That’s true, and the essence of democracy. What I have a problem with is that even the suggestion that the US’s system needs to change is often met by charges of lack of patriotism. My opinion is it’s a subject that needs to be discussed. Of course, no changes should be made without a broad consensus of the electorate.

Everybody would say improvement is patriotic and constitutive of the common good. But one person’s notion of “improvement” is the other person’s definition of deterioration, and vice versa. Among other things, democracy means there is no “improvement” without consensus — and dissenters have the right to resist being “improved”.

Without proof any god exists, divine guidance is just talking to an imaginary friend.

I accept that meditation (as opposed to prayer) can be a valuable tool in ordering the mind for many.

Google Torcaso v. Watkins regarding the Supreme Court ruling.

A wise person would solicit human advice as a complement to divine guidance, not merely as a cheap substitute.

In ’08, I got a call from the state Republican party. The woman who was calling asked to speak to my mother. My mother had died in ’02. When I asked why she was soliciting votes from dead people, she hung up.

George Dumbya Bush said something similar in ’04. When the news hit that there were military Wiccans holding ritual at Fort Hood, he said that Wicca and other Neopaganisms were not real religions, should be banned from the military and did not deserve First Amendment protection.

My 2 cents worth. What your founders did was great. However, since then too many have thought it’s so good the system doesn’t need to be examined, and now too many people with the power to prevent change are invested in maintaining the status quo. A lot of USians believe that they still live in the greatest democracy. It’s a great country, but no longer the greatest democracy. Unfortunately, it’s seen as unpatriotic to criticize the system. Other countries have been able to advance their level of democracy by seeing change and improvement as patriotic.

Running for president at the time GHWB did say he didn’t think Atheist’s count as American citizens. Our Founders would be appalled at just how much religious the US is now than 320 years ago. Why I fear we will become the largest most dangerous theocracy to ever exist on the planet.

North Korea is a Monarchy, hereditary. With the Holy Korean Emperor being the living god on Earth. Etc.
Posing as Communist like all of them. Ignore Marx from the beginning. Just put on a show to cover their same old elite ruling the peasants. Russia, China, etc.

I’ve seen these before, but I’m glad you posted them. They’re very telling.

I posted this short documentary on the Heather’s Homilies Facebook page the other day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0QVkf-B0qc&feature=share

I was quite shocked by it. It seems the South Koreans have developed a very negative attitude to defectors, and so many are having trouble adjusting and some have even tried to go back. There’s one man near the beginning who tells of escaping from a regime where he was being brainwashed, and now he’s expected to commit his life to Jesus. Many of those groups that are helping are evangelical Christians, which must be very difficult for the defectors as they’ve seen through one form of brainwashing and are basically being asked to take on another form. This wouldn’t be happening if the government had a proper resettlement programme.