The Fruits of Apostasy: Politcal Correctness

[_Droopy]

I said,


Loran takes the bait...

I've been laughing so hard about this for the past few minutes, I had to catch my breath before closing the trap on poor Loran. Tha gag is on you Droops, as usual, since the source for my information is none other than your mises.org website, which you quote more than any person on the web. But when I do it, you accuse me of regurgitating leftist mantra! ROFL!!!!

http://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=488

As you can see, I essentially cut and pasted portions from the article just to get a rise out of you, and to your credit, you didn't disappoint. You responded just as I expected. By making a complete ass of yourself, as usual.

Bravo Loran, bravo.

You won't understand, and cannot possibly understand, that the laugh is, unfortunately on you. You will not understand because you do not understand either conservatism or libertarianism, and you do not understand the intellectual differences and emphasis within them, and hence do not understand the intellectual differences between them. Nor do you understand political history. And sometimes, the Austrians and other libertarians don't either, which is why I am not a libertarian but a conservative libertarian who combines elements of both.

Spending did rise dramatically under Reagan, and Reagan himself long ago admitted that this was one major failure of his presidency. The reasons are clear for this, one being the utter control (save for one two year period in which the Republicans had a slight advantage in the House) the leftist Democrats held in the legislative branch during his presidency, and it is congress that spends money, not the President. Congress spent wildly in the eighties (similar, indeed to both the Bush and Obama years), and spent well beyond available tax revenues. Two thirds of this was on the welfare state, and some one quarter of federal spending, during those years, was spent on winning the Cold War, a necessary and critical initiative the bore fruit, and for which Reagan (and his close allies in this endeavor, Margarete Thacher, Pope John Paul, and Lech Walensia) will be remembered as one of the greatest benefactors of mankind in all history.

Indeed, the massive military buildup and modernization under Reagan, after a recklessly dangerous gutting of military capacity and competence under Carter, was one of the only actually constitutional activities the government undertook in those years, and still undertakes today, and this is where, if you had any understanding of the Austrian school at all, the libertarians have a sharp disagreement with conservatives - national security.

This is also one area where I part company with them, on the idea that free markets and contractual relations alone could reduce or eliminate the temptation to war and that national security measures in general, including both overseas interventions and activities like domestic intelligence work, are almost by definition greased slippery slopes leading headlong into dictatorship (a perception a number of libertarians share with the far left).

While I do agree with a portion of their analysis here (including core aspects of Mises ideas, and say, Hulsmann's analysis of the "welfare/warfare state" and its funding of war through fiat inflation, and with the idea that free, contractual economic relations across borders tend to diffuse and divest regional, ethnic, racial and potential ideological tensions through those contractual relations, which always include intermarriage and cultural interchange), I, with other conservatives, tend to see war as much more related to deeper human weaknesses, i.e. the unfettered will to power and desire to control, and as a result of fanatical ideology, then of the absence of free markets, which are only a symptom, not a cause of warlike states and warlike attitudes.

The problem is that countries like the Soviet Union, for only one example, had neither free markets nor a free society, and was a totalitarian dictatorship bent on world domination and the utter repression of their own people. Libertarian ideals of this kind (all would be peaceful if all engaged in free market economics and had constitutional republics as forms of government) that say "if only this were the case" are nice as idealistic dreams, but, like so many leftist ideals, remain floating in the clouds while, in the real world, real threats that, on occasion, must be met and confronted, at whatever price, are frequent in the normal course of human history and human nature.

There shouldn't have been a Hitler, and there shouldn't have been a Stalin, Khrushchev, or Brezhnev...but there were, and there are, the the fundamental purpose of the state is protection and guarantee of our rights and liberties from such as they.

I believe very strongly in free market economics, but I do not understand it as the overarching principle around which all human problems can be understood and alleviated.

The massive budget deficits under Reagan (which were, by the way, on their way down when he left office) were a combination of runaway Democratic congressional spending and the Reagan military buildup. Entitlement program spending rose dramatically under Reagan, but virtually no one would claim that this was due to Reagan's politics.

[_Droopy]

EDIT: Droopy claims this is a democrat deception and Reagan admitted the error. Oh yeah, when? Here he is on video chastising corporations for failing to "pay their fair share."

Its in With Reagan, by Edwin Meese, Reagan, an American Life, by Reagan himself, Exit with honor: the life and presidency of Ronald Reagan
by William E. Pemberton and in Reagan's presidential papers, among other sources.

Unread, unread, unread, unread, unread.

[_Droopy]

Keep in mind Jason, that Loran is merely reciting what taxes were prior to the Bush Tax cuts, and then leaps to the non sequitur that Obama wanted to return to these levels for all brackets.

Its not a non-sequiter because its not an argument, but fact. The legislation exists. Obama advocated a 921 billion dollar tax hike, to take effect on January 1, 2011. That was put off until 2013 by the Tax Relief Act of 2010.

In any case, Deficits are set to skyrocket as far as the eye can see, as Obama and the American Fabians aren't nearly through spending. If present trends continue, the federal deficit will balloon to 100% of GDP in less than ten years, and upwards of 344% by 2050. If Obamacare survives the courts, there is no possible way of paying for it (Obama is already prepared to raid Social Security as down payment) other than through economy crushing taxation, or rampant inflation.

Choose your poison.

This is a popular Right Wing lie that gets circulated in their propaganda machine. Obama has stated on numerous occasions that he wanted to actually reduce taxes for everyone except those making over 250k per year.

Obama quite clearly never meant, and never would, lower taxes on anybody. In other words, this is another of his consistent and bald deceptions. You see, Kevin, he hasn't as of yet, so what comes out of his silver tongued, teleprompter enslaved lips cannot be trusted as far as they can be heard.

So as usual, Loran's never to be, "largest tax increase in history" would be based on faulty predictions that are based on faulty assumptions that have been fed to him by those Liberal hacks working for Mises.org. (grin)

You haven't responded with a single piece of fact, evidence, or documentation to single thing I've argued thus far, and I know why. All we have is the same bandwidth chewing bloviation and posturing, all of which has no other point than to mask the rather obvious fact that you are running on intellectual fumes.

Having said that, the only reason this would constitute "one of the largest tax increases" is because Bush gave the wealthy "one of the largest tax cuts." But Obama didn't want to increase the lower brackets. Droopy is flat out lying about that.

Caught in another lie. Let's continue. The Bush tax cuts, in point of fact, leaned toward the job creating classes specifically for this reason, and no other (and it worked, empirically speaking). At the same time, following a longstanding patter since Reagan, after the Bush cuts, the "rich" ended by paying more taxes as a percentage of income than at any time before.

According to the CBO, the Bush tax cuts increased federal revenues by $206 billion in the first 9 months of 2003, and by $247 billion the year before.
The projected 2003 deficit was, in 2003, lowered by $100 billion.

In the two years before the Bush cuts, economic growth averaged 1%. After them the nation experienced three consecutive years of job growth at a rate of 4%, and saw the creation of 5.4 million new jobs. Unemployment didn't move from roughly 4.6% - its historic low mark.

Bush's economic record is surely checkered, but this was one significant success, but only a baby step in the right direction.

I don't expect any of this to penetrate, but at least the facts our out there, if they are desired.

Economists are essentially united - except for a fringe minority of Right Wingers - in that the Bush Tax cuts were the primary cause of our deficit, and any proposal to reduce the deficit must, by necessity, include an increase in taxes for the rich.

This is:

1. An argument from authority

2. False, as no empirical evidence exists to support this contention. True, a consensus exists among leftist, Keynesian economists, and they are the only economists paraded before the public by the mainstream media and given a soapbox to sell their long discredited ideology of state power.

3. Gross economic illiteracy, not to mention a display of one of the ugliest, most venomous and destructive class warfare mentalities I've ever run across.



A true gem.

[_zeezrom]

Would you say King Benjamin is leaning left or right, politically?

[_Droopy]

Would you say King Benjamin is leaning left or right, politically?

Hard to say, as I have no real idea of what political culture was like among the Nephites. At the very least, this was a pre-industrial, non-western (in the modern sense) culture with a very different set of problems and concerns (daily survival, for one).

Benjamin's doctrine, in general terms, is compatible with conservative understandings of charity, personal responsibility, and the moral grounding of a free, civil social order.

[_sock puppet]

If there was not such a predominance among active Mormons of conservative, Republican thinking, I might agree that it was a minor feature in the LDS Church. But that is not the case.

Again, I think you have a deep misunderstanding here. There is no "political correctness" within the Church.

Earlier in this thread you admitted the peer pressure exerted within the Church (but maintained it is less than I recall), now you are denying that peer pressure altogether?

Indeed, there is little resembling it outside the Left.

Oh, come now. In all political settings there is political correctness--peer pressure to tow the party line on issues. Your being disingenuously myopic to make that claim. I'll give you a Mulligan on this one. You can have that one back.

The overwhelming preponderance of conservative leaning in the Church is not indicative of a "political correctness" in the church (as the salient features of this phenomena are not present), but simply of the overwhelming coincidence of gospel principles with conservative ideas, broadly speaking. Leftism does not share such a coincidence with church doctrines and teachings.

Don't look now at Mormon history, but you have heard of the United Order, right? Or are you going to run for refuge on that one by claiming that JSJr was doing that just as a man, not as a prophet? His words in that regard do not give you room for that claim.

In many cases, it should also be pointed out, leftist concepts are sharply hostile to church teachings, and hence, in open conflict with the church, as with other Christians of a traditional mind.

Which ones?

It was you, in your OP, that suggested that when people free themselves of the LDS Church that they start thinking differently on politics as well as religion.

I made no such statement about "freeing" anyone from anything. I said "apostasy," and that is what I meant.

I am sure you did not think I was quoting you ver batim. Notice the lack of quotations in what I wrote?

So it was your premise that implicates the lock-step political thinking among active TBMs.

I never said or implied any "lockstep" thinking, only critical thinking that, grounded in gospel teachings, leads, overwhelmingly, to a conservative/libertarian view.

So the point of your OP is that when people are active TBMs they are critical, free thinkers, but when they leave Mormonism they blindly follow a leftist agenda? I'm not inclined to let you have two Mulligans in the same thread, but man, you need a second one at this point if you want to salvage any credibility.

Four years of high school Mormon seminary, 6 years at BYU-Provo, 2 years on a Mormon mission. As my mind was maturing and becoming ever more inquisitive, in these settings when the topic was LDS Church then independent thinking was discouraged.

I don't know what you mean by "independent thinking" here, but in any event, I was always taught to "study it out in my mind" for myself, and seek confirmation from the Spirit. I was always taught not to take the words of the Brethren blindly, simply because they were the Brethren.

And you were told that if you did not get the same answer that the correlated Brethren were telling you that you would get, you are told that you weren't trying hard enough, you weren't sincere enough and to keep at it until the "Spirit" told you that the correlated Brethren are right. Very critical thought process there, Droopy. Ask kindly and I'll give you a third Mulligan so you can clean this one up too.

I always find it interesting how so many who have left the church make claims for radically different experiences within the church than most Mormons I've ever known, including myself, have actually had in our own lives. Could this be a subjective reframing, or convenient reinterpretation of events on their part, post apostasy?

Isn't anything possible? Radically different than at least what you are writing here. Droopy, go ask your bishop if you can speak in Sacrament Meeting soon. Find any topic that you disagree with the correlated Manuals in the least. Focus your talk entirely on the difference you have. Then come back and report how that critical thinking goes over with your bishop--and the stake president.

I not only felt it personally in those venues, but I witnessed it time and time again. I've been deeply entrenched inside as well as now having the perspective of distance from Mormonism. On issues pertaining to religion and the church, the LDS experience is anti-critical thinking, particularly as contrasted with the encouragement of critical thinking on the topic of religion (and academic topics).

Well, I'll have to take that as your own personal, subjective perception on the matter, as my own experience has been radically the opposite. I'm sure Daniel would strongly disagree, as would all the scholars who work at the NMI and who have dedicated their lives to critical thinking, scholarship, and the life of the spirit, all at the same time.

How is it Nibley did not see what you describe as the high correlation between LDS theological positions and the conservative, Republican viewpoint? Was he that offbase? Was he apostate?

By the way, when you try an appeal to authority when debating someone, as you are here with me, it helps if your opponent recognizes the authority you are appealing to. I do not, so your attempt here falls flat.

I see the problem here as one of your attempting to project a strong subjective bias and perspective as an objective observation and analysis of LDS culture, which, unfortunately, just is not shared by large numbers of faithful LDS, who are very much interested in and respectful of critical thought.

CFR. I do not call for a reference very often, but please. Your credibility is beyond shaky, Droopy. It is riddled with holes, looking much like a sieve these days. So cite to us your reference for this statement. It will truly go a long ways with reestablishing your credibility.

Ironically, the Church itself has always laid intensive stress on education, the gaining of knowledge, wisdom, and intelligence through study, both formal and personal. Indeed, this has been heavily emphasized at least since Brigham Young, who was emphasized the importance of education and study with great lucidity.

This, however, should be no wonder, as the very plan of salvation is grounded on the concept. The glory of God, is intelligence. Our own scriptures implore the gaining of knowledge "by study and by faith."

I suspect sock, that your definitions here, both of just what critical thinking entails, as well as its core purpose and scope, are perhaps quite a bit different than most LDS.

Thank you for noticing. Perhaps the nicest compliment I received in a month.

There is indeed a sharp contrast between what I understand to be critical thinking and what most LDS understand that concept. Again, thank you. How perceptive and complimentary in one fell swoop.

I also suspect that your conceptualization of just what kind of knowledge or thinking is of most importance, as well as what subjects are of priority, may be substantially different than mine, most LDS, and most conservatives.

Why, thank you again. You are too kind, sir.

I also think it likely that your epistemic assumptions about just what constitutes legitimate knowledge, and how it is acquired, is severely divergent from most faithful LDS, regardless of educational level.

Now you've got me blushing, Droopy. Three compliments, one right after another in rapid fire succession. Thanks again.

Been there, done that, was suppressed when I would attempt to voice a view that wasn't harmonizing with the correlated company line.

Correlation is nothing more than insuring that the same lessons and doctrines are taught on Sunday, around the world, in all LDS churches, in all the manuals and teaching aids, and that the doctrine remains clear, undiluted, amd uncorrupted. That's what apostles and prophets are here for.

So apostles and prophets are there to make sure that everything is correlated, so that no one teaching a Mormon lesson might engage and use their own thinking, to share their own insights on the topics. I'll be. Why don't they just have someone from COB teach the lessons and pipe it to each meeting house using satellite technology? Wouldn't that be using modern technology to make sure that no one does any thinking on these topics for himself or herself?

Dr Shades pointed out the difference between Chapel Mormons and Internet Mormons.

And as I and others have been pointing out for years, this is a concocted fiction useful in anti-Mormon criticism and polemics that exists only within Shades's mind (besides being an example of gratuitous intellectual condescension of the classical leftist variety, from which sociopolitical realm Shades himself hails).

I've never understood the visceral Mormon reaction to Dr Shades' dichotomy. Here you are claiming that all Mormons don't think in lock-step fasion, alike, but then bristle at the difference that Dr Shades noted. You are much like Daniel Peterson, you do like to have it both ways when you debate someone.

For every 1 internet Mormon, how many Chapel Mormons are there?

Faithful LDS, whether or not they spend a great deal of time on the web, are all unified in gospel knowledge, faith, and testimony by the Holy Spirit, which is the the means by which the Saints know truth and know falsehood when it is seen, felt, and present to their minds..

Droopy, do you realize how many embriotic apostates are attending church meetings with you each week? Just take a look at your ward's attendance records from five years ago and see how many are no longer attending but yet live in the ward boundaries. Despite the unity you claim, there are people sitting next to you in church that are actually beginning to think for themselves.

Is Daniel Peterson a chapel or internet Mormon? What am I? What is Wade? What is John Gee? What is Michael Rhodes? What is NMI scholar x?.

This last one is easy. An NMI scholar is an oxymoron. As for the named individuals, discretion will keep me from taking swings at those home run pitches you made.

You see, this whole fiction breaks down immediately once it becomes obvious that a great many critically thinking, highly educated Mormons frequent the Internet on a regular basis.

I'll grant you that some are highly educated. Others bright autodidacts. But critical thinkers? Just take your little piece of bread and cup of water and try not to be so delusionall.

I left the Mormon Church before the internet came along, but there were about half a dozen per ward that were buying books like that of Fawn Brodie and reading them.

Until they found out that Brodie was a very unreliable and sloppy historian, I imagine. Is anybody still taking her seriously?.

Professional historians generally do.

The rest, it was all out of the manual and they did not make a comment about the scriptures unless it was in line with what the manual told them the scriptures meant.

The "manual." You mean statements and teachings of the Brethren, I assume, which is there purpose. The manuals per se do nothing more than clarify and support the doctrine of the Church, and all, yes, correlated to prevent happening what happened in the early church.

Preventing individual thinking is and has been for more than 150 years a core LDS objective.

All cultural institutions do have some influence on our thinking, but after leaving Mormonism and then looking back (in the rearview mirror) it has become obvious that the smothering influence of LDS when you are active TBM is many fold the combined influence of all the other institutions.

Again, millions of LDS haven't had that experience, which leads me to believe that what we are dealing with here are your own psychological dynamics and associated perceptions of the Church and its teachings, not an objective analytical criticism.

Really need that CFR, Droopy.

What you are calling "smothering," is, I deeply suspect, in the beholder's eye...yours.

Noting that more liberal thinking fits Kevin's thinking is not begging the question. It is noting an obvious example of how LDS influence was distorting an individual from finding out what his own personal political beliefs are.

Upon what basis can you claim that this is the obvious inference from Kevin's behavior? Another, equally plausible explanation is that his leftism, which, we should recall, was a very sudden lurch to the left from a staunch conservative position, represents a continued reaction and reorientation to his leaving of the Church

That's a conclusion you need to keep your 'faith' cocooned from questioning yourself, it is not based in fact.

an act that had a significant effect on his perceptions of the world because of a deep knowledge he had (and perhaps still does) that the Church is, indeed true, and that this reorientation must include, by extension, all other teachings or principles having resemblance, in any way, to the gospel teachings he has rejected..

That, Droopy, is called projecting onto another (here, Kevin) what you need and hope to be true, rather than anything close to being an objective observation.

In other words, his reaction (including a persona displaying a preponderance of deep hostility, angst, and intolerance of any views different than his own) was to move to the Left because it is on the Left that he can move away from the Church the farthest.


Now it gets interesting:

How do you know your not a god in embryo?

Because the idea is patently absurd.

Upon what basis?

Even GBH tried to deep six the notion, claiming not to understand it and that the LDS Church didn't teach that.

Nonsense. GBH made no mention of this idea. The answer he gave in that interview was about God the Father having a father, and so on back through the eternities, and of being a man in form just as humans are here on earth, and not about deification.

It's part and parcel to the same JSJr teachings, both being parts of the King Follett Sermon.

This has, in any case, all been put to rest years ago, and is not worth resurrecting for yet another horse beating.

Since TSM has not revived that notion, why do you cling to it as a TBM?

He doesn't have to. Its gospel doctrine, has been since it was introduced, and remains to today. Its at the very center of the entire plan of salvation as understood in the Church.

No, Droopy, the last word on the topic by an LDS prophet, you know, the men the Mormon god talks to, said that no one in the LDS Church understood that and he wasn't sure the LDS Church teaches that anymore. So if the issue has been settled, it is settled by the last words of your living prophets, receiving ongoing revelations from god. I.e., you're not going to be a god in the hereafter, Droopy.

I have many disparate thoughts about many different issues. My mind attempts to make sense of these disparate thoughts, but the more information I learn, the more I realize that the mind's attempt to make all information harmonize keeps one from really learning the different information.

Are you seeking after information, or after truth?

Accurate information is truth. Inaccurate information, like that contained in the Book of Mormon, is not truth.

You might say I take pains to create cognitive dissonance for myself. I find this yields greater light and knowledge than if I allow my mind to try to pigeonhole all new information within the confines a few simplistic notions. So no, I do not have what you call a 'philosophical core'.

This is all as I thought, and it rather makes sense in light of your overall approach to things.

I didn't know you thought so highly of me, Droopy. Four compliments in one post. That probably is a record for you, isn't Droopy?

Then you should like and feel quite at home with political correctness. It does for political thinking what Mormonism does for religious thinking: it stomps the individuality out of it.

Political correctness and the gospel are utterly polar. Again, you appear to be deeply confused about both pc and the principles of the restored gospel.

The methodology of political correctness and the LDS Church are what are in common.

[_bcspace]

A first tentative question then would be, why the Left? With so many other religions available, why is secularism so inviting, and why is Leftism so desired among all the possible choices (leftism, conservatism, libertarianism, and various forms of all these)?

Is there something about apostasy qua apostasy (not mere inactivity in the church, even over very long spans of time, but apostasy in its core aspect) that either generates or biases one toward leftist ideas, thinking, and psychology?

Since the LDS Church is the pinnacle of Christianity which is the pinnacle of all religions, the only place left to turn is Atheism which seeks to develop it's own set of morals, a poor and inadequate copy of the truth, to replace that which was lost by abandoning the Church. True, not all Atheists are liberals, but the bending is there; religion now being seen as the opiate of the state.

[_Kevin Graham]

You won't understand, and cannot possibly understand, that the laugh is, unfortunately on you.

Oh, but of course it is, Loran. Of course! You need nothing but mere assertion and like magic, it becomes true, right? Well, maybe you could get away with this over at MAD, but as I've said so many times before, you apologists are up against the stubborn fact that the primary audience at this forum consists of too many educated folks who know a hack when they see it.

You will not understand because you do not understand either conservatism or libertarianism, and you do not understand the intellectual differences and emphasis within them, and hence do not understand the intellectual differences between them.

Divert, bob, weave, rinse and repeat. Sigh, even if true Loran, this doesn't change the fact that you essentially accused me of regurgitating leftist mantra from Huffingtonpost, when in fact I was merely citing your own preferred authorities. And now here you are in an awkward position, trying to come out of this with your head still on your shoulders. Priceless.

Nor do you understand political history. And sometimes, the Austrians and other libertarians don't either, which is why I am not a libertarian but a conservative libertarian who combines elements of both.

Right Loran. Nobody understands the history except you and your "think tanks." But unfortunately, you've never been able to demonstrate superior knowledge of much of anything, and as I just showed, you weren't even knwoledgable enough about your favorite think tank to avoid falling down flat on your face in the trap I laid before you. Again, you did precisely as I expected. You're really that predictable.

Spending did rise dramatically under Reagan

Yes, that is what I have been saying, genius. And every time I said it all you ever did was accuse me of being an ignorant fool who relies on dailykos, and all sorts of web blogs I've never vistied before. Now you're forced to admit I was right, but you can't simply take teh hit and move on. No. You're the kinda guy who has to do everything in your power to come across as the voctor, no matter what teh situation. Hence, your hilaarious burst of rhetoric that ensues where you think you can avoid embarrassment by giving us a rant about irrelevant historical anecdotes. You seem to forget that the only person who loves to hear Loran bloviate, is Loran.

The reasons are clear for this, one being the utter control (save for one two year period in which the Republicans had a slight advantage in the House) the leftist Democrats held in the legislative branch during his presidency, and it is congress that spends money, not the President.

This is a popular fib that the Reaganpologists love to recant, but those who are familiar with actual history know better. So no, we shouldn't be surprised that you're quick to give in to the weak excuses handed to you by those silly campaign organizations you love to call "think tanks." Your claim is easily refuted by the fact that Reagan requested more money than Congress was willing to appropriate. Since we know you absolutely hate it when people draw you a picture, here you go:

http://zfacts.com/metaPage/lib/zFacts-R ... ngress.png

Simply put, based on the government printing office, the Reagan administration requested more than a half trillion in spending each year, and Congress failed to approriate those funds most of the time. For example, between 1984 and 1987 Reagan requested $40 billion more than Congress was willing to appropriate.

Congress spent wildly in the eighties (similar, indeed to both the Bush and Obama years), and spent well beyond available tax revenues.

Again, there is the myth, which you offer without backing anything you say, and then there is reality, which of course I have to provide every time with unbiased sources. Seriously Loran, you should have just taken the hit and moved on, but the more you keep trying to wriggle your way out of this, the deeper you fall into your own quicksand. You have no case, aand spreading lies about the past only makes you look more foolish than you already do.
Reagan was the first President in US history to request a half trillion in government spending every year he was in office, and that amount increased every year going over $600 billion in 1987. It broke $700 billion under George Bush in 1990 . Trying to blame this on Congress, is despicable, and to suggest the Congress was controlled by Democrats, is just another testament to your abject ignorance.

Two thirds of this was on the welfare state, and some one quarter of federal spending, during those years, was spent on winning the Cold War, a necessary and critical initiative the bore fruit, and for which Reagan (and his close allies in this endeavor, Margarete Thacher, Pope John Paul, and Lech Walensia) will be remembered as one of the greatest benefactors of mankind in all history.

Irrelevant. The fact is you cannot blame a non-existent "Democratic" Congress on something that was entirely Reagan's fault. Here, let me quote you something from the website Zfact.com, which you will naturally avoid like the plague simply because you're allergic to facts:

Contrary to Republican claims, "The Democratic Congress" did not bust Reagan's budgets. In fact, for the first six years, Congress was not Democratic, it was half and half, and the Republican Senate had just as much say, even though the budget bill starts in the House. On top of that, Reagan got the Southern Democrats to vote with him and so he controlled the House too.

Feeling stupid yet? Nevermind, I have to remind myself that I might as well be talking to a programmed robot. You refuse to admit being wrong at all costs, and whenever you go on one of your irrelevant long wided rants, it is the first sign that you're clearly up against the ropes. In the end, you back up nothing, and I substantiate everything I say with hard facts. You cannot reinvent history to save Reagan, but feel free to keep trying. It should be good for brief comic relief if nothing else.

[_Kevin Graham]

Since the LDS Church is the pinnacle of Christianity which is the pinnacle of all religions

I agree that if this were true, then this would be the best case for abandoning religion altogether and becoming an atheist. ;)

But of course, some of us hold out hope that the stupid beliefs of Mormonism don't necessarily mean all religions are inherently stupid.

[_Kevin Graham]

. The legislation exists. Obama advocated a 921 billion dollar tax hike, to take effect on January 1, 2011. That was put off until 2013 by the Tax Relief Act of 2010.

Wow, this is really embarrassing stuff by Loran. He really is little more than a tabloid apologist for the Right who can't even stay up to date. This fib was refuted by politifact way back in 2008: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter ... 00000-and-

EVen NationalReview admitted that the threshold was around 200k-250k with some speculation about 150k that was based on a Biden gaff. http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/17 ... byron-york

But according to Loran, Obama was going to increase taxes on everyone! He says the legislation for this "exists" so I guess he should be able to reference it, right?

Here is more from Oct 2008:

The Facts: Obama's tax plans, as stated on his Web site and as discussed by various analysts, would increase individual tax rates for the two highest tax brackets to pre-Bush administration levels of 36 percent and 39.6 percent. That would apply to families with income greater than $250,000 or singles with income greater than $200,000, affecting about 2 percent of taxpayers. That tax increase - or repeal of Bush tax cuts, depending upon one's perspective - would affect a portion of small businesses because many small business owners pay their taxes through personal income tax. The Bush tax cuts are scheduled to expire by 2011. Obama has said he would let them run out for people in the top two brackets, while giving new tax cuts to people making less.

But the number of small businesses and owners that would see a tax increase is hard to pin down because the term "small business" can be used to describe anything from an operation with hundreds of employees, to independent business people with no employees except themselves, to businesses that are little more than income-earning hobbies for their owners who also count income from other sources.

"Technically (the McCain assertion) is correct in that taxes would go up for certain categories of small businesses," said Gerald Prante, senior economist with the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan tax research group based in Washington. "But it really depends on how you define small business. It's like the very rich - it's only a small percentage of people but they have a lot of money. The same is true of the number of small businesses that would be affected by Obama's highest tax rates - it's a small percentage of the total number of small businesses in the United States."

Prante said the Tax Foundation estimates there are 36 million income-generating operations in the United States that can be classified as small businesses, using the foundation's "very generous" definition. Under current laws, the foundation calculates that small businesses pay $1.08 trillion in taxes annually. With Obama's plan, Prante said, the foundation estimates that "less than a few percent" of those small businesses would be above the $200,000 threshold and face a tax increase.

Obama's tax plan would leave the corporate tax rate at 35 percent and, according to Obama's Web site, taxes would remain the same or be reduced for families with less than $250,000 in income, whether that income came from a small business or wages or other sources.

The Verdict: Misleading. While Obama's plan would increase taxes for an undetermined number of small business owners who pay their taxes through personal income tax and whose incomes exceed $200,000, it would not establish across-the-board tax increases for all small businesses.

So let's see if Loran can provide the legislation. (raise your hand if you're holding your breath)