US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1656

On February 19 2015 23:14 Velr wrote:



Sigh..

The Bible and all the other Holy Books were written AFTER big societies developed, to develop and hold together bigger societies you have to have certain rules which most probably will follow a very obvious moral code.
The basic rules for societies developed pretty similar among just about all cultures, sure there are diffrences but overall the baselines are very similar.

On February 20 2015 00:45 Nyxisto wrote:
By unique I was referring to the way how in Christian countries the idea of social security and community was combined with at least some degree of personal liberty. (by historical standards obviously). In almost any other region of the world you either had some kind of all encompassing theocracy or non religion at all but instead some kind of despotic ruler.

On February 20 2015 00:45 Nyxisto wrote:
By unique I was referring to the way in which Christian countries combined the idea of social security and community with at least some degree of personal liberty. (by historical standards obviously). In almost any other region of the world you either had some kind of all encompassing theocracy or non religion at all but instead some kind of despotic ruler.

On February 20 2015 00:22 Nyxisto wrote:


That's not true at all. Societies under different religions look vastly different. The idea of nation states in the Islamic world pretty much didn't exist until 150 years ago. Islam was politics and law, while the Christian churches although powerful always co-existed with the state and their rulers. The idea of secularism actually only makes sense because the distinction already always existed.

So it makes definitely sense to educate people about the fact that many of our Western values/culture are indeed uniquely Christian, but it should better happen in a serious way. Letting them recite bible passages and Reagan speeches sounds like something out of a satirical film.

WASHINGTON -- In a move that could alter the minimum wage debate and improve the image of the world's largest retailer, Walmart announced it will raise the baseline wage of its current store employees to $10 per hour, bringing pay hikes to an estimated 500,000 workers.

The company said in an announcement on Thursday that it would raise its wage floor to $9 in April, followed by a second boost to $10 by next February.

The decision follows similar moves by other major retailers such as Gap and IKEA, but the sheer size of Walmart sets the company apart. The Arkansas-based retailer is the largest private-sector employer in the U.S., with an estimated 1.4 million employees, and it is largely seen as a trend-setter in the retail industry.

On a quarterly earnings call aligned with the announcement, Doug McMillon, the company's CEO, said raising wages would be good for both employees and customers.

"Overall, these are strategic investments in our people to reignite the sense of ownership they have in our stores," McMillon said. "As a result, we firmly believe that our customers will benefit from a better store experience, which can drive higher sales and returns for our shareholders over time."

According to a Walmart spokesman, the new wage floors will apply to current employees. New hires next year will be earning at least $9, but will be bumped up to at least $10 per hour after roughly six months of training.

DALLAS — Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) accused Jeb Bush of hypocrisy after The Boston Globe reported the former Florida governor was a heavy marijuana smoker while at an elite prep school.

Bush opposed a Florida medical marijuana ballot initiative last year even though he partook liberally of the herb while in high school.

“You would think he’d have a little more understanding then,” Paul told The Hill while en route to a political event in Texas.
“He was even opposed to medical marijuana,” Paul said of Bush, a potential rival in the 2016 Republican presidential primary. “This is a guy who now admits he smoked marijuana but he wants to put people in jail who do.

“I think that’s the real hypocrisy, is that people on our side, which include a lot of people who made mistakes growing up, admit their mistakes but now still want to put people in jail for that,” he said.

“Had he been caught at Andover, he’d have never been governor, he’d probably never have a chance to run for the presidency,” he added.

Bush told The Globe in a recent interview about his four years at Phillips Academy in Andover, one of the nation’s most prestigious prep schools, “I drank and I smoked marijuana when I was at Andover,” explaining the behavior was “pretty common.”

The Globe cited a former classmate, Peter Tibbetts, who said he first smoked marijuana with Bush and also consumed cannabis, a concentration of the plant’s resin, in Bush’s dorm room.

Tibbetts recalled Bush cranking up Steppenwolf’s “Magic Carpet Ride” on the stereo while he and his classmates got stoned.

On February 20 2015 01:58 Stratos_speAr wrote:


Yes but there's a difference between teaching the influence of Christianity on our culture (which is absolutely everywhere) vs. teaching an in-depth course about Christianity.

On February 20 2015 00:51 puerk wrote:

But it still missplaced it as "christian". You know how it came about that europe had this seperation. Christianity was a foreign minority religion, slowly establishing itself in greek mediteranean colonies and rome. Places with a long standing foundation of rule of law and secular politics.

On February 20 2015 01:08 Velr wrote:
Not killing/stealing/pissing everyone in your own society off is probably the most important rule there is and i don't see how anyone could nail this on "christianity, or any religion, did it!"...
Even Apes and other Pack animals follow some of the 10 commandments... And i highly doubt they are christian...

On February 20 2015 02:25 GreenHorizons wrote:


Source

You know, I think if Paul spent the next 6 years distancing himself from both parties, he could win a 3 way election? I think he would get gobbled up by big money and wouldn't be half as good a president as he might be a candidate, but it's possible.

I'm interested to see what the RNC does about him on the debate stage.

Side note: + Show Spoiler +

On February 20 2015 03:21 oneofthem wrote:
i can see some reasonable presentation of both velr and nyxisto's points, but "humanist morality comes from christianity" is just bull.

On February 20 2015 03:21 oneofthem wrote:
i can see some reasonable presentation of both velr and nyxisto's points, but "humanist morality comes from christianity" is just bull.

MIAMI — Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s interest in running for U.S. Senate has encountered strong resistance from a traditional ally of her party: medical marijuana activists.

Because of her congressional votes and her criticisms of a Florida medical marijuana initiative last year, four political groups that advocate prescription cannabis and drug decriminalization vowed to campaign against the Florida representative if she were to seek a Senate seat in 2016.

“She’s voted repeatedly to send terminally ill patients to prison. And we’re certainly going to make sure Floridians know that — not to mince words,” said Bill Piper, national affairs director with the Washington-based Drug Policy Alliance, which has received funding from liberal luminaries such as George Soros.

"This issue is evolving very quickly, and hopefully she will evolve,” Piper said. “But if she doesn’t, you can expect medical marijuana patients and supporters to dog her on the campaign trail.”

Wasserman Schultz’s office declined to comment.

On February 20 2015 03:18 Yoav wrote:


Any half-decent world history curriculum had better touch on Christianity, Islam, Confucianism, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Zoroastrianism and at least some concepts in Animisms. Some ordering of most to least influential in the modern world is probably in order (the above is a rough cut), for length of time devoted, but generally, yes, all these things should be basically familiar to a high-school educated person. You have been failed by your education if you can't give a reasonable accounting of the ten commandments, five pillars, beatitudes, key analects, and so on. Of course Locke and the like are crucial too. But to try to understand Locke without understanding that he could not have come out of any other tradition is to miss the point.



Islam was a foreign minority religion that worked out in a remarkably different way.



This is a straw man. I'm not saying Christianity invented "morality." I'm saying our humanist morality comes from Christianity. The very root concepts of basing society on the individual and their choices, the notion of separation of church and state, the idea of charity given to the poor to make things more fair, basically the entire debate we have around state violence, the idea of the civil disobedient, the ideas of Romanticism and modern Pragmatism, indeed, modernism itself... all this has root in the tradition of Christianity. Hell, while we're keeping score, rationalist Atheism is basically a Christian development.

The point is that other cultures have had very different moralities. We inherited ours both directly from the Christian tradition, and the Enlightenment humanists (both secular and religious) who were a part of it.