Ms. Clinton, do you believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ?

[detbuch]

Media like to ask Republicans about their views on abortion, or if they would attend a gay wedding, or would they have invaded Iraq if they knew what we now (supposedly) know, or if they believe in evolution, and so on, and on. Somehow, we are supposed to ignore that we are a secularly governed society, with specific limits on government's power and with strictly construed duties of politicians which constrain what they can and cannot do regarding various gotcha questions. We are supposed to ignore our brilliantly devised system of protections against evils from those who have different opinions than we do. And we are then to assume that if they do have contrary views on such gotcha matters that they will reek havoc on our personal lives if they get elected.

If that assumption is valid, then why not ask Hillary Clinton if she truly believes that Jesus Christ died for our sins, rose from the dead, and will return again in the future to activate the Christian Rapture? If her belief on those matters is as relevant as various Republican's beliefs on gotcha questions are supposed to be, then there should be very meaningful consequences to her election based on her answers.

If she says yes, will that strike terror in the hearts of atheists, or Jews, or Muslims, or Buddhists, or socialists/Marxists/communists, or gays, or Canadians? Will she have a lock on the Evangelical vote, on the various Christian sects vote?

Will she even be believed if she says yes? Will the non-Christian list of voters wink and nod, understanding she only responded with expedient political deception? And not to worry--we know by her views on abortion and gays and other stuff that she's really not Christian in any meaningful way.

The fact that there are all these different and contradictory factions in the makeup of our society doesn't seem to phase the media's need to ask such pointed personal questions, at least of Republican's. And that the media, and apparently the unwashed masses, ignore the constitutional impotence of politicians to intrude in our personal lives and beliefs, implies that those political protections no longer exist. In spite of the reason that no power for such intrusion was devised specifically BECAUSE our society is diverse and we must be protected from each others opposing opinions.

And that is the underlying truth of the matter. The media understands, and is complicit in, the transformation of our governmental system. We are, indeed, to fear our regulators, our political ruling class, if our personal beliefs do not align with the prevailing correctness. The Media views through the current political prism which sees government no longer being limited in asserting itself into our personal lives. The Media, in great part, is the Orwellian newspeak, the government controlled language and influenced reportage, which, on the one hand touts our diversity with all its necessary trappings of glorifying and protecting massive immigration of "diverse" populations, but on the other hand squashes the practice of opinions that differ from its agenda.

So, there is no need of the mainstream media to ask gotcha questions of politicians with whom it agrees and promotes. And it, therefor, does have a motivation to ask those questions of candidates who might upset the Media's prevailing progressive mind and the totalitarian mode of the progressive government it supports.

[spence]

Originally Posted by detbuch

If that assumption is valid, then why not ask Hillary Clinton if she truly believes that Jesus Christ died for our sins, rose from the dead, and will return again in the future to activate the Christian Rapture? If her belief on those matters is as relevant as various Republican's beliefs on gotcha questions are supposed to be, then there should be very meaningful consequences to her election based on her answers.

Is Clinton citing specific religious beliefs that are shaping her position on issues of public policy regarding abortion or gay marriage?

What does it matter if she believes in the Rapture if this belief has no bearing on the issues at hand?

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

Is Clinton citing specific religious beliefs that are shaping her position on issues of public policy regarding abortion or gay marriage?

What does it matter if she believes in the Rapture if this belief has no bearing on the issues at hand?

The "issues at hand" are shaped by the complex of political agenda with its media compliance. And that complex is instrumental in transforming a constitutional system which once denied the federal government a say in religious beliefs, abortion, or gay marriage into an increasingly totalitarian system of government in which the central government has everything to say about those things. "Public policy" and "issues at hand" of nearly every sort, in this transformation become the responsibility of the federal government to regulate. And the individual is no longer such, but must comply with and meld into the homogenous society dictated by the federal government.

The last vestige of power remaining to individuals from the vast residuum of rights granted to them in the original Constitution, is the vote. So "public opinion" has to be shaped into seeming to say that "the public" is OK with relinquishing its right of individual opinion and practice thereof to the dictates of central regulation.

The cooperative media trick in "interviews" is to ask questions in which the incorrect answer will transgress "public opinion" or, even worse, federal regulation. The assumption being that no one now believes in once honored individual rights regarding the "issues at hand." And, conversely, not to ask questions which might put the Media's favorite candidate in a compromised position.

If Hillary answers yes, there are various consequences, and if she answers no, there are other consequences. The electoral tightrope she is trying to walk and its illusory balance could be disrupted if her silence on various "issues" was broken by gotcha questions such as those posed in this thread, or others.

My point is, her answers to such questions, or anybody else's, shouldn't matter. Should be irrelevant. The questions shouldn't even be asked. That is, if we actually had a constitutionally limited government. But, in a tyrannical governmental system, only the "correct" answer is not only the acceptable one, but the one which may determine victory or defeat.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by spence

Is Clinton citing specific religious beliefs that are shaping her position on issues of public policy regarding abortion or gay marriage?

What does it matter if she believes in the Rapture if this belief has no bearing on the issues at hand?

FIne, stick to abortion. If all the media can't wait to ask "gotcha" questions to conservatives, why can't someone ask Hilary at what point in the pregnancy she thinks abortion should be illegal, and whatever answer she gives, ask her "what's magical about that date, why not one day before, or one day before that?" And then I could enjoy th epleasure of watching her say "a-der-der..."

The way the questions are phrased, is a joke...

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by spence

Is Clinton citing specific religious beliefs that are shaping her position on issues of public policy regarding abortion or gay marriage?

What does it matter if she believes in the Rapture if this belief has no bearing on the issues at hand?

If a religious person's faith can reasonably be construed as shaping their opinions (I agree it is), why isn't another person't lack of faith equally significant in shaping opinions?

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

If a religious person's faith can reasonably be construed as shaping their opinions (I agree it is), why isn't another person't lack of faith equally significant in shaping opinions?

The point I was trying to make, Jim, is that our federal government, as originally designed, does not have authority to act on matters that do not fall within the enumerations granted to it in the Constitution. And that our central government has been transformed into one which can legislate regarding every "opinion" whether constitutionally empowered or not.

If you step outside the limits of that box and enter into the limitless terrain of progressive government which can make law and policy on any matter or "opinion" it wants, then you will have no persuasive argument. You will merely have an opposing "opinion" to which you are not legally entitled to act upon without the government's consent.

This is what you have done by trying to logically balance the validity of asking candidates about lack of faith as well as about their personal faith because both shape their opinions. The implication, therefor, in asking either question is to determine personal opinions which will influence how the candidates would govern. But that already, in itself, is granting that government can and does legislate by opinion, even on matters outside of its purview.

And that is why I have said that such questions which are outside the box of government's constitutional domain are irrelevant and shouldn't even be asked. And the reason they are asked is to put certain candidates into a quandary as to how they should respond for the ears of a populace which has been shaped, influenced, by progressive education, media, and demagogic politicians.

We have been warned, even by socialists such as Orwell, about the tyranny of a government which owns the rights to all opinion and which legislates, controls, which opinions are valid. Even a current "liberal" media personality, Kirsten Powers, has a new book, "The Silencing, How the Left is Killing Free Speech." I haven't read it, but interviews with her indicate that the federal government's commandeering of the first amendment is a loss of individual freedom, and to be feared rather than admired.

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

Is Clinton citing specific religious beliefs that are shaping her position on issues of public policy regarding abortion or gay marriage?

Are the Media, Clinton, progressive government, shaping the "issues" in order to create "public policy"? And, if so (yes they are), under what authority are they allowed to dictate outside of constitutionally enumerated power?

What does it matter if she believes in the Rapture if this belief has no bearing on the issues at hand?

It would matter if she has a hand in creating the "issues at hand." And it would be a despotic grab of power if she were to be a conspirator in promoting law which deprives individuals of their right to free speech or their ability to practice or not practice a religion of their choice.

If the government is the sole creator of the "issues at hand," and if all "issues" are the domain of the federal government, and if the President can legally determine the outcome of any issue and can enforce her opinion regarding all issues, then what she believes about the Rapture will have a bearing on "the issues at hand.

That can only be in a progressively unlimited federal government. That cannot be in a government bounded by the U.S. Constitution. One is the essence of tyranny. The other is the protector of individual liberty.

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

Is Clinton citing specific religious beliefs that are shaping her position on issues of public policy regarding abortion or gay marriage?

What does it matter if she believes in the Rapture if this belief has no bearing on the issues at hand?

Spence, being inside the inflatable balloon of the political and social so-called "center," puts you at the disadvantage of not being able to have a sense of how your position was filled with the hot air that sustains it. There is a sense of a priori in your acceptance of the "issues at hand" just being there, just naturally or miraculously popping up for Clinton and the politicians to deal with. They somehow merely "evolve" in the nature of things, in the nature of humanity and American government.

The comfortable parameter of the balloon's outer limits, which sustains not only your ignorance of how the "issues at hand" got pumped into your limited central sphere of how things work, not only drives you to disdain the "extremes" of the "fringes" that exist outside of your balloon, but blinds you're understanding of the actual influence they have on the ideas breathed into your plastic cocoon of moderation.

The "moderate center" is merely a repository of the status quo. It does not generate new ideas. It is only infused with them when forced by the "extreme" invasions from the fringe outer world. The evolution of the center is mutation of it by alien ideas forced into its DNA.

But the center is a good and comfortable place to live. For most humans, and most other beings as far as we know, the center is the most advantageous, comfortable, and peaceful neighborhood within the social sphere. One of its monikers might be the "middle class."

But the middle class is not known so much for innovation as it is for its enjoyment of innovations. It swallows up, for its pleasure and sustenance, those material, philosophical, and ideological things produced and introduced to it by those who reach beyond and outside the box of its pleasure dome.

Being as how the middle class is supposedly the group whose votes must be captured, the vote-getters must either promise to maintain the status quo or improve it.

So if the vote-getters have an agenda to promote, gay marriage for example, which is outside the bounds of a current status quo and contradictory to the middle class, the center, they must somehow introduce the concept as an "issue at hand." They must infuse the center with either a passion for the new "issue at hand" or for an acceptance of it on grounds of fairness, compassion, equality, righteousness, even that it is a constitutional right, therefor incumbent on the people to not only accept, tolerate, but to demand that it be so. The new "issue at hand" must therefor become a co-equal member of the status quo.

So, "issues of public policy regarding abortion or gay marriage" as you put it are not merely coincidentals which just pop up for politicians like Hillary Clinton to deal with and "shape her position" on. They are, on the contrary, issues she and they introduce and impose on us and work to shape our positions on. And, until they finally succeed in doing so, it is they who are the barbarians at the gate, the extremists, who struggle to change the "center," the status quo.

Of course, being masters of propaganda, they are able along with a
compliant media to position themselves as the actual center--until they actually become it--the new center.

So this fungible center "evolves" and constantly shifts progressively leftward. New generations, of course, being born into it, accept it as the status quo. And, of course, new "issues at hand" will be introduced to them, as if by some natural magic. And precedent makes it easier, even automatic, that some new mutation will be transfused into their already much mutated DNA.

For an avowed "centrist" this may not be good or bad. Probably, on the whole, good. But that may be more of a dependency goodness as in Al Capps happy Shmoos (Shmoon) in his cartoon series Lil' Abner, than a good society based on individual rights and responsibilities.

Why this constant change which is politically designed rather than naturally evolved?

There is the proposition that it is all intended to destroy the old structure and its various parts in order to convert from a bottom-up, limited government system to an all-powerful but benevolent one. Gay marriage may be used as a means to destroy the concept of marriage and its independent raising of children which is too diverse a method to politically manage. And by that destruction making it necessary for government to take on the responsibility of raising the children, or at least of "parents" doing so as prescribed by government, thus more easily producing future "model" citizens. Enforced and funded abortion policies can be used to limit expansion of population which might otherwise be too unwieldy to manage, and to prevent or reduce births of those who are deemed unlikely to conform and contribute to a managed society. Herding populations into "smart" urban centers is more centrally manageable than the populace being dispersed into sprawling suburban and rural land areas. Imposing cookie-cutter education policies dictated by central government, including common core creates more malleable cookie cutter citizens. Deconstructing the States' power and transforming them into divisions of Federal power creates the unitary central power necessary for an all-powerful State, And so on. All to grow the power of the Central Government. For me, it is all a plain, in your face, transformation of our once constitutional republic to a unified, all powerful, progressive State.

There is, of course, the mirage that it's all still "constitutional." We are made to believe that the Constitution empowers the federal government to grant special rights to special people. And to consecrate gay marriage; to enforce us all to buy insurance; to mandate that insurance provide whatever government dictates, including paid for contraception; that Religion, free speech, rights to bear arms, property rights, exist only in-so-far as government allows those things, and commands many more things through thousands of yearly "regulations."

It is clearly evident, in the recorded history of how the Constitution was finally decided on and written, that none of those above supposed powers of the federal government were intended to exist. And It is all too clearly so, that all the judges must surely know it. And it is all too clear that the history of jurisprudence since progressivism has influenced it, that the judges have lawyerly, as well as according to the whims of their personal beliefs and prejudices, twisted and torn that document into a concoction of incoherent contradictions which have completely reversed the relation of the people to the government.

The idea that gay marriage is somehow protected under some notion in the 14th amendment is a deliberate stretch beyond the bounds of equal protection. Homosexual relations are different than heterosexual relations. If the "qualification" for marriage is heterosexual union, then a homosexual union would not qualify. Homosexuals are not disallowed to engage in heterosexual union. They have the equal protection to do so. If they claim they do not wish to do so, or cannot, then they don't qualify for the position. Nature, if that is the reason for homosexuality, disqualifies a lot of people from a lot of stuff. If two men want to live together and call it marriage, they cannot be denied doing so. But demanding that it be sanctioned by the government as a legal entity and observed by everyone else who are then forced not only to recognize the "marriage," but materially participate in it upon the request of the homosexual couple is clearly against any proposition of equality promoted by the Founder's Constitution.

That the federal government has anything to say about marriage at all is constitutionally suspect. There is this chilling notion introduced by progressive courts that government can legislate if it has "a compelling interest." If the idea that the government can impose itself on you if it has a compelling interest doesn't give you pause to wonder on its power, you're not paying attention. If you think that government is all benevolent as well as all powerful, and that whatever compelling interest it wishes to make you obey is a wonderful thing, you have a bit of Shmoo in you. Maybe a lot. Who's to say what is compelling? Five black robes? The Constitution does not grant government powers derived from compelling interest other than those which are granted to it in its enumeration.

It may be, however, that it has a compelling interest in the propagation of the species. Survival of the State, as well as creating and maintaining a population which it can govern . . . or control . . . depends on that propagation. It may have a compelling, even if not a constitutional, interest in promoting heterosexual union. And if it deems marriage is the best way to raise families, it might well provide some subsidies to such unions. Beyond that, already constitutionally suspect notion, what compelling interest would it have in marriage at all, especially homosexual marriage? There are arguments concerning "love." Marriage is not a requisite to love. One does not marry everyone and everything one loves. If two guys love each other and want to play sex with each other and want, for whatever reason, to call it marriage, what compelling constitutional interest does the federal government have in such a relationship?