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Ultimately, both on the surface and within the substance, Orban's "Christian Democracy" is not Christian. It is cut from the same cloth that prepared Germany for WWII and the Holocaust. There is little to difference between Hitler's Nazism and Stalin's Communism or Soviets, nor with Putin's plan to restore Soviet Russia. Hitler's Holocaust and Stalin's starvation of Ukraine to establish state operated agriculture are both founded on the debasement of humanity. None of this right up to the DeSantis's attacks on on freedom and equality in the name of "Christian values" are Christian. They all twist vocabulary, terms and values on their head to make what's wrong right, and what's right wrong. This deception is addressed in the Bible as Satan.

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Further proof that the Right is The Enemy and must be stopped by every means necessary.

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“Christians” eagerly await the return of Christ. I hope he gets here soon and straightens these conflicted followers out— again arriving as non-white, maybe enjoying a little lipstick with his long hair. I eagerly await, too.

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If patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, religion is a close second-to-last.

The Trump/Putin/Orbán Axis enthusiastically combines both.

The recent emergence of this neo-Christian nationalism, to my mind, underscores what is at stake in Ukraine’s struggle against Putin’s invasion, and why it is important for democracies everywhere, including ours, that an independent, democratic Ukraine ultimately prevails. From this point of view, it also becomes self-evident why US conservatives want to cut off US support to Volodymyr Zelenskyy and thus give Ukraine to Putin. We would do well to remember that Adolf Hitler had many US supporters, and still does to this day.

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Mar 11, 2023·edited Mar 11, 2023

At 89 I have lived in a country and world that has been ‘volatile’ about LGBTQ. In my early years being gay or lesbian was considered ‘dreadful’ by many people and institutions. In the US government, being suspected of being gay was cause for dismissal.

In my innocence, I didn’t realize that one of my roommates at college was gay. It didn’t matter to me.

The Catholic Church was especially horrified by ‘gay,’ though, in historical retrospect, the lives of a number of priests did not seem straight.

In Hollywood being publicly gay (or lesbian) was a major PR no no. During my years in Egypt, I was puzzled by the public hand holding of young men in Cairo. Again, no big deal.

Fast forwarding to present day, individual sexuality remains on the front burner with various pseudo-religious groups including evangelical ‘Christian’s’ and the old-men-dominated-Catholic Church.

Medical evidence has highlighted the complexity of ‘transgender,’ and being gay or lesbian is broadly acknowledged as ‘natural,’ by many. This has become an anti-rallying cry by what I characterize as the non-Christian-white-male-superiority right.

I say ‘non-Christian, because such intolerance profoundly conflicts with Jesus Christ’s adherence to love, inclusiveness, and forgiveness.

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CRAP) reflects this overwhelming white-male bigotry. Meanwhile, we have a gay man in President Obama’s cabinet and various gay and lesbian individuals elected to Congress and to major state and city positions.

I find this current political focus on fear and bigotry despicable. It seems integral to the false facts of the chauvinistic political right and is a political springboard for presidential candidate DeSantis.

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Ask yourself how badly do you want to walk on your fellow man. Ask yourself how badly you want to be walked on. The answer will come to you which camp you belong in. There ain’t no wiggle room here.

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When is the EU going to expel Orban/Hungary?

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The battle lines are now very clear...and drag queens, gender fluid and trans people are now the focus of the war over "freedom". Everyone else has had their spotlight time as the target of conservative fear about granting full and equal freedom under the law...black folks, women, gay people...on and on...and now it's come down to the people who were invisible or on the fringe. They are not some new lib creation to vex the Orban's or Gov Lee's of the world. They have been there forever.

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Amazing Lincoln, and yet his party has abandoned any pretense of equality for all. One wonders if they, like Rupert’s minions, don’t really believe their own bull Schitt, but use it as a means to power and “green.” Of course, there are many who love to hate, especially among religious cretins, and their bull Schitt just is what makes their hearts sing. I know them, we all do. “Republican” is now what they tried to make “liberal,” the most egregious epithet…

Fascism rules the fools, call them what they are proud to be.

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Thank you Heather.

“Once you give up the principle of equality, you have given up the whole game. You have admitted the principle that people are unequal, and that some people are better than others. Once you have replaced the principle of equality with the idea that humans are unequal, you have stamped your approval on the idea of rulers and subjects. At that point, all you can do is to hope that no one in power decides that you belong in the lesser group.”

Exactly.

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Lincoln went on: “I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it…where will it stop?”

It will stop as it stopped in Germany in a war that thankfully, we won. Knowles and people like him would like to see this country, that belongs to all of us, populated by Christian whites. Jews, Muslims, blacks, native Americans and anyone who is not “straight”, need not apply.

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Yes, and once "transgenderism" is eradicated, we must turn our attention to an even greater scourge: left-handedism! Why, we even allow left-handed people to appear on TV. This makes children watching think that left-handedism is okay. They're being groomed by TV, movies, the internet! This has got to stop. We need to develop therapies to treat left-handedness, and convert left-handed people into decent right-handers, as God wants them to be. And for those who refuse this blessing -- the camps!

Lincoln's speech of July 10, 1858 (if anyone wants to look it up) is one of his best, which is saying a lot. And the section quoted is right to the point. Conservatives today, as in his time, are challenging the very foundation of this country, the self-evident truths in the Declaration.

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https://www.justice.gov/hatecrimes/learn-about-hate-crimes

From the DOJ website:

"Hate

The term "hate" can be misleading. When used in a hate crime law, the word "hate" does not mean rage, anger, or general dislike. In this context “hate” means bias against people or groups with specific characteristics that are defined by the law.

At the federal level, hate crime laws include crimes committed on the basis of the victim’s perceived or actual race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability.

Most state hate crime laws include crimes committed on the basis of race, color, and religion; many also include crimes committed on the basis of sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, and disability.

Crime

The "crime" in hate crime is often a violent crime, such as assault, murder, arson, vandalism, OR THREATS TO COMMIT SUCH CRIMES (my emphasis). It may also cover conspiring or asking another person to commit such crimes, even if the crime was never carried out."

It seems that the DOJ needs to start prosecuting cases where saying that "transgenderism has to be eradicated" is recognized for what it truly is--a call to violence against transgendered citizens. The fine line these right wing hate mongers walk is only fine if prosecutors refuse to prosecute and juries refuse to convict and SCOTUS refuses to uphold the convictions.

I think it is time that these examples are called out and prosecuted. The last time there was talk of "eradication" was during the Rwandan genocide and there were successful prosecutions. Yes it took years and untold numbers of people were murdered but a hate crime against one is still a hate crime. If we are going to turn back this assault on the basic premise of equality that is the only way it can be done. The line has to get wide and bright and there have to be consequences.

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Déjà vu!

Martin Niemöller was a German Lutheran pastor and theologian born in Lippstadt, Germany, in 1892. Niemöller was an anti-Communist and supported Adolf Hitler's rise to power at first. But when Hitler insisted on the supremacy of the state over religion, Niemöller became disillusioned. He became the leader of a group of German clergymen opposed to Hitler. In 1937 he was arrested and eventually confined in Sachsenhausen and Dachau. He was released in 1945 by the Allies. He continued his career in Germany as a clergyman and as a leading voice of penance and reconciliation for the German people after World War II.

Niemöller made confession in his speech for the Confessing Church in Frankfurt on 6 January 1946, of which this is a partial translation:

"... the people who were put in the camps then were Communists. Who cared about them? We knew it, it was printed in the newspapers. Who raised their voice, maybe the Confessing Church? We thought: Communists, those opponents of religion, those enemies of Christians—"should I be my brother's keeper?"

"Then they got rid of the sick, the so-called incurables. I remember a conversation I had with a person who claimed to be a Christian. He said: Perhaps it's right, these incurably sick people just cost the state money, they are just a burden to themselves and to others. Isn't it best for all concerned if they are taken out of the middle [of society]? Only then did the church as such take note.

Then we started talking, until our voices were again silenced in public. Can we say, we aren't guilty/responsible?

The persecution of the Jews, the way we treated the occupied countries, or the things in Greece, in Poland, in Czechoslovakia or in Holland, that were written in the newspapers. … I believe, we Confessing-Church-Christians have every reason to say: mea culpa, mea culpa! We can talk ourselves out of it with the excuse that it would have cost me my head if I had spoken out.

We preferred to keep silent. We are certainly not without guilt/fault, and I ask myself again and again, what would have happened, if in the year 1933 or 1934—there must have been a possibility—14,000 Protestant pastors and all Protestant communities in Germany had defended the truth until their deaths? If we had said back then, it is not right when Hermann Göring simply puts 100,000 Communists in the concentration camps, in order to let them die. I can imagine that perhaps 30,000 to 40,000 Protestant Christians would have had their heads cut off, but I can also imagine that we would have rescued 30–40,000 million [sic] people, because that is what it is costing us now."

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Mar 11, 2023·edited Mar 11, 2023

It seems that, far too often, after someone has achieved financial riches, their focus changes to keeping/increasing their riches/power by fair means or foul. A financial caste system exists and has existed for many decades.

Looking at Congress Critters, far too many of them were raised in upper class households.and were financially able to afford to work for free as congressional interns. They believe that they are there solely through their own efforts and are tasked to preserve the conditions of their childhoods. These conditions are deemed “the good old days” and are not to be fooled with, even when poor children are put to work in jobs that result in chemical burns. Many of these children are from immigrant families afraid to report the conditions.

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/03/08/politics/sarah-huckabee-sanders-arkansas-child-labor/index.html

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Excellent analysis of how 🤔 the radicals are trying to force their interpretation of what's right or wrong on all of America 🇺🇸 whether that's what the majority of people want or not; definitely not!!

Excellent historical quotes from ol Abe Lincoln himself, the 1st GOP President who set what is supposed to be the standard for true Patriots of the Grand Ol Party maintaining the integrity of the United States of America 🇺🇸, not engaging in the seditious activities displayed by today's splinter group of radical insurrectionists.

Lincoln would of been the 1st one to stop their shenanigans, which are poisoning American society, so that this government of the people and for the people shall not perish from this Earth 🤔

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