Politics – Keeping this Up Here –

[Anonymous]

Hi – I don’t want to share this on the main board, it might distract from our purpose – but – Mike Pence scares me more than Donald Trump. Just sayin’.

Thanks.

[Anonymous]

I don’t know enough about him, I missed his speech the other day.

Appearance-wise he reminds me of a live action version of an obscure cartoon character from the early 90s. I guess that’s just how my brain is wired.

I’m coming around to where I’m not really concerned with who wins the election, I’m more concerned with the candidates’ followers. We’ve had several presidential elections where the people are close to being evenly split, there’s been division lately but in this election cycle it feels like there’s even less middle ground for people to come together after a president is elected.

My social media is filled with people either posting anti-Trump articles – which only seem to draw “…but Hillary” responses or anti-Hillary articles – which only seem to draw “…but Trump” responses. We’re talking past each other in an effort to paint the other guy as the worst thing that could possibly happen to America. I get the feeling that there’s going to be this huge uproar no matter who wins. We’ll have a new president and we’ll have 50% of the country frothing at the mouth for 4 straight years.

[Anonymous]

What an abominable combination. Pence is an extremist nut job.

Hillary isn’t much better, and Johnson is a pure enough Libertarian to scare me, as well – just not as much as the others.

We have no good options, even if a third-party – and I live in a red state that just might vote Johnson. I doubt it, but Trump/Pence is hellish to me.

[Anonymous]

I am not even sure if I should buckle up for the ride ahead or just lie down and let it run me over. I can’t even find words right now.

[Anonymous]

What to think about this election? What to think??? Hmmm…it’s tricky…but I have come to believe there are not extreme positions or risks. None of these candidates could climb this mountain to represent their parties without some vetting, and some smart people backing them up.

I guess I don’t particularly like the arguments I hear that Trump is a jerk. I guess I kind of feel like I do with people at my work, some people are jerks, but if they get the job done, I don’t care if they are a jerk if it is helping our company go in the right direction. I don’t have to like them, I don’t have to hang out with them…but I want things done and I want the right things done.

I think most of them are jerks, with egos and with secret lives.

When I read through the issues and what Trump and Hillary stand for, I happen to agree with Trump more often then Hillary. And I agree with Johnson the most.

I think Hillary has less character than Trump. And I don’t see Hillary did much in her public office to make much difference. I like the idea of a woman President…just not her…there are better woman leaders. Michelle Obama would be a better candidate than Hillary.

All in all, I fall back in believing our country is the strongest country in the world, and has been for some time. It is losing it’s strength since the time the USSR broke down.

I want a better country for my kids to grow up in. I want them to be able to afford a house and healthcare and find jobs and live in a free society.

I believe Trump is closer to my ideas than Hillary. He is a jerk and not a polished politician. But I don’t see him so dangerous he can do much more than what all the other politicians allow him to. I think he can get more done than Hillary can. And that is what I want. Even if I hate the comments he made about muslims. I’m not making my decision based on one or two quotes.

I will not vote Clinton. I will either vote for Johnson, who I mostly align with, or I will try to vote Trump to block Hillary from being President. But I don’t believe Trump can beat Hillary. If I don’t think it matters, I will vote my conscience and vote Johnson. If I feel like it is close, I will vote Trump.

It is a circus. I guess I turn off the madness at times. It is just a reality show of sorts. It matters, but it isn’t “this country is going to hell in a handbasket” to me.

[Anonymous]

This election more than any other I can remember has me so questioning myself again and again. Ugh. I hear things Trump says and just don’t think I can see him as presidential.

And then I can’t seem to want to vote for Clinton. I just … ugh.

[attachment=0]NopeandNoper2.jpg[/attachment]

[Anonymous]

On Sunday we had this quote thrown at us (A Benson lover gave the combined lesson, Benson is a little lower on my list of favorite presidents):

Quote:

If you vote for the lesser of two evils, you are still voting for evil and you will be judged for it. You should always vote for the best possible candidate, whether they have a chance of winning or not. Then, even if the worst possible candidate wins, the Lord will bless our country more because more people were willing to stand up for what is right.

I have voted for the lesser of evils (in my mind) for the last several presidential elections, but this particular election is the epitome of two great evils IMO. So I wanted to know when Pres. Benson said this, look at the context, etc., and try to figure out what I’m supposed to do then – because I will vote. It turns out that the above quote (also popular on places like Facebook and Pinterest) is at best unattributed. He never said it in a public forum (GC, BYU, etc.) and as best as I can tell it’s the paraphrase from an obscure source (a guy named Mike Thompson who I never heard of who said President Benson said it to him).

So, it’s highly suspect IMO. I think it’s much like Packer’s supposed youth in Pres. HInckley’s time quote, which is not suspect – he didn’t say it. I’m sure it will come up again in the next few weeks, so I plan to make the point of asking the individual to provide the reference in a class situation (nicely, of course) and probably a person-to-person interaction if it’s in a SM situation.

While I’m on the subject of quotes, one of my pet peeves is the oft repeated “I never said it would be easy, I said it would be worth it” attributed to Jesus (and often accompanied by a picture of the Savior). Jesus never said it or anything like it. No need to make up stuff Jesus said – we have lots of things he did say recorded in scripture.

[Anonymous]

That lesser of two evils quote… it’s driven me crazy over the last 6 months. Have fun waiting for Jesus to run for president.

Quote:

You should always vote for the best possible candidate…

In other words… the lesser of two evils? :crazy: Maybe it’s a phrasing thing for some people? Glass half empty, glass half full. Frame things positively, frame things negatively.

Ordinarily when someone shares that quote I’d ask what they plan on doing on election day but I’m fairly certain I already know.

DarkJedi wrote:

While I’m on the subject of quotes, one of my pet peeves is the oft repeated “I never said it would be easy, I said it would be worth it” attributed to Jesus (and often accompanied by a picture of the Savior). Jesus never said it or anything like it. No need to make up stuff Jesus said – we have lots of things he did say recorded in scripture.

Maybe I took things a little too far in my journey but isn’t everything we attribute to Jesus made up? To me that was the principle benefit of the restoration, that we could finally add more to what Jesus said to get some of the progress we’ve made in the last 2000 years on the books.

I’m not picking on you DJ, that quote certainly hasn’t been canonized and understand that I operate with a whack-a-do definition for Jesus, great apostasy, god, etc.

[Anonymous]

I deleted this comment (twice) earlier. What am I afraid of? I really don’t care enough about politics because of the potential for it to divide people but after reading this article this morning I figure, what the hey?

1) From that article:

Quote:

And, as noted by many reporters present, while Trump kicked the crying baby out of the rally, a 10-year old who reportedly, repeatedly yelled about Hillary Clinton, “Take the bitch down!,” was not kicked out or even chastised.

A new generation of “yikes!” is born.

2) Apparently the Hillary commercial they run ad nauseum is working. A friend reported that their 8 year old kid said (paraphrase), “If Trump shot me in the street I hope he would lose at least 50 votes because I’m worth something.”

The ad has given that “I could stand in the middle of 5th avenue and shoot somebody” more air time than the original comment ever did but the longer Trump continues to have a microphone attached to him the longer this sort of thing will go on.

I hate to play the “won’t someone think of the children” card but…

I’ve also seen people brush these things aside by saying that the parents are a child’s role model. True but they aren’t the only role models and we don’t always get to choose who our children hold up as role models.

Heber13 wrote:

This election more than any other I can remember has me so questioning myself again and again. Ugh. I hear things Trump says and just don’t think I can see him as presidential.

It’s okay Heebs. We’ll still be here for you when you finally realize just how terrible a person Trump is.

One thing that people are now talking about that I am concerned with… if mom and pop can troll bait Trump into …well, into being Trump… how easy is it going to be for world leaders with actual political savvy to manipulate him into doing exactly what they want him to do?

I’m not giving Hillary a pass. Trump is probably the only person in the country that she’d have a chance to beat in a general election. Everything about her seems phony, like you go inside her brain a la that Inside Out movie and there’s a yuuuuuge team of lawyers and political analysts dissecting how to react to every little thing.

I get the historic nature of having a woman president. Why not Michelle Obama? Why not Michelle Obama?

So who to vote for?

Kate McKinnon’s Hillary Clinton >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Taran Killam’s Donald Trump

How’s that for a coin flip?

I don’t like either but I’m the opposite. Clinton is my Nope and Drump is my Nopest. I hope we can still be friends. 🙂 :angel:

To end on a happy note:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlKao_Pox5A” class=”bbcode_url”>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlKao_Pox5A

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

Maybe I took things a little too far in my journey but isn’t everything we attribute to Jesus made up? To me that was the principle benefit of the restoration, that we could finally add more to what Jesus said to get some of the progress we’ve made in the last 2000 years on the books.

I’m not picking on you DJ, that quote certainly hasn’t been canonized and understand that I operate with a whack-a-do definition for Jesus, great apostasy, god, etc.

I was actually thinking about that as I wrote. Indeed we don’t know that Jesus did or said any of those things or that Jesus even existed. I don’t take the NT much more literally than I do the OT or BoM, so it’s all suspect. But at least some of the gospel writers had matching stories (although a good portion of Mark is just copied Matthew, or vice versa, so that makes perfect sense). That’s why things like “love your neighbor” resonate with me – it’s pretty much universal among religions/belief systems.

So I suppose if we can make up things Jesus said, why not Benson or any other prophet? It’s so much easier to prove one’s point if one can use a weighty quote, made up or not – most people don’t question.

[Anonymous]

DarkJedi wrote:

So I suppose if we can make up things Jesus said, why not Benson or any other prophet? It’s so much easier to prove one’s point if one can use a weighty quote, made up or not – most people don’t question.

At one point I considered the sayings we attribute to Jesus in the NT as being representative of the best of the best words of wisdom that existed at the time. People piggy backed on the legend of Jesus to create an image of an unassailable sage, plus how would you feel if you secretly knew you ghostwrote something for Jesus? Eventually enough time passed and it was a harder sell to convince people that Jesus said such-and-such. It didn’t exist in the old writings so it obviously wasn’t something he said.

Attributing something to Jesus certainly does help people take things a little more seriously or makes something a little more memorable.

If (and I want to place emphasis on the word if) Jesus is a myth that encapsulates the best of human spirituality we’d have to be able to add, subtract, and edit the myth; otherwise in some ways Jesus did die, or in other words the myth of Jesus has its limits because it is finite. Each little restoration, LDS fueled or no, allows Jesus to resurrect again. Believing that Jesus speaks today is the proof that he yet lives.

I’m not an army of one, if I say Jesus said this new and great thing I’d be considered a lone nutter, rightfully so. That’s where I feel that tribes come into the equation. If a tribe holds up something new as coming from Jesus, for that tribe I suppose the new saying did come from Jesus.

We invoke the name of Jesus to convey authority. That’s the thing about religion. We tend to hold up external figures as voices of authority and seldom think to look within. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think our internal voice should be the sole voice of authority either. It’s our journey, sometimes we take a few steps alone but I think most of the time we’re taking steps with others.

Man I’m crazy. I told you, my definition of Jesus is fluid. Maybe too fluid. Besides, I’m waaaaaaaaaaaay off subject.

So maybe there are many members that want the “If you vote for the lesser of two evils, you are still voting for evil and you will be judged for it.” comment to go down in the annals of Jesus but I don’t think it has common consent among all tribe members.

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

So maybe there are many members that want the “If you vote for the lesser of two evils, you are still voting for evil and you will be judged for it.” comment to go down in the annals of Jesus but I don’t think it has common consent among all tribe members.

Hence why Sunday’s lesson bothered me. I don’t like to discuss politics at church (or really anywhere else for that matter), and the lesson wasn’t even a discussion, it was a lecture by a very orthodox couple. The subject was the founding of our great nation and how it was all part of God’s plan and all necessary for the restoration of the church. Why do you think the railroad came along when it did? (The guy actually said that, while I was thinking to myself “It could have come a little earlier for lots of the pioneers, especially Willie and Martin.”) And since most of our current GAs don’t talk on the subject much (or at all), the quotes they read were all old McConkie and Benson era. Before the Benson quote the sister made it a point of saying “Now this is the prophet speaking….” That’s why I went and researched it. Yes, clearly they (the teachers) want Benson’s quote to be true and have no doubt it is, and clearly some members of the class were eating it up – I didn’t lift my head long enough from my tablet to see who wasn’t drinking the Kool-Aid, but I’m sure there were others who weren’t. So I guess when I’m in the voting booth this November I’ll be asking myself “What would Ezra do?” (or not)

I want to clarify my earlier comment about Benson being a little lower on my list of favorite presidents. In fairness, he’s probably in a multiple tie for third.

[Anonymous]

DarkJedi wrote:

Quote:

nibbler wrote:

So maybe there are many members that want the “If you vote for the lesser of two evils, you are still voting for evil and you will be judged for it.” comment to go down in the annals of Jesus but I don’t think it has common consent among all tribe members.

Hence why Sunday’s lesson bothered me. I don’t like to discuss politics at church (or really anywhere else for that matter), and the lesson wasn’t even a discussion, it was a lecture by a very orthodox couple.

Exactly…the painful part of church…the rhetoric. Love it! (not)

So…let’s be smart…if we are really thinking about fearing God will judge us for choosing evil in this election…what are people really thinking God is interested in us doing with our lives? This is really THAT big of an issue to be talking about in church?

IDK. Maybe I am just jaded. I just think people are silly, especially about politics.

I hate Clinton, I can’t believe Trump is as far as he is…but seriously…can either do much to our country that makes it seem like God is judging us on this election, and the country is going to hell…and whatever else? I doubt our system of checks and balances will allow any president to do much.

The matter of choosing between 2 evils is interesting to me. What are we supposed to do? Not vote? Is that an evil? Waste a vote by writing in Mitt Romney? Is not like the unprofitable servant who burried the talent and wasted it?

Why not be smart? Weigh the options. Vote your conscience. The world will not end. Compromise is needed in order to progress as a society. Do we not compromise in our marriages? Relationships? Work?

It is how things get done. Because it is smart.

Idealistic and purist rhetoric can try to inspire the heart, but is sometimes stupid too.

[Anonymous]

Heber13 wrote:

The matter of choosing between 2 evils is interesting to me. What are we supposed to do? Not vote? Is that an evil? Waste a vote by writing in Mitt Romney? Is not like the unprofitable servant who burried the talent and wasted it?

I think the takeaway is that god will be pissed no matter what we do.

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

Heber13 wrote:

The matter of choosing between 2 evils is interesting to me. What are we supposed to do? Not vote? Is that an evil? Waste a vote by writing in Mitt Romney? Is not like the unprofitable servant who burried the talent and wasted it?

I think the takeaway is that god will be pissed no matter what we do.

I’m sure there are people who naturally think that way, I could name a couple in my ward. I am on the opposite end of the spectrum, I don’t think God gives a hoot who our president is. We believe in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law and are subject to kings, presidents, rulers and magistrates not all of which we agree with or even wish to be subject to. Were we members in Russia we not only wouldn’t have this forum, we’d be subject to Putin and would be bound to obey Russian laws. God and Joseph Smith didn’t specify that the AoF only apply in the United States, and in fact it seems they were meant to apply to everyone everywhere.

Just a little side note here. We have an old German couple in our ward (very old). I love them, they are great people albeit very conservative religiously. I am very good friends with his son. The old guy won’t talk about it, but he was a Nazi soldier because he was drafted (and long before joining the church). However, there were in that war LDS soldiers on both sides and if ever there is a WWIII there will be even more on both sides. Which side does God fight for? Which foe does God vanquish?

[Author]

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