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Ronald Reagan spoke many times on intolerance and bigotry. What would Reagan say today about Mitt Romney’s presidential candidacy and Mormon religion? What would Reagan do, many often ask. The following video shares Reagan’s thoughts on religious intolerance and all forms of bigotry, and it includes a clip of Mitt Romney’s speech, “Faith in America.”
Except for Mitt Romney’s speech, all quotes are of Ronald Reagan:
Article VI (6)
"I don't like all the emphasis that's being put on it, because I see it as being a little unfair. He is a man of faith and he has amazing principles. He's a good father and husband. I'd like them to look at the measure of the man and stop focusing so much just on his faith."
The test of courage comes when we are in the minority. The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority.
Ralph W. Sockman
In Massachusetts Romney signed laws allowing stores to sell alcohol on Sundays, even though he was prohibited by his faith from drinking.
In Massachusetts Romney signed laws that expand the state lottery, though Mormons are forbidden to gamble.
“There’s no church-directed view. How can you have Harry Reid on one side and Orrin Hatch on the other without recognizing that the church doesn’t direct political views? I very clearly subscribe to Abraham Lincoln’s view of America’s political religion. And that is when you take the oath of office, your responsibility is to the nation, and that is first and foremost.”
Governor Mitt Romney
Quotes from Governor Mitt Romney on Religion
"Oh, I think initially. Some people would say, Gosh, I don't know much about your faith, tell me about it. And I'd probably outline the fundamentals. I'm a religious person. I believe that Jesus Christ is my Savior. But then as you get into the details of doctrines I'd probably say look time out, let's focus on the values that we share. And fundamentally the values of my faith are very much like the values of other Judeo-Christian tradition values. And I think Americans want to have a leader who is a person of faith, but their not going to get terribly involved in the differences of doctrine, as long as the values we share are common."
Governor Mitt Romney on the Charlie Rose Show, June 5, 2006
When asked, "Religion really played a role sense JFK, do you think it would play a role if you ran?"
"Not really. Not at this stage. You know its possible that there will come some point were there is a question that galvanizes interest and there is an occasion to say something that cuts through the confusion that may develop but at this stage it is kind of hard to predict what will happen. I mean I remember in the race with Ronald Reagan, it was in his debate that he said, "I'm not going to let your youth and inexperience become an issue in this campaign". That sort of put aside his age issue. And there may well be something of that nature. I just don't think Americans will do something the constitution forbids. The constitution says that no religious test shall ever be required for qualification for office in these United States, and I don't think my party or the American people would ever do that."
Governor Mitt Romney on the Charlie Rose Show, June 5, 2006
Guest host Judy Woodruff: John Kennedy, we remember, looked for and found a venue where he could talk about his catholic faith. The Houston ministry is a very famous speech that he gave. Would you look for and are you looking for a place were you can make a statement like this and are you looking for the right place and time?
"There is a leap of faith associated with every religion. You haven't exactly got those doctrines right, but if you have doctrines you want to talk about go talk to the church, because that's not my job. But the most unusual thing in my church is that we believe there was once a flood upon the earth and that a man took a boat and put two of each animal inside the boat and saved humanity by doing that."
Governor Mitt Romney on the Charlie Rose Show, June 5, 2006
Guest host Judy Woodruff: But there are some aspects of Mormonism that many Americans might not understand… are these legitimate issues for people to ask you about?
"There are unusual beliefs associated with each faith and I'm proud of my faith and happy to talk to people about it but fundamentally my race for governor, my race for senator before that, and if I run for nationally its going to be about the values that I have, and the values that I think should be emphasized in this country and answers to the kind of challenges that we face, because I believe that America is at a critical time, and I believe those are the types of issues that people will focus on."
Governor Mitt Romney on the Charlie Rose Show, June 5, 2006
“This is a sad day for neglected and abandoned children. In this case, it’s a mistake for our laws to put the rights of adults over the needs of children. While I respect the board’s decision to stay true to their principles, I find the current state of the law deeply disturbing and a threat to religious freedom.”
“I ask the Legislature to work with me on a bill that I will file to ensure that religious institutions are able to participate in the important work of adoption in a way that always respects and never forces them to compromise their firmly held beliefs.”
Bill Clinton said the following in his book, My Life:
I badly wanted Kennedy to win… after he spoke to the southern Baptist in Houston defending his faith and the right of Catholics Americans to run for president. Most of my classmates and their parents disagreed. I was getting used to it.
Nixon carried our county but squeaked by in our Arkansas with 52.2 percent of the vote, despite the best efforts of protestant fundamentalist to convince Baptist democrats that he would be taking orders from the pope.
Of course, the fact that he was a catholic was one of the reasons I wanted Kennedy to be president. From my own experiences at St. John's school, and my encounters with the nuns who worked with Mother St. Joseph's hospital, I liked and admired Catholics. Their values, devotion and social conscience.
I wonder if Clinton would say the same about Romney? Romney has said that Clinton was an embarrassment to our country, and so I doubt Clinton will ever say that Romney should get a fair chance on his substance. Just another instance of Hypocrisy on the left. Unless I'm proved wrong.
I wish those who are trying to tear down Mitt Because of his faith would listen to this quote, by one of our church leaders:
"When you go into a neighborhood to preach the Gospel, never attempt to tear down a man's house, so to speak, before you build him a better one; never, in fact, attack any one's religion, wherever you go. Be willing to let every man enjoy his own religion. It is his right to do that. If he does not accept your testimony with regard to the Gospel of Christ, that is his affair, and not yours. Do not spend your time in pulling down other sects and parties. We haven't time to do that. It is never right to do that." Contributor, August 1895, pp.636–37.
What Other Mormom Cultist have to Say about Religion
By Seth Effron and Raphael Lewis, Globe Staff | October 11, 2005
RALEIGH, N.C. -- Venturing into foreign policy, Governor Mitt Romney yesterday told a largely Republican audience that Islamic terrorists want to bring down our government" and want to put in place a huge theocracy."
We're under attack, as you know, militarily," Romney told about 150 people gathered at an exclusive Raleigh country club. They're not just intent on blowing up a little bomb here and there at a shopping mall, awful as that would be. They want to bring down our government, bring down our entire economy. They want to put in place a huge theocracy."
Thank heavens we have a president of the United States who recognizes this for what it is and has declared war on it, and thank heavens we have a military that consists of the strongest and bravest and most able men and women in the world," Romney said.
The Raleigh luncheon was the first of two fund-raisers yesterday for the Foundation for NC Future -- a nonprofit advocacy group set up by a well-to-do Charlotte-area Republican state senator, Robert Pittenger. The second event was held in Charlotte later yesterday afternoon.
Asked later by a Globe reporter about his remarks, Romney said he was referring to Islamic terrorists.
Obviously, this is an extreme fundamentalist perspective," he responded. It's certainly not shared by the people of Islam generally, but is shared by some radical few."
Then he was asked if he felt Islamic terrorists want to take over the United States. Romney said: No. No. No."
I don't have any foreign intelligence that's any different than what you read in the various journals and so forth," the governor said. Among the various reports I've read -- and I think President Bush has described -- that there are some who wish to bring down the Western-leaning governments and put in a more fundamentalist, religious leadership. But that's not something I'm something I'm expert in."
Eric Fehrnstrom, Romney's communications director, said last night that the governor had made an assertion in earlier speeches that terrorists were seeking a broad based ''theocracy." Those remarks have not been widely reported, however.
Fehrnstrom also pointed to an account earlier this month from the New York Times describing a letter obtained by the US forces in Iraq that was written by Ayman al-Zawahiri, the second-ranking leader of Al Qaeda.
According to the Times, the letter outlined a four-stage battle plan, beginning with the American military's expulsion, followed by the creation of a militant Islamic caliphate in Iraq and then in Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt. The final step, the Times reported, quoted unnamed US officials, would be a battle against Israel.
Romney, who has yet to announce whether he will seek the 2008 GOP presidential nomination, drew criticism from some Muslims and civil liberties advocates last month when he raised the prospect of wiretapping mosques and conducting surveillance of foreign students
Ingraham: Any thoughts on Romney? Any other thoughts on Romney? He is now winning in Iowa and looks like he is winning in some polls in New Hampshire.
Dr. Dobson: Since I talked to you I have spent an hour and a half with him and I liked him. I mean he is very presidential and he has got the right answers to many, many things. I haven’t made a decision yet, but lets just say he is still on the list.
"I have no problem voting for a person who is not of my faith as long as he or she stands with me on the moral and social issues. Mitt Romney may be a candidate for president. He's a Mormon. If he's pro-life, pro-family, I don't think he'll have any problem getting the support of evangelical Christians."
BELMONT, Mass. - As a wildly successful American executive, wealthy capitalist and Harvard man, Mitt Romney might have lived out his life among the country-club set and never really encountered an ordinary citizen. Mormonism made that impossible.
During more than a dozen of his key years at Bain Capital in the 1980s and early 1990s, Romney was also an LDS bishop (equivalent to a pastor) and stake president (presiding over several congregations in the same area) in Belmont. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has no paid clergy; Mormon men take turns overseeing wards (congregations) and stakes while continuing their professional work.
Today, Romney spends his days seeking the Republican nomination for president. As a religious leader, Romney met weekly with students, teachers, immigrant converts and Utah transplants. He had to learn how to give sermons, counsel squabbling couples, organize worship services, manage budgets and address the unique and diverse spiritual needs of more than 1,000 church members in the region.
Questions piled up: How should the church help the new Vietnamese or Cambodian members learn English, get jobs and manage church rituals? Should it build a new chapel to relieve overcrowding in the Cambridge meetinghouse, and what should be done about feminists chafing at LDS policies? Desperately poor
Haitians flocked to Romney because he spoke French, having learned it on his two-year mission to Paris.
By all accounts, Romney the religious leader was a good listener and an innovative manager who considered various positions before making any decision. He was occasionally willing to work around bureaucratic edicts from Salt Lake City to better serve his people. He allowed divorced men to continue in their leadership positions, rather than remove them as church policy dictated at the time. He did not discipline outspoken writers and activists within his ranks.
When LDS Family Services refused to place a baby with Brett and Janna Sorensen because Janna Sorensen planned to return to work, Romney supported them. Eventually, the policy against working moms adopting changed.
The young venture capitalist clearly saw the benefit of working with other faiths in the area.
After a suspicious fire in 1984 destroyed the beginnings of the Belmont chapel, eight churches offered to share their space. Instead of settling on one, Romney chose three - the Catholic Church, Plymouth Congregational Church and Armenian Protestant Church. After each weekly meeting, Romney insisted the Mormons stay behind to vacuum the floors, wash the blackboards and pick up the chairs.
It taught the members, even affluent ones, to value other people's sacred spaces and to do some seemingly menial labor, recalls Phillip Barlow, chairman of Mormon Studies at Utah State University who was a counselor, or assistant, to Romney when he was a bishop.
Romney was "comfortable in his skin," Barlow says. He even showed off his "moonwalking" skills one day, gliding backward in a smooth imitation of Michael Jackson.
"Mitt was a wonderful leader because he really cared," says Helen Claire Sievers, director of the World Teach program housed at Harvard. "He gave every ounce he had, and he had many ounces to give. He cared about people, organizations and the experience people had in the church."
The problem of women
Not everyone shared that positive view of Romney. Though somewhat progressive in his approach, Romney was still a product of LDS male culture of the time. He didn't initially believe, for example, that there were any cases of physical or sexual abuse of women in the stake, though plenty of evidence pointed to it.
"He's not a people person," says Nancy Dredge, "he's so much an organization man."
Yet, Dredge says, she's seen him learn from his mistakes. "He's in a much better place than he was 20 years ago."
While a young bishop, for example, Romney got word that a woman in his ward was considering an abortion. This was the sixth pregnancy for the woman in her 40s, who had four teenage children, and she developed some medical complications.
Romney arrived at the hospital and forcefully counseled her against the procedure. She felt Romney misunderstood and mistreated her. The woman later wrote about the experience in Exponent II, a national newspaper for Mormon women that was published in Romney's Boston stake. Though she didn't use her name, many church members knew who she was.
The episode came back to haunt Romney when he ran for Massachusetts governor in 1994 as a "pro-choice" candidate. It also reflected some of the ongoing tensions he had with some Exponent II writers during his tenure.
Regardless, Mormon women in Boston still talk about an extraordinary 1993 meeting Romney called to address the women of the stake.
More than 250 members poured into the Belmont chapel. One by one they called out their issues while he stood at the front with three pads labeled: policies we can't change, practices we can change, and things we can consider.
Nearly 100 proposals were made that day, including having female leaders give talks in various wards as the men on the high council do; letting women speak last in church; turning the chapels into day-care centers during the week; letting women stand in the circle while blessing newborn babies; recognizing the accomplishment of young women as the church does of Boy Scout advancements; and putting changing tables in the men's rooms.
Many women left with a new appreciation of Romney's openness.
He was "so brave," says Robin Baker, who has worked on Exponent II.
Sievers, who worked with Romney to set up the meeting, was ecstatic.
"I was really surprised," she says. "He implemented every single suggestion that I would have."
Acts of kindness
Not long after Grant Bennett fell off a ladder while trying to dislodge a hornet's nest outside his second-story bedroom, Romney came to offer sympathy and show Bennett a smarter way to deal with the festering insects - from inside.
Before Doug Anderson had even finished getting family out of his burning house, Romney showed up with a brigade of neighbors to salvage beloved belongings from the remains.
Several Mormons affectionately describe him as a man who can't remember names and can't tell a joke, but did preach inspiring sermons.
"We loved hearing him speak," recalls Bennett's wife, Colleen. "He was so smooth yet so connecting."
Barlow is troubled by media critiques of Romney as "too perfect" or "plastic."
"For the record, let me say that the Romneys their neighbors and associates know are neither phony nor scary," Barlow writes in a forthcoming issue of Religion in the News, published by the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for Religion in Public Life at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. "Like it or not, Romney is naturally smooth, as much in private as in public."
The candidate has always "smiled faintly when listening and talking, even about serious or controversial matters," Barlow writes. "Romney smiled in conducting religious services or planning meetings. He smiled while hosting friends at his Cape Cod vacation home. He smiled when comforting a wounded congregant."
This was not a false persona, Barlow writes, but a "mixture of good will, confidence, optimism, enjoyment of intellectual challenge, and idiosyncrasy."
Einstein said, “You cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created it.” Similarly, we won’t improve our country until we improve our level of public debate. On these pages I outline how we can automate conflict resolution and cost-benefit analysis and solve our problems at a level higher than how they were caused.
To start, we will break our problems down into their sub-components, including beliefs, supporting, and weakening evidence, and arguments. This will allow thousands or millions of us to evaluate each part of an argument and evidence one at a time. We will group beliefs by topic and sort them by their positivity, strength, and level of specificity. This will prevent duplication and allow us to focus on one issue at a time.
The Idea Stock Exchange (ISE) proposes a groundbreaking framework for tackling complex issues, resolving conflicts, and fostering informed decision-making. Here's a detailed breakdown of its key features:
Evidence-driven: Prioritizes verifiable data and logical reasoning, ensuring well-informed conclusions.
Dynamic Ranking System: Inspired by Google's PageRank, it evaluates arguments based on the strength of their evidence, dynamically adjusting as new information emerges.
2. Multi-faceted Evaluation Metrics:
Cost-Benefit Analysis: Assesses proposed solutions by examining potential costs, benefits, likelihoods, and impact.
Argumentative Strength Assessment: Categorizes arguments based on logical consistency, evidence, relevance, and significance.
Maslow's Hierarchy Integration: Aligns the evaluation with fundamental human needs for a broader perspective.
3. Sophisticated Scoring and Ranking Protocols:
Precision Scoring Formula: Combines argument scores with evidence assessments to determine argument validity.
Evidence-Based Ranking System: Leverages algorithms to rank solutions based on predicted costs and benefits, with dynamic updates based on new information.
4. Uniqueness and Redundancy Scores:
Equivalency Score: Identifies similar arguments using semantic similarity metrics and machine learning, coupled with community feedback, to reduce redundancy and develop unique scores.
"Better Ways of Saying the Same Thing": Helps users find alternative expressions of the same idea, enhancing clarity and reducing duplication.
5. Logical Fallacy and Argument Evaluation:
Fallacy Detection: Implements algorithms to identify and flag potentially fallacious arguments, promoting rational discourse.
User-Contributed Evidence Assessment: Allows the community to contribute evidence supporting or weakening arguments for collaborative verification.
6. Technological Integration and User Interaction:
Database Tools: Proposes building tools to map conclusions, assumptions, and their relationships for deeper understanding.
Interactive Interface: Users can actively participate by submitting evidence, voting on argument strength, and suggesting alternative viewpoints.
7. Promoting Quality Debate:
Separating Argument Types: Distinguishes between truth, importance, and relevance arguments for a more nuanced debate structure.
Encouraging Constructive Dialogue: Aims to shift focus from emotional responses to evidence-based reasoning, fostering meaningful discourse over sensationalism.
8. Community-Driven Evolution:
Open-Source Development: Encourages community involvement in refining and evolving the platform, ensuring its adaptability and relevance.
Additional Considerations:
Data Quality and Bias: Implementing robust measures to ensure data accuracy and mitigate potential biases in algorithms and user contributions.
Transparency and Explainability: Providing clear explanations of scoring methods and decision-making processes to build trust and understanding.
User Engagement and Education: Fostering active participation and educating users on the platform's functionalities and responsible use.
We are a political party that organizes all the ideas and arguments by subject, and lets them battle in a survival of the fittest death-match.
We are a political party that supports candidates that promises to make their decisions based on online cost benefit and idea evaluation algorithms. They just have to use a forum that ties the strength of their conclusion to the strength of their assumption, so that when you strengthen or weaken an assumption you also strengthen or weaken conclusions based on the assumption.
We have had the technological ability to create a world based on logic for too long. It is about time we build a rational political party based on the assumption that we support plans, conclusions, activities, and policies that can gather evidence based support, and that we don't do things that don't stand up to analysis.
We will conduct open, online, cost/benefit analysis of each issue. It is about time.
Welcome to the website for the best political party of all time, and the future of reason based decisions making.
"No concept you form is valid unless you integrate it without contradiction into the sum of human knowledge."
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