If God made a mistake would he tell us?

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Ideally, it's vastly better. But the executive branch has slowly been gaining power for decades, and many find this cause for concern.

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I'm not sure I agree that the executive branch has been slowly gaining power for decades, although I'm no history expert.I do understand concern about the Patriot act and other such things. However, that is not the same as saying "we might as well have a monarchy, what's the difference?"The difference is, we don't have a monarchy, and the very concern we are talking about is that our government might turn into a monarchy, and that would be terrible, I agree.

My problem is that I really see no difference.What control do we really have over any legislation that
is passed?Our parliaments and senates are not dissimilar to the courts
of Kings and Queens and Emperors of the past. They do what they
feel is necessary, and few who seek power are much concerned
with the good of their fellow man. Those who are tend to get
nailed to trees or shot.Any autocrasy is not actually run by a single person, it is ruled
by a group that support a single person in all of their
decisions. These decisions are not made based upon the 'will
of the people'.If the president or prime minister says we shall spend 4billion
more on 'defence' this year, it's not a proposition put to the
electorate ... it's a statement of what has been decided. If a
leader wishes to pass a new law, all he needs is enough supporters
(this was still the case in monarchies of old if you didn't want
to end up in a bloody civil war).One should not confuse 'free societies' with 'democratic' ones.

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I'm not sure I agree that the executive branch has been slowly gaining power for decades, although I'm no history expert.

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How many undeclared wars have we fought in your lifetime? Used to be we couldn't send soldiers anywhere without a declaration from Congress. A series of resolutions have gradually increased the ability of the president to take unilateral military action. I had a whole military science class that spent a few days on the subject.

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However, that is not the same as saying "we might as well have a monarchy, what's the difference?"

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Quite true, I agree.

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the very concern we are talking about is that our government might turn into a monarchy, and that would be terrible, I agree.

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Yup.

Well, that's a better source than any I've got. People have so many political opinions, and who knows where they got them or whether there's any real basis to them. If your military science class studied it and determined that, at least in the power to declare war, the executive branch's power is growing, I'll buy that.Interesting.

Last OT post then I'll shut up...Hi TL: I just wanted to say I completely agree with Zephyr's comments concerning the rise of Executive branch warmaking capability at the expense of Congress. In spite of the War Powers Act (which was one attempt to address this), Congress has allowed (and the Executive has taken advantage of) the erosion of its "checks and balances" function in this area. Although not specifically addressing the issue, a fairly good (and relatively readable as these things go) book tracing the evolution of US military and strategic policy is Russell Frank Weigley's "The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy". You should be able to find it at a library if you're interested. I think it provides a very good background into how we got from a nation that had a real bad feeling about permanent standing armies to the "let's go beat up a random Third World country this week " currently in existence. Unfortunately, it doesn't cover events of the post-Cold War era (it's a tad dated), but does cover the post-WWII era (where most of the Congressional erosion has taken place) pretty well.Besides, it tickles my funny bone a bit to think what your fellow parishoners would say about one of their spokespeople reading a book on warfare...

The whole "rising power of the executive branch" interests me very little, but when you got to "I think it provides a very good background into how we got from a nation that had a real bad feeling about permanent standing armies...", then I was pretty interested. I'll go get that book.

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Besides, it tickles my funny bone a bit to think what your fellow parishoners would say about one of their spokespeople reading a book on warfare

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Ah, you have us confused with some other church or something. One of our favorite movies is The 13th Warrior. We don't watch a lot of movies, but that's one we like. We believe our warfare is supposed to be spiritual, not physical, but we love courage and valor, and if we can learn courageousness from those who fought bravely physically, then we will.Gandhi was totally against violence, but he said it was better to fight in a war than be a coward. We agree.If you smile at the idea about "Christians" (we don't like to be called Christians, but we do believe in Christ, so...) reading a book on war, then imagine us "Christians" chanting "Lo, there do I see my father, there do I see my mother, and my brothers and my sisters. Lo, there do I see the line of my ancestors, stretching back to the beginning, bidding me take my place among them in the halls of Valhalla, where the brave shall live forever."

But that's such a crappy movie! You probably like Lord of the Rings, though? (I know I did.)You'd really like the Seamus Heaney translation of Beowulf. I reccomend you pick it up. I found it lyrical, epic, and moving - generally translated epics bore me to tears.

Seems like God has a definetly a great sense of humor!!

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You probably like Lord of the Rings, though? (I know I did.)

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I've read the series five times, including twice out loud to my kids. So the drastic changes in The Two Towers were pretty rough for me to handle. Otherwise, yes, I liked the movie. I loved the books.The Seamus Heaney translation of Beowulf will have to wait, I think, until I hunt down that Godel book you also recommended. I'll probably have to order it from amazon.com, as our local (80 miles away) Barnes & Nobles didn't have it.

I too loved the books. Honestly, though, I think a lot of the changes in the movie so far have made it a better story. Fantasy literature was a nascent genre when Tolkien was writing (he more or less invented the genre, in fact); I think a lot of the changes for the movies represent positive developments in the genre that didn't exist at the time of writing.At this point I'll take the movies over the book. They take a lot less time to finish. (A nearly heretical thing for a book-lover to say, but...) Sorry to heap books onto your reading list. If it's anything like mine it stretches to the end of linear time... Well, happy hunting, anyway.

I made it through the changes in the Fellowship of the Ring. I could even understand someone thinking it made the story better.In The Two Towers, however, there were four major decision changes that I had to suck my breath in for. Two stand out in my memory. The ents deciding not to go to war at the entmoot was a complete turnaround from the book, and Fangorn's shock at seeing Saruman's activities seemed silly to me, especially when Merry had to trick him into looking at it. Worse, once he saw the destruction, Fangorn made a "hasty" decision without consulting the Entmoot.Then Theoden also decided to avoid war after he had the demon cast out of him (that's what it looked like, LOL, straight out of a Kenneth Copeland extravaganza). That was the opposite, too, but not quite as bad.Oh, and Faramir deciding to keep Frodo offended all my sensibilities. Faramir was possibly my favorite character, and I considered it a personal insult that they dared to tarnish his nobility and wisdom.There was one more, but I don't remember it. The elves showing up from Lothlorien was awesome, though, even though it wasn't in the book.Now look what you've done! Do you realize how off topic this is! I'm certain this is your fault.

Sorry about that. Why don't we move this to a new thread, probably in the coffeehouse forum?

My deepest apologies. I lept to a completely unwarranted conclusion. I did get the impression from previous posts that your group rejected violence (all the references to Ghandi), so perhaps I might be forgiven. OTOH, the more I hear about the "community" (using the term in its fullest sense) you have created, the more impressed I become - well, except for the spiritual bits , and even there you are wholly consistent. I hope you enjoy the book.Off topic: I concur with your comments inre "LOTR", especially about Faramir.

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I did get the impression from previous posts that your group rejected violence (all the references to Ghandi), so perhaps I might be forgiven.

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Totally warranted assumption on your part. No problem. I was confused why you had thought that.Gandhi's favorite Scripture was the Baghavah Gita, which is terribly violent, and which, I am told, refers historically to one of the most bloody battles of ancient history. He interpreted it all allegorically, of course, as he was opposed to violence.Really, we are, too, because we believe we're a spiritual kingdom, but only for that reason. Physical kingdoms fight physical wars, and spiritual kingdoms lay their lives down in the physical realm, or so we see it. But we try to learn from the brave, and Gandhi said he did, too.You threw me bad with the Ghandi spelling. I spelled it that way for months before someone corrected me, and when I saw you spell it with the h after the G, I got completely confused and couldn't remember which way was right. I had to go look on Google. It goes after the h.Thanks for the positive words, btw.

Actually I thought the elves turning up was bad!!!An event that was a milestone in human development in
middle earth (i.e. standing on their own two feet without
mystical aid) was tarnished by the helpful elvish folk.