ViaCrucis said:

Cute. But I'm actually being serious.

-CryptoLutheran

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I know you are. Its too bad you feel that way. If things keep going the way they are, we will have a better and stronger America than we've had in sometime.

As long as the economy does okay.

What an alarming case for Finland- this will show the future of the freedom of the church there.

Chesterton said:

A couple of posts ago I mentioned how it was wrong about the day of the month. When I pointed that out to it, it was insistent that it wasn't wrong, and tried to make an excuse for it. That is a bit troubling to me. But there have been other times when it has admitted when it's wrong.

I totally agree that it's being given human values. It doesn't understand them, but it will enforce them. It's very "politically correct".

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Depends on the Ai training values. Elon's Grok had some very UN-PC things to say!

Chesterton said:

I once asked Chat if it "reasoned". It said it did, I explained why it didn't. It wouldn't back down, claiming it reasoned, but just differently from me. It doesn't know what it's talking about. As you say, there's nobody home to reason.

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It 'wants' you to hit that like button!

Chesterton said:

I know you put it in quotation marks, but I thoroughly disagree that electronics can want anything. Wanting is a feature of the living, organic things God created. To want is to have will.

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Agreed. Hence the 'wants'. It has an artificially created agenda, even though it does not have an organic body with emotions and self-awareness. The podcast also had an episode with a philosopher who - I don't think was Christian - but also argued that self awareness required an organic body with primal emotive instincts honed by millions of years of evolution. (I have no problem with that as a Christian, being a Theistic Evolutionist.) I thought that was a fascinating discussion as well!

Bradskii said:

If there is a house full of people who are suspected of being ISIS with a cache of explosives there is an argument that deadly force might be justified in the first instance if the threat is imminent. I say 'might be justified' because if you're the guy giving the go ahead then you'd better be very sure indeed that you have all the facts because you will be questioned on your decision.

It is now obvious that if you consider that the house is suspected of being used by drug dealers then that same deadly force  should be used. Not might be used, or possibly be used. Should be used.

Again, that is the country in which you now wish to live.

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Forgive me, but what the heck are you talking about?we are not talking about a house with drug dealers. We are talking about boats specifically modified for the sole purpose of smuggling drugs across international waters, filled with cartel drug members, of which explodes like a party popper full of cocaine. Seriously, it is truly sad to see how far liberals will go to support, advocate, and defend narco-terrorists, international gangsters, and even local drug thugs solely because a person called 'Trump' said it needed to stop.Please stop defending these 'Scarface' narco thugs.This is a loosing battle that the majority of the American population supports Trump for. If you truly love democracy, then you should support Trump because American democracy says they are fed up with it.

DISTUISHING TWO TYPES OF TRUMP EFFECTS ON MIDDLE CLAS
1) Trump has cut programs for the middle class and the poor among us. He has also emasculated our health care, health, education and environmental agencies and policies, as well as R&D (especially in health issues).

2) Trump's tariffs hace made products more expensive through his tariffs, including those used by small businesses. They are also killing the farming sector
=====================
HOWEVER, TRUMP HAS NOT HURT THE MACRO ECON0MY
A) The stock market sets records each week. BTW, stocks are NOT only owned by the rich but also by the middle class.
B) You quote Amazon layoffs as if Amazon is hurting. AI is allowing them to shed workers. Amazon is doing fine. Amazon is forecast to need 600,000 new workers in the next 8 years. OF COURSE, almost all of these jobs will be filled by robots.
C) There is definitely a crisis among those "workers' who are untrained for the hundreds of thousands of jobs that WILL be available to humans. I put the word in quotations because so many youngsters feel entitled and really don't expect to have to work.
=================
MY BOTTOM LINE
We should distinguish between the effects on the Middle Class of Trump and the effects of automation and AI.

Fantine said:

Certainly I wouldn't compare it with stats from the Republican....well, I can't think of a civil term so I'll let you guess based on facts from real news.

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Facts wouldnt be from the Republican.... they are just facts. You don't want to compare. That would be a mistake. But if you really want to we can.

Akita Suggagaki said:

Does anyone here actually admire Trump? Would want their children to imitate him?

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Is Trump a perfect man? No he is a flawed human being like me and every other person on this forum. Yes I admire Trump and I am proud of it. He is a patriot to a greater degree than most politicians today and certainly more so than the majority of current liberal leadership. He probably is the most politically, and legally attacked president in the history of this nation . He has had attacks on his life, attacks by the press and a rouge legal system as well as on family members. Constant attacks by members of this forum continue. Yes I admire the man !

It's maskerovka, strategic deception to create a pretext to use military force against Venezuela (in another attempted "regime change"? That worked out so well last time the US tried it...), even though such aggression ordinarily would violate international law.

The current administration had a fair number of people electing him for his "anti-war" rhetoric, but in fact it seems like Trump has no serious intentions to restrain the use of violence in international relations. But considering that the president is a convicted felon, this kind of skulduggery should come as no surprise to anybody looking beneath the superficial spectacle.

rjs330 said:

If that is how it is supposed to work, then we would have laws governing that. We have laws, but the laws and court precedent say that what is being done is lawful.

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Which law and court precedent are you referring to?

Speaking to CNN Thursday, Democratic Representative Sara Jacobs said she was told in a Pentagon briefing “that they do not need to positively identify individuals on the vessel to do the strikes” and that was part of the reason why the administration has not sought to detain or prosecute the survivors of the strikes, “because they could not satisfy the evidentiary burden.”

Far simpler to kill them.

rjs330 said:

If Harris had been elected we certainly wouldnt have had a USA by then

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Cute. But I'm actually being serious.

-CryptoLutheran

This is Vincent, the lead singer of my favorite band, Awake At Last.

chevyontheriver said:

Do you know this guy is a 'barstool conservative'? Fill us in.

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"Barstool conservative" describes somebody whose political conservativism is rooted more in bigotry, disgust, and grievances, than actual principles, like respect for virtues like prudence, subisidiarity, etc.

SavedByGrace3 said:

No, it won't.

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They could try it, see what happens. Worth a shot, right?

SavedByGrace3 said:

"Trump could leave the White House and turn the Presidency over to Kamala." That would solve a lot of Democrats' problems. But obviously, he will not, nor should he.

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Dunno if that would solve everything, but it doesn't really matter. Even if he wanted to do something like that, it wouldn't be easy. JD Vance would have to resign first, then Trump would need to appoint Harris to replace him and then resign himself. Granted, the GOP did something like that once before, but I doubt they'll do it again.

SavedByGrace3 said:

Nor should the majority party cave to the minority party and allow them to add 1.5 trillion to the debt.

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Instead, the party not in power should cave and allow health care subsidies to end for millions of Americans who need them. Yup, that's the way these things usually go. Democrats have finally shown some backbone, something they haven't had much of recently.

SavedByGrace3 said:

The Dems are holding the nation hostage by knowingly and intentionally shutting down the gov with 13 consecutive no votes. This is their doing.

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And the GOP could end it if they'd be willing to negotiate on health care subsidies in good faith. But they aren't.

SavedByGrace3 said:

Elections have consequences. For the Republicans to abandon the voters who empowered them to run the government would be a betrayal of democracy.

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And so would the Democrats abandoning the Americans who rely on health care subsidies to be able to afford health care. Like the Republicans want to.

SavedByGrace3 said:

It is odd that the Democrats, who seem so jealous of "democracy," betray that process over and over again and want it to happen again here.

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Nothing the Democrats have done here violates the process of democracy. They're just not letting the Republicans end health care subsidies for Americans who need them, by using every legal tool they have available to them.

SavedByGrace3 said:

Do you want to run the show? Get some policies the voters can get behind, and then you might win some elections. Until then, let democracy rule. Open the gov. Vote yes on the CR and get back to business.

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Sure, let the Republicans get everything they want, and then, of course they'll negotiate on health care subsidies in good faith.



-- A2SG, is it rerun season again?

ThatRobGuy said:

He's definitely right wing, but I'm not seeing much (based on his actions) that would indicate that he's a libertarian.

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"Libertarian" seems to be used alot as a label by folks that are basically "barstool conservatives".

Even The Washington Post is blaming the Democratic Party for this shutdown and is calling for the Democrats to vote to end the shutdown.

This is a strange topic. I've previously said that my Presbyterian pastor predicted that "I think you'll be doing a cleaning job for a short time. You won't like it much, but I think the Lord will just want you to hear about a ghost." He added "I think you've seen this ghost before."

When he said that circa 1990/91, I thought it was over the top. I knew how accurate he was but even so - ghost? cleaning? seen it before?

But fast forward to 2006 I did a cleaning job for about four months (not long); didn't like it much and heard about a ghost. It appeared to be the soul of a manager who committed suicide in the store he was managing sometime in the 1960's, and I just happened to be cleaning the same store.

The young bloke who showed me the cleaning round was scared of it. He said he didn't like being there after 7pm. One night ALL the stock on one complete row of shelves jumped up and landed on the floor. He could also push a very heavy buffer around with one finger as something was pushing it with him.

Casting my mind back after this happened, I realised I'd seen this ghost before when my father and I were returning from a camping trip circa 1970. Mind you I'd never said anything to the pastor - he just "knew".

Early in my Christian life I spoke briefly with another Presbyterian minister who had a ministry with street kids. He said he'd seen too much of the demonic. But he also made a comment that "There's a very strange psychic world out there!" and that's stuck with me.

I think dabbling in that "strange world" is best left to the experts. As for not being judged straight away, I think they are and part of that judgment is that they may have to spend some time doing a part or all of their purgatory bound to one place, which I think was the case for the suicidal manager.

Other than that the experts can have it as far as I'm concerned.