A Minor Observation

Krissa Lox

Active Member
Well, not minor in impact, but a detail that could end up getting overlooked in light of more stressful details coming out...

A massively engineered attack of vicious corruption and subtlety on the US Capitol was repelled in a matter of just hours by a small group of greatly outnumbered, outmaneuvered, and betrayed --civilian-- forces who kept their faith and duty intact in the face of what had to have been a more horrifying moment of sudden shock and terror than anything they could have ever imagined, and with no centralized command to inform, direct, or support them through the course of it.

In addition to recognizing the honor and bravery of their service, this also means two things:

1: God hasn't given up on our country yet.

2: Our Executive branch is a convenience, not a necessity.

For godless authoritarians like Putin and Xi who believe forcefully centralized power is the only way to strength, confronting this reality which should not even be able to exist within their worldview must be abjectly terrifying as a grave miscalculation on their part.
 
you are incorrect about number 2. without the executive we do not have a country. without all three branches our country falls.
 
I don't mean that the Executive branch has no importance, just that the real power of our country lies in the people, not the government.

That's what makes us, for better or worse, uniquely effective at rebellions and uniquely bad at solving anything through legislation.

Pretty much all our wealth and innovation comes from somebody getting offended enough to put up a fight against somebody's else status quo. But sometimes we focus too much on individual snowflakes to see the collective force of the blizzard they create.
 
I don't mean that the Executive branch has no importance, just that the real power of our country lies in the people, not the government.

That's what makes us, for better or worse, uniquely effective at rebellions and uniquely bad at solving anything through legislation.

Pretty much all our wealth and innovation comes from somebody getting offended enough to put up a fight against somebody's else status quo. But sometimes we focus too much on individual snowflakes to see the collective force of the blizzard they create.
that's how it's supposed to work..however the electorate in general has continuously abdicated their authority to the gov't for more than 80 years to the point we are now owned by the gov't. Unless something drastic happens before the 20th then it's been proven our elections now are just kabuki theater meant to make us feel like we are in control..but due to the allowances by the electorate we are no longer in control..the way for us to take control back...won't be peaceable if this is allowed to stand.
 
Well, regardless if this particular rebellion is justified or not, it's going to have to recognize at some point that the founding fathers were the intellectual elite of their times, not the opponents of intellectualism, and invest in some self-development accordingly if they want to get very far with it. Otherwise, they risk legitimate concerns being drowned out by the national security risk of having their passions too easily exploitable by both the currently ruling elite and foreign adversaries. It's not their points of opposition that concern me as much as their dumbness and gullibility in how they act things out.
 
what dumbness and gullibility are you referring to?

Eh, if that really needs to be explained beyond publicly available video footage and direct interviews with the dumb people themselves, I'll leave that to The Mighty Gerbil as I think he's got a better understanding of the underlying issues from a well-researched and well-reasoned position to be able to separate the substance from the silliness better than I.
 
Eh, if that really needs to be explained beyond publicly available video footage and direct interviews with the dumb people themselves, I'll leave that to The Mighty Gerbil as I think he's got a better understanding of the underlying issues from a well-researched and well-reasoned position to be able to separate the substance from the silliness better than I.
oh no you don't...You made the statement..explain/defend it... I ask again: what dumbness and gullibility are you referring to?
 
oh no you don't...You made the statement..explain/defend it... I ask again: what dumbness and gullibility are you referring to?

Do you have a more politically correct term to suggest for people who would risk a federal prison sentence to dress up in silly costumes to go poop on the floors of Congress?

I personally don't, so I will defer to others who might understand underlying motivations better than I to offer a more consrtructive discussion rather than ranting about how I think they're being a bunch of counterproductive turkeys.
 
that's how it's supposed to work..however the electorate in general has continuously abdicated their authority to the gov't for more than 80 years to the point we are now owned by the gov't. Unless something drastic happens before the 20th then it's been proven our elections now are just kabuki theater meant to make us feel like we are in control..but due to the allowances by the electorate we are no longer in control..the way for us to take control back...won't be peaceable if this is allowed to stand.
Allegations that the election was "stolen" have been debunked repeatedly--not only by the media (which often displays a clear bias, though some organizations less than others) but, more importantly, by the courts. Here's a list of post-election lawsuits: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-..._the_2020_United_States_presidential_election

While I disagree that modern American elections are "rigged," I wholeheartedly agree that American culture in general has been eager to exchange civil liberties for a measure of perceived comfort; however, I still believe there are peaceable ways for the population to reverse some of that damage. The American voting populace at large has been content to allow leaders on both sides of the aisle to make all sorts of claims without holding them accountable for their speech, character, and behavior. When voter turnout during midterm elections is very low and civic engagement is even lower, the average citizen can't claim that all means of response to changes in government have been exhausted.

Furthermore, even if the people were more engaged and still failed to change government in a way that restores some of the civil liberties we've surrendered, the Bible does not give license for violent crimes (such as "Hang Mike Pence") as a means of changing government.

Well, regardless if this particular rebellion is justified or not, it's going to have to recognize at some point that the founding fathers were the intellectual elite of their times, not the opponents of intellectualism, and invest in some self-development accordingly if they want to get very far with it. Otherwise, they risk legitimate concerns being drowned out by the national security risk of having their passions too easily exploitable by both the currently ruling elite and foreign adversaries.

I personally don't, so I will defer to others who might understand underlying motivations better than I to offer a more consrtructive discussion rather than ranting about how I think they're being a bunch of counterproductive turkeys.

I think there's an underlying sentiment on both sides of the political spectrum that government and law enforcement no longer serve the people but only themselves and that's why we're seeing riots and civil unrest like our nation hasn't seen since the late 1960s. Unfortunately, rhetoric glorifying or, at the least, dismissing the severity of rioting from the Left and rhetoric stoking flames of anger over baseless allegations of a "stolen" election on the Right has led to violence in both scenarios.

Burning down businesses and government buildings and conspiracy theories like QAnon and events like the Capitol breach give voice and action to deep-seated frustrations regarding institutions in desperate need of reform, but violence and misinformation rarely, if ever, advances the conversation in any meaningful way. Instead, political opponents latch on to these events as means to shut down the conversation before it begins.

Christians have a tremendous opportunity in this time to bring healing, peace, and empathy when it is so desperately needed. We can not do that in our own strength, but only by the strength the Lord gives us.
 
tek..no it hasn't been debunked. There's too much evidence:
counting stopping overnight..never happened any other time
video of votes being switched on public broadcast....votes going for crepub candidates and the exact same amount going up for the dem
multiple afrfidavits(under penalty of perjury) showing massive irregularities
video testimony of votes being shipped from one state to another

the list goes on and on and on.
christians has NOTHING to do with the volilence and looting..that was antifa/BLM.
qanon/maga was not responsible for storming the capital..antifa was..there's video of it that publicly available.
The election was stolen on multiple levels..not just the presidential one....if folks wish to believe otherwise despite the evidence....
 
tek..no it hasn't been debunked. There's too much evidence:
counting stopping overnight..never happened any other time
video of votes being switched on public broadcast....votes going for crepub candidates and the exact same amount going up for the dem
multiple afrfidavits(under penalty of perjury) showing massive irregularities
video testimony of votes being shipped from one state to another

the list goes on and on and on.
christians has NOTHING to do with the volilence and looting..that was antifa/BLM.
qanon/maga was not responsible for storming the capital..antifa was..there's video of it that publicly available.
The election was stolen on multiple levels..not just the presidential one....if folks wish to believe otherwise despite the evidence....
I am unable to make the leap of faith necessary to agree with a position that holds the presidential election was stolen after Trump and the GOP lost over 50 related lawsuits.

I'm also unable to make the leap of faith necessary to agree that Antifa was responsible for the insurrection when Trump spent over an hour provoking his supporters to march on the Capitol shortly before the breach.

Please don't misunderstand. I don't deny conspiracy theories like allegations of widespread election fraud, QAnon, and "Antifa disguised as Trump supporters" because I have an unrealistically optimistic view of humanity. It is, in fact, the opposite. I believe groups of humans are, on average, not intelligent or coordinated enough to plan and execute large-scale deception without making glaring mistakes.

It's much easier for me to believe the documented results of 50+ court cases over anecdotal evidence reported on social media and selectively edited videos.

It's much easier for me to believe that a mob riled up by a President repeatedly claiming election fraud attempted to use force to overturn the results of a democratic election over claims of hundreds of Antifa disguising themselves as Trump supporters.

Please also understand that my main concern is not debunking conspiracy theories. My main concern is that Christians stop looking to the state to solve our problems and start asking what we, as followers of Christ and empowered by His Spirit to do His work, can do to heal our nation and, even more importantly, give glory to God who is worthy of our worship.
 
I am unable to make the leap of faith necessary to agree with a position that holds the presidential election was stolen after Trump and the GOP lost over 50 related lawsuits.

I'm also unable to make the leap of faith necessary to agree that Antifa was responsible for the insurrection when Trump spent over an hour provoking his supporters to march on the Capitol shortly before the breach.

Please don't misunderstand. I don't deny conspiracy theories like allegations of widespread election fraud, QAnon, and "Antifa disguised as Trump supporters" because I have an unrealistically optimistic view of humanity. It is, in fact, the opposite. I believe groups of humans are, on average, not intelligent or coordinated enough to plan and execute large-scale deception without making glaring mistakes.

It's much easier for me to believe the documented results of 50+ court cases over anecdotal evidence reported on social media and selectively edited videos.

It's much easier for me to believe that a mob riled up by a President repeatedly claiming election fraud attempted to use force to overturn the results of a democratic election over claims of hundreds of Antifa disguising themselves as Trump supporters.

Please also understand that my main concern is not debunking conspiracy theories. My main concern is that Christians stop looking to the state to solve our problems and start asking what we, as followers of Christ and empowered by His Spirit to do His work, can do to heal our nation and, even more importantly, give glory to God who is worthy of our worship.
it's not a leap of faith my friend..it's fact. I am NOT into Qanon. Trump did not spend an hour invoking the violence as the violence started BEFORE the throng gathered at Trump's speech even completed and therefore the folks Trump was "inciting" were not even present at the capitol and had not moved towards said building. It's not a theory..it's fact. If you listen to the abc/cnn/fox..etc etc etc then yes Trump did it...if you do some independent research you would see other wise. You should know me better than to associate what I have said with conspiracy theories or something like Qanon. if you have forgotten or actually believe that about me...let me know in PM's please.
 
Although I agree with Tek as far as the integrity of our most recent election goes and with his ultimate conclusion of "My main concern is that Christians stop looking to the state to solve our problems and start asking what we, as followers of Christ and empowered by His Spirit to do His work, can do to heal our nation and, even more importantly, give glory to God who is worthy of our worship." - having been directly monitoring communications between Qanon believers for many months, I will also stand up for HCS's opinion concerning Trump's culpability here and share similar concerns of him being used as a convenient scapegoat by multiple political affiliations to avoid deeper investigations into much more serious and further-reaching areas of long-term (way pre-dating the last White House administration) governmental malfeasance.

Although the Qanon people quite literally and openly deified Trump, I saw no evidence of Trump himself having any hand in it, only other people immediately surrounding him, which is why I kept my PSA thread to referring to "high places" rather than naming Trump specifically. And the things I saw there seemed more foreign in origin and approach - sometimes in an atheistic manner and sometimes seemingly demonic, but in all cases more pertinent to issues of other countries than our own - rather than being typical American politics or rabble-rousing.

So my conclusion (to which I can ascribe no more validity to assert than anyone else's view) has been that we've been subjected to a foreign attack on our civilian population that our security infrastructure failed on multiple levels to protect us from, and was exacerbated by short-sighted, self-serving politicians exploiting our veteran and rural populations for temporal power games. So I'm not exactly thrilled either about politicians trying to simplify things down to "Trump incited a riot."

The intention of my original post here was to give glory to God for defending us from a foreign act of war that we were left in a position of near defenselessness against. But I'm pretty angry at the American government as a whole for lapses in integrity of their own over decades to create this situation in the first place, and not at all impressed by any attempts to pin blame on any one individual or administration so that we can all just move on and pretend that this was just an isolated incident of a few bad actors rather than a situation born of natural consequences from the sowing of decades of unaddressed injustices.

So I agree with Tek's position of trust God first and foremost and that the current presidential administration is genuinely legitimate, but I also equally agree with HCS's position as far as this country having some serious problems it needs to deal with to restore and maintain its foundational integrity. However, I pretty much lost all faith in dealing with those problems through political means a long time ago and have been focusing on trying to cultivate change through non-political means instead. And though I am often discouraged in seeing how things play out, I still have enough hope in non-political channels to make a difference that I don't think we're to the point of needing to consider violent enforcement of our constitutional integrity yet.
 
it's not a leap of faith my friend..it's fact. I am NOT into Qanon. Trump did not spend an hour invoking the violence as the violence started BEFORE the throng gathered at Trump's speech even completed and therefore the folks Trump was "inciting" were not even present at the capitol and had not moved towards said building. It's not a theory..it's fact. If you listen to the abc/cnn/fox..etc etc etc then yes Trump did it...if you do some independent research you would see other wise. You should know me better than to associate what I have said with conspiracy theories or something like Qanon. if you have forgotten or actually believe that about me...let me know in PM's please.
It wasn't my intention to imply that you were a QAnon believer, but after re-reading my post, it's very easy to see how my post seems to suggest exactly that. I apologize for my poor phrasing.

I admit that the last few weeks have been mentally exhausting. I considered and still consider myself as someone who trends conservative in the context of politics but the goalposts seem to keep moving and some would now call me a moderate. I can't say I agree with the label, but it does afford me the burden and luxury of upsetting folks on both sides of the political divide (which is actually something of a relief because I've always held and continue to hold the belief that neither party completely aligns with a Christian worldview because Christianity is, by its very nature, countercultural).

Put another way: It's been draining work trying to stay informed and engaged while working to not get completely fatigued and drowned out by polarizing viewpoints.

I'll go back and review the timeline for January 6 as I was under the impression that Trump's speech took place immediately before a group marched to the Capitol and some of those in the crowd breached the building.

But even if Trump did not directly incite the riot that day, it's clear that both political parties have been using incendiary rhetoric over the last several years and words have consequences. I still disagree with allegations that the election was "stolen."

Beliefs also have consequences and Christian nationalism is extremely dangerous.

All that being said, it's still my intention to participate in these conversations in a civil manner, recognizing that we, as Christians, have all been redeemed by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. If we start and continually return to that foundation, we stand a much better chance of having meaningful and helpful conversations. It is by no means easy, but, by the grace of God, it is possible.
 
To be honest, I have no idea where the average person would go to get 100% reliable information about what's going on these days.

For myself, I have personal connections and some inside information from being part of the military community to draw on, plus the random happenstance that I chanced to be one of the demographics the Qanon people were intentionally trying to recruit to have been tipped off to investigate them further, plus they were infringing upon my digital spaces for me to see what they were doing well before they were being publicly reported on.

I do confidently believe that the election wasn't stolen, due to having read the court records of the appeal cases that are all public and not believing all of those conservative judges, many of them Trump-appointed, are also corrupted and in collusion with the Democrats, and because of the recorded call between Trump and Raffensberger being a pretty objective indicator of Trump being the less trustworthy (and not very intelligent) party in the conflict. However, I'm aware that there are still high-ranking officials insisting otherwise, so I can't hold it against others who are trusting more in other sources instead. The government really needs to get its act together and not put the citizenry in the position of having to arbitrate for themselves who is telling the truth and who is lying.

Of course the media should do better too, but I understand there are problems with their business model breaking there. When people can find ways to get what they want to hear for free, it's hard to get anyone to pay for stuff they should hear but don't really want to. Media may have to start converting to some kind of charity model rather than continuing to try to keep competing with commercial markets.

As far as timeline goes, there's plenty of evidence of detailed planning and organization ahead of time to guide this event into occurring - for a specific example, video surveillance of the bombs being placed the night before - and while Trump surely did say some stupid, incendiary things that are fair to call "inciteful," he has an established pattern of doing that pretty much every time he speaks, so as much as I personally despise the man as both a politician and a human being, I have to be honest and say his speech isn't evidence enough in itself of personally masterminding any of this, because it was predictable enough that other entities could have planned around him doing it to accomplish something nefarious without him having any direct knowledge or guidance of it at all.

Now I do think that his actions while the riot was occurring, the complete inability to lead as a competent commander-in-chief to get things under control at a time of such critical and urgent need, was most definitely an impeachable offense, as was the call to Raffensberger, so I'm not shedding any tears over any fallout there, but there's a big difference between being a failure as a leader and acting like a thug toward other officials versus organizing something as complex as a violent government overthrow. Admittedly I have a fair share of prejudices against the man, but I just don't see "Commander Bonespurs" as having that level of evil genius within him, and I'd be worried about there being a good chance of missing other serious threats to our national security if we just blame everything on Trump without investigating further.
 
I think this will be the final post I make on this subject now, as moving forward the place God seems to be wanting me to go is to support the military community's sentiment expressed here:

America is bitterly divided. Here’s how our nation’s veterans can bring us together


America needs your service now more than ever: https://taskandpurpose.com/opinion/divided-america-veterans/

By Nate Anderson and Joe Chenelly February 02, 2021

( AmVets.org and Concerned Veterans for America )

I'll still be around, but I'll probably seem different, since contemplating dealing with civilian institutions often requires a higher degree of restraint and forward-thinking strategy in public communications and reputation management than just being a forum participant online. Because, you know, all that ability to deal with hostile environments and being expected to routinely make life or death decisions to safeguard the republic with effectiveness and wisdom is all well and good, but God help you if you ever accidentally say a wrong word at a wrong time during a moment of duress that somebody else can dredge up to stir up manufactured outrage long after the moment of relevancy has passed.

(which probably is hitting pretty close to where the bulk of our actual problems lie, that too many people are currently prioritizing the manufactured outrage over real principles of substance, sustainability, competence, and integrity)
 
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