all veterans stand up - this is NOT about religion, its about respect for others

[bull]

Or want to control what I see and read?

Interesting choice of words considering the topic. Sounds to me like an argument against what the ACLU has done to the cross in the desert by controlling what we can see through litigation. That or good example of hypocrisy.

Face it, John. The PC zealotry from the left is no better than the religious zealotry from the right.

[Mike DC]

  
Just to clarify my view -

I don't think the cross that's being questioned in this specific thread needs to be taken down.  They oughtta tell the ACLU to take a hike and leave the cross up unless a lot of actual veterans are complaining.  (Which is not bloody likely.)



I agree that the ACLU is usually just being vindictive towards all things conservative in most of these cases.  I was just pointing out that it's a little dangerous to argue that a Christian symbol is not capable of offending anyone just by definition.  
 

[John_Kunkel]

No one can sweep anything under the carpet with people like you pointing the finger.

And you can bloody well count on me and my ilk to keep those reminders coming.

So how is politically correct zealotry any better than religious zealotry? Sounds like revenge to me, and/or descrimination.

You keep using the terms PC and politically correct in your rants, this has nothing to do with PC it's about the law regarding the use of Federal land. Like most political offerings on YouTube, this one is stylized to fit the agenda of those who composed it; stylized to appeal to those with pseudo-patriotic/religious leanings.

Read the details of the lawsuit:

Facts of the Case:
In 1934, the Veterans of Foreign Wars built a wooden cross on top of Sunrise Rock in the Mojave National Preserve (Preserve) as a memorial to those who died in World War I. The original cross no longer exists, but has been rebuilt several times. Frank Buono, a former Preserve employee, filed suit in a California federal district court seeking to prevent the permanent display of the cross. The genesis of his suit occurred in 1999 when a request to build a Buddhist shrine in the Preserve, near the cross, was denied. He argued that the cross' display on federal property violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The district court agreed and the cross was covered.

While the case was pending, Congress designated Sunrise Rock a national memorial and barred its dismantling with the use of federal funds. One year later, by land swap, Congress made Sunrise Rock private property in exchange for another parcel of land. Mr. Buono moved to not only enforce the previous court order preventing the display of the cross, but also to prohibit the land swap. The district court granted both motions. The Secretary of the Interior appealed, arguing that the district court abused its discretion.

On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the district court did not abuse its discretion. The court reasoned that the government failed to show that the district court's fact findings or legal standards were clearly erroneous, nor did it show that the district court made an error in judgment.

Who's controlling what women can do with their bodies? If you're referring to the abortion issue I don't think a fetus is part of a woman's body

That's my point, you want to enforce your opinion on others.

[teamroth]

I thought about it over the weekend and even discussed it with my wife. Even though it doesn't mean anything to me, the main reason why symbols should not placed, it because one symbol is not all encompassing. I.E. what about the jews who served in the war? Hindu, or Buddhists? Really what it boils down to is someone making the bold statement of MY religion is better than YOURS.
Just some food for thought.



This part really sums up the whole thing.

(taken from Kunkel's post)
Read the details of the lawsuit:

Facts of the Case:
In 1934, the Veterans of Foreign Wars built a wooden cross on top of Sunrise Rock in the Mojave National Preserve (Preserve) as a memorial to those who died in World War I. The original cross no longer exists, but has been rebuilt several times. Frank Buono, a former Preserve employee, filed suit in a California federal district court seeking to prevent the permanent display of the cross. The genesis of his suit occurred in 1999 when a request to build a Buddhist shrine in the Preserve, near the cross, was denied. He argued that the cross' display on federal property violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The district court agreed and the cross was covered.

While the case was pending, Congress designated Sunrise Rock a national memorial and barred its dismantling with the use of federal funds. One year later, by land swap, Congress made Sunrise Rock private property in exchange for another parcel of land. Mr. Buono moved to not only enforce the previous court order preventing the display of the cross, but also to prohibit the land swap. The district court granted both motions. The Secretary of the Interior appealed, arguing that the district court abused its discretion.

On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the district court did not abuse its discretion. The court reasoned that the government failed to show that the district court's fact findings or legal standards were clearly erroneous, nor did it show that the district court made an error in judgment.

[bull]

You keep using the terms PC and politically correct in your rants, this has nothing to do with PC it's about the law regarding the use of Federal land. Like most political offerings on YouTube, this one is stylized to fit the agenda of those who composed it; stylized to appeal to those with pseudo-patriotic/religious leanings.

It is PC. If it weren't for that self-righteous movement we wouldn't be having this discussion. And the fact is the PC movement have adopted the same zealous techniques they so despise from the far right. So is your brand of zealotry better? I'm still waiting for an answer.

Who's controlling what women can do with their bodies? If you're referring to the abortion issue I don't think a fetus is part of a woman's body.

That's my point, you want to enforce your opinion on others.

What opinion? Is it part of their body or isn't it? If my opinion matches fact then it's not just an opinion is it?
Here's another opinion of mine: the Earth is round.

Nice sidestep on the Stalin comment BTW. Between he and those two other intellectually superior atheists, Hitler and Mao, there has been more "enforcement of opinion" than the worst religious zealot could ever dream of. Atheist attempts to control the will of people has generated more killings than all religious conflicts combined. One source attributes 70 million deaths to Mao alone. Add to that the 30 million deaths caused by Stalin and Hitler, and God only knows how many at the hands of Lenin, Khrushchev, Pol Pot, Castro, Jong-il, etc., and you've got a number that's probably higher than the all-time number of ACLU lawsuits.

[mauve66]

http://libertylegal.org/Img/2-23-09%20Mojave%20Desert%20Cross%20LLI.pdf

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20090522/veterans-appeal-to-americans-to-protect-mojave-desert-cross/index.html

after reading the background we now find out that the person raising this issue is a FORMER parks employee who never had a bad thing to say about the cross until after he was no longer employed by the parks service, and when the VFW who put the cross on the property when they owned it, (before they donated it to the government), tried to fix any semblence of church and state colusion, the court said no you can't fix it.  the government originally accepted the land with the memorial on it, they should of just let them give it back.  and the VFW was willing to give 5 acres in exchange for this 1 acre, but no, thats not good enough.  makes you wonder if this guy was fired for something and now he's just vindictive.  it didn't bother him when he worked there.

[0X01B8]

The ACLU takes on a lot of "conservative" cases.  Below is a link to some of them - there's a lot on the page.  They were on the same side as Jerry Fallwell in one of them.

ACLU Cases Defending Religious Freedom  -->  http://www.aclu.org/religion/govtfunding/26526res20060824.html

[nh_mopar_fan]

9th circuit.

This is the court that has had more decisions overturned than any other in the country. They're leftwist whackjobs.

Add another one to the list.

[nh_mopar_fan]

The ACLU is just totally whacked anymore. Anybody who sides with them on this particular topic is,IMHO, totally nuts.

So, I guess that means anybody who is against them doesn't accept that, along with freedom OF religion, there should be freedom FROM religion. Sashay around it all you want, the cross was ploaced there as a religious symbol, honoring the dead is secondary.

That's because it's fiction. You have no right to freedom FROM religion. It's not in the constitution. It's an invention.

[John_Kunkel]

It is PC.

Since the majority of the population claims to be spiritual, the "politically correct" thing to do would be to defend the cross.

If it weren't for that self-righteous movement we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Self-righteous? The self-righteousness comes from those who want to plaster every available surface with the symbol of their religion in a desperate attempt to build a stairway to heaven, not from those who oppose it.

What opinion? Is it part of their body or isn't it? If my opinion matches fact then it's not just an opinion is it?

The zygote, embryo, fetus is connected to the womb from the instant of impregnation and remains attached until snipped after birth. Therefore the woman has the choice to leave it there or not, just like a tumor.

Here's another opinion of mine: the Earth is round.

You're wrong about that, too, the Earth is an "oblate spheroid". And never forget, those who wrote the Bible thought the Earth was flat...they were wrong too so you're in good company.

Nice sidestep on the Stalin comment BTW. Between he and those two other intellectually superior athiests, Hitler and Mao, there has been more "enforcement of opinion" than the worst religious zealot could ever dream of.

Not a sidestep, simply ignored. Your thinking seems to be that you can excuse the atrocities commited in the name of Christianity by comparing to those commited by secular despots. It doesn't work, and shows your desperation....nobody is trying to preserve a secular symbol on a mountain.

[0X01B8]

Athiest attempts to control the will of people has generated more killings than all religious conflicts combined.

Seriously, where do you come up with this shit?

Donate to the ACLU!  Donate to the ACLU!   Donate to the ACLU!

[mauve66]

The ACLU is just totally whacked anymore. Anybody who sides with them on this particular topic is,IMHO, totally nuts.

Sashay around it all you want, the cross was ploaced there as a religious symbol, honoring the dead is secondary.

where do you get the idea that it was placed there as a religious symbol, and not one honoring the dead???

[bull]

Atheist attempts to control the will of people has generated more killings than all religious conflicts combined.

Seriously, where do you come up with this shit?

Books -- you should try reading some. But if you don't have any without cartoon pictures you can always Google the information. Here's some figures you can peruse:

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Mao
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Stalin
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Hitler

So what exactly is your problem with my information? The point of my previous post was to address JK's apparent claim that at least one of the main goals of religion is to enforce certain opinions on others. My rebuttal points out that if we assume that is true, religions have done a much less efficient job of it compared to atheists. I'm just providing stats for the "big three" but there are many more "lessor" regimes that have racked up some pretty substantial numbers. Add this information to the current "enforcement of opinion" by the PC and Green minions through coercion, litigation, legislation, etc., and the pious liberal love-fest baloney just doesn't fly.

BTW, if you want more base-level examples of the left enforcing its opinions on people you need to look no further than the California 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and the numerous left-leaning lawsuits that have been heard there over the decades. This court has the highest percentage of judges appointed by liberal presidents in the land. There are many examples of opinions being enforced from this court but one specific example is the injunctions in the 80s over logging (which cost thousands of people their jobs) due to the questionable status of the spotted owl.

[John_Kunkel]

where do you get the idea that it was placed there as a religious symbol, and not one honoring the dead??

The cross is a religious symbol placed there to honor the dead. You can have it both ways.

What do you think the purpose of the cross was in this instance? Couldn't you honor the dead just as well with a plaque?

[John_Kunkel]

Books -- you should try reading some. But if you don't have any without cartoon pictures you can always Google the information. Here's some figures you can peruse:
So what exactly is your problem with my information?

The problem with your information is that you're trying to excuse the atrocities of the church by comparing them to the atrocities commited by secular despots, like I said before it doesn't work.

The point of my previous post was to address JK's apparent claim that at least one of the main goals of religion is to enforce certain opinions on others

It's not a baseless claim, ask the Indians of South America that were killed, tortured, enslaved and forced to accept Catholicism by Conquistadors that did their work while being escorted by Catholic priests carrying crosses as a symbol of their religion. And don't ever forget the Inquisition and the Crusades...the list is endless. The fact that others have got bigger numbers is a moot point.

[bull]

Books -- you should try reading some. But if you don't have any without cartoon pictures you can always Google the information. Here's some figures you can peruse:
So what exactly is your problem with my information?

The problem with your information is that you're trying to excuse the atrocities of the church by comparing them to the atrocities commited by secular despots, like I said before it doesn't work.

The point of my previous post was to address JK's apparent claim that at least one of the main goals of religion is to enforce certain opinions on others

It's not a baseless claim, ask the Indians of South America that were killed, tortured, enslaved and forced to accept Catholicism by Conquistadors that did their work while being escorted by Catholic priests carrying crosses as a symbol of their religion. And don't ever forget the Inquisition and the Crusades...the list is endless. The fact that others have got bigger numbers is a moot point.

It's not a moot point if someone is going to be sitting on a high horse pointing fingers. My point from the beginning has been that those whose atrocities are as bad (and much worse) have no business squawking about the atrocities of others in regards to enforcing opinions on people. I've never said one word about excusing anyone, in fact I've made numerous comparisons between religious zealots and nonreligious zealots. There is no denial in my camp. However, it seems odd to me that you call it a moot point and then try to add-in the Inquisitions and the Crusades, which together account for less than half of the deaths caused by the #3 atheist killer, Hitler alone, and took place over hundreds of years. Both camps are guilty; the religious zealots are just far less efficient (or dare I say, more merciful?).

[0X01B8]

Atheist attempts to control the will of people has generated more killings than all religious conflicts combined.

Seriously, where do you come up with this shit?

Books -- you should try reading some. But if you don't have any without cartoon pictures you can always Google the information. Here's some figures you can peruse:

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Mao
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Stalin
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Hitler

So what exactly is your problem with my information? The point of my previous post was to address JK's apparent claim that at least one of the main goals of religion is to enforce certain opinions on others. My rebuttal points out that if we assume that is true, religions have done a much less efficient job of it compared to atheists. I'm just providing stats for the "big three" but there are many more "lessor" regimes that have racked up some pretty substantial numbers. Add this information to the current "enforcement of opinion" by the PC and Green minions through coercion, litigation, legislation, etc., and the pious liberal love-fest baloney just doesn't fly.

BTW, if you want more base-level examples of the left enforcing its opinions on people you need to look no further than the California 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and the numerous left-leaning lawsuits that have been heard there over the decades. This court has the highest percentage of judges appointed by liberal presidents in the land. There are many examples of opinions being enforced from this court but one specific example is the injunctions in the 80s over logging (which cost thousands of people their jobs) due to the questionable status of the spotted owl.

I see that you edited your original post, presumably, in an effort to address my question that you failed to answer in your first attempt.  The second attempt was better, but I'm presently on a rip, roaring meth bender in order to facilitate a deeper understanding of your claims, so my judgement may not be at its best.  Sorry, that wasn't nice.  I looked through your links, and they were pretty interesting, so thanks, but I could find neither a reference to Atheism, or any entertaining cartoon pictures, so I hit the "back" button on my Firefox.

My problem?  My problem is that you suggest that it's an Atheist conspiracy, and back it up with dubious examples.  Why is it so scary to people?  It's basically just like answering "none of the above" on a questionnaire.  Where do you come up with all this?  And no, I don't want links.  I mean that it sounds like you're just running through all the outrages of the paranoid, extreme right wingers, and only the right wingers get so angry about circuit courts, Atheists, and the ACLU.  Why the anger?  It's all very odd to me because Christians have about an 80-90% share of the belief system market, so I'd think they could be pretty happy with that, and they're going to Heaven anyway, so Earth is just like a rental car.  Is it too much to ask to just keep the religious stuff off the public property?

I'm not even going to touch the Hitler stuff, except to give you a nice link -->  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

[Back N Black]

 

[mauve66]

this is getting out of hand so maybe the mods should just lock it, again i put this here to notify all veterans, not create an argument on wether religion was good, right or indifferent, i could care less, that's YOUR personal choice,

the cross was put there by some veterans when it was VFW property, according to them they put it there to honor their fallen comrades, nobody said they were all Christians and its REALLY doubtful they were, they just chose this simple universal symbol of tragedy (remember, I'm not religious but i still know what a cross is) to honor EVERYONE they lost.

then later on the VFW donated the land to the US government who had no problem with the memorial for the last 54 years

later when this yahoo complained, after he was unemployed of course, the VFW offered to give the government 5 acres in exchange for the 1 acre the memorial is on and then this guy and his ACLU goons said no you can't do that.  How do they tell the government what property it can and cannot trade? again this is only in California of course

the VFW and the government tried to rectify the situation so BOTH sides would be happy but of course that isn't good enough, they want it their way and only their way

[bull]

.

Atheist attempts to control the will of people has generated more killings than all religious conflicts combined.

Seriously, where do you come up with this shit?

Books -- you should try reading some. But if you don't have any without cartoon pictures you can always Google the information. Here's some figures you can peruse:

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Mao
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Stalin
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Hitler

So what exactly is your problem with my information? The point of my previous post was to address JK's apparent claim that at least one of the main goals of religion is to enforce certain opinions on others. My rebuttal points out that if we assume that is true, religions have done a much less efficient job of it compared to atheists. I'm just providing stats for the "big three" but there are many more "lessor" regimes that have racked up some pretty substantial numbers. Add this information to the current "enforcement of opinion" by the PC and Green minions through coercion, litigation, legislation, etc., and the pious liberal love-fest baloney just doesn't fly.

BTW, if you want more base-level examples of the left enforcing its opinions on people you need to look no further than the California 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and the numerous left-leaning lawsuits that have been heard there over the decades. This court has the highest percentage of judges appointed by liberal presidents in the land. There are many examples of opinions being enforced from this court but one specific example is the injunctions in the 80s over logging (which cost thousands of people their jobs) due to the questionable status of the spotted owl.

I see that you edited your original post, presumably, in an effort to address my question that you failed to answer in your first attempt.  The second attempt was better, but I'm presently on a rip, roaring meth bender in order to facilitate a deeper understanding of your claims, so my judgement may not be at its best.  Sorry, that wasn't nice.  I looked through your links, and they were pretty interesting, so thanks, but I could find neither a reference to Atheism, or any entertaining cartoon pictures, so I hit the "back" button on my Firefox.

My problem?  My problem is that you suggest that it's an Atheist conspiracy, and back it up with dubious examples.  Why is it so scary to people?  It's basically just like answering "none of the above" on a questionnaire.  Where do you come up with all this?  And no, I don't want links.  I mean that it sounds like you're just running through all the outrages of the paranoid, extreme right wingers, and only the right wingers get so angry about circuit courts, Atheists, and the ACLU.  Why the anger?  It's all very odd to me because Christians have about an 80-90% share of the belief system market, so I'd think they could be pretty happy with that, and they're going to Heaven anyway, so Earth is just like a rental car.  Is it too much to ask to just keep the religious stuff off the public property?

I'm not even going to touch the Hitler stuff, except to give you a nice link -->  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

Interesting link. But I included Stalin and Mao and there's no rule regarding them. So if you want me to drop Hitler from the list I will since he got third place anyway.

As far as the rest of it, I don't suggest or think there's any conspiracy at all other than the fact there's a loose group of people with similar ideology and goals. I doubt that more than 15 people can effectively conspire to do anything for more than a few months. Again, the two things I'm trying to argue against are the misnomers that 1. religion is the main cause of most violence and death in the world and 2. that religion is an ideology that seeks to enforce opinions on people when it's quite obvious that so many atheist and/or communist regimes have done that very thing with more shocking results. I'm just stating facts, I'm not angry (not sure how you can read any emotion based on text anyway).

So, are you going to deny that A. Communism does not have atheism at it's core (because there's ample proof that it does) and B. that communism is not widely responsible for overt attempts to control the will of the people under it's reach, and willing to kill people en masse to accomplish that goal, and C. that the modern PC/Green movement in the US, Canada and Britian uses litigation, coercion and legislation to enforce its ideology on the population? If you can deny any of this you are not dealing in reality.

If religious people have to apologize for the Inquisitions, Salem Witch Trials, Crusades, etc., then atheists have to apologize for Stalin and Mao among dozens of others. Why do some people go on and on and on about religion-based killings and ignore the staggering atrocities carried out by atheists? Does being atheist mean never having to say you're sorry? I can see them wanting to shirk responsibility but to point the finger and any other group regarding what John calls "the enforcement of opinion" is pure insanity.

By the way, I edit a lot of things because I often think of better ways of saying it. Please don't make the mistake of thinking it's some sort of conspiracy. That and I used to be a newspaper reporter so I believe if you're not editing you're not doing your job as a communicator.

[1FastCharger]

Let me start by saying I am NOT a religious person, but I believe two major mistakes were made  by removing prayer and corpral punishment from schools.

[0X01B8]

Interesting link. But I included Stalin and Mao and there's no rule regarding them. So if you want me to drop Hitler from the list I will since he got third place anyway.

As far as the rest of it, I don't suggest or think there's any conspiracy at all other than the fact there's a loose group of people with similar ideology and goals. I doubt that more than 15 people can effectively conspire to do anything for more than a few months. Again, the two things I'm trying to argue against are the misnomers that 1. religion is the main cause of most violence and death in the world and 2. that religion is an ideology that seeks to enforce opinions on people when it's quite obvious that so many atheist and/or communist regimes have done that very thing with more shocking results. I'm just stating facts, I'm not angry (not sure how you can read any emotion based on text anyway).

So, are you going to deny that A. Communism does not have atheism at it's core (because there's ample proof that it does) and B. that communism is not widely responsible for overt attempts to control the will of the people under it's reach, and willing to kill people en masse to accomplish that goal, and C. that the modern PC/Green movement in the US, Canada and Britian uses litigation, coercion and legislation to enforce its ideology on the population? If you can deny any of this you are not dealing in reality.

If religious people have to apologize for the Inquisitions, Salem Witch Trials, Crusades, etc., then atheists have to apologize for Stalin and Mao among dozens of others. Why do some people go on and on and on about religion-based killings and ignore the staggering atrocities carried out by atheists? Does being atheist mean never having to say you're sorry? I can see them wanting to shirk responsibility but to point the finger and any other group regarding what John calls "the enforcement of opinion" is pure insanity.

By the way, I edit a lot of things because I often think of better ways of saying it. Please don't make the mistake of thinking it's some sort of conspiracy. That and I used to be a newspaper reporter so I believe if you're not editing you're not doing your job as a communicator.

mauve66- Lock the thread?  Why?  Refer to my ignored post about irony – page 2.

I guess we're onto Communism now.  Sigh.

A - my copy of the Communist Manifesto is in a box somewhere so I have to go find it!  (I really have one, it's from some college class.)
B – It's all about protecting the franchise, whether it's labeled as Communism, or Fascism, or even Capitalism.  Religion happens to be a great vehicle for that, given its built in biases towards the competition, and its passionate beliefs.
C – they all do it.

You talk about Atheism like it's a competing religion.  Like we all go to meetings or have membership cards in our wallets.  Like it's a belief system.  How can we enforce this ideology when we don't even have a Church system, or even a military?  We're not that clever.  I don't think Stalin or Mao, or even Hitler (yes, Hitler) gave a damn about Atheism.  Good, German Christians carried out all of his plans and did all his work just the same.  Stalin was more of a hard ass gangster and was hostile to the Church instead of using it to his advantage.  Think of what he could have accomplished if he was as good at marketing as the Nazis.  I don't know much about Mao, so no comment.  I'll give you Mao, so where does that put us on the scoreboard?   

People are okay for the most part, but when they gather in large groups is when I get weirded out, because that's when they start looking to eliminate those unlike themselves.  In any case, I don't think Atheism was a motivating principle behind the big 3's actions.  Hitler, Stalin, and Hussein all had mustaches so maybe that's worth looking into as well.

[Troy]

And this is right about the point where it degenerates to the "you're a poopy head" level...

Troy