PizzaMan
it’s only because our government is so bloated that corporations are incentivized to do so.
Corporations are always incentivized to do so regardless of government size. If you’re a corporation and you have the power to get politicians to get a law passed, then the law gets passed even if the fed is tiny.
That’s the root of the problem you blame on corporations.
The root problem is lobbying (bribery) being legal. Without it we would be in a far better place.
Meanwhile, every leftist continues to push for a bigger and bigger government.
I think the issue of government size is more nuanced than that. There are things that republicans want that would make the government bigger, and there are things that democrats/leftists want that would make it smaller.
I’m not sure what the “world freedom index” is, but according to the 2023 Index of Economic Freedom, the US ranks 25 with the following advice:
There is definitely some regulation that needs to be abandoned, certain zoning laws immediately come to mind, but the largest reason why we have so little freedom here in comparison is because of government surveillance programs, corporate control, etc.
And ranking freedom solely on economic freedom is not a good methodology.
When I say “secularism”, I’m referring to the social trend of reduced church membership
I don’t want to make this a debate over definition, but that isn’t anywhere close to the definition of secularism:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secularism
and the growing trend of people to openly embrace atheism and agnosticism without a hint of shame. Every one of us is either with God or with Satan, and so by secularism I mean the trend of people abandoning God to embrace Satan.
Atheism and agnosticism is not something to be ashamed about. People should only believe things in which their is sufficient evidence for, and there is insufficient evidence for religion. And atheism is not an embrace of Satan, we atheists don’t believe in Satan either.
It has no basis in history, our culture, or reality, all of which are essentially Christian.
Christianity runs through every fiber of our being as a nation.
I’ll refer you to my other post that had quotes from the founding fathers explicitly stating that the U.S. was not founded as a christian nation.
…] that [all men] are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness
The delcaration of independence is not a legal document or part of american law. Only the constitution is the head of american law and it doesn’t say anything about a creator, chrisitianity, etc.
almost all of them include copious quotes from the Bible, which you probably don’t even recognize if you’re an atheist.
I’ve spent the better part of two decades debating with christians online in various forums, so I have read quite a lot of it at this point.
Definitions are so important!
Definitions are also defined by the way in which the majority of people use them. The word “yeet” was utter nonsense until enough people understood the word and its meaning to land itself a spot in dictionaries.
So I hesitate to argue over definitions, because there is an “objective” answer so to speak, and from what I can tell you seem to use completely different definitions from the norm. So I don’t see much point in talking about it.
That’s between you and God, not me. I just think you’ve intentionally decided to refute God, and thereby unknowingly invited Satan to guide your thoughts.
I hate to repeat myself but this goes pretty close along the lines of what I said in one of the other threads, and that is that beliefs as I understand them are not a choice. So it simply doesn’t make sense to say somebody has intentionally decided to refute god. Just as I cannot choose to become christian, you cannot choose to become muslim. We can choose what ideas we are exposed to and that can have an effect on us, but it is indirect at most.
But the problem is that good and evil are entirely real, and it’s absurd to pretend they’re not.
I know a lot of christians understand god to be good itself and satan to be the opposite, but that’s not really how I see it. Sure, good and evil exist but they are human concepts, human labels that we ascribe to actions. They aren’t literal entities that exist. I am not pretending good and evil don’t exist. They exist just as much as friendship does. It isn’t anything physical or some being, it’s a human label.
You’re denying the foundational tenets of Western Civilization
So be it. If there are problems with the foundation of western civilization then there ought to be changes to fix the problems. There used to be a time when western civilization permitted slavery (and technically still does), so why would I treat it as perfect?
You arrogantly pretending you’re somehow smarter than our ancestors who built this civilization with God’s blessing
Humans stand on the shoulders of our ancestors through our ability to transfer knowledge from one generation to the next. Couple that with our ability to analyze history and hind sight, and it’s very easy to discover flaws of the past. I am not saying or pretending I am smarter than previous generations because you don’t need to be to discover such flaws. To put it in an analogy, I play chess a lot and have a friend who is significantly smarter than me at it. He beats me basically every time. However, when he makes a mistake in the game I still have (on occasion) the ability to discover it, and very occasionally beat him. Yet I never say or pretend I am smarter than him.
you’re somehow smarter than God Almighty Himself.
I can’t say I am smarter than something I don’t believe exists.
But you can, and you do. When you deny God, you embrace Satan. There is no third option.
The third option is that these beings simply do not exist.
faith cannot be predicated on reasons at all
And therefore I want none of it.
So in the case of the US, that single document really does define our culture.
Too much has happened in our country for that to be true.
and it’s 247
Whoops! I should have paid slightly more attention to my google search result.
Out of curiosity, if it wouldn’t be invasive, which state are you in (or from, or most familiar with)?
I’d rather not say at the risk of doxing myself, but I’ll say I am from the north east coast.
Even the leader of the Neo Nazis voted for Biden.
There are more Neo Nazis groups in America than just one. And the particular one you mention was immediately disavowed by Biden.
When Trump was endorsed by the same guy, Trump said nothing until he was pressured to do so.
https://www.businessinsider.com/joe-biden-campaign-disavows-richard-spencer-endorsement-2020-8
The valid conclusion here is not the one you’re coming to.
not allowed to recognize things like this happening.
That’s not why posts like this get downvoted. It’s instead because these posts are complaints about things that republicans are most responsible for. It’s silly.
That, and people generally don’t agree with conservative politics.