The Evangelical Universalist Forum

How To Live Under An Unqualified President by John Piper

I found this interesting article on BBC today:

It’s complicated: Trump’s steep learning curve

I see no more posts. Is posting now officially dead :question: :laughing:

I thought I would share, some Nerd computer tips.

First, if you have a home network, then set up a router. It provides a hardware firewall and additional protection. And set it up, to use one of these name servers. Which provides extra protection:

OpenDNS
Norton Secure Connect

To reduce bandwidth, either use Opera or Google Chrome. They compress things. But you have to turn on the Data Saver feature, for Google Chrome.

For Android and IOS, it's in settings.  And is called Data Saver
For a PC, install the Data Saver extension.  I also recommend HTTPS Everywhere - for security.

For speeding up the Mobile stuff, use one of these two methods.

Use the app Neopard, if you don't use secure websites (i.e. banking, etc.)
Otherwise, use Opera Max.  And turn on the feature privacy also.

Both use VPN connections. But Opera is more secure. But you have to keep turning it on and adding time.

Everything suggested here is free. Let’s dedicate a couple YouTube videos - to nerds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9qYF9DZPdw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Tvy_Pbe5NA

I am sure many Trump fans here, would applaud the move. Since it’s saving the American taxpayers - “collectively” money. :confused: :unamused:

We shall see!

I understand your frustration. How would you do it?

Well - just butting in here - we could simply take money from people who have it and give it to those that don’t. That seems fair. Not.
In any case, let’s wait to see what the Senate does before we get our IV’s in a knot.

I agree with Dave Here. Let’s see how the bill finally unfolds, in the Senate. I’m sure it will be changed a little bit - if not drastically.

My biggest objection is that the Republications were ignoring input, from big and established groups, like the AARP, AMA and hospital lobbyist groups.

For the record, the Republican plan doesn’t really effect me. Since I’m on a Medicare advantage plan. And I’m also big into alternative medicine (i.e. homeopathy), prayer and spiritual healing (i.e. Red Road, Native American healing and Bruno Gröning Circle of Friends).

On a more positive note - for us nerds - Guardians of the Galaxy (Vol 2) is now playing :smiley:

And here’s a BBC story today entitled Five big consequences of Trumpcare win

A man I’ve learned to pay attention to said this:

"On “Special Report” tonight, Charles Krauthammer said Trump and Republican leaders may be celebrating the bill getting passed, but he believes the U.S. is now headed for a single-payer health care system.

Krauthammer said ObamaCare “failed at every level,” but it did change Americans’ expectations regarding health care.

“I would predict that in less than seven years, we’ll be in a single-payer system,” Krauthammer said, pointing out that Republicans aren’t even arguing for a free market system anymore.

“They have sort of accepted the fact that the electorate sees health care as not just any commodity, like purchasing a steak or a car,” Krauthammer explained. “It’s something now people have a sense the government ought to guarantee.”

He explained that there are only two options for the future of health care in the U.S. - a radically, individualist system where the market rules or single-payer - and the country is not going to ever go back to the former.

“The terms of debate are entirely on the grounds of the liberal argument that everybody ought to have it,” Krauthammer said. “Once that happens, you’re going to end up with a single-payer system.”

Well, I never heard of “single-payer” health care until I read your post, DaveB. Through an internet search, I learned that that is the system that we have here in Canada.

This system was introduced to Canada by Tommy Douglas, Baptist minister, Social Democratic politician, and member of the CCF Party (Co-operative Commonwealth Federation—a political party further to the left than it’s successor, the NDP Party or New Democrat Party). Tommy Douglas was the first leader of the NDP Party, and was premier of Saskatchewan from 1944-1961. You can read more about him here:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Douglas

In Canada, no one goes broke from paying huge medical bills (except those who have to go to United States for special treatment that is unavailable in Canada. My brother-in-law would have been one of them, if he had not owned land that he sold in order to help him pay his U.S. medical debt). I’d doubtless be penniless and deeply in debt, if it weren’t for the Ontario Health Plan. (Health is within provincial jurisdiction, and there are similar plans in all the provinces). Ontario income tax requires me to contribute to its health plan, but I paid only $53.54 Canadian dollars for the entire year 2016, even though I’m a retired teacher with an adequate pension.

Perhaps you can understand why I lean toward socialism in matters relating to the needs of society. However, in moral matters (e.g. opposition to the practice of abortion), I am strongly conservative or “right wing”.

I can understand the leaning toward socialized medicine. In and of itself, it makes a kind of sense.
It CAN be - not necessarily, but possibly - a big step toward full socialist integration and organization of the society, and that slippery slope is my biggest concern.
I don’t know enough about Canada to speak with any authority, but I do live in the USA, and the far left totalitarians are in fact communists under different names - neo-liberal, progressive, what have you - that are enamored of the utopian vision that sounds so good, but has caused - well, the atrocity we call the 20th century - everywhere and everytime it has been tried.

Of course a ‘slippery slope’ argument does not prove necessity; perhaps we could stop at a one-payer medical system. It is interesting to note that Ayers’ Rules for Radicals - a communist manifesto - laid great stress on the first step in the overthrow of the government as - the health care system. Once that was in place, as a one-payer system, Ayers and others (and he taught this to Obama, we know) thought the battle was on its way to being won. The point being that the one-payer system is a POLITICAL tool, for Ayers et.al., it was not for the benefit of the people.

I have a lot of information on this.

I am not doing any of those things. Read the post - I did not claim that anything was necessary; I did claim certain things are possible.
Using ‘fringe group’ for any group you suspect is fallacious also.

I know you will argue more, and I am just going to ignore it. Let people make up their own minds.

HUM :exclamation: Now that’s an interesting topic to bring up for discussion. I’ll incorporate it, at my next Nerds and Geeks, convention meeting. :exclamation: :laughing:

There are three major political parties in Canada: The Conservative Party (right wing), the New Democratic Party (left wing) and the Liberal Party (which prides itself in being the “extreme middle”). In the second last election, when the Conservatives had been elected and formed the government, they never made any move to change socialized health care. They recognized it as very important for the Canadian people. In the last election, the Liberals were elected. The NDP has NEVER formed the government of Canada. Yet, Socialist as the NDP is, I disbelieve that it is the Communist Party in disguise, and if they do succeed in forming the government in the future, Canadians would not be alarmed even though most Canadians are non-Socialist.

I have always voted for Conservative candidates in Canada except in two elections. The first exception was when I voted for the Social Credit candidate (this party was more to the right than even the Conservatives). I was their local candidate, and so, of course, I voted for myself. The other time I didn’t vote Conservative was in an election when I was 19 years old. In that election (due to my immaturity), I voted for the NDP candidate—just to be different.

Very interesting, Paidion!
The American Left is quite different!

For a former insider’s view of the American communist party and its further iterations, a fascinating book, available for kindle as well is this:
amazon.com/Black-Book-Ameri … rican+left

From a review of the book:
“Horowitz is a brilliant philosopher and historian. And he has done more than " hobnob” with the 60 's leftists who have, like a malignant metastasizing cancer, gradually but unmistakably taken over the schools and the media, and are in the process of destroying the soul of this great nation. He grew up the son of activist members of the Communist party, and was a mover and shaker of the radical left in the 60"s—a much more substantial contributor to that movement than lightweight Bill Ayers. He details his gradual, tortuous,and ultimately very courageous conversion to conservative writer, philosopher and activist in his book Radical Son. If you want to understand the motives and methods of the left, take a few nights off from the comparatively shallow talking heads at Fox News and read his books. There is no one else out there who so profoundly understands the left, and why it’s agenda is so antithetical to the this nation as conceived by the Founders in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution."

I made a mistake above, It was Saul Alinsky, not Bill Ayers, who was responsible for directly influencing the Rules for Radicals - which seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse. To wit:

There are eight levels of control that must be obtained before you are able to create a social state.
The first is the most important.

Healthcare– Control healthcare and you control the people.
Poverty – Increase the Poverty level as high as possible, poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them to live.
Debt – Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes, and this will produce more poverty.
Gun Control – Remove the ability to defend themselves from the Government. That way you are able to create a police state
Welfare – Take control of every aspect of their lives. (Food, Housing, and Income)
Education – Take control of what people read and listen to us“ take control of what children learn in school.
Religion – Remove the belief in the God from the Government and schools.
Class Warfare – Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to take (Tax) the wealthy with the support of the poor.

There’s much more to it, but those rules are the crux.

There are eight levels of control that must be obtained before you are able to create a social state.
The first is the most important.

Healthcare– Control healthcare and you control the people.
Poverty – Increase the Poverty level as high as possible, poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them to live.
Debt – Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes, and this will produce more poverty.
Gun Control – Remove the ability to defend themselves from the Government. That way you are able to create a police state
Welfare – Take control of every aspect of their lives. (Food, Housing, and Income)
Education – Take control of what people read and listen to us“ take control of what children learn in school.
Religion – Remove the belief in the God from the Government and schools.
Class Warfare – Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to take (Tax) the wealthy with the support of the poor.

There’s much more to it, but those rules are the crux.

You defined the Democratic party in the USA!

steve said

Yepper :smiley:

Perhaps not each and every Democrat, but certainly the goals of those on the left of the Left.

In order to learn the right from the left, I present this short, **educational **video :smiley:

:laughing:
Not too realistic though - the drill sgt could actually almost be understood!