In terms of civility, style, and substance, this debate was light-years ahead of the presidential contest last week. I suppose we should be thankful, but it feels perverse to reward those who have lowered the bar enough to finally step over it.
Joe Biden could easily take the award for the rudest Presidential candidate in debate in my memory. Put the Vice President up against past nominees and that would be nearly undeniable. Except that he was debating the President, who didn’t want to lose out on that award. Most disturbingly, in that melee, the President’s horrid performance allowed one of the worst ideas ever brought up on a debate floor to slide by and it could easily mean we all lose.
You know, I don’t agree with Joe Biden about abortion, the redefinition of marriage— and it’s important to call it that— and so-called “religious liberty”. I voted for George W. Bush twice. I’m voting for Joe Biden.
I have a confession to make that will make virtually everyone mad. I think Donald Trump is uncouth, has worsened the political discourse in our country and continually says things about everyone from POW’s to immigrants that make me cringe. I am also planning to follow up my 2016 vote for the man with a 2020 vote for the same. Yes, I am amongst the reluctant Trump voters and here’s why.
While traveling last year, I lost my trusty pair of Beats Solo 2 headphones I had used for years; while I had been given a set of AirPods Pro for Christmas and they quickly became my all time favorite headphone option, some situations work better with over-the-ear headphones (for example, audio mixing and recording work) and I found myself in the market for a new pair to replace my Beats. That led me to the Vankyo C750’s; they may just beat my Beats.
I thought it should be her long ago. I thought that if I were Biden, I would choose Harris. I also believed that Joe Biden would have to do something to placate moderates, and while Senator Harris is not a moderate in any coherent sense, she runs in that lane, especially with regard to presentation.
I read with great interest the latest column by our esteemed Editor-In-Chief. There ought to be a theoretical neutrality, at least with regard to the government, and the potential regulation of speech. We would like to believe that the cure for bad speech is not less speech, but more and better speech. We would like to believe that in a theoretically pluralistic society, the true, the good, and the beautiful will eventually win out over the false, the bad, and the ugly. The most profound question is whether these things we would like to believe have ever been true.
Pastor Tim turns back to 2 Peter to wrap up the series “Growing” by looking at the hope we have as we look towards God’s promises being fulfilled in the future.
The pandemic has been a test tube for a rapidly developing process by which social media platforms – particularly the overwhelmingly dominant Facebook, Twitter and YouTube – plow ahead with the purging of false information. There is good reason for their efforts: they created platforms that make the spread of even the craziest ideas incredibly easy. Those who oppose these fringe ideas celebrate as the platforms shred ideas deemed dangerous, but have we genuinely considered the cost?
Feeling a bit stressed as the week starts? In our weekly Monday night Scriptural encouragement, Pastor Tim turns to 2 Peter for a reflection on God’s acting in history. If God has acted in history in the past, we can have confidence he continues to do so with the things we are presently facing.