George McNaughton 's Comments
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Nov 14, 2009 | comments: 6
George McNaughton Nov 15, 2009, 7:57am EST
Ken, if Obama was not a Centrist he would be demanding single payer universal coverage healthcare reform, support gay marriage, be strongly supporting breaking up financial institutions that are too big to fail, and aggressively taxing the upper income echelons to cover the deficit. He is doing none of these things. Instead he is not even insisting upon a robust govt option in health care reform, does not support gay marriage, is (over the objection of the Europeans) being relatively mild with respect to dealing with the too big to fail institutions, and has not followed through with his campaign promise to tax the upper echelons. He could only not be viewed as a centrist by someone on the ultra right, or by the GOP "no" faction.
Aug 22, 2009 | comments: 9
George McNaughton Aug 25, 2009, 3:45pm EDT
Joe...so you advocate Jefferson's approach which was to throw out everything which testified of the Divinity of Christ? I agree, that the Founder's were Deists and not the mythical men of faith sometimes preached by a variety of American ministers including the occasional Mormon -- but not sure what your stance is. I guess we Mormons could be accused of disparaging Tea (not including non-caffeinated herbal teas), but we also disparage meat to excess, tobacco (except to treat sick animals) and booze. We do encourage fruits, vegetables and grains though!
Aug 22, 2009 | comments: 9
George McNaughton Aug 22, 2009, 11:07pm EDT
For conservative Protestants and Catholics, I do not want to be understood that I believe that homosexuality can be squared with the Bible...I do not. But, then there have been a lot of liberties taken with the Bible and I do not see this as being that much more of a liberty. But for us, as Mormons, there is no such room even if there was an inclination to somehow interpret the Bible in such a fashion. However, I do not believe any faith should be allowed to breach the separation of church and state which has been the hallmark of religious freedom in America since the Bill of Rights was made applicable to the States under the Civil War Amendments, and in most of the States for a period much longer than that.
Aug 22, 2009 | comments: 9
George McNaughton Aug 22, 2009, 11:01pm EDT
There is a typographical error in my last comment. The sentence should read: "As a result a committed relationship dedicated to a homosexual activity, is "not" up for the same likelihood of spiritual fellowship within the Mormon faith as it is in Protestantism or Catholicism. Sorry about the error.
Aug 22, 2009 | comments: 9
George McNaughton Aug 22, 2009, 10:58pm EDT
Mormons who are living their religion do not hate homosexuals. Having said that, Mormonism is different than Catholicism or Protestantism where there is some doctrinal room for recognizing homosexuality as something other than sinful. We may recognize that some people are genetically predisposed, or because of their upbringing, may be predisposed towards homosexuality. Nevertheless, the centrality of heterosexual marriage to Mormon beliefs is core to their view of what heaven is like and how the universe operates. Mormons believe not only in a Heavenly Father, but also in a Heavenly Mother, and that God in order to be a God must be married. We take the idea of being children of our Heavenly Father very, very seriously and literally when it comes to our spirits. As a result a committed relationship dedicated to a homosexual activity, is up for the same likelihood of spiritual fellowship within the Mormon faith as it is in Protestantism or Catholicism.

That was the first point of the posting. The second point, which everyone seems to be ignoring is that Mormon doctrine is also very much opposed to interfering with "free agency" and especially coercing anyone to believe as they believe. In a secular democracy dedicated to the ideals of liberalism, it is wholly innappropriate for anyone to legislate their religious beliefs and thereby bring the coercive power of government to bear upon a minority for religious reasons. The bottomline gripe that motivated Prop 8 was religious -- gays who enter into gay marriages are not physically or economically hurting or damaging anyone else (assuming they are consenting adults.) As a result, we had no business trying to legislate our beliefs. From a purely secular standpoint, public health suggests that the government has an interest in promoting committed relationships rather than promiscuity whether promiscuity be homosexual or heterosexual. As a result, from a strictly secular point of view -- Prop 8 is bad policy and bad law.
Aug 22, 2009 | comments: 68
George McNaughton Aug 22, 2009, 10:33pm EDT
Well its not just the poor, actually the really poor have ways of gaining health coverage, its the uninsured middle-class who are one sickness away from bankruptcy....
Aug 22, 2009 | comments: 68
George McNaughton Aug 22, 2009, 7:45pm EDT
Just published this link on Facebook
May 21, 2009 | comments: 33
George McNaughton May 23, 2009, 9:32pm EDT

We have a prison in our town, except for the employment that it brings to Town you wouldn't know it was there.
May 21, 2009 | comments: 33
George McNaughton May 22, 2009, 11:51am EDT

Baby J -- I agree this concept of picking up people and holding them without charges or trials is just wrong.  This is just fearmongering.
May 21, 2009 | comments: 33
George McNaughton May 21, 2009, 8:45pm EDT

I don't think there is any doubt that GITMO is being used against us internationally.  What I don't understand is the hoopla about putting them in max security prison--druglords have better equipped and probably more sophisticated allies than some of these people.  I live in a Town which has a prison--we see it, and rightly so, as an economic plus for the community.  Someone raised the question as to who was going to pay for the incarceration...these are federal prisoners so the fed which is paying for their incarceration now will be paying for it in the future.  I don't see any difference between these guys and our domestic homegrown terrorists like Timothy McVeigh, or the Unabomber...
May 5, 2009 | comments: 72
George McNaughton May 5, 2009, 5:00pm EDT
It pretty much seems beyond question at this point that the rich have been getting richer, the comfortable have being getting less comfortable, and poor have been having kids. It would be nice for once to see those in the mid-range get a little more assistance in the form of reduced healthcare costs and a little less in the way of taxes -- but we need to pay for that and the ones who need to be paying for that are the ultra wealthy. If we do not do that, then we eventually will have no middle-class -- just a horde of peons and a few rich oligarchs, and the world will not be a better place as a result.
May 5, 2009 | comments: 5
George McNaughton May 5, 2009, 4:48pm EDT
Faith rather than knowledge lessens our accountability.
Apr 30, 2009 | comments: 56
George McNaughton May 5, 2009, 4:40pm EDT
Paula, better question is why uninsured Americans going abroad to get surgeries and treatment and to Canada to get their prescriptions filled.
Apr 30, 2009 | comments: 56
George McNaughton Apr 30, 2009, 11:49pm EDT
Sparky, you have been listening to too much attorney bashing. The legal profession is charged with the task of making everyone accountable--that lends itself to bashing because nobody really wants to be held accountable--and no liberty loving society can long endure without them
Apr 30, 2009 | comments: 56
George McNaughton Apr 30, 2009, 11:45pm EDT
One would think that even the Christian right would support universal health coverage as a fundamental right...but apparently not.
Apr 24, 2009 | comments: 50
George McNaughton Apr 28, 2009, 10:24pm EDT
The whole idea of fair and balanced needs to be thrown out. It has just resulted in hypocrisy...the networks should just state upfront that we are pro-right or pro-left or whatever instead of pretending to be factually neutral
Apr 28, 2009 | comments: 106
George McNaughton Apr 28, 2009, 10:19pm EDT
It looks like his party deserted him, given that the polls showed he had 70% approval ratings with the Democrats in PA and only about 34% of the Republicans...it would have been politically stupid for him to stay aligned with the GOP. If you are unwilling to march in lock step with the GOP's you don't belong in that party and the only other shop that is open are the Democrats. The question is why do the Senators in Maine stay within Republican ranks...is it nostalgia or something?
Apr 23, 2009 | comments: 71
George McNaughton Apr 23, 2009, 4:34pm EDT
I have been amazed with the tenacity that the right wing holds onto with respect to the economy. People are still out there saying that trickle down economics would have worked, even though 20 years of testing strongly indicates that it doesn't. I am still hearing rightwingnuts suggesting that the banking crisis and failures had nothing to do with failure to regulate, but were due to the Community Reinvestment Act. I am not sure anything can penetrate these minds.
Apr 15, 2009 | comments: 132
George McNaughton Apr 21, 2009, 3:50pm EDT
Hm? In a liberal democracy which the United States has always been considered to be, am using the lower case "l" in "liberal", the rights of the individual against the mob always is dependent upon some statement somewhere that identifies those rights. In the United States that identification is located in three locations -- the State Constitutions and the United States Constitution basically in the Bill of Rights as applied to the States via the 14th Amendment and the decisions of the judiciary. To talk of rights in an abstract way doesn't work in a Democracy, nor does the so-called strict interpretation work because the Constitution as we know it today was in essence created shortly after the Civil War (the Civil War Amendments reshaped America permanently) -- but we are now living in very, very different times than shortly after the Civil War and so there has to be some entity somewhere to make the Constitution work for our times. We cannot depend on the legislatures to do that because they are popularly elected and therefore are vulnerable to mob psychology -- so we invested the primary responsibility for this task in an unelected body of Americans and we at the same time made that body the weakest of the three bodies. It is not an efficient system -- but efficiency in this case is not necessarily good, and I believe that ultimately we have a very good system despite occassional lapses such as during the McCarthy Era and during Bush II.
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George McNaughton
Springfield, VT
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