World Are fear and ignorance driving our politics?

MoreCoffee said:

Are fear and ignorance driving our politics?

Political debate and political speeches appear to be driven by finding somebody or something to be afraid of and then magnifying it until it dominates people's thinking. Mexican "illegal immigrants", "refugees", "terrorism", "economic ruin", "higher taxes", "guns", and any number of other trumped up issues spoken of in terms of threat and remedy are the bread & butter of political discourse yet in the holy scriptures what do we see the Lord speaking about? Is the Kingdom of God where we truly have our citizenship and if so why do we worry when politicians say we ought to or run scared when experts tell us of fearful futures that they imagine will face us? Do you think they really know what is to come?

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Even without the spiritual angle the sense of fear and division seems very strong in the last few years.

It's easy to pick a group that is Not Like Us and demonise them. So the indigenous are trained to hate the immigrant becaues he comes and steals the jobs/women/housing/whatever. The rich are trained to hate the poor because they are workshy/lazy/good-for-nothing and just want to suckle at the teat of higher taxes. The poor are trained to hate the rich because they are greedy/hog the best jobs/refuse to share/don't pay their fair share of taxes/whatever. The young hate the old because they hogged all the resources/took all the money/sit on the money/whatever. The old hate the young because they are greedy/self-entitled/rebellious etc.

People who are visibly different are an even easier target. Just look at the animosity towards "Muslims" where in excess of a billion people worldwide are regarded as inherently evil because of the actions of a tiny minority of them and some text in the Qu'ran about killing people. If we applied the same reasoning to more familiar people we would have to fear Christians as a violent and bloodthirsty group based on child abuse by priests, bombing of abortion clinics and verses in the Old Testament that talk of executing everyone from homosexuals to false prophets to children who disrespect their parents.

When Jesus said "love your neighbor" he didn't give us any handy opt-out clauses just in case our neighbor was Not Like Us in some way.

From a spiritual perspective we so easily lose track of a wise man who once said "fear not, I have conquered the world". From a secular perspective We The People are being manipulated by the most basic divide and conquer approach imaginable.

MoreCoffee said:

Are fear and ignorance driving our politics?

Political debate and political speeches appear to be driven by finding somebody or something to be afraid of and then magnifying it until it dominates people's thinking. Mexican "illegal immigrants", "refugees", "terrorism", "economic ruin", "higher taxes", "guns", and any number of other trumped up issues spoken of in terms of threat and remedy are the bread & butter of political discourse yet in the holy scriptures what do we see the Lord speaking about? Is the Kingdom of God where we truly have our citizenship and if so why do we worry when politicians say we ought to or run scared when experts tell us of fearful futures that they imagine will face us? Do you think they really know what is to come?

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Many Mexican illegal immigrants are career criminals in the fields of rape, robbery and/or drug trafficking. So why would you act as though this is a magnified issue? The thousands of victims of their crimes will never be the same -- including that poor man who's 24 year old daughter died in his arms in California after she was shot in the head by an illegal Mexican immigrant who had been deported FIVE TIMES for violent crimes, yet was continually allowed to re-enter the USA. Try telling her father that his fears are "magnified."

Try telling any future American victims of terrorist attacks by the Muslims who are masquerading as refugees just to have a safe way of entering our country. A magnified threat? I don't think so.

I do believe, MoreCoffee, that your imagination is drifting in the wrong direction.

Highlander said:

Many Mexican illegal immigrants are career criminals in the fields of rape, robbery and/or drug trafficking. So why would you act as though this is a magnified issue? The thousands of victims of their crimes will never be the same -- including that poor man who's 24 year old daughter died in his arms in California after she was shot in the head by an illegal Mexican immigrant who had been deported FIVE TIMES for violent crimes, yet was continually allowed to re-enter the USA. Try telling her father that his fears are "magnified."

Try telling any future American victims of terrorist attacks by the Muslims who are masquerading as refugees just to have a safe way of entering our country. A magnified threat? I don't think so.

I do believe, MoreCoffee, that your imagination is drifting in the wrong direction.

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How many of the world's 1,000,000,000 or more Muslims do you think are terrorists?

MoreCoffee said:

USA people do an excellent job of mass shooting other USA people. The imported terrorists are far less effective.

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lol give them time to get acquainted with the life style .. and dont forget that a high percentage of refugees are ..just refugees .but they will convert many sadly .because sinful men make the illusion to themselves that you can reject god and live in a vacuum but it is not so -evil is always drawn in when God is pushed away ,

yes your driven by fear ,, its so obvious .how many die in the usa per day by "bullet" ? vs how many a year by terrorist ? the answer shows the terrorist threat to be so small that some one is fear mongering to seed war and so "cull" the populations ... - hmm conspiracy theory ?? not so much if you put the devil in the seat of the head conspirator ...-he comes to steal kill destroy .

bill1231 said:

The correct one is to vet them and then I would agree let them in, I do not agree however with the way they are doing it now, to many slip through the cracks and until they can get it right I say no

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So would you bar everyone coming in, or just young men with brown skin and beards? Why the particular animosity towards Muslims? Didn't a wise man once say we should love our enemies?

Why not bar everyone from Latin America, in case they are smuggling drugs? You can see the damage drugs do to society, over the last 15 years or so drugs have caused more harm to society than terrorists have. So maybe we should stop worrying about the Muslims and start worrying about the Colombians instead.

Of course terrorism triggers mass hysteria, and people clamoring for answers, for solutions, for Someone to Do Something.

And just in case anyone accuses me of ignoring things because they don't affect me, my brother was in Manhatten on 9-11 and I was on the London Underground on the days immediately before and after the 7-7 bombings. The only reason I wasn't in a tunnel when the bombs went off was because I overslept that morning. I still got on the Underground the following day to get to work.

bill1231 said:

So we should just ignore them because they may or may not do more damage. Rationalize it any way you wish but we should not be adding to our problems

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How does hysteria help solve any problems? If you really think that barring over a billion people for the actions of a few hundred is sensible you should turn yourself into jail now. After all, you're a man and it's well known that violent rape is overwhelmingly committed by men. So have yourself locked up, you know, so that women can walk the streets safe in the knowledge there's one less potential rapist out there.

tango said:

How many of the world's 1,000,000,000 or more Muslims do you think are terrorists?

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Are YOU claiming that you have that number?

Highlander said:

Are YOU claiming that you have that number?

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I'm not the one proposing restrictions on a billion people because of a few.

MoreCoffee said:

Are fear and ignorance driving our politics?

Political debate and political speeches appear to be driven by finding somebody or something to be afraid of and then magnifying it until it dominates people's thinking. Mexican "illegal immigrants", "refugees", "terrorism", "economic ruin", "higher taxes", "guns", and any number of other trumped up issues spoken of in terms of threat and remedy are the bread & butter of political discourse yet in the holy scriptures what do we see the Lord speaking about? Is the Kingdom of God where we truly have our citizenship and if so why do we worry when politicians say we ought to or run scared when experts tell us of fearful futures that they imagine will face us? Do you think they really know what is to come?

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I think there are a LOT of things that "drive politics." Not just in the USA - but everywhere, and not just now - but always.

Some of these are noble and good - some are rooted in lesser things. Politicians are often keen on the power of such things to drive votes. And sometimes, negatives can move such as much as (or even more than) positives. It's HUMAN nature (nothin' uniquely American about it, IMO).

And I doubt ANY politician or political party is immune from all things "lesser."



Sorry.


- Josiah




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MoreCoffee said:

[MENTION=13]Josiah[/MENTION], I am not a USA resident. The Original post in this thread is not USA centric.

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Which is EXACTLY why I stressed my comments are not exclusive to the USA.

tango said:

I'm not the one proposing restrictions on a billion people because of a few.

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As with so many, you are forgetting that he said it should be a TEMPORARY restriction until we have a way of knowing who the terrorists are among them. You are also forgetting that no foreign person has an automatic right to enter our country regardless of who they are.

Besides, I didn't realize you wanted to bring a BILLION more aliens into the USA?