Could the US become a theocracy ?

Lets break down the differing philosophies to an individual level.
Take this situation:
Your family lives in a small town. The voting block changes, as single factory workers move into the area. They vote to allow bars, liquor stores, ghambling, porn shops, and as an addition, drugs become rampant. You cannot afford to move.
I would be in favor of legislating morality with a block of like minded families. What would you do? BTW, your teenagers are getting more unruly because of the forbidden thrills available in town. They always listened to you, however, until this new temptation.

Ah, but is one moral when one has no other choice but to act in a certain way? And why stop with just moral choices lets expand it to nutritional choices as well.We would need to legislate nutrition in the same way we legislated morality because both sets of laws achieve the same end. With morality you'd want to avoid a social decay, right? Health is a big part of society as well. Physical unhealthiness would be part of social decay also. Both nutrition and moral laws help prevent social decay.Since you argue that lack of morals leads to decay in your small town, I argue that bad eating habits lead to decay as well. Health care cost rise and even those folks that are nutritional sound have to pay more. Some people won't even be able to afford health care at all because of the bad habits of others. Those that are unhealthy are infringing on health of others just like your small town immoral folks cause immorality in our teenagers! Thankful when both sets of laws get put into effect all your above mentioned get shut down along with any fast food restaurants, soft drink and snack food vending machines and any food that doesn't have acceptable nutritional value will be illegal. People will have to be more moral and healthy and as a result will be better for it.thanx
PM1K

OK, I see your point. All or nothing, and nothing is preferred when legislation of morality is concerned, right?I do not know if I agree or not. I respect the point made, however.It is in the root of the belief systems. Christians believe and feel that a Higher Authority, whom they are well acquainted with, naturally is mean't to guide them. They believe that it is not through our own efforts, but through the Trust in God that improved lives occur as we become conformed to His will.I see where this belief system opens the door for human interference. It happened in History with the absolutist Monarchs and Popes.Expect more changes in World Governments to continue. I think that the wealthy Republican conservatives are scared. They are scared of losing the power and economic influence that they have. They fear that if a government of the people with a hands off approach comes to power, they will be forced to let go of the money and pay more for basic services for the masses. If I was rich, I would be scared, too. I'm not, however. I say that National Health Care is a go!Christianity has been used by these conservatives as a tool to garner public opinion. True Christianity is not of this world. Jesus never sought a Theocratic kingdom.(On earth, anyway.)This message has been edited by Phatboy, 12-10-2004 02:03 PM

It's not really all or nada. It's just really hard to know how far to go when you're trying to control human "vices". Should we just regulate a certain vice or make it totally against the law? If you look at the historical example of Prohibition you know unforeseen effects pop up. After all just because supply becomes limited or vanishes, demand doesn't magically go away.The black market will grow and now you have to dedicate resources to stop it. The black market may respond as it did during Prohibition and violent organized crime starts to grow as well. What point in this snowball effect do you have to reach before the original moral problem wasn't as bad as the current solution?Sometimes small changes cause big effects.thanx
PM1K

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Your family lives in a small town. The voting block changes, as single factory workers move into the area. They vote to allow bars, liquor stores, ghambling, porn shops, and as an addition, drugs become rampant.

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I notice that you mention nothing about crime.If crime levels stay low, what's the problem?

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You cannot afford to move.
I would be in favor of legislating morality with a block of like minded families. What would you do?

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I would never want to dictate to someone else, by law, their morals.It is impossible anyway. People's morals are their own.If there was no increase in crime, I probably wouldn't do anything.

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BTW, your teenagers are getting more unruly because of the forbidden thrills available in town. They always listened to you, however, until this new temptation.

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If your teenagers run wild because of bars and gambling suddenly being around, then you did a terrible job of instilling your values into them.

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It's not really all or nada. It's just really hard to know how far to go when you're trying to control human "vices".

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As Jefferson said, and I paraphrase, "If it does not pick my pocket nor break my leg, there is no reason to oppose it."Drugs like heroin cause a great deal of harm. Many, perhaps most heroin addicts stop eating, become irresponsible and consumed with thinking about and getting their next hit. They become quite unproductive and slaves to their drug. Even if it is made legal this would still be true of those people.I think it is in the public interest to attempt to put limits upon such drugs, the same way it is in the public interest to keep 5 year olds from operating motor vehicles on the public roads.

Well as a Christian you have a perfect teaching oportunity. You can take your children downtown and show the drug addicts in the gutters clearly showing the wages of sin, or take them to a court session and watch the sinners receive their punishment and be hauled away. Then you can send them in to preach to those who so obviously need it. It's what Jesus would do.{spelling edit}This message has been edited by Flying Hawk, 12-11-2004 04:25 AM

I may be wrong about this but what you've just outlined seems to be a good parallel for how/why Prohibition was bought in back in the 1920s.And we all know how well that worked out...

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Confused ? You will be...

It worked just as well as the war on drugs nowadays.

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Hate world.Revenge soon!

I couldn't agree more.

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Confused ? You will be...

I hope that's just a joke. You can easily look back and see that you were the one that brought up smoking as something the Founding Father's would have agreed to restrict because there is scientific evidence that secondhand smoke is a danger. I just reminded you that I had already discredited your earlier claim of that.Your new citations are neither new, nor do they prove... or even suggest... what you are arguing. If you want to know why you are wrong, start a thread on them. But I am going to ask this up front... find your best evidence. That way I can deal with your best evidence and not have to keep addressing new cites in the future (unless they are brand new studies).By the way, I don't trust anything the EPA says unless I look directly at the study, including the data. I have very good reasons, and I would suggest you do this as well.And I stand by my statement that the founders of this country, even if the data were true, would err on the side of allowing people to run their businesses as they see fit. You can always choose not to go there or start your own business.The government should not be telling people how best to live their lives.This message has been edited by holmes, 12-11-2004 05:38 PM

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Agreed. The question is if the government is allowed to tell people how best to live their lives, whose version of good life are we going to officially follow?

I don't know if I agree with this statement at all. It seems to me the question of this thread is could the US come to a point where it is a theocracy and tell people that they must live a Xian life.I do not see us having to resort to asking whose version of life should the gov't be imposing.To me "the question" is if the gov't should be telling people how to lead their lives at all, and the resounding answer (if this is supposed to remain the US) is "no". With that answer, whose version are we going to follow is moot.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

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I would be in favor of legislating morality with a block of like minded families.

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If you have to legislate morality, then your morality does not exist or is a charade. You think the solution to all problems is preventing teenagers from learning about or observing non-likeminded individuals. What next? When people with a different skin color move into town you legislate their removal because they look different? Ban Asian food from the Asian community because it is different and their "values" might be different? If you cannot convince your children that your "like-mindedness" is the way to go, it is your failure...not the failure of the "single Factory" workers. People of faith seem to have very little faith in their faith....I guess that is why they are turning to more oppresive measures.

Actually, I do. People often try to rush to do something without considering what to do afterward. It may seem like a good idea to many people on this board to turn the US into a christian theocratic nation. You can give them all the reasons you have to go against this idea, but essentially I think the best way to make them see that it is not a good idea is to force them to think beyond the immediate implication: to enforce moral laws unto the general population.I see it like the Iraq situation. People tried to give all kinds of reasons why we shouldn't go into Iraq, but noone seemed to worry about what to do after the invasion. I really believe that more people would have supported a peaceful solution if it was brought to the public's attention the proper estimated lives and resources the post-invasion occupation would cost. What do you know, it's still a mess over there.It's sort of like "suppose we steal the cake... then what?"