Tony Perkins interview - 5--14-2012
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libertycitizen Wrote: Glen, I just read your post and found this. http://pjmedia.com/zombie/2012/05/11/the-lovitz-curve/
The laufer curve turned up the lovitz curve. He was all for raising taxes on the rich until....
Perkins is trying to perpetuate the Reaganite "Gospel of Prosperity" that turned Christianity up-side-down, claiming that wealth is a reward from God while the poor deserve to be poor because they are just "lazy."
Reagan preached that everyone must be "self-reliant" and "not dependent on government," and the "religious right" backed him up, claiming his partisan political ideology was "Christian-based" even though Jesus clearly rebuked the rich and blessed the poor.
As for Lovitz, he is sadly misguided and, frankly, flat wrong.
Most of the wealthiest few pay from 7 to 16.6 percent of their income in taxes, and many of the largest corporations pay nothing at all. And their "charity," being tax deductible, means they don't actually give anything away and the national revenue is reduced.
Meanwhile, while the rich keep getting incredibly richer, the working poor have to pay a larger percentage of their income in taxes than most wealthy people do, the middle class shrinks while the working poor population grows, and 15.5 million children in America live in poverty.
Read Poverty: America's Greatest Shame, and The American Economy.
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libertycitizen Wrote:
What is wrong with being "self-reliant" and "not dependent on government" ?
The problem with the poor is not fairness its opportunity. Fairness is a top down approach, opportunity is a bottom up approach. The problem today is the president we have. He needs to go.
Of course people should try to be self-reliant. Everybody knows that, and that's why Reagan was so effective in selling his corporate ideology, because it was sold as being both patriotic and religious.
The problem was and is that his ideology was a cunning strategy favorable to the wealthiest few and detrimental to everyone else.
You are correct that opportunity is a problem for the poor, if that's what you're saying. But if you think that fairness is not a problem for the poor, then I have to say that you need to learn about the real causes and the impact of poverty.
For example, if you read Poverty: America's Greatest Shame, you will see that the U.S. has the highest child poverty rate of any industrialized country in the world.
Even according to the grossly outdated federal poverty guidelines, there are 15.5 Million children in America living in poverty, and 97 percent of them live in families in which at least one adult is working full time! (Also read this Children's Defense Fund Report.)
Poverty: America's Greatest Shame reminds us that Jesus of Nazareth said: "As you do unto these, the least of our brethren, so you do unto me."
"Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; and when you see the naked, to cover them?" -- Isaiah 58:3-24
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Many of the poor GOT poor because they had too many children that they could not afford. This can be solved by birth control & abortion to be freely allowed to anyone who needs it.
But the right wing Republicans want to YELL about how birth control is evil & abortion is criminal, but THAT would solve the problem of POVERTY. People who did not have 7 kids to feed on a poverty income, could rise above their circumstances. And the children would be 100% better off, if their parents had enough money to feed & clothe & educate them all.
The world does NOT have a problem where we have a SHORTAGE of Population right now. It is TOTALLY the OPPOSITE. We are over-populated & overwhelmed with too many mouths to feed & not enough resources to go around. This is a GLOBAL CRISIS, not just in America.
God gave us free will & a brain to figure out and solve our problems. So when the time came of over-population, he gave us the brains to make condoms & pills & perform abortions.
In the past, God forgave Saul, a man who had killed numerous early Christians. He was an actual MURDERER. But God forgave him & made him a famous man. Now he's called St. Paul.
If God could forgive an extreme murderer of numerous innocent Christians, then don't you believe God can forgive you for using birth control, or aborting a tiny 2 inch fetus?
(God is not extremely sexist as a Judge).
Many right wingers try to pass themselves off as being beloved of God, doing all the most religious things & fighting abortion.
Exodus 21 tells us the TRUTH about Abortion
so we can WIN -- "THE WAR ON WOMEN" by GOP
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"But the right wing Republicans want to YELL about how birth control is evil & abortion is criminal, but THAT would solve the problem of POVERTY. People who did not have 7 kids to feed on a poverty income, could rise above their circumstances. And the children would be 100% better off, if their parents had enough money to feed & clothe & educate them all."
I'm afraid you have things kinda mixed up. the Republicans are saying abortion is murder.they aren't against birth control. The Catholic church doctrine says they don't believe in using birth control,and are against abortion this was an issue of religious freedom which when Obama started this war and then contrived it into a war on women.
"God gave us free will & a brain to figure out and solve our problems. So when the time came of over-population, he gave us the brains to make condoms & pills & perform abortions."
Really? do you really think God wants us to perform abortions?
"If God could forgive an extreme murderer of numerous innocent Christians, then don't you believe God can forgive you for using birth control, or aborting a tiny 2 inch fetus?
(God is not extremely sexist as a Judge)"
So we murder our children and say, Oh yes, God will forgive us? And when we see him what do we say to him? That our world is overpopulated and so we decided to murder our children? And after all it was just a "2 inch fetus"?
God chose Paul for some unknown reason. But Paul repented and stopped killing Christians and became a follower of Christ. He chose David and David murdered and did many bad things but he repented. That's the difference, God will forgive us if we repent and turn from our sinful ways.But to blatantly perform acts that we know is wrong and then think we will be forgiven is not the way it works. If this country stays on the course its on we will be judged.
Have you ever assisted in an abortion? Maybe if you do you will change your mind about it.
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If you read my latest post on HOW LADIES can WIN THE GOP's WAR AGAINST WOMEN -- you will see how I think on this issue. It is based on Exodus 21, in the Old Testament.
Men have never been pregnant & never will be in their whole life, so as far as I can see, their opinion is irrelevant. It is a women's issue ONLY & only they should decide on it.
We are not chasing men around & trying to force them to have ultrasounds, or going into weird sexual intrusions on them, if they decide to have a vasectomy. It is just SICK what GOP men in this country are trying to do, taking us back into the stone age.
IF you really believe that abortion is murder, that is just your opinion. You will notice we still have Freedom of Choice in this country. We do not need any one's approval. If you think it is a sin or a horrible crime, then let GOD be the JUDGE. He will do a fair job of it, having lots of experience.
Men go hunting every day, planning on how to shoot some innocent deer or rabbit. They can not feel compassion for the poor little animal, but act like they "have a right" to kill anything they please, just as a hobby, or for their own pleasure.
Or in WAR-time, men can invade, torture or kill any persons they happen to come across in a VietNam hut, or an Afghan village. Its not a big deal. Fortunes of War.
But if a little girl gets raped by her uncle & happens to get pregnant, she can't go get abortion to save her life or her reputation, because YOU may have a problem with that? An abortion SAVES the child's life who was raped. Did you ever think of that? SHE is an innocent victim in this situation, & must be saved from that horrible situation.
And many abortions are done because a woman already has too many children to afford, so are YOU going to say her other children have to starve because of YOUR own judgment?
Or if she is finding genetic defects in her children & is saving another child from being born with a horrible disfigurement or retardation. Is that in your value judgment a horrible crime?
Anyway, READ MY other article (today) about the War on Women, it tells Biblical ethics. And it may give you a new perspective.
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Veronica Wrote: Many of the poor GOT poor because they had too many children that they could not afford. This can be solved by birth control & abortion to be freely allowed to anyone who needs it.
But the right wing Republicans want to YELL about how birth control is evil & abortion is criminal, but THAT would solve the problem of POVERTY. People who did not have 7 kids to feed on a poverty income, could rise above their circumstances. And the children would be 100% better off, if their parents had enough money to feed & clothe & educate them all.
The world does NOT have a problem where we have a SHORTAGE of Population right now. It is TOTALLY the OPPOSITE. We are over-populated & overwhelmed with too many mouths to feed & not enough resources to go around. This is a GLOBAL CRISIS, not just in America.
God gave us free will & a brain to figure out and solve our problems. So when the time came of over-population, he gave us the brains to make condoms & pills & perform abortions.
In the past, God forgave Saul, a man who had killed numerous early Christians. He was an actual MURDERER. But God forgave him & made him a famous man. Now he's called St. Paul.
If God could forgive an extreme murderer of numerous innocent Christians, then don't you believe God can forgive you for using birth control, or aborting a tiny 2 inch fetus?
(God is not extremely sexist as a Judge).
Many right wingers try to pass themselves off as being beloved of God, doing all the most religious things & fighting abortion.
Exodus 21 tells us the TRUTH about Abortion
so we can WIN -- "THE WAR ON WOMEN" by GOP
Veronica,
There is much truth in what you say, but I have a slightly different view in some respects.
Some poor people are poor because they had too many children and they cannot afford to raise them properly, and having access to affordable birth control and planned parenthood options would be part of the solution.
The other part of the solution, however, would be living wage jobs, because as I mentioned in my previous comment, 97 percent of children in poverty live in households where at least one adult works full time. The problem is insufficient wages, doled out by those taking advantage of Reaganism.
If you read Poverty: America's Greatest Shame, you will find the following relevant information:
“According to the National Poverty Center (NPC) Policy Brief #28 of February 2012, several studies show a declining proportion of benefits go to the poor. Most entitlements go to the wealthy, and in fact, the misguided and heartless 1996 “Welfare Reform Act” ended the cash entitlement program in the U.S. for poor families with children.
Consequently, millions of American parents that are unemployed have virtually no cash income. They have to depend on food banks, soup lines, and the measly and hard to get food stamp allocation if they can qualify. The NPC expects that as a result of shrinking access to cash assistance and the increasingly poor economic climate, the number of households with children living in extreme poverty will increase as it has since 1996 and particularly since 2008. NPC estimates that about 20 percent of all households with children are living in extreme poverty.
Therefore, since the majority of poverty stricken households are supported by at least one adult working full time, the fact is that despite the deceptive right-wing Reaganite Republican claim that the problem is merely "laziness" and that the poor deserve their lot, the basic problem is insufficient, inadequate, unfair wages allowed by a political economic system that is grossly unfair and shamefully inequitable because it enables the wealthiest people to take advantage.
But, this situation was not created merely during the last 30 years, as most objective economists are saying. Since President Kennedy was assassinated, the wealth of the wealthiest one percent of Americans has increased by a factor of 700 percent in terms of total national wealth.
Furthermore, while CEOs of huge corporations were among that one percent who benefitted, those who benefitted most were the top executives in banks, lending institutions and others in the financial services industry. And the cruel irony is that when their greed, corruption and carelessness inevitably brought their industry to total failure, in 2008 and 2009 taxpayers were forced to bail them out.”
As for the poor “raising themselves up by their own bootstraps,” as Reaganites like to say, that is problematic now.
Back in the 1950s when I was a teenager, I paid $149 for a ten year old car. A gallon of gas cost 25 cents, as did a loaf of bread. An apartment was $70 per month. Anyone with a minimum wage job could actually afford a fairly decent living with adequate housing, food, transportation, health care, etc. They could even afford to go to community college and even state college, or training school and improve their knowledge, skills and income.
Today that is not possible. They system is rigged, and those who are in the working poor population find it extremely difficult if not impossible to improve their position.
Now, you are correct that overpopulation is a problem, but it is not true that there are not enough resources to go around. There are plenty enough resources to go around, especially if you further develop and include more alternative energy resources, and advance technology in the right direction (turn "swords into plowshares").
The problem is that the wealthiest few depend on militarism to protect and increase what they own, and the wealthiest few hoard or control most of the resources now. That's why there is not enough to go around.
The solution is to share and share alike, and use the common wealth for the common good.
As for women’s reproductive rights, I agree with you, and I agree with the author of an article on Planned Parenthood, which exposes the hypocrisy of the “religious right” and promotes women’s rights and women’s liberation.
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Veronica and LibertyCitizen,
It would be nice if you would tone down your rhetoric, because you will never come to a meeting of the minds be being nasty, dismissive and self-righteous.
That's the problem with partisan politics, including the partisan divisions and conflicts within the democratic progressive community.
The author of Planned Parenthood: The Conflict Over the Abortion Issue lays out a pretty good compromise, I think, addressing the issue.
The article begins as follows:
"In a perfect world, the outcome of a woman getting pregnant would be that a baby would be born and raised in a loving, caring, comfortable family. Surely everyone can agree on that.
Unfortunately, even though we can make the world a far better place than it is now, it is not perfect. Unwanted pregnancies do occur, and many children are born into this world either because their parents did not know how to prevent an unwanted pregnancy, or were unable to prevent it for some reason.
The main problem is, therefore, the lack of proper and comprehensive sex education, and the lack of safe, affordable, effective birth control methods.
A secondary problem is the inability to detect an unwanted pregnancy when it occurs, along with the inability or unwillingness to abort the pregnancy as soon as possible, so that, ideally, it is during the first trimester while the embryo is undeveloped and before it becomes a viable fetus.
To compound those problems, there is a raging conflict over the use of birth control and abortion, and that conflict has caused a lot of problems and even tragedies.
On one side of the conflict are Pro-Choice advocates, who feel that women should have the right to choose birth control and abortion services if wanted or needed. But they are opposed by a loud and aggressive minority of people, many of whom believe birth control is wrong, and all of whom believe that abortion is wrong and vehemently insist it should be illegal as it once was.
Those who are fighting against abortion in America claim they are fighting to 'ensure Christian values.' However, they simply ignore the will of the vast majority, and they simply ignore Article 6 and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Through successful political action and legislation, the Christian Right has forced public schools to teach a very counterproductive curriculum based on repression and abstinence, instead of providing children and youth with a practical, comprehensive sex education about human sexuality, birth control and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases.
In America, about 73 percent of the American people believe that all children can and should benefit from comprehensive sex education, and that if teens are sexually active they should have access to contraceptives. However, in spite of that, the Christian Right aggressively pushed and imposed political legislation, and they overruled the majority because they’ve had considerable influence over Congress, state legislatures, and local school boards, especially with regard to what our children are being taught (or not taught) about sex in school.
In 1996, as part of the 'welfare reform' program, Congress voted to spend $250 million over five years to develop an 'Abstinence Only' curriculum. Schools are bribed by being eligible for these funds only if they teach that: 1) sexual abstinence has psychological and health benefits; 2) Contraceptives are prone to failure and negative consequences; 3) Sexual activity outside marriage is abnormal and likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects; and 4) Out-of-wedlock child bearing is likely to harm the child, the parents, and society.
To make matters worse, during the last fourteen years, many schools have been distributing "standard guidelines" built around the abstinence-only curriculum. The trouble is, those "guidelines" were published by a right-wing partisan religious 'Christian' group, and their literature contains misinformation and thinly disguised puritanical propaganda throughout. It completely avoids teaching young people what they really should know about sex, and it goes so far as to claim that premarital or out-of-wedlock sex 'leads to suicide.'
All that is in violation of the U.S. Constitution, since its proponents clearly have a theocratic political agenda. And, besides that, it is a counter-productive, failed approach. Research studies have shown that the 'just say no' abstinence-only approach has had little impact on most young people’s behavior, and the impact it has had has been more negative than positive. Furthermore, by contrast, research studies have shown that the participants of more sensible comprehensive sex education programs actually benefitted from that education, because it delayed the onset of sexual activity, and then increased their use of contraceptives, reduced their number of sexual partners, and reduced teen pregnancy.
Therefore, to resolve this conflict, we need to be rational and realistic."
(Continued at Planned Parentood: The Conflict Over the Abortion Issue)
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Hello: Well, I am surprised somehow that you are a woman. Welcome aboard! I have had a few guys troll around lately & it puts me on edge when that happens. I believe all women have a right to their various decisions on this topic.
However, I doubt your story about assisting with an abortion against your will, since that just never could happen. Only professionals are allowed to perform abortions, & they do not kill the fetus. It is sucked out of the womb with a vacuum hose, it is very quick & the fetus never feels any pain. It is unable to feel much pain at that stage of development and it would only be for a few seconds anyway.
It is the size of a goldfish at the 3 month stage, BUT a goldfish is fully developed and can feel pain or move or see or swim, etc. The fetus is only a parasite on the womb, tied to the umbilical cord immersed in amniotic fluid.
So HOW did you see "them kill the fetus" and "it was a horrible sight." ?? When the fetus has been sucked out, it is not much left to see, it is a tiny blob of tissue. Not much different than when you blow your nose.
90% of abortions are done in the first 3 mos
(or trimester) when the fetus is only 2 inch
long. It cannot see, hear, feel, or vocalize.
It only has primitive reactions like some of the protozoa or microscopic creatures. It can react to touch, or sound, but that is only a reflex, not a conscious movement. We do not believe the same thing about what is or is not the ideal reaction to an unwanted pregnancy, but after all, we only have to make that decision if it happens to us. The rest of the time, everyone makes their own choices. WE ARE NOT TO JUDGE, we ALL HAVE THE FREEDOM OF CHOICE by the Constitution. It has been legal for abortion since 1973.
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Thank you so much, Veronica. That's so nice of you.
I find your debate interesting, because it's between two women with opposite views -- one who is obviously a proud member of the "religious right" and the other who is obviously a liberal progressive fighting very hard for women's reproductive rights and women's liberation.
My view is a bit more toward the middle, though leaning to the left toward individual rights and separation of church and state.
On one hand I fully understand why Roe v Wade established women's right to safe and affordable abortion. I understand that the law was enacted to stop so many deaths of women from botched illegal "back alley" abortions and "coat-hanger" abortions, and to help prevent child abuse and neglect. After all, when women have no choice but to give birth if they are pregnant even though they cannot afford to care for a child, it can cause many domestic problems and even trouble.
On the other hand, as the article I cited states, abortion should ideally be performed within the first trimester, before the fetus is viable, and later term abortions should not be performed unless it is necessary to save the mother's life.
To me that is a compromise, even though I realize that those on the "religious right" won't like it because they have been pushed into a radically right-wing position from which they may not budge, and some on the left may not budge either, and refuse any restrictions.
I think the folks who caused this conflict are the leaders of the "religious right," like Pat Robertson, who has made outrageous statements such as this:
"Planned Parenthood is teaching kids to fornicate, teaching people to have adultery, every kind of bestiality, homosexuality, lesbianism – everything that the Bible condemns." Pat Robertson on The 700 Club.
Such statements are blatantly inflammatory and simply deceptive, and they are un-Christian. They have caused this conflict to become so out of hand to the point of violence and even killing.
We have seen the bombing of medical clinics, and killing of clinic staff. We have seen hateful hypocrites in the streets holding signs saying "God hates fags." We have "gay-bashing," and even killing of gays. It is utterly despicable and shameful.
I find it very odd and hypocritical that Pat Robertson and his cohorts love to say that God caused A.I.D.S. to punish gays, and that God cause the 9/11 terrorist attack on America and Hurricane Katrina, etc., etc. to punish people they judge and condemn.
Why do I find that odd and hypocritical?
Because it never occurred to Robertson or any of the other bible-thumpers that God may have created more homosexuals to address the overpopulation problem. And God may have also created birth control pills, the morning after pill, and the medical equipment to perform abortions for the same reason.
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