She throws out the "stump speech" lines and "Appeal to Emotion" a lot more than she used to. I don't like that, but it does mean she's becoming a real politician, I suppose.

The thing was an hour long, and believe it or not, I've seen lots of TV shows of people giving their stories of wacky supernatural/mystical things that happened to them, and I was pretty sure seeing one more wouldn't tip the balance, just like watching another Donald Trump stump speech would lead me to think Obama wasn't born in Hawaii. My first comment was about what you had said about God having patience. My second comment was about my own theory of the link between mental trauma and mystical experience. Neither required me to spend an hour watching it. I'm sure you're probably sick of people lumping you in with all the crazy religious people we see in the world, so why do it to me? I mentioned that I hadn't watched it just in case my prediction was wrong (seems it might have been -- still haven't watched it), in which case you could ignore it or politely tell me so.

The reason young people and atheists (I'm not young, BTW) might not be interested in seeing a show like this is that it's utterly unreliable. Young people in the West are more skilled in critical thinking today than ever before, and atheists are a self-selecting group of people who require reliable evidence for things. To both groups, an anecdotal testimony recreation on TV is one of the least reliable sources of evidence. Your story, SB, as you've presented it here, is more credible than this one, and I've spent many, many hours reading, thinking and commenting about it, so cut me a little slack, will ya? No promises, but I do now intend to watch it all and comment at some time. Relatively busy the next several weeks

Sorry to lump you in, and yes I do understand that time is fleeting. I am not exactly jazzed to watch many of the videos I see here on the sift, but I will if there is potential for a good conversation. It's just a frustration that I encounter that many people are unwilling to consider what you're saying, or indeed even read it. It's probably just a cultural thing. I think more and more people have ADD and we are programmed in the culture to need instant gratification. In any case, I do not say you are like that. You have engaged me and considered what I have said, if not only to falsify it, but that's okay. I have enjoyed our conversations.

I'm not operating in any way towards any god. I don't believe in them, remember? Your specific God cannot exist as described, and I am so sceptical of any other gods that I live as if they don't exist either. You are operating under the faulty premise that I will accept something other than empirical evidence as the foundation of anything I believe. What makes you think I (or any other sceptic) would suddenly change my approach now, when it comes to arguably the single most important fact of my existence? Why would I lower the bar of acceptable evidence when the stakes are the highest? Even if I took a "just-in-case" approach, and did all the things the Bible said, I wouldn't believe in any of the things I was doing. In fact, as I consider that Christianity would make me a worse person, it would be selfish of me to choose to definitely hurt people on the off chance it might save my hide.

I agree that my God, as you currently understand Him, could not exist. Neither am I expecting you to lower your standards; I am only asking you to consider the issue rationally. If God exists, the entire Universe is empirical evidence of His existence. Is this not the case? So logically, trying to find empirical evidence of God is as easy as looking outside, or in a mirror. You happen to think its plausible that this is all happenstance, which I think requires quite a bit more faith than belief in a supernatural creation. I am sure you will disagree because you're a materialist, but your material had to come from somewhere. The main point is, trying to test for God is a fairly absurd idea. How would you do that?

I don't think you should take a "just in case" approach either. Becoming a Christian for fire insurance and nothing else is almost never a genuine conversion. You need to be born again, which is a supernatural transformation of your entire being. Anything short of that and you have no salvation.

When I was a young teen, and I was losing my faith (which had been absolute as a child). It was a bit distressing, and I used to pray that fairly often. I got no answer, and eventually forgot about God. I've always been interested in the concept of faith, but I've never again believed.

This happens to quite a number of catholics. The reason being, catholicism is very nearly a pagan religion, and it's an actual miracle if any Catholics do find God. There are more than a few that are saved, but I wouldn't hazard a guess as to percentages. Only God knows their hearts.

I am. And for me, truth is borne out by empirical evidence and personal experience, not preachers, or ancient fantasy books of dubious origin. I see exactly zero evidence for God. It's not even an interesting theory for me because it only explains, and doesn't predict.

God predicts the future. That's part of what makes the bible credible, is the literal fulfillment of prophecy. The nation of israel, for example, being reformed after 2000 years was predicted by prophecy. Such a thing has never happened before, that a people retained their racial purity and cultural heritage after being scattered all over the world, and then brought back to the same spot to form their own country again. The destruction of Jerusalem was also predicted in advance. As was the coming of the Messiah. There are many of these.

If God makes a box, he doesn't have to live inside the box. He can be eternal, but the word "eternal" itself is bound in time. Maybe you meant "omnipresent?" I'm particular about definitions.

He is omnipresent, yes. Eternal is timelessness..what it means to have no beginning and no ending.

OK. I've done it. I've put my money where my mouth is, and I actually got on my knees next to the computer, put my hands together, and prayed for God to reveal himself. I also told him that I was more interested in truth than in comfort, and if he revealed himself to be true, that I would use his guidance to find and follow the best path I could take in life. I used no biblical terms like "saviour" or "lord" because this is about me and God. If he wants to lead me to the Bible, he can do that. I asked him to be clear -- a double rainbow won't cut it. I was sincere. Any predictions?

My prediction is that God will honor your prayer if you are sincere in your desire to know Him, and the truth about Him. I think He will probably test the genuineness of your prayer. To God, talk is cheap. Anyone can say those words, but only those who mean them will find Him. He may offer you a choice that requires you to soften your heart and do something you wouldn't normally do. So be aware of that in the days to come. If you want my ultimate prediction, I believe that He will save you. God bless.

@shinyblurry

Fair enough about NDEs not being direct evidence of God.

That's fairly typical, I have to say.

The thing was an hour long, and believe it or not, I've seen lots of TV shows of people giving their stories of wacky supernatural/mystical things that happened to them, and I was pretty sure seeing one more wouldn't tip the balance, just like watching another Donald Trump stump speech would lead me to think Obama wasn't born in Hawaii. My first comment was about what you had said about God having patience. My second comment was about my own theory of the link between mental trauma and mystical experience. Neither required me to spend an hour watching it. I'm sure you're probably sick of people lumping you in with all the crazy religious people we see in the world, so why do it to me? I mentioned that I hadn't watched it just in case my prediction was wrong (seems it might have been -- still haven't watched it), in which case you could ignore it or politely tell me so.

The reason young people and atheists (I'm not young, BTW) might not be interested in seeing a show like this is that it's utterly unreliable. Young people in the West are more skilled in critical thinking today than ever before, and atheists are a self-selecting group of people who require reliable evidence for things. To both groups, an anecdotal testimony recreation on TV is one of the least reliable sources of evidence. Your story, SB, as you've presented it here, is more credible than this one, and I've spent many, many hours reading, thinking and commenting about it, so cut me a little slack, will ya? No promises, but I do now intend to watch it all and comment at some time. Relatively busy the next several weeks.

You are still operating under the faulty premise that you could suss God out by pointing an instrument at Him.

I'm not operating in any way towards any god. I don't believe in them, remember? Your specific God cannot exist as described, and I am so sceptical of any other gods that I live as if they don't exist either. You are operating under the faulty premise that I will accept something other than empirical evidence as the foundation of anything I believe. What makes you think I (or any other sceptic) would suddenly change my approach now, when it comes to arguably the single most important fact of my existence? Why would I lower the bar of acceptable evidence when the stakes are the highest? Even if I took a "just-in-case" approach, and did all the things the Bible said, I wouldn't believe in any of the things I was doing. In fact, as I consider that Christianity would make me a worse person, it would be selfish of me to choose to definitely hurt people on the off chance it might save my hide.

Yet, you refuse to do the one thing which would yield any results. You could pray this prayer, for instance:

"God, I don't know if you're there or not. If you are there, I want to know you. Please let me know you are real and I will give my life to you. Please come into my life as Lord and Savior."

When I was a young teen, and I was losing my faith (which had been absolute as a child). It was a bit distressing, and I used to pray that fairly often. I got no answer, and eventually forgot about God. I've always been interested in the concept of faith, but I've never again believed.

Are you interested in the truth?

I am. And for me, truth is borne out by empirical evidence and personal experience, not preachers, or ancient fantasy books of dubious origin. I see exactly zero evidence for God. It's not even an interesting theory for me because it only explains, and doesn't predict.

God necessarily exists outside of time and space because He created them. Since He is eternal He is not bound by time. However, that isn't to say that what is happening "now" isn't real.

If God makes a box, he doesn't have to live inside the box. He can be eternal, but the word "eternal" itself is bound in time. Maybe you meant "omnipresent?" I'm particular about definitions.

OK. I've done it. I've put my money where my mouth is, and I actually got on my knees next to the computer, put my hands together, and prayed for God to reveal himself. I also told him that I was more interested in truth than in comfort, and if he revealed himself to be true, that I would use his guidance to find and follow the best path I could take in life. I used no biblical terms like "saviour" or "lord" because this is about me and God. If he wants to lead me to the Bible, he can do that. I asked him to be clear -- a double rainbow won't cut it. I was sincere. Any predictions?

Maybe I'm just used to the way academics advocate things, but I saw this as advocacy for debt forgiveness. Or more accurately, for making the banks eat the loss on their bad loans, rather than destroying Europe in a vain effort to protect the banks' interests.

There is a downside to that too, but it's vastly preferable to the path they're actually following.

My main commentary is that towards the end when he describes the U.S. as being a properly functional fiscal union, he's describing a process which the Tea Party & Republicans have vehemently vowed to bring to an end.

Apparently they want to bring to America the worst of Europe. I swear that line is in Romney's stump speech somewhere...

>> ^marinara:

David McWilliams clearly brings up the issue of forgiving debt, but he never really advocates it.
Isn't it kind of important if govermnents go further into debt or not?

netrunner is right about the cause of the increase in foodstamp recipients

but... i also agree with bobknight - your last paragraph has a bit of hyperbole... he's not whitewashing - if anything, newt's words dig him a deeper hole with the left, and even some on the right... but there is a resonance of truth for many - putting things bluntly can be labeled 'racist' but it doesn't necessarily need to be so

imagine a hypothetical scenario wherein herman cain gives a stump speech to a predominately white crowd in a west virginia coal-mining community... he tells them to "stay in school" and stresses the importance of education in bettering one's station in life -- racist?

gingrich's broth of reasoning lacks a necessary dash of empathy to make the recipe for recovery more popularly favorful... that, imho, is why he won't get the nomination

hmm, well... the video makes three points: 1. 13th amendment vs compulsory civil service, 2. "terrorist list" vs 2nd amendment, and 3. "crisis times" vs selfish opportunism

first off, this video screed, imho, deliberately attempts to strip much of the context from these issues

1. this c-span interview is from august 2006, and perhaps wrongly attributes "involuntary servitude" to the issue of civil service (e.g. butler v. perry)

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=240&invol=328

2. this emanuel speech took place at a brady center event in may 2007, and is more of a democratic "stump" speech in favor of *reinvigorating* the purpose of the brady bill... whereas i think most of us would support banning *suspected terrorists* from the right to bear arms, the emanuel speech says *nothing* about the *real* problem with these "terrorist lists* ... i.e. the inefficient screening process leading to, imho, bloated lists

3. this wsj interview is at least current, but almost completely stripped of its context, i.e. extraordinary challenges test the mettle of those challenged, *not* crisis necessarily gives gov't the *excuse* to strip civil liberties

To tha moon, blankfist, TO THA MOON!

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Tee 'muthfuckin' hee. I'm a stinker.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
There may be a case to be made, but this clumsy and confused piece of agit-prop doesn't do it. Isn't this the kind of phony, speculative fear mongering your channel was created to expose?

Is Oprah in on the new world order? What about Ellen and Emeril? Does Obama drop coded hints of his evil masterplan in his stump speech? Why the spooky soundtrack?

You know I love you blankfist, but this video is an insult to our intelligence. If you think Obama is some kind of Bond villain, then connect the dots, or better yet, wait for him to do something nefarious, then you can crank up the Wurlitzer, and play your heart out.

Also, sorry to say it, but Ron Paul's 15 minutes are up. Those are the breaks kid.

Tee 'muthfuckin' hee. I'm a stinker.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
There may be a case to be made, but this clumsy and confused piece of agit-prop doesn't do it. Isn't this the kind of phony, speculative fear mongering your channel was created to expose?

Is Oprah in on the new world order? What about Ellen and Emeril? Does Obama drop coded hints of his evil masterplan in his stump speech? Why the spooky soundtrack?

You know I love you blankfist, but this video is an insult to our intelligence. If you think Obama is some kind of Bond villain, then connect the dots, or better yet, wait for him to do something nefarious, then you can crank up the Wurlitzer, and play your heart out.

Also, sorry to say it, but Ron Paul's 15 minutes are up. Those are the breaks kid.

There may be a case to be made, but this clumsy and confused piece of agit-prop doesn't do it. Isn't this the kind of phony, speculative fear mongering your channel was created to expose?

Is Oprah in on the new world order? What about Ellen and Emeril? Does Obama drop coded hints of his evil masterplan in his stump speech? Why the spooky soundtrack?

You know I love you blankfist, but this video is an insult to our intelligence. If you think Obama is some kind of Bond villain, then connect the dots, or better yet, wait for him to do something nefarious, then you can crank up the Wurlitzer, and play your heart out.

Also, sorry to say it, but Ron Paul's 15 minutes are up. Those are the breaks kid.

Actually, it's not so much two perspectives on Obama's plan so much as the main video is an Obama campaign staffer explaining Obama's plan (with the usual stump speech language), and Steve Forbes distorting it.

Obama's tax middle class tax cuts are structured as fixed-dollar tax credits. That doesn't make them one-shot. One-shot means a Bush-style "rebate" where you cut people a bribe check for a fixed amount...once. New tax credits that people get every year doesn't sound one-shot to me.

Forbes (and other Republican supporters) insist that tax cuts for middle and lower classes won't have a stimulative effect on the economy. I don't understand, didn't even Fred Thompson make a joke about only taking water out of one half of the bucket, as if it didn't matter who got tax cuts, as long as they got cut?

So how's this, what if the Obama plan is an overall reduction of tax revenue, but it raises taxes on those making over $250,000, and cuts it for everyone else? Won't all that magic free-market mojo make our economy grow, no matter who gets the money?

I guess that's where the noise about redistribution of wealth comes in. Better when it's like Forbes' famed Flat Tax -- raise taxes on the poor and middle class, but cut it for the rich. More fair that way for sure. No redistribution in that idea, nosiree.

I'd be scared to see a compilation that included how many "talking points" these guys used in the debates that came from stump speeches or previous press interviews.

It's one reason I had trouble paying attention to the debates, I'd heard all of what they said before, probably thousands of times before.

That said, if you've got a good line, you use it over and over again, because some people probably haven't heard it, or haven't heard it recently.

*election08
*news

Downvote for being 1/10th of the original clip&interview. Not even the line "she gave a stump speech" which is in the title of this video, is not in the video itself.

maybe change to this embed code?

It's usually not in his stump speeches, but that was essentially what he said anytime it came up in the primary debates.

I'll have to look at how long ago he started making that position clear, but it was at least as early as last June. Might have even predated his run for Senate.

In reply to this comment by deedub81:
Good points, but Obama wasn't saying these things all along. He's changed his story because he has come to the realization that he may not be able to follow through. If he had been saying "end this ill-conceived war that never should have been waged as long as it doesn't look like it will destabilize the region" when that's what all the other Dems were saying, I'd respect him for it. They were right. Now that he's beaten them and Gen Petraeus' strategy worked, he agrees. He had been saying from the beginning that he was gonna start troop withdrawals when he took office, period.

Correct me if I'm wrong, that's how I remember it. I don't have time to look into now (I'll check later).

These relatable, emotional but policy vapid speeches bore me to tears but then I guess this is the manner of stump speeches that spurs the masses.

It looks like he's giving the state of the union, but wasn't that just a 2004 stump speech? I'm beginning to think there might be something fishy to this video.