Sheriff Dupnik's criticism of political 'vitriol' resonates with public

[estesbob]

I applaud you for your open admission of what you prefer. The question that remains I guess, is what does society as a whole prefer and how do we respond to guys like you?

The founding fathers were guys like me. They preferred a political system based on dissension and vigorous debate.

 

[Nordar]

Both of those are good posts.

As for last night’s “service”, I think that is the final nail on the casket of Obama’s presidency. He allowed what was supposed to be a solemn service to turn into a cheering rally. Who the heck gives speeches to cheering crowds at a memorial service? What an abomination.

I cannot believe I am about to praise Obama, last night’s cheering rally did not have much to do with him. There had been two people speaking before him who raised it to that level, Obama was stuck with it when he came on. I think he did good in trying to adjust to the mood of the room. The approval rating for his speach is pretty high from both the right and the left. I don’t think it will hurt him in his presidency, this was a positive thing he did.

 

[seekerz]

The founding fathers were guys like me. They preferred a political system based on dissension and vigorous debate.

You left out the divisive rhetoric part…pity, that was the part of your admission which really impressed me.

 

[terryobrien1980]

Both of those are good posts.

As for last night’s “service”, I think that is the final nail on the casket of Obama’s presidency. He allowed what was supposed to be a solemn service to turn into a cheering rally. Who the heck gives speeches to cheering crowds at a memorial service? What an abomination.

I cannot believe I am about to praise Obama, last night’s cheering rally did not have much to do with him. There had been two people speaking before him who raised it to that level, Obama was stuck with it when he came on. I think he did good in trying to adjust to the mood of the room. The approval rating for his speach is pretty high from both the right and the left. I don’t think it will hurt him in his presidency, this was a positive thing he did.

The speech was okay. But as they say, the devil is in the details: The boos for the Arizona governor, Obama shaking hands with Dupnik, and what’s with the heathen blessing at the beginning? Only a nut would allow some heathen blessing to start off a memorial for Christian people.

It was a farce in my opinion, his good words not withstanding

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

I cannot believe I am about to praise Obama, last night’s cheering rally did not have much to do with him. There had been two people speaking before him who raised it to that level, Obama was stuck with it when he came on. I think he did good in trying to adjust to the mood of the room. The approval rating for his speach is pretty high from both the right and the left. I don’t think it will hurt him in his presidency, this was a positive thing he did.

He worked well with what he was given to work with - college students who seemed dim to the solemnity of the event, and huge crowds as well.

I thought his speech done perfectly well. The high point to me was his fine and respectful description of each of those whose lives were lost, and that great moment when he said that Giffords was able to open her eyes.

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

The boos for the Arizona governor,

Which he had nothing to do with.

Obama shaking hands with Dupnik,

It was appropriate for him to do so. Dupnik is the chief law officer of Pima County.

Only a Democrat would allow some heathen blessing to start off a memorial for Christian people.

It was not “a memorial for Christian people.” Giffords is a Jew, and at no time did anyone of either party say that it was to be a “Christian” event.

He is the President of all of us, and last night, he proved that, regardless of the political positions of watchers…

 

[terryobrien1980]

It was a Liberal rally with a heathen blessing. In other wordfs, it was an abomination and a farce.

Can anyone imagine Ronald Reagan up there, yelling and rallying people at a memorial service? Obama is a Cretin of the first order.

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

It was a Liberal rally with a heathen blessing. In other wordfs, it was an abomination and a farce.

Read the text of his speech. There was nothing liberal about it. The President was at his most presidential last night.

]Can anyone imagine Ronald Reagan up there, yelling and rallying people at a memorial service?

President Obama at no point was yelling or rallying liberals. He was appropriately focused on the victims and survivors of the shooting.

Obama is a Cretin of the first order.

Remarks such as this one are forbidden by the Moderators.

 

[seekerz]

It was a Liberal rally with a heathen blessing. In other wordfs, it was an abomination and a farce.

Can anyone imagine Ronald Reagan up there, yelling and rallying people at a memorial service? Obama is a Cretin of the first order.

Excuse me, but your slip is showing…I watched the ceremony and there was no yelling by the president. As for the manner you use “C” word - that probably tell us all we need to know about you. Just FYI, cretin was originally used to describe people who were so severely mentally handicapped that they were deemed incapable of sinning; the literal translation of the word is Christlike.

 

[estesbob]

You left out the divisive rhetoric part…pity, that was the part of your admission which really impressed me.

One can learn a lot about divisive rheotric by reading your posts. not that I would want to have them censored. A vigorous, divisive debate is necessary for a healthy democracy.

 

[estesbob]

Excuse me, but your slip is showing…I watched the ceremony and there was no yelling by the president. As for the manner you use “C” word - that probably tell us all we need to know about you…

Kind of like those whining about Palins very legitimate use of the phrase “blood libel”

 

[qui_est_ce]

I cannot believe I am about to praise Obama, last night’s cheering rally did not have much to do with him. There had been two people speaking before him who raised it to that level, Obama was stuck with it when he came on. I think he did good in trying to adjust to the mood of the room. The approval rating for his speach is pretty high from both the right and the left. I don’t think it will hurt him in his presidency, this was a positive thing he did.

I agree.

I also liked the Native American blessing at the beginning. He called to a higher power, the Great Spirit, which I took as God.

Also, did you notice Obama and Michelle had their hands on their hearts and sang the National Anthem.

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

I agree.

I also liked the Native American blessing at the beginning. He called to a higher power, the Great Spirit, which I took as God.

Also, did you notice Obama and Michelle had their hands on their hearts and sang the National Anthem.

President Obama rose to the occasion and his sincerity, as was Michelle’s, most evident. There wasn’t any partisanship in his speech and it was one of his finest moments.

 

[qui_est_ce]

You left out the divisive rhetoric part…pity, that was the part of your admission which really impressed me.

Apparently only right-wing speech is divisive, yours never is.

 

[Ender]

President Obama rose to the occasion and his sincerity, as was Michelle’s, most evident. There wasn’t any partisanship in his speech and it was one of his finest moments.

I didn’t watch the event but if this claim is true then it would appear that Mark Penn (former Hillary Clinton campaign adviser) was prescient in his November comment on MSNBC that:

President Clinton reconnected with Oklahoma. And the President right now he seems removed. And it wasn’t until that speech that he really clicked with the American people. Obama needs a similar kind of, yeah.

Ender

 

[colmywaykurtz]

I agree.

I liked the Native American blessing at the beginning. He called to a higher power, the Great Spirit, which I took as God.:

Somewhere, in another thread, somebody denounced this as a “heathen” blessing.

I (and you too, I would surmise) take a more Chestertonian view of it. G.K. Chesterton once said “…polytheism often seems the combination of several monotheisms. A god will gain only a minor seat on Mount Olympus, when he had owned earth and heaven and all the stars while he lived in his own little valley…The very name of Pan suggests that he became a god of the wood when he had been a god of the world.”

In connection with this particular topic, I think “The Great Spirit” of Native Americans was (and is) the one true God, as much as He could be understood by the simple people of that pre-Christian time and pre-colonial place. And before Native Americans could crowd the New World, and form empires, and mix all their diverse gods and religions together and become true polytheists, Europeans put an end to the process forever, and inadvertently ensured that Native Americans never lost their faith in that one simple, elemental creator being.

Out of all the tragedy and bloodshed of the European colonial legacy, that is the one priceless benefit bequeathed to the world–an affirmation of the most ancient kind of faith in one God, preserved like a time-capsule down to the present day.

 

[qui_est_ce]

I didn’t watch the event but if this claim is true then it would appear that Mark Penn (former Hillary Clinton campaign adviser) was prescient in his November comment on MSNBC that:

President Clinton reconnected with Oklahoma. And the President right now he seems removed. And it wasn’t until that speech that he really clicked with the American people. Obama needs a similar kind of, yeah.

Ender

Absolutely.

I think Obama made his turnaround when he gave his speech after the November elections. He said not all Americans subscribed to the New York Times editorial page. Not sure what to think of the Rahm/Daley exchange.

 

[qui_est_ce]

Somewhere, in another thread, somebody denounced this as a “heathen” blessing.

I (and you too, I would surmise) take a more Chestertonian view of it. G.K. Chesterton once said “…polytheism often seems the combination of several monotheisms. A god will gain only a minor seat on Mount Olympus, when he had owned earth and heaven and all the stars while he lived in his own little valley…The very name of Pan suggests that he became a god of the wood when he had been a god of the world.”

In connection with this particular topic, I think “The Great Spirit” of Native Americans was (and is) the one true God, as much as He could be understood by the simple people of that pre-Christian time and pre-colonial place. And before Native Americans could crowd the New World, and form empires, and mix all their diverse gods and religions together and become true polytheists, Europeans put an end to the process forever, and inadvertently ensured that Native Americans never lost their faith in that one simple, elemental creator being.

Out of all the tragedy and bloodshed of the European colonial legacy, that is the one priceless benefit bequeathed to the world–an affirmation of the most ancient kind of faith in one God, preserved like a time-capsule down to the present day.

Not sure I’m that deep.

I think of St. Paul when he commented, I believe it was to the Corinthians, on the altar to an unknown god.

 

[colmywaykurtz]

Not sure I’m that deep.

I think of St. Paul when he commented, I believe it was to the Corinthians, on the altar to an unknown god.

Right! I just went around the barn to let the horse out, and you went straight to the door.

 

[Hastrman]

In connection with this particular topic, I think “The Great Spirit” of Native Americans was (and is) the one true God, as much as He could be understood by the simple people of that pre-Christian time and pre-colonial place. And before Native Americans could crowd the New World, and form empires, and mix all their diverse gods and religions together and become true polytheists, Europeans put an end to the process forever, and inadvertently ensured that Native Americans never lost their faith in that one simple, elemental creator being.

Out of all the tragedy and bloodshed of the European colonial legacy, that is the one priceless benefit bequeathed to the world–an affirmation of the most ancient kind of faith in one God, preserved like a time-capsule down to the present day.

One problem: doesn’t exist.

Okay, actually, the Ojibwa might have one, though “Great Spirit” (Gichi Manidoo) is probably just how the missionaries translated “God”. Wakan Tanka, the Sioux equivalent, means “Great Ineffable”, and has a lot more in common with the Platonic concept of the Realm of Form than anything we’d recognize as God (conceivably the Monad, the Form of the Good, might be in there somewhere, but…).

Out west? Nothing doing. The Hopi have no such thing; their cosmology is basically the Aztec religion, only exorcized (and not emanationist-pantheism). Their chief gods are the Sun (who’s about like Mars in pre-Hellenized Rome, or the light-god of Slavic myth) and Masauwu, the Skeleton, god of death and fire—and who, I kid you not, dragged himself out of the pit of fire where dead sinners are tormented. Nice guy, though. Other than that they worship a pantheon of weather gods, the Kachinas.

Navajos have a weird mix of their original Athabascan myths with something that might be Hopi gods, or possibly something older; their myths say their gods heard them approaching and came down out of abandoned temples to give them a law. Their religion has a high ethical tone—its philosophy is similar to Taoism—but the closest thing they’ve got to a creator-god is First Man, who’s also the First Witch (and witchery, to Navajos, means stuff like incest and necrophilia, done purely because they’re wrong; that’s where the power or “corpse poison” comes from).

I don’t know who that Yaqui guy was but apparently, the Yaqui religion is more or less dead—they’re almost all Catholic now. A lot of “Native American” religions are less than scrupulously accurate revivals, nowadays; think Wicca, or modern Druids.

You want a better priceless benefit bequeathed to the world by the European colonial legacy? We made the Native Americans give up slavery. And torturing captives to death.