Good point!aspen said:The drive for personal ownership is the real root of all evil
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Good point!aspen said:The drive for personal ownership is the real root of all evil
Heretoeternity: Good post. Excellent points. History does not lie, though many who call themselves patriots would disagree.heretoeternity said:Chief Justice W O Douglas of the SCOTUS wrote a book in the early sixties "America Challenged"...in it he made a lot of comparisons between the Communist system and the capitalist system for reaching the third world nations. For example when dealing with these underdeveloped and poor nations the USA chose an arrogant approach..go there, make them speak and think "American"...take our Cadillacs, coke machines, steaks etc, and live our lifestyle, and let these poor people try and adopt our lifestyle..instead of bring them seeds to plant food crops we bring them fighter aircraft, guns and bombs..to fight whom? One particular quote he made was...these multi million dollar fighter aircraft are taking off beside mud huts where people are dying of starvation"...they need food not bombs..The communists on the otherhand learn the local language, eat the same food, plant crops and generally blend in with the population...
At this particular time daycares in America were non existent, and Americans and westerners mocked the USSR and China for their necessity for both parent to work, and put their babies/children in "daycares"...guess what? Within 15 years the western world was experiencing the same situation, and it has escalated ever since...so who actually won the "cold war"...Krushschev figured he could invade the USA and west because he figured they were weak and no resolve for war..but President Kennedy outsmarted Krushschev and diplomacy won out over war...but the Chinese are much more patient thant the Russians..their philosphy was to gradually take over the US and the west even if it takes a hundred years....guess what? That is exactly what is happening on all fronts, very quietly...the western countries including the US have adopted every plank in the Communist manifesto platform, and are in different stages of implementation..throw in some pages from the Nazi playbook, and this is what is now bringing the west down...but because of arrogance, ignorance and corruption the leaders do not see this, and are walking right into the Chinese trap....interesting times ahead!
I served in the USAF during "the war on drugs" though I got no closer to it than a radio receiver site in Southern California, changing frequencies for communications to AWACS aircraft. Reagan was president, his wife was telling America's youth to "just say no", and the CIA was financing black ops by supporting drug runners (which reportedly was going on at least as far back as the Vietnam war and using a civilian air force called Air America.)[email protected] said:What we are witness to in America is change on many fronts. Heretoeternity has referred to the cultural changes. These changes are divisive and destructive in that they tear down old processes, traditions and laws without replacing them with better ones. The increased use of drugs, for example, has become so insidious that entire urban areas are restricted from law enforcement. The "war on drugs" has been abandoned for another war we cannot win, the "war on terror".
Good points, especially about divine use of earthly power to execute judgment.Michael V Pardo said:I served in the USAF during "the war on drugs" though I got no closer to it than a radio receiver site in Southern California, changing frequencies for communications to AWACS aircraft. Reagan was president, his wife was telling America's youth to "just say no", and the CIA was financing black ops by supporting drug runners (which reportedly was going on at least as far back as the Vietnam war and using a civilian air force called Air America.)
I live in a suburban town in New Jersey and I've been told that there is a booming heroin trade going on in quiet little homes as close as a block or two from my own house, but is this really something new or are we just better informed than we were in the past. When I was a child, back in the sixties, there were already documentaries portraying the evils of drug abuse, and there would have been no point to such films if there weren't already a significant problem (I don't believe that WASP politicians were all that concerned about what was going on just in inner city ghettos.)
I'm already convinced that "the war on drugs" was really the war about who controls the trade and gets the profits rather than any attempt to stop drug abuse. (What does Afghanistan really have to offer the west other than the largest poppy fields in the world?)
In New Jersey we have a governor who boldly denounces the legalization of Marijuana for even medicinal purposes, but its well known that New Jersey has had a long standing problem with organized crime influence in politics (that was the reason for the creation of the State's grand jury system) and I can tell you anecdotally that the Mob has control of the market for that drug in the state, the drug is readily available to people who indulge in it, and the price is kept high by keeping the substance illegal. When legalization is completely formalized, there are already authorized growers, distributers, and a list of authorized doctors to prescribe it. Fortunes were made the same way with alcohol during prohibition, and some of our most prominent political families gained their fortune during those days and by such trade.
I work for a government agency which may be somewhat unique in its charter and jurisdiction, but I've been on the job long enough to see that management is far more concerned with appearances than with effectiveness, and in the end, its all about who gets the money (my employer is a metro area money cow and the tremendous revenues it generates, which are meant to stimulate the local economy, tend to stimulate only the economy of individuals that contribute campaign funds to local politics or are insiders in the local "good old boy" network. Even the building in which my shop is located, became the location by order of a state executive that held an interest in the property. These things are not unique to the Metro area, or even to this nation, but it wasn't the rest of the world that corrupted our nation. Corruption is inherent in the system of this world, the result of our fallen nature, but it hasn't been possible until the last few decades for people to see individuals "caught in the act " in the media or on U tube and similar venues for the dissemination of information.
There's no doubt that the Lord sovereignly placed our nation in a position of geo-political power, but He did as much for Babylon and it wasn't because the Babylonians were more righteous than the other nations. The sword exists for the sake of justice and God wields it as He wills, but the nation that rejects Him or refuses to acknowledge His sovereignty is one that is destined to fall and since God's justice is equitable, the fall of such a nation is usually as violent as the violence it has shown others. I'm inclined to believe that this will happen sooner rather than later and I'm grateful that I've aged beyond usefulness for military service since its relieved me of the necessity of taking sides in a conflict which God has stacked against us.
Worth repeating. It's time we stopped looking at propaganda (another little trick we learned from people we once derided and fought against!) and looked at the fact that people have been using intoxicants from the beginning of time.Michael V Pardo said:I'm already convinced that "the war on drugs" was really the war about who controls the trade and gets the profits rather than any attempt to stop drug abuse.
Drunkenness is indeed a sin... But there is no evidence in the Bible that God considers drinking, and feeling its effects, a sin. Drunkenness is a chronic condition, and it is also an altered mental state that certainly inhibits the Holy Spirit's work on our souls. Leviticus 10:9lforrest said:I believe it is a sin to get drunk or high. Not because of how it makes you act, but for what it does to the mind.
I'm unsure what it exactly does to the mind, but I assume it hinders the work of the Holy Spirit.
Having been saved out of a back ground that included alcohol and drug abuse I believe that I can tell you that intoxicants may make a person more susceptible to spiritual influences of a fallen nature. That's the reason that alcohol has long been referred to as "spirits." A fellow named Carlos Castaneda wrote a series of popular and supposedly non fiction books (back in the 1970s) about his experiences with a Yaqui Indian "brujo" (sorcerer) who used hallucinogens to make contact with "allies" (familiar spirits). This has been common practice among sorcerers throughout history, which is why the word translated as sorcery from the Greek is the root word for drug use also. Ancient sorcerer's used drugs for mystical experience and also sold potions for various purposes, including poisons for killing people, which probably has something to do with the death penalty we find under the law for sorcery. I've also heard the personal testimony of a former South American Brujo who received the gospel (on an episode of the radio show "focus on the family") who talked about the spirits that he had regular contact, about how they considered Jesus Christ an enemy, and about how they were migrating from South America to the United States for reasons unknown. Most people crave spiritual experience, but in their fallen state are at enmity with God, so the fallen ones have no problem giving them false hope or more commonly despair through the use of lies and fallen spiritual experience. Drug use is not a prerequisite for such experience, but does make the mind more susceptible. These things being said, a person who has committed their soul to Christ may still be attacked by such fallen spiritual entities (typically through blasphemies and casting doubt upon the person of the Lord) but Jesus' sheep can tell the difference between the voice of their master and that of another, and have that ultimate protection of the Spirit of God within them.lforrest said:I believe it is a sin to get drunk or high. Not because of how it makes you act, but for what it does to the mind.
I'm unsure what it exactly does to the mind, but I assume it hinders the work of the Holy Spirit.
In Romans 14, it is clear that all things we ingest are good, except to those who think it evil. If drinking or doing a drug causes you to revert back to days when you conjured spirits with sorcerers, then it would be a sin for you to do them. It would also be a sin for me to do those things in front of you if I know that it would cause you to revert back to a sinful past...Michael V Pardo said:...I believe that God created all things and called them good, so natural drug substances must have "good" uses, but our fallen natures like to run with sensuality and pleasant experience and so we maximize the affect by concentrating the natural substances into more harmful and potentially lethal substances, perverting the purpose for which God intended them.
How many innocent lives need to be snuffed out to constitute a war crime? The numbers you've quoted are a drop in the bucket as compared to legal abortions in the US alone. Its been 30 years since I served in the US military, but that was still 40 years after the end of WWII, and I still met other servicemen who were stationed for a while in Japan and celebrated December 7th, by slapping Japanese citizens at random (on Pearl Harbor day.) We all have different sensibilities with regard to right and wrong, especially at the national level.Andrey son of Lion said:6 and September 9 in Japan, the days of the memory of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki when the US destroyed about 200 thousand civilians and tens of thousands have died from radiation sickness.
All sensible people consider it a war crime of the US government.