Not A Member of the Country Club wrote:

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Here's a novel concept: When in Rome, do as the Romans do. As a white man, I don't move into the Watts area in California and start telling them what's what. The hubris of Liberals is that they want to move in and change things to fit their "wants" instead of realizing that they're in the minority.

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Your suggestion doesn't benefit Mississippi.  Instead of isolating ourselves we need our dogmas challenged so we can think, learn and grow.  I know, I know, if it wasn't for those outsides we would still have slavery and women wouldn't be voting, just like the good ole days.    

Angeline wrote:

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Wow, could there be any more succinct statement of the continuing presence of "white power" in Mississippi. Hello - Mississippi has one the highest proportional populations of African Americans in the country - not Watts - but definitely not the lily white Montana or Maine or North Dakota either. I guess nearly 40% of the population doesn't count down here though, huh?

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Who holds the real power in Mississippi -- whites or blacks?

Who holds the real power in Watts -- whites or blacks?

The answer to those two questions is why I referenced Watts.

As to who doesn't count: At USM, there is the misconception that there are as many liberals statewide as there are in the Hattiesburg area. In truth, Mississippi is overwhelmingly conservative -- both white and black -- even if it isn't reflected in the Republican/Democrat split. Blacks may vote Democrat, but most Black leaders have a hard time convincing most of the Black population that abortion, marginalization of religion, etc., are positives. In Mississippi, the divide is fiscal, not really social. The ones who don't count are the liberals who think every Democrat agrees with them on everything.

I vote Democrat sometimes, and sometimes I vote Republican, depending on the particular candidates. In almost every statement made on this board, there is the assumption that Blacks vote Democrat because they toe the party line. To the contrary, Blacks vote Democrat because Democrats appeal to their fiscal issues more than Democrats fail to appeal to their social issues.

William Pitt wrote:

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Thank the lord for conservatives. Liberals want to take from the productive members of society and give to the non-productive.

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William, don't forget the other memorized dogma of conservatives, "Big government is bad".  How they believe this while they increase the budget deficit is beyond my understanding.  But  religious conservatives do strange things with logic. 

LVN wrote:

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Joker, that's beneath you. Unfair and untrue.

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Sorry, I didn't mean to offend, LVN.  I forgot what "Not a member of the country club" implied about conforming to the beliefs of the majority. 

Joker wrote:

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William, don't forget the other memorized dogma of conservatives, "Big government is bad".  How they believe this while they increase the budget deficit is beyond my understanding.  But  religious conservatives do strange things with logic. 

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The budget deficit is growing because of decades of liberal entitlement programs, and if you think it is bad now, wait a few years.  Hear that sound?  It's the flapping wings of chickens coming home to roost. 

One reason there is no money left for universities it because much of it is being siphoned off to deal with the consequences of decades of wonderful liberal social policies.

LVN wrote:

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Joker, it was throwing in the word "religious" out of nowhere that got me. I think there's a big difference between being a political conservative and being a religious conservative. The two don't necessarily go together.

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LVN, from my experience most concervatives tie them together rather tightly.  Here is an example.

H.A.--Liberal whining only helps GOP

http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060612/OPINION03/606120326/1014/OPINION

"Most conservative Americans believe in God, and I am one of them. We long for the return of our once God-given right to public prayer and public display of the Ten Commandments, two things those sharing your ideology stripped from us.

We do not support the slaughter of the unborn. In addition, we believe that marriage, "Holy Matrimony," should be a union between man and woman.

Nevertheless, as the individuals you support vote along party lines, the righteousness of America becomes further diluted. This fact inspires most of us to avoid liberal/Democratic candidates."

Angeline wrote:

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Wow, could there be any more succinct statement of the continuing presence of "white power" in Mississippi. Hello - Mississippi has one the highest proportional populations of African Americans in the country - not Watts - but definitely not the lily white Montana or Maine or North Dakota either. I guess nearly 40% of the population doesn't count down here though, huh?

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Have you talked with many black Mississippians? Aside from the issue of social welfare & their (justifiable) concerns about differential administration of justice, the ones I know are socially conservative. Of course, I will qualify this by saying that most of the black folks I know are best classified as "country" & have the same sorts of fixations on beer, pickup trucks & deer hunting as their "redneck" counterparts.

God-given right to public prayer and public display of the Ten Commandments,

Did I blink and miss something? Was there an 11th commandment?

 thou shall not stop the right to public prayer and display of the previous 10.

or is there a missing jeffersonian addition to the declaration of independance or constitution supporting the amalgamation of Church and State?

Maybe it is something from the Gnostic Gospels?

blinked wrote:

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God-given right to public prayer and public display of the Ten Commandments, Did I blink and miss something? Was there an 11th commandment?  thou shall not stop the right to public prayer and display of the previous 10. or is there a missing jeffersonian addition to the declaration of independance or constitution supporting the amalgamation of Church and State? Maybe it is something from the Gnostic Gospels?

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How can anyone stop prayer?  Prayer is internal.  What is against the law is using state supported resources, like a school's P.A. system, to force everyone to listen to your personal prayers.

off the plantation wrote:

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That's what most of our big time religious conservative really are: an American Taliban, an American jihadi movement. Good idea.

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I am SO SICK of this particular statement. I just heard it recently from someone near and dear. You all must read the same people. I'll tell you what I told him. That's cr@p. To have a "Taliban" you have to have religious authority over people who have no tradition of individual freedom and individual thought.
It's an inflammatory, excessive, untrue, b@llsh@t statement.

Centralist, how were those laws changed? By public executions of violators? By people having their hands cut off? Were women with short skirts criticized, or were they assaulted and whipped in the streets? Or were these laws changed when the outlook of the public changed, in an orderly and non-violent manner?

When you draw extreme comparisons such as this, you diminish the horror of the original. If a REAL American Taliban ever cropped up, what will you call it, once you have worn out and watered down that phrase?

Besides, this has become a leftist catch-phrase, which gets tossed about a great deal. OTP or one of his friends has complained about conservative catch-phrases, or knee-jerk conservative responses -- sorry I can't dig up an exact quote -- but guess what? Their knees jerk too. (How about "culture of corruption"?)

BTW, I remember having to go outside the city limits of Memphis to buy teabags on a Sunday.

LVN wrote:

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off the plantation wrote: That's what most of our big time religious conservative really are: an American Taliban, an American jihadi movement. Good idea.

LVN : I am SO SICK of this particular statement. I just heard it recently from someone near and dear. You all must read the same people.

LVN:

Maybe we do: Pat Robertson for instance. I'd venture that PR could be designated the USA's leading protestant fundamentalist, right? If you take a peek at what kind of "Christian" jihadist stuff this guy is laying down--and it's all over the web--you'll see the same parallels your dear one and I have.

It's not hidden: Robertson and his ilk want nothing less than a "Christian" theocracy in the USA. They're working for it through the GOP. And the GOP and its corporate sponsors have figured out all sorts of clever ways to undercut and contravene those traditions of democracy and free thought you, and I, are so fond of. And dang it, LVN, your claim about those things being insurance against a theocratic takeover just won't bear even the most casual historical scrutiny. Iran--now the world's biggest, most conservative theocracy--was at one time the most westernized, secularized nation in western Asia.  Same for Afghanistan. These place were not liberal bourgeois democracies or anything, but the fundamentalists who took over were able to do so by stirring up resentment against encroaching western, modernist attitudes toward women, religion, gender roles and social mobility. 

Not all Christians are Robertson-like jihadists of course.  But the ones that are are trying to play the same game in the USA.

LVN wrote:

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... You have a fairly leftist definition of "center."

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LVN, what did I say that makes you think I'm left of center?  I just understand the reasons for their concern.  "Off the Plantation" now is left of center.  

off the plantation wrote:

That's what most of our big time religious conservative really are: an American Taliban, an American jihadi movement. Good idea.

LVN replied: I am SO SICK of this particular statement. I just heard it recently from someone near and dear. You all must read the same people.

off the planatation: Maybe we do: Pat Robertson for instance. I'd venture that PR could be designated the USA's leading protestant fundamentalist, right? If you take a peek at what kind of "Christian" jihadist stuff this guy is laying down--and it's all over the web--you'll see the same parallels your dear one and I have.

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Pat Robertson's agenda for an American theocracy, in his own words:

http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/7027/patrobertson.html

I wish the documentation on some of these examples were better, especially since the ones that are clearly seditious are the least well documented. But PR's been spewing this sort of thing on TV and in direct mailers for twenty plus years: sedition must be OK with the powers that be if it's a conservative Christian jihadi who being seditious.