk politics or religion, its on a white sandy beach! Gota have some boundaries 


Really sorry if I have upset you guys! I did not intend to say anything upsetting to anyone other than the people who killed that boy, and who would defend it.

[efflux]

The thing about the US consitiution (or similar type documents in other countries) is that it's the government that is supposed to live within it's rules so I think in that case the people aren't so much living by some rules set out in a document. Their rules to live by are meant to be just common sense do no harm to neighbour type stuff. So in this case I think it's fine for the people to demand that public servants live within certain rules set out in a document because they can very easily abuse their power.

Everything is completely upside down. Government spies on people but people aren't supposed to spy on government.

Another example is that the people pay taxes but big corporations don't. The people are not actually supposed to pay any taxes out of wages unless they are partaking in commerce. It's corporations partaking in commerce who are supposed to pay taxes for public infrastructure. This is simple to understand. Commerce as in buying and selling but not actually making. Taxing this but not taxing actual creative production. The constant bankruptcies of banks, governments and related corporations has been underwritten by the wealth of the people again and again. We bail them out constantly after they have taken the wealth that they are supposed to give back in taxes. This system has gone as far as it can without total collapse.

[TheBadger]

Martin
Thank you for pulling back a bit. You know that I respect you and that I think your a good fellow.

In response to your post I only want to correct one thing. And that is that I don't put my life in the hands of anyone, and most definitely not my family! This thread was about taking that power back, not giving it up even more. Also the name calling does not bother me much... You should here how my friends and I talk "Cunt" was a little harsh though

I was arguing about government. And in no way shape or form do I trust them with my life or my families (or any religion or political party). But if we must have a government then I was just having my say. And yes, I am a man of some degree of faith, but I have my own reasons for that just as you have yours for not. I don't question anyone for believing or not, it is a deeply personal thing. Im sorry to have sparked those parts in this thread. That was (I still think) clearly not my intention. And frankly, I don't know how what I said missed my mark. I thought I was arguing my points well.

I wrote about these things in this forum because Im interested in this communities ideas, perceptions and feelings. But you are not the first person to raise ire over politics here. Perhaps we should ban political speech in this forum after all? Its really not the reason I come here, or anyone else I think... Except Pennag, or whatever his name is. And I would be most hurt If it was me who made such a great contributor like you to stop participating here! Really, that would make me sad. You have helped me in my professional life, you know.

To tell you the truth, I would never have ever posted any touchy subjects like this if I had not read so many before joining the community (and since joining). That there are so many older topics on politics and other passion filled subjects is the only reason I thought I was fine to do it.

Its up to you guys, I will not fight it one bit if planetside makes a new speech rule. I'll support what you guys want. Its more important to me that I can talk to you all about tech, than politics... Very much so!
But again, for the most part I thought we would all be simpatico on this one issue at least.

And really, We don't know each other. I very much doubt that I will ever get to meet any of you guys in person. But I truly do like you all.
I am not a lonely person or anything. I have friends and family. But this community resonates with me differently (for some reason) than my personal life or the rest of the internet. I just like it here is all.
I came as I am.

-me

[dandelO]

I might have used that c-word too readily. I do apologise for that. We're a rough bunch in this neck of the womb and, actually, that's a very often used, many times as a term of endearment word: 'He's a good c_nt, is Thom!', 'Look at that daft c_nt!, John, lying in a pool of himself!', 'That c_nt'll believe anything!' Even the greeting, 'how you doing, y'c_nt!' is perfectly acceptable parlance in this nasty corner of the world. :/ bunch of horrid c_nts that we are here, sorry.
I suppose I'd best watch my mouth. I think I'll duck out of this thread, like I should've kept it for this last couple of weeks. Should have just bought a bag of popcorn and continued the reading but I do get excacerbated by the ready-acceptance of ordered tyrrany that people just love to accept and base their lives on these days.
As I see it of course, I might be wrong, although, I never have been before!

[TheBadger]

No worries Martin! Despite that you don't agree with me (I'll never understand that ), I still think your brilliant.

Its funny! Despite that I have family ties to England Ireland and Scotland, I don't know as much about daily culture there as I should. Most of what I know about Scotland comes from Sean Connery, and the film Trainspotting. Both great by the way

[attach=1]

you daft c_nt!