Is Harry Reid Now Moving Toward Official Church Discipline?

[_beastie]

Good grief, it's way past time to put droopy on ignore.


.... whew, that's better.

[_Droopy]

Good grief, it's way past time to put droopy on ignore.


.... whew, that's better.

You are a fluke of the universe.

[_Chap]

You are a fluke of the universe.

Now if only Droopy could make all his posts as succinct as this, somebody other than himself might actually read them.

[_Kevin Graham]

Id sure love to know how labor can exist without capital first.

Sure. Let's say I'm trapped on a deserted island with nothing but the clothes I'm wearing. I have no capital. Through my own physical labor I build several shelters using the raw resources found on the island. I then craft tools to use for fishing and trapping. All of these things consitute wealth in every sense of the word and through time I begin to accumulate said wealth.

Now it is your turn.

Explain how capital can exist without labor.

It's kind of a chicken/egg thing, isn't it? You can't usually start a business without startup capital, you can't sustain a business without people to buy your product, and you can't create any goods or services without labor to do the work. So which one of the three legs of a stool is the most important? Obviously they are all equally necessary.

Yes they are all necessary at this point, but it should be obvious which came first. Obviously labor existed before wealth. Joey doesn't seem to understand this. And admiring Kiskumen's Mom is weird, just because she owns a business. As if employees were somehow less deserving of admiration? What makes business owners so special? They need labor just as much as laborers need employment. They are the Ying to his Yang. The difference being is that Joey and his brand of Capitalists love to take on this elitist role, pretending the whole world owes them a tremendous gratitude for "giving" people jobs. He approaches this with a really screwed up perspective and it is the kind of thing that turns so many people off from wealthy folks.

by the way, I'm a former business owner and come to think of it, a near future business owner. Most people who know me consider me quite wealthy, in case you get any ideas of accusing me of "wealth envy."

[_Droopy]

No, more like JST Matthew 7:1-2. Why are you defending an organization and philosophy that is dead set against the Gospel of Jesus Christ in almost every possible way? There is even a temple recommend question that directly precludes Democrats and anyone to the left of them (unless they lie or are impossibly ignorant).

I think that would be correct. If I am judging unrighteously, then the onus and opprobrium of so doing falls upon me.

So the question is, am I (and others like Ezra Benson, Spencer W. Kimball, Dallin Oaks, Boyd Packer etc.) judging unrighteously, across a plethora of issues, or not?

We are to judge, and must judge (discriminate, discern, inspect, scrutinize, categorize, make judgements, and come to conclusions on moral, ethical, social, cultural, and political questions and issues) as human beings and as Saints both to negotiate the mortal world rationally and prudently and as a matter of covenant responsibility, but are to judge righteously. So what does that mean? The oath and covenant of the priesthood requires me to "teach, preach, exhort, expound" and "raise a warning voice" to the world, in whatever circumstances I'm in, at all times, and in all places. I am to be a witness of Jesus Christ.

Well, all right. Let's do that then, but nobody said that was going to be the popular thing to do, or politically correct, or that we are always going to make nice when doing so. Sometimes sharp words are required. Sometimes ripping off a mask and pointing out the Satanic features lying underneath is required. So that's not going to make one many friends in "the world." So what?

Am I perfect in so doing? Hardly. Am I going to sit idly by while liberals, leftists, secularists, and wolves among the flock attempt a careful, sophisticated and incremental convergence between the Church and Babylon?

Nope.

I love it when people who want to be known as active LDS stalwarts have to plead, backpeddle and dance in order to ingnore the plain and simple teaching of Jesus Christ where he said not to judge and that we will be judged with that same judgement with which we judge.

No one's dancing but you to preserve the rationalizations for your unwillingness to obey and be faithful in living the gospel and upholding and defending the covenants you took upon yourself at baptism. Nowhere in the scriptures is there a blanket, absolutist maxim that tells human beings not to judge. This is squirming, out-of-context piffle. We are not to judge unrighteousnesly; we are not to judge out of impure motives or for malicious, personal reasons, but we are to judge (inspect, discern, discriminate, think, reflect, ponder, weigh, and conclude) as a matter of principle and judge well, for our own sake, as well as for the sake of others who may need to be told the truth about themselves to their face now and then.

Stop being such a sanctimonious pansy and twisting in the wind over your own apostasy from the gospel.

Clearly, its bothering you, at some level.

By the way you have denigrated John Dehlin in misrepresenting him and calling him a wolf in sheeps clothing. Be honest Droopy.

John Delin is an thoroughly apostate critic of the Church and a "ravening wolf" among the flock in every scriptural sense of the term. If you wish to whitewash and sanitize his behavior and philosophy, then you become his accomplice in this project to deracinate the Church of a number of its core principles and doctrines.

[_huckelberry]

. Let's say I'm trapped on a deserted island with nothing but the clothes I'm wearing. I have no capital. Through my own physical labor I build several shelters using the raw resources found on the island. I then craft tools to use for fishing and trapping. All of these things consitute wealth in every sense of the word and through time I begin to accumulate said wealth.

Now it is your turn.

Explain how capital can exist without labor.

I was wonder if this needed to be said. Probably so. Kevin has stated the situation clearly. I am duplicating it to help his comment not to be missed.

[Guest]

. Let's say I'm trapped on a deserted island with nothing but the clothes I'm wearing. I have no capital. Through my own physical labor I build several shelters using the raw resources found on the island. I then craft tools to use for fishing and trapping. All of these things consitute wealth in every sense of the word and through time I begin to accumulate said wealth.

Now it is your turn.

Explain how capital can exist without labor.

I was wonder if this needed to be said. Probably so. Kevin has stated the situation clearly. I am duplicating it to help his comment not to be missed.

I thought it was kind of a no-brainer, but Joey found it mysterious. Thank goodness Kevin was willing to spell out the nuts and bolts reality for him. Somehow I doubt it will do any good. The gospel of Corporate Libertinism is very seductive to some.

[Guest]

My OP mentions nothing about political differences.

Nor does my comment. This is what I said: "Let's note the underlying assumption of the OP: an elected official of the United States government should be subject to ecclesiastical discipline for taking political positions contrary to what church leaders think he should be doing in the scope of his office." You are proposing that Harry Reid should be ecclesiastically disciplined because church leaders would find his political actions to be sinful.

The OP makes no such "underlying assumption." That would imply a logical inference made from the propositions and/or arguments in the OP which the body of the claims in the OP cannot support. The OP clearly calls Reid out on what is clearly his grossly immoral, unethical, and un-Christian behavior, not on his political ideology.

His specific political ideology is irrelevant to what I said. You think that elected officials should be disciplined by the LDS Church for political maneuvering that you find to be sinful. However, in your specific case it would be based on party affiliation, since you think this standard should be applied only to Harry Reid's statements, not Mitt Romney's. And you have no evidence that Harry Reid is lying.

You claim that there is an "underlying assumption" in the OP about ecclesiastical discipline related to ideological matters is purely your own concoction, and purely a rhetorical device to create a psychological impression, while circumventing the logical structure of the text.

This is, yet again, a form of argument that works in the courtroom, but not in the real world.

You have approximately the same knowledge of what works in the courtroom as you have for piloting the space shuttle. However, I am glad to see that you feel this message board is "the real world." But I will say that you have some super-duper reading comprehension there, Droopy. I said "sinful," not "different than the Church's political opinion."

In fact, your rant about life not being a cabaret or a circus tent or whatever is all in the context of what public policies a person supports.

That has nothing to do with Reid's defamation of Romney in claiming him to be a felon, based on an unnamed source within Bain that, if true, would make that source a felon as well and Reid an accomplice in a conspiracy to slander and criminally implicate Romney.

And yet you did say it, and you are also begging the question about "defamation."

The meaning of what you are saying is that recognizing a person's freedom to make choices you do not agree with is the same as endorsing the choices they make with that freedom. In other words, people only have the right to act in accordance with your cherished beliefs and religious dogma.

I have some books on freshman logic and critical thinking, Darth, that you would do well to take a look at and take seriously.

Freshman? Oh, did you get that far?

My entire point is that Reid has, ostensibly, if he is found to be lying, involved himself in felonious character assassination involving private, confidential IRS data, data his source at Bain is going to have to explain as to how it fell into his hands. It has nothing to do with his politics, save to the degree that the utter moral corruption of the Democratic party (brought to maturity by the Clintons in the 90s and now ethically normative in that party) and the leftist political ideology to which he subscribes, which is thoroughly Nietzschean and relativist in nature regarding means and ends, has taken possession of him.

Oh, because someone who read what you wrote would see your entire point as alternatively alleging that Reid either committed a crime or a tort, either of which you would likewise be guilty of if your premise were correct.

Reid is clearly falling-down drunk with his own power and mindless partisanship, and his behavior here is simply the symptom.

I will concede that you know whereof you speak regarding mindless partisanship.

You are changing your assertion now. At the beginning of this thread, you claimed that Harry Reid's political speech may be criminal:

No I didn't. You're a liar.

Yes, you did.

"Reid has committed a serious crime if he is knowingly lying to slander Mitt Romney in public, as is the person at Bain, if such exists."

You're also apparently a witless dolt, so infatuated with what you apparently believe to be your brilliant rhetorical skills that you've given up your reading comprehension and critical thinking abilities as the price you've had to pay for their refinement in the grand trial lawyer tradition. You didn't notice that you've just proven my case for me, even as I type. The OP was about Reid lying, slandering, and implicating Romney in felonious acts, not Reid's political ideology.

You don't know a damned thing about the grand trial lawyer tradition, Droopy, but you also don't have enough self-awareness to realize that you are embarrassing yourself. I am sorry that you have such poor reading comprehension, but I said "sinful," not "different politics than the Church subscribes to." The partisanship is with you, not the hypothetical action by the Church. That is because you only want ecclesiastical discipline for Reid's alleged lies (which you still have not proven), but not for Romney misrepresenting what his political opponents have said.

Now you've decided that actually Harry Reid committed a tort. This is amusingly ironic, by the way. You have no evidence that Harry Reid's statements are false (because you don't have Mitt Romney's tax records).

There's not a shred of evidence or reason to believe that there is anything amiss in Romney's tax records, or ever were.

Check

Yes, there is. Reid being told that by an insider is evidence of that. Whether that evidence is persuasive is a different matter. But you are the one who is claiming defamation. That means you have the burden of proving that Reid's statements are false.

So if your assertions about the lawfulness of Harry Reid's statements were correct, then by your own standard Harry Reid could sue you for libel per se.

Reid can't sue me for my opinion about his claims (that they were lies).

You are making a statement of affirmative fact, not an opinion. You are saying that Reid actually defamed Romney. If your statement is simply an opinion as to a fact, then Reid's statement is likewise just an opinion about Romney paying taxes. Perhaps you could choose a standard and stick with it.

Romney could sue Reid for defamation based on Reid's claims that Romney actually committed certain criminal actions.

No, he can't. Not without proof of actual malice, which is not there. I already explained this.

Those are not opinions that Romney is a tax criminal, but empirical claims.

Stating that Reid is lying about Romney's tax records is also an empirical claim, because it rests on the proposition that Romney has lawfully paid taxes in each of the years in question. But you don't know that, nor do you have a way of knowing that unless Romney discloses his tax records. You have the burden of supporting your claim---a freshman-level textbook in logic ought to have told you that, had you read it. You have the burden of proving that Reid is lying, and the only way you can meet that burden is by showing Romney's tax records.

The irony of Droopy's OP is compounded because he is arguing that people should be able to go to court to quash political statements

Again, this logical shell game may work in the courtroom to line tort attorney's pockets and legislate through litigation,

Is that what Sean Hannity told you on the radio, or are you basing that on your extensive experience in the legal system?

but in the real marketplace of ideas, where philosophical rigor demands its due and is not curtailed and artificially restricted by rules of evidence or courtroom procedural protocols,

I'd like to hear more about the rules of evidence or courtroom procedural protocols. Tell me which of the Rules of Civil Procedure or Rules of Evidence you see me trying to employ in this thread.

Darth can't just brazenly lie like this in broad daylight about a clearly articulated OP that had nothing to do with Reid's politics and mentioned only his behavior, and turn it into a fantasy counter-charge that I want the Church to silence Reid because of his politics.

Reid's moral vacancy is the problem, as my OP makes clear, not his politics (although his extreme leftist politics doubtless do, very much, condition his ethical orientation).

Oh, I understand it now. You want me to apologize for your lack of reading comprehension. See, Droopy, what I said was that you want the Church to take adverse ecclesiastical action against Reid because his actions in the scope of being a senator are sinful. The substantive part of what you want the Church to do is disturbing because of your belief that the Church should interfere with the political process. The part that makes it partisan is not what you want the Church to do, but that you only want the Church to do it to the other side of the aisle.

that they don't like, rather than letting political speech stand or fall on its own in the proverbial public square.

Exactly what I want. Stop lying and playing your cute little rhetorical games. Its a self-parody of lawyerly sophistry taken to absurd lengths in an attempt to circumvent the actual argument and release as many red herrings into the water as possible.

I regret to inform you that your suggestion that Romney sue Reid for his political speech means exactly what I said.

That is certainly an odd position to take for someone who is so vehemently opposed to the procedure over substance and Socratic inquiry he facetiously imagines to be the rule in a courtroom. Hardly the position we would expect from a self-styled conservative.

As you've concocted this cartoon caricature of my position out of your own imagination - an imagination quite obviously as morally handicapped as Reid's - we can just move along...

I understand. Since your behavior is indistinguishable from a cartoon caricature of a right-wing religious fanatic with very poor critical thinking ability, whenever someone takes you at your word, they are concocting a cartoon caricature. Sort of a tautology, in your case.

But in what I'm sure is a surprising turn of events for readers of this board, Droopy's assertions are not correct. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that the Free Speech clause of the First Amendment protects even false, defamatory statements about public figures. For a public figure to prevail in a defamation case, it is not sufficient to show merely that the statements are false and defamatory per se (i.e., stating that someone has engaged in criminal conduct). The public figure must also show that the speaker acted with actual malice.

In Reid's case, that would doubtless be the least of the hurdles Romney would face in any legal action.

No, that would be pretty much it, and this putative lawsuit would result in summary judgment in Reid's favor.

[_Equality]

Obviously labor existed before wealth. Joey doesn't seem to understand this.

This. One would think that someone as enamored with free-market capitalism as joey claims to be would be at least rudimentally familiar with the writings of John Locke.

[_Equality]

Reid is clearly falling-down drunk with his own power and mindless partisanship, and his behavior here is simply the symptom.

I will concede that you know whereof you speak regarding mindless partisanship.

Here I thought you were going to say "I will concede that you know whereof you speak regarding falling down drunk." Kudos on taking the high road, Darth.