Is that not true of every US President?

“Allowing and assisting a foreign country with interfering with *your* country's elections is another matter.”

It is the duty of every person who puts God before country to be a traitor every now and again.

Hahahahaha the title of this post is hilarious.

You guys will be looking for a kill shot, and Mueller will be spending millions and millions investigating, all the way up until after Trump is out of office =D

Which is why I think at this point we need to be aware that the loyalty of the religious and the conservative needs to be questioned. They have other loyalties other than liberty and justice for all.


And given the huge number of war criminals that the US just lets go walking around, I doubt Trump will ever face consequences. Frankly, he could violently rape a 12 year old at noon in Times Square and his legions of supporters will prevent him from facing consequences.

If the democrats win the midterm elections, there is no doubt that they will impeach Trump. They will find grounds (and there are several); Pence will take the Presidency and veto his way to 2020.

If the Republicans find their backbone and impeach Trump before 2018 midterm elections, then I suspect they will do better in 2018; but probably not well enough to hold out. And with Pence as President i doubt they will win the 2020 election.

I'm surprised there aren't more Republicans talking about jumping ship already... Though Trump isn't governing, he talk about Taxes in a tweet and then leave congress have full control over their tax plan, so the Republican majorities can simply write whatever their donors tell them and blame Trump if anything goes wrong. Worst 'democracy' i've seen in a long time.

(And anyone who says 'the US is a republic not a democracy, can just fuck off, and go learn how we use language in the english speaking world)

Why should Teflon Trump do anything about the tax plan? He's going to benefit from it with his companies paying him on pass through, no AMT, and less estate taxes for his children. Any blame is on the Congressional Republicans and not Trump.

Anyone who says "the US is a republic, not a democracy" is opposed to the idea of the government that reflects the will of the people.

And Democrats aren't going to win the elections in 2018, because even if they have solid majority support, the elections are essentially rigged. I bet Democrats could get close to 60% support and still not control any government body, frankly.

As opposed to those who put country ahead of... Morals? Beliefs? Reason? Isn't there a name for that?

If one pursues political goals based on the founding principles of liberty and justice for all, and the equality of political rights that the United States is founded on as an experiment in democratic governance, then yes, there's a name for that: It's called patriotism.

If you sell those elections down the river to a hostile foreign power in order to pursue the power to subvert those ideals because "god told you to" or out of a racist ideology, then that's clearly something else.

When you have a candidate who is overwhelmingly popular amongst a certain strain of Christians because of his flagrant defiance and denunciation of democratic rule and the principles of the constitution in order to create second class citizens because he is more loyal to his religious leaders than to the country he was sworn to serve, even though this candidate is a serial child molester, I think we have an overwhelmingly strong indication that there are a LOT of people in the US who are not loyal to the US at all.

There are a LOT of people loyal to a fictional US. One where they believe the country is meant for themselves and not all Americans. Lyin' Don has united them.

That's not the US. It's just a neonazi spinoff

Eh, I took it more as we need to not look at our government to be the arbiter of right and wrong. We need to find a morality or code of ethics outside of the state by which to inform our actions and judge what the state tells us to do. Religion is one source for this.

Also, questioning the loyalty of religious people as a whole? Seriously?

Well, you have to admit that many religious communities are dead set against the idea of liberty and justice for all and have zero problem selling the country down the river if it advances their moral goals. So, yeah, once you take certain foundational principles as, well foundational, we see religious communities either outright defying and denigrating those principles (e.g. Refusing to recognize the constitutional rights of gay people) or demanding special rights or exemptions from the general responsibilities of citizens.

So, to an outsider there are many instance where we see the principles of the nation dismissed either on religious or racial grounds. Given that, how can you not at least entieryain the question. After all many would freely admit they'd follow their religious teachings over civic obligations without question.

If all religion were is your personal moral code, that's one thing but it often is far more than that, e.g. A dominating ideology that isn't just a personal morality but an ideology that all others bend the knee to it as well

"you have to admit that many religious communities are dead set against the idea of liberty and justice for all and have zero problem selling the country down the river if it advances their moral goals"

Yes, there are many. But certainly not a majority.

"we see religious communities either outright defying and denigrating those principles"

At what level are you talking about? Yes, there were plenty of opponents to gay marriage, but that was in accordance with the law. Afterwards, there was very little cases of apparent lawbreaking - albeit, highly publicized - such as refusal to sign certificates or bake cakes or take weddings (I'm not sure how the distinction between civil lawsuits vs criminal weighs in).

Now, if you are talking about the neo-Nazi, yes this is a problem. But once again, this is a vast vocal minority.

We all have dominating ideologies. You have one, I have one, everyone. The extent to which we follow that widely varies. I have never come across, nor do the vast majority of people come across, circumstances where my morality - formed primarily by my faith - has necessitated me breaking the law. I am guessing you have not either. But if it were to happen, in some dystopian parallel universe where I was required to be an executioner or some other thing, I would break that law, as I would hope you would.

"We need to find a morality or code of ethics outside of the state by which to inform our actions and judge what the state tells us to do."

No we do not need to. Start with the Golden Rule. Maybe add "Life is important." Work things out from there without mystical guidance.

We are about to have a child molester who was twice removed from the bench for violations of the constitution supported almost entirely by evangelicals. We have some 80% so those evangelicals for the most racist candidate in over 100 years. Over 60% of white Catholics also

Not a majority? Maybe, but it's pretty damned close to a majority who will pull the lever for a guy campaigning on the notion that some are more equal than others.


Pardon me if having watched American politics for decades I don't subscribe to your rosy picture

And I have ideologies to prevent people from harming others. I don't any interest in requiring people to follow my religious ideas. We see Christians pushing this all the time

As the saying goes, never in the history of the country has a strip club tried to shit down a church.

II was going to say if you go back farther, then you have states defying federal law. However right now Arizona is passing laws that defy the federal government when the local Republicans don't approve. At the same time restricting the Arizona constitutional rights of cities to defy the state.

Trump's pardon of Sheriff Arpiao was over his defying the federal law regarding the legal rights of minorities against discrimination.

"No we do not need to. Start with the Golden Rule. Maybe add "Life is important." Work things out from there without mystical guidance."

You are sending very conflicting messages here JK.

"We are about to have a child molester who was twice removed from the bench for violations of the constitution supported almost entirely by evangelicals. We have some 80% so those evangelicals for the most racist candidate in over 100 years. Over 60% of white Catholics also"

First off, 58% of eligible voters, so that certainly cuts it out of the majority. Secondly, people had to choose someone - the majority of people who voted for Trump did not vote for him BECAUSE he was racist but in spite of it. There are plenty of people who realized that he was bad but thought he would be better than Hillary. Feel free to call them wrong, painfully so, but to call all of them racist is simply wrong.

"And I have ideologies to prevent people from harming others. I don't any interest in requiring people to follow my religious ideas."

No, but you do have an interest in requiring them to follow your idea of right and wrong.

"As the saying goes, never in the history of the country has a strip club tried to shit down a church"

What an odd and largely meaningless saying. Churches tend to be rather unobjectionable, so why would they? If it's supposed to be a comment on tolerance, it's worth pointing out that plenty of strip clubs have tried to shut down other strip clubs.

Churches are unobjectionable? You don't know a lot of gay people do you?

I imagine they tend not to be a strip club's target market. I don't know a vast number of gay people, no, but of the ones I do none are anti-church and a couple are really quite religious.

Well, you're in the U.K., right? Thats is a very very different story than the US where churches put up signs saying "God hates fags" and push anti-LGBT legislation all the time. Here, you'll find a lot of refugees from the Bible Belt with horrible stories to tell. They know damn well who the threat is.

As I acknowledged before there are some unobjectionable churches out there, but there are enough that foment terrorism and the like that they cannot be presumed to be unobjectionable.

(And yes, there are gay strip clubs)

@Cyrus: What is the state if not a political philosophy backed up by de jure and de facto power? Every major religion has some mystical shit behind it, and most encourage the use of force to kill other people for offenses other than murder.

I didn't presume, I said they tend not to be. Which, from what you've said, seems quite fair. Common sense also says that it is far more likely for a strip club to be opening in an area with established churches than it is for a new fire and brimstone style church to be opening in an area with established strip clubs.

The point is that no strip club is going to oppose any church for ideological "God told me to" reasons. Churches on the other hand love to get up into other people's business
Tldr:
Strip clubs: "leave me alone"
Churches: "Do what I tell you (because God said so)"

@cyrus, if we are going all moral relativism here, then why oppose ISIS? After all, they're just praying their moral compass too!