>>>I'd want to see a good ratio of beneficial to negative. After all if a politician promoted 3 good bills and 50 bad ones, that's not much of a recommendation.
They problem is that most people don't put that much thought into their votes. The persons that the Reps and Dem round-up with vans and drag to the ballot box, or the persons that vote simply because "it's fun" or "it's my duty" will often respond to the question, "Who did you vote for, and why?" with:
- "I BELIEVE he's the best candidate." (i.e. No thinking involved) - "I didn't recognize the other guy's name, so I voted the name I knew." (And thus 95% of incumbents get re-elected.)
Instead of telling people, "Go vote - it's your duty," we should be saying, "Only vote if you took time to reach and understand all the candidates' issues. Otherwise, you may stay home."
And this is why I agree with Jefferson when he wrote, "To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps."
And - "This member of the Government was at first considered as the most harmless and helpless of all its organs. But it has proved that the power of declaring what the law is, ad libitum, by sapping and mining slyly and without alarm the foundations of the Constitution, can do what open force would not dare to attempt."
Let the States have the responsibility, since it was the States that created and ratified the Constitution, and therefore best understand what it means:
The "Protect the 9th and 10th Amendments" Act. ----- Proposed Amendment XXVIII. Section 1. After a Bill has become Law, if one-half of the State legislatures declare the Law to be "unconstitutional" it shall be null and void. It shall be as if the Law never existed. ----- SECTION 2. The Supreme Court will have the authority to review cases, and as part of the ruling declare these cases constitutional or unconstitutional, however the decision by the States (section 1) shall be superior. .
With our current system, you first have to wait until some government arrests you for a crime (for example: taking a photo of a memorial, or owning a gun in Washington DC). Then you have to file in court to defend yourself against this unconstitutional law. In most cases you'll lose, but if you're lucky it can rise to the level of the United States' government court who may or may not declare it unconstitutional.
That process took ~30 years to overturn D.C.'s unconstitutional banning of guns. With my proposed amendment, there'd be no need to wait. You (and your neighbors) could collectively instruct the State Legislature to declare the law "unconstitutional". Once 25 other legislatures have done the same, then the U.S. law would be voided.
My proposed amendment would simplify the process, shorten the time that an unconstitutional law sits on the books (2-3 years, not 30), and most-importantly, not require citizens to sit in jail or waste time in the courtroom.
Yes George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Patrick Henry, and so on..... If it were not for them, we'd still be speaking British in the States. - If it were not for OTHER people like them, Eastern Europe would still be communist instead of free, France would still be a monarchy, and Britain would not have a Bill of Rights or Parliament (the result of armed rebellion in the 1600s and 1200s).
You may not like those "gun toting nuts" but if it were not for them, you'd still be living under the Rule of the Pope on a little plantation as a non-free Serf under the Lord of the Manor, and trying to scratch out enough food on your little plot of land so you don't starve.
>>>The idea that you can open any public service you want
As I recall, I said "my kitchen". YOU are the one who inflated it into a strawman argument about businesses which had nothing to do with what I originally said.
No wonder our EU and US societies have reached the point where you can't even crap in your own toilet with some Congressman or MEP regulating how you do it (1 gallon flush and not one drop more!). We might as well just rename our systems "feudalism" since we're being treated like Serfs anyhow.
>>>ut when you're setting up a soup kitchen, the very scale of it makes it a business, you're running a restaurant and come under various safety regulations
And this is why most charitable citizens say, "Oh forget it - too much paperwork," and don't bother to help their fellow man by handing-out free food. Government discourages people and retards society as a whole.
Even though what you say is true, I can't believe it's relevant in this case. How can the artist claim copyright over a design he donated to the government, and which the U.S. taxpayers OWN through the construction of the memorial via taxes.
In my opinion if there was ever justification for the Federal government to use eminent domain to tell the artist to "fuck off" NOW is that time. It certainly makes more sense to lay claim over this U.S. monument, than to take somebody's house to build a new mall.
Wouldn't it be easier to just look at population growth rate? U.S. and EU are negative (families tend to have just 1 child). Africa, India, South America are still positive natural growth rate, with no indication of decline.
Slavery fits nowhere into a Libertarian society, because all people own themselves. The exception is if someone voluntarily sell themselves into voluntary servitude, and only for a limited time. (Like indentured servants sold themselves for 10 years to get free passage to America.)
>>>Why is okay for government to have such monopolies i.e. schools, money, possibly health care?
Because supposedly we have "choice" at the ballot box, to replace the R with a D, or a D with an R. Of course most of us aren't that stupid. Most of us realize incumbents keep their jobs ~95% of the time, so really its a monopoly.
TRUE choice comes from having multiple providers, so you can tell Walmart to "fuck off" and not buy their product. Or if you like Walmart, buy their products. Our dollars are the ballots in the free market.
>>>Keep in mind that the Republicans started out as a 3rd party.
False. The Republicans were the end result of a Monopoly that broke in half. The Democrat-Republican party has near-absolute control of U.S. politics in the 1810s, 20s, and 30s. Then they squabbled and split into Democrats and Whigs. The Whigs were ineffective and dissolved, leaving a vacuum to be filled. Enter the Republicans.
So basically the Republicans were a *2nd* party in what was a 1-party system.
I suppose if either the D's or R's self-destruct that will leave room for the L's to rise up and fill the "2nd party" position, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
Sooooo.... you have to be pro-government (or at least well-behaved while you were a gov't employee) in order to gain the right to vote for said government, such that your vote would naturally be in favor of MORE government. While those who are anti-government likely never served as a fed employee (or if served, were dishonorably discharged) and therefore can't vote.
Interesting. An effective way to reinforce pro-government control and silence dissenters.
>>>You would be perfectly free to give away Wi-Fi but if someone downloaded a movie and you were sued you couldn't use the defense "oh well I have an open wifi connection so it must have been someone else.
So?
People come-and-go from public buildings all the time. If a product goes missing, do they hold the owner of the building responsible? No. They figure it must be one of the anonymous persons. - What they are doing here is the equivalent of demanding you show an ID every time you come-and-go from a store, mall, restaurant, et cetera. It's an excessive imposition.
>>>>>If I want to open my kitchen and give away free food, I can. >> >>As long as you pass a health inspection to make sure you aren't going to kill or make ill any large groups of people.
Oh really??? Burn in hell tyrant. I will exercise my right (9th) to give away food to anyone I please, because it is my Christian duty (1st) to help others.
If you issue illegal laws to stop me (10th) and send police to perform an illegal seizure (4th) I will shoot you full of holes (2nd), abolish your government & your leadership, and install a new one (Declaration of Independence).
United States Congressional testimony by victims of this bug, and Toyota engineers/technicians who confirmed the car's computer ignores shifts to Neutral and Reverse when the bug is in effect. - 2/23/2010
And don't whine because I didn't provide a hyperlink. You must have been living in a CAVE to not have already heard this testimony - it was all over the national news.
The Constitution does NOT give the 9 old people on the Court power to run the country like an Oligarchy. They were never given the power to make the final decision of what laws are constitutional or unconstitutional.
It's time for California, Oregon, Colorado, Jersey, Hampshire, and the other states who have legalized marijuana for use by doctors (or prescription) to tell the Supreme Court Oligarchs to fuck off. And they should use Amendments 9 and 10 to back them up.
>>>people shouldn't have truly open access points to begin with.
Why not? If I want to open my kitchen and give away free food, I can. If I want to buy a bunch of blank CDs and hand-out copies of Ubuntu Linux, I can. Why can't I give-away free access to Wi-Fi in my home or restaurant?
No reason I can think of, except to limit free speech/protest and give the government even more control over public policy (i.e. push their one true agenda).
Alex Jones the Nutter was just discussing this on his radio show: http://yp.shoutcast.com/sbin/tunein-station.pls?id=175591 - about how Microsoft, corporations, and government are colluding to silence the people and control what we hear or read.
>>>Why is voting a prerequisite for having an opinion?
I'm suddenly reminded of Starship Troopers where people do not gain the right to speak, vote, et cetera unless they're first joined the army. That's backwards. It is human rights that come FIRST, and the government that is allowed to exist only because we tolerate it.
You have the right to speak; you have the right to remain silent. You have the right to worship; you have the right to not worship. You have the right to vote; you have the right to not vote. The one right is not the prerequisite of the other right, except in the mind of anti-human rights advocates (aka authoritarians, feudal lords, or slavemasters).
>>> If you vote for the pot smoking party candidate,even if that candidate loses, if enough people vote for that candidate it will be seen as a trend.
Baloney. I voted for Harry Browne in 1996 and ya know what happened? Nothing. Didn't change a thing in how Clinton acted. (Can you tell I'm very cynical about the whole presidential polling process?)
>>>Is this the change that everyone was hoping for? "Yes we can!" - take over your Internets?
Well... I hat to bring up Alex Jones because I consider him a nutter, but I did hear him interview Cryptome.com on Friday. The owner of that site said the new government (i.e. Obama's underlings) are basically turning-over the internet to control of the corporations, so they can police it and remove anything they don't like using Copyright claims (DMCA).
As example he cited Microsoft's takedown of cryptome.com when it published a MS Customer Privacy Policy. Today MS can't get away with that, but in the future Internet 2.0 they will have nothing to stop them because they will BE the police.
Corporations acting as government. Sounds like something out of science fiction.
Maybe he lives in a state dominated by Democrats? When I lived in Maryland I quickly realized there was no point in voting, because Maryland has consistently supported the Democratic president for almost 100 years.
So what's the point? My vote for Bush in 2000 may as well never have existed, since all of Maryland's electoral ballots went to Gore.
Aside-
At this point someone will probably say the Electoral College should not exist. I disagree. I think the popular vote for president should not exist. The President is basically the CEO of the government, and like any CEO it should be the man who is BEST for the job, not the guy who looks good on television or has the best sex appeal. It's a functionary position, not a democratic position. The democracy - the People's voice - belongs in the Congress & 50 state Legislatures that pass the laws. The president merely executes those laws, and we want a skilled administrator not a speech-maker.
>>>>>hell I didn't even vote >> >>>Then your opinion is irrelevant. Please refrain from posting.
Is it? I would argue that anyone who thinks voting matters is living in a state of delusion. I voted for Senator Specter, and what does he do? Switches parties and now votes the complete *opposite* of how he advertised himself during his reelection campaign. (I suspect a lot of Obama and Bush supporters felt similarly betrayed.) Meanwhile I email my Representative in the House, and he reassures me that he's against the Bailout Bill (later renamed TARP). But when I look at the voting record, he supported it by saying "aye". He's up for reelection and I'm going to vote against him, but I know he'll still get reelected (95% of incumbents keep their job).
Voting does not matter when you're being lied to. It also does not matter when you're just 1 of millions.
There are FOUR freedoms in a modern American or European society. The ballot box is just ONE of them, and it's eroded to the point of being worthless. The other freedoms: Soap box (posting here and speaking out). The jury box (to protect your neighbors from an authoritarian government). The ammo box (per the Declaration of Independence - to abolish or alter a government, as Eastern Europeans did in 1989). .
>>>Please refrain from posting.
Make me.;-) Only the website owner holds that power... not you.
>>>To give everyone a chance at salvation and allow us to find our own paths with the free will bestowed upon us?
And spend eternity burning in hell if you choose the wrong thing. That's like a government that tolerates Free Speech Protesters for a few years and then decides, "That's enough" and runs over them with tanks and/or make them disappear in a prison.
>>>As far as I can tell, christianity is directly opposed authoritarianism.
You might want to review the history of Rome circa 500 to 1500 A.D., where the Christian church imposed a whole series of laws about what music could or could not be played, who could marry and who could not, how women should dress, why kind of sex was permissible (for procreation only), and so on. While the Christian was never as tyrannical as he Islamic church in Iran, it was still authoritarian.
Just as Galileo. Or the victims of the Spanish Inquisition. And don't say "Rome was not Christian" because it very clearly WAS the symbol and the authority for Christendom for over 1000 years. The Pope filled the vacuum that was left behind after the Roman Emperor no longer existed.
>>>Religionists are against booze, those disagreeing with religion are going to Hell, might as well give them an express ticket.
This is still going on today, where I had a debate over marijuana and how its prohibition violates the Tenth Amendment of the Bill of Rights. Then another guy joined-in and he said he lives in Colorado and needs marijuana for his dying wife. It's the only thing that kills the pain, while still allowing her to feel "awake" rather than drugged.
The Christians spoke-up and basically said they don't care about the Tenth Amendment, or this poor guy's dying wife..... the U.S. should arrest both of them and the Colorado Government Legislators. Religious people (not all but most) think it's okay to force us to follow their beliefs. Like poisoning alcohol.
I also take this story as a perfect example of the Progressive Party in action - it was that party's idea of pass the alcohol prohibition in the late 1800s and into the 1900s. And when it failed, they decided it was "for the greater good" to exterminate the citizens who refused to have their freedom taken away.
Even today members of the Progressive Party are espousing ideas to sterilize the population for the greater good of reducing the human population/helping the planet.
>>>That Prohibition and the poisoning campaign happened prove this post is no troll.
Slashdot Mirror
>>>I'd want to see a good ratio of beneficial to negative. After all if a politician promoted 3 good bills and 50 bad ones, that's not much of a recommendation.
They problem is that most people don't put that much thought into their votes. The persons that the Reps and Dem round-up with vans and drag to the ballot box, or the persons that vote simply because "it's fun" or "it's my duty" will often respond to the question, "Who did you vote for, and why?" with:
- "I BELIEVE he's the best candidate." (i.e. No thinking involved)
- "I didn't recognize the other guy's name, so I voted the name I knew." (And thus 95% of incumbents get re-elected.)
Instead of telling people, "Go vote - it's your duty," we should be saying, "Only vote if you took time to reach and understand all the candidates' issues. Otherwise, you may stay home."
And this is why I agree with Jefferson when he wrote, "To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps."
And - "This member of the Government was at first considered as the most harmless and helpless of all its organs. But it has proved that the power of declaring what the law is, ad libitum, by sapping and mining slyly and without alarm the foundations of the Constitution, can do what open force would not dare to attempt."
Let the States have the responsibility, since it was the States that created and ratified the Constitution, and therefore best understand what it means:
The "Protect the 9th and 10th Amendments" Act.
----- Proposed Amendment XXVIII.
Section 1. After a Bill has become Law, if one-half of the State legislatures declare the Law to be "unconstitutional" it shall be null and void. It shall be as if the Law never existed. ----- SECTION 2. The Supreme Court will have the authority to review cases, and as part of the ruling declare these cases constitutional or unconstitutional, however the decision by the States (section 1) shall be superior.
.
With our current system, you first have to wait until some government arrests you for a crime (for example: taking a photo of a memorial, or owning a gun in Washington DC). Then you have to file in court to defend yourself against this unconstitutional law. In most cases you'll lose, but if you're lucky it can rise to the level of the United States' government court who may or may not declare it unconstitutional.
That process took ~30 years to overturn D.C.'s unconstitutional banning of guns. With my proposed amendment, there'd be no need to wait. You (and your neighbors) could collectively instruct the State Legislature to declare the law "unconstitutional". Once 25 other legislatures have done the same, then the U.S. law would be voided.
My proposed amendment would simplify the process, shorten the time that an unconstitutional law sits on the books (2-3 years, not 30), and most-importantly, not require citizens to sit in jail or waste time in the courtroom.
>>>some people are gun toting nuts
Yes George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Patrick Henry, and so on..... If it were not for them, we'd still be speaking British in the States. - If it were not for OTHER people like them, Eastern Europe would still be communist instead of free, France would still be a monarchy, and Britain would not have a Bill of Rights or Parliament (the result of armed rebellion in the 1600s and 1200s).
You may not like those "gun toting nuts" but if it were not for them, you'd still be living under the Rule of the Pope on a little plantation as a non-free Serf under the Lord of the Manor, and trying to scratch out enough food on your little plot of land so you don't starve.
>>>The idea that you can open any public service you want
As I recall, I said "my kitchen". YOU are the one who inflated it into a strawman argument about businesses which had nothing to do with what I originally said.
No wonder our EU and US societies have reached the point where you can't even crap in your own toilet with some Congressman or MEP regulating how you do it (1 gallon flush and not one drop more!). We might as well just rename our systems "feudalism" since we're being treated like Serfs anyhow.
>>>ut when you're setting up a soup kitchen, the very scale of it makes it a business, you're running a restaurant and come under various safety regulations
And this is why most charitable citizens say, "Oh forget it - too much paperwork,"
and don't bother to help their fellow man by handing-out free food.
Government discourages people and retards society as a whole.
Even though what you say is true, I can't believe it's relevant in this case. How can the artist claim copyright over a design he donated to the government, and which the U.S. taxpayers OWN through the construction of the memorial via taxes.
In my opinion if there was ever justification for the Federal government to use eminent domain to tell the artist to "fuck off" NOW is that time. It certainly makes more sense to lay claim over this U.S. monument, than to take somebody's house to build a new mall.
Wouldn't it be easier to just look at population growth rate? U.S. and EU are negative (families tend to have just 1 child). Africa, India, South America are still positive natural growth rate, with no indication of decline.
Slavery fits nowhere into a Libertarian society, because all people own themselves. The exception is if someone voluntarily sell themselves into voluntary servitude, and only for a limited time. (Like indentured servants sold themselves for 10 years to get free passage to America.)
>>>Why is okay for government to have such monopolies i.e. schools, money, possibly health care?
Because supposedly we have "choice" at the ballot box, to replace the R with a D, or a D with an R. Of course most of us aren't that stupid. Most of us realize incumbents keep their jobs ~95% of the time, so really its a monopoly.
TRUE choice comes from having multiple providers, so you can tell Walmart to "fuck off" and not buy their product. Or if you like Walmart, buy their products. Our dollars are the ballots in the free market.
A government-run monopoly takes away that choice.
>>>Keep in mind that the Republicans started out as a 3rd party.
False. The Republicans were the end result of a Monopoly that broke in half. The Democrat-Republican party has near-absolute control of U.S. politics in the 1810s, 20s, and 30s. Then they squabbled and split into Democrats and Whigs. The Whigs were ineffective and dissolved, leaving a vacuum to be filled. Enter the Republicans.
So basically the Republicans were a *2nd* party in what was a 1-party system.
I suppose if either the D's or R's self-destruct that will leave room for the L's to rise up and fill the "2nd party" position, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
Sooooo.... you have to be pro-government (or at least well-behaved while you were a gov't employee) in order to gain the right to vote for said government, such that your vote would naturally be in favor of MORE government. While those who are anti-government likely never served as a fed employee (or if served, were dishonorably discharged) and therefore can't vote.
Interesting. An effective way to reinforce pro-government control and silence dissenters.
>>>You would be perfectly free to give away Wi-Fi but if someone downloaded a movie and you were sued you couldn't use the defense "oh well I have an open wifi connection so it must have been someone else.
So?
People come-and-go from public buildings all the time. If a product goes missing, do they hold the owner of the building responsible? No. They figure it must be one of the anonymous persons. - What they are doing here is the equivalent of demanding you show an ID every time you come-and-go from a store, mall, restaurant, et cetera. It's an excessive imposition.
>>>>>If I want to open my kitchen and give away free food, I can.
>>
>>As long as you pass a health inspection to make sure you aren't going to kill or make ill any large groups of people.
Oh really???
Burn in hell tyrant.
I will exercise my right (9th)
to give away food to anyone I please,
because it is my Christian duty (1st) to help others.
If you issue illegal laws to stop me (10th)
and send police to perform an illegal seizure (4th)
I will shoot you full of holes (2nd),
abolish your government & your leadership, and install a new one (Declaration of Independence).
Got the message? ;-)
How do we protect ourselves from these malicious script websites?
(Note: I'm using the Opera X 10.10 browser.)
United States Congressional testimony by victims of this bug, and Toyota engineers/technicians who confirmed the car's computer ignores shifts to Neutral and Reverse when the bug is in effect.
- 2/23/2010
And don't whine because I didn't provide a hyperlink. You must have been living in a CAVE to not have already heard this testimony - it was all over the national news.
The Constitution does NOT give the 9 old people on the Court power to run the country like an Oligarchy. They were never given the power to make the final decision of what laws are constitutional or unconstitutional.
It's time for California, Oregon, Colorado, Jersey, Hampshire, and the other states who have legalized marijuana for use by doctors (or prescription) to tell the Supreme Court Oligarchs to fuck off. And they should use Amendments 9 and 10 to back them up.
>>>people shouldn't have truly open access points to begin with.
Why not? If I want to open my kitchen and give away free food, I can. If I want to buy a bunch of blank CDs and hand-out copies of Ubuntu Linux, I can. Why can't I give-away free access to Wi-Fi in my home or restaurant?
No reason I can think of, except to limit free speech/protest and give the government even more control over public policy (i.e. push their one true agenda).
Alex Jones the Nutter was just discussing this on his radio show: http://yp.shoutcast.com/sbin/tunein-station.pls?id=175591 - about how Microsoft, corporations, and government are colluding to silence the people and control what we hear or read.
>>>Why is voting a prerequisite for having an opinion?
I'm suddenly reminded of Starship Troopers where people do not gain the right to speak, vote, et cetera unless they're first joined the army. That's backwards. It is human rights that come FIRST, and the government that is allowed to exist only because we tolerate it.
You have the right to speak; you have the right to remain silent. You have the right to worship; you have the right to not worship. You have the right to vote; you have the right to not vote. The one right is not the prerequisite of the other right, except in the mind of anti-human rights advocates (aka authoritarians, feudal lords, or slavemasters).
>>> If you vote for the pot smoking party candidate,even if that candidate loses, if enough people vote for that candidate it will be seen as a trend.
Baloney. I voted for Harry Browne in 1996 and ya know what happened? Nothing. Didn't change a thing in how Clinton acted.
(Can you tell I'm very cynical about the whole presidential polling process?)
>>>Is this the change that everyone was hoping for? "Yes we can!" - take over your Internets?
Well... I hat to bring up Alex Jones because I consider him a nutter, but I did hear him interview Cryptome.com on Friday. The owner of that site said the new government (i.e. Obama's underlings) are basically turning-over the internet to control of the corporations, so they can police it and remove anything they don't like using Copyright claims (DMCA).
As example he cited Microsoft's takedown of cryptome.com when it published a MS Customer Privacy Policy. Today MS can't get away with that, but in the future Internet 2.0 they will have nothing to stop them because they will BE the police.
Corporations acting as government. Sounds like something out of science fiction.
Maybe he lives in a state dominated by Democrats? When I lived in Maryland I quickly realized there was no point in voting, because Maryland has consistently supported the Democratic president for almost 100 years.
So what's the point? My vote for Bush in 2000 may as well never have existed, since all of Maryland's electoral ballots went to Gore.
Aside-
At this point someone will probably say the Electoral College should not exist. I disagree. I think the popular vote for president should not exist. The President is basically the CEO of the government, and like any CEO it should be the man who is BEST for the job, not the guy who looks good on television or has the best sex appeal. It's a functionary position, not a democratic position. The democracy - the People's voice - belongs in the Congress & 50 state Legislatures that pass the laws. The president merely executes those laws, and we want a skilled administrator not a speech-maker.
>>>>>hell I didn't even vote
>>
>>>Then your opinion is irrelevant. Please refrain from posting.
Is it? I would argue that anyone who thinks voting matters is living in a state of delusion. I voted for Senator Specter, and what does he do? Switches parties and now votes the complete *opposite* of how he advertised himself during his reelection campaign. (I suspect a lot of Obama and Bush supporters felt similarly betrayed.) Meanwhile I email my Representative in the House, and he reassures me that he's against the Bailout Bill (later renamed TARP). But when I look at the voting record, he supported it by saying "aye". He's up for reelection and I'm going to vote against him, but I know he'll still get reelected (95% of incumbents keep their job).
Voting does not matter when you're being lied to.
It also does not matter when you're just 1 of millions.
There are FOUR freedoms in a modern American or European society. The ballot box is just ONE of them, and it's eroded to the point of being worthless. The other freedoms: Soap box (posting here and speaking out). The jury box (to protect your neighbors from an authoritarian government). The ammo box (per the Declaration of Independence - to abolish or alter a government, as Eastern Europeans did in 1989).
.
>>>Please refrain from posting.
Make me. ;-) Only the website owner holds that power... not you.
>>>To give everyone a chance at salvation and allow us to find our own paths with the free will bestowed upon us?
And spend eternity burning in hell if you choose the wrong thing. That's like a government that tolerates Free Speech Protesters for a few years and then decides, "That's enough" and runs over them with tanks and/or make them disappear in a prison.
NOT free will.
>>>As far as I can tell, christianity is directly opposed authoritarianism.
You might want to review the history of Rome circa 500 to 1500 A.D., where the Christian church imposed a whole series of laws about what music could or could not be played, who could marry and who could not, how women should dress, why kind of sex was permissible (for procreation only), and so on. While the Christian was never as tyrannical as he Islamic church in Iran, it was still authoritarian.
Just as Galileo. Or the victims of the Spanish Inquisition. And don't say "Rome was not Christian" because it very clearly WAS the symbol and the authority for Christendom for over 1000 years. The Pope filled the vacuum that was left behind after the Roman Emperor no longer existed.
>>>Religionists are against booze, those disagreeing with religion are going to Hell, might as well give them an express ticket.
This is still going on today, where I had a debate over marijuana and how its prohibition violates the Tenth Amendment of the Bill of Rights. Then another guy joined-in and he said he lives in Colorado and needs marijuana for his dying wife. It's the only thing that kills the pain, while still allowing her to feel "awake" rather than drugged.
The Christians spoke-up and basically said they don't care about the Tenth Amendment, or this poor guy's dying wife..... the U.S. should arrest both of them and the Colorado Government Legislators. Religious people (not all but most) think it's okay to force us to follow their beliefs. Like poisoning alcohol.
I also take this story as a perfect example of the Progressive Party in action - it was that party's idea of pass the alcohol prohibition in the late 1800s and into the 1900s. And when it failed, they decided it was "for the greater good" to exterminate the citizens who refused to have their freedom taken away.
Even today members of the Progressive Party are espousing ideas to sterilize the population for the greater good of reducing the human population/helping the planet.
>>>That Prohibition and the poisoning campaign happened prove this post is no troll.