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It's fairly easy to get most shotguns/rifles in any state..handguns are the real tizzy

I actually like the stereotype the rest of the world has of us...everyone has a gun. It is good psychological defense.
It doesnt matter if it is true or not, it has the same effect

Rented Tritium wrote:That's world population, though. They're several notches lower in the US AND way down the totem pole on political power and volume.

Sure, but why would we restrict ourselves to just talking about US christianity?


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Kilkrazy wrote:That's why ID and young earth creationism are a hot political potato in the USA although no other developed nations take much notice of them.

Pretty much, yeah.

And where ID and other such nonsense has taken a foothold, like in parts of Queensland here in Oz, you almost always see US evangelical money behind it.

...because this is a politics column, and religion and politics are intertwined, and you can't argue that the Republicans generally have the Evangelical Christian votes.

sebster wrote:

Rented Tritium wrote:That's world population, though. They're several notches lower in the US AND way down the totem pole on political power and volume.

Sure, but why would we restrict ourselves to just talking about US christianity?

I'm not sure many Americans realize just how large the Catholic church is in the US. Last time I checked it's the largest single religious denomination in the country weighing in at a shade under 24%. so I would ask the person who said Catholic teachings are "several notches lower" in power and volume. How nearly one quarter of Americans being influenced by one organization means that organization lacks either volume or power. Especially with Hispanics, a historically strong catholic group, on the rise.

How much influence do you think the Catholic Church has on government? I agree, they would have to carry some weight with one party or the other.

dsteingass wrote:How much influence do you think the Catholic Church has on government? I agree, they would have to carry some weight with one party or the other.

None. But political power in representative democracy isn't about how much pressure the church puts on the government, it's about how much pressure they put on the people. Although I'd imagine even countries that have a state religion like say England aren't particularly influenced by it. Then again Jews only make up about 2% (totally highballed that) and there's plenty of claim that "ze evil Jew" has an influence on "government"

Here's the thing you guys are forgetting. Catholics are concentrated in a lower number of districts in the northeast and miami. In the bible belt, it's like 2-8% iirc.

So the amount of actual electoral influence is way lower than baptists for instance.

Additionally, the catholic church simply has not made politics NEARLY the priority that most of the protestant groups have. Catholic influence on politics is very small given their size.


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Further, if we do combine denomenations into similar voting blocs, evangelical protestants outnumber Roman+Eastern Catholics by a fair margin. Even throwing in Anglicans with the Catholics, you STILL won't come close.

And that's BEFORE we look at per capita political donations.

No, the catholic footprint in politics is tiiiiny in America.

Point well made! Then how much influence do the evangelical voters (not denominations) have on the Republican Party?

AustonT wrote:
I'm not sure many Americans realize just how large the Catholic church is in the US. Last time I checked it's the largest single religious denomination in the country weighing in at a shade under 24%. so I would ask the person who said Catholic teachings are "several notches lower" in power and volume. How nearly one quarter of Americans being influenced by one organization means that organization lacks either volume or power. Especially with Hispanics, a historically strong catholic group, on the rise.

I guess it depends on what you're talking about when you use the word "denomination". Generally, because Catholicism isn't nearly as homogeneous as certain parts of the Church would like to portray it as being, "Catholic" is considered as contrasting "Protestant", in which case Protestantism comes out ~50% of all US Christians, and 40% of the total population (Catholics are ~18% of the general population).


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Rented Tritium wrote:
No, the catholic footprint in politics is tiiiiny in America.

Additionally, the "Catholic position" on religious issues tends to mirror the "Evangelical position" on the same issues. In essence, very few people cite religious reasons for being pro-choice or pro-gay marriage, but many cite religious reasons for being opposed to either.

The other issue is that the Catholic Church doesn't focus around political activity like many protestant groups do.

dsteingass wrote:Point well made! Then how much influence do the evangelical voters (not denominations) have on the Republican Party?

To which I reply "not so fast."

Rented Tritium wrote:Here's the thing you guys are forgetting. Catholics are concentrated in a lower number of districts in the northeast and miami. In the bible belt, it's like 2-8% iirc.

Your range is correct if only on the high side and depends on how narrow or wide you consider the Bible belt. The lowest percentage of Catholics being 7% in Utah, Alaska, South Carolina,Arkansas, Tennessee, and Oklahoma with an honorable mention for Georgia @ 8 you get 5 bible belt states at the bottom using the widest definition of the bible belt...from Wikipedia.

So the amount of actual electoral influence is way lower than baptists for instance.

I guess this depends on what you consider electoral influence. I'm not so determined to out of my way to find statistics for each and every voting district but of the top five electoral votes by state accompanied by Catholic percentage.
1. California-34
2. Texas-29.
3. New York-38.
4. Florida-26.
5. Illinois-30
You'd have to drop to 8 (or is it 9 whichever it is it's Georgia followed by South Carolina) to find a state below the national average, or in the Bible Belt for that matter, or do Texas and Florida count? Seriously.

Additionally, the catholic church simply has not made politics NEARLY the priority that most of the protestant groups have. Catholic influence on politics is very small given their size.

Or is it that those political views were already espoused by thier helpful cousins the Anglican Protestants?

Further, if we do combine denomenations into similar voting blocs, evangelical protestants outnumber Roman+Eastern Catholics by a fair margin. Even throwing in Anglicans with the Catholics, you STILL won't come close.

If we did combine said voting blocks and throw in Anglicans would we include Episcopalians, or Methodists. I'll assume not and only include the 1.4% Mainline Anglicans to the Catholic 23.9% and the Orthodox 0.6% which I believe lands at 25.9 %. Evangelical Protestants make up 26.3% that seems awful close to me.
Since you opined earlier that the baptists had a larger electoral presense I would have to question exatly how those 12.7% (evangelical and mainline combine) voters who are outnumbered 2 to 1 by Catholics and strongest in states with lower electoral votes than those with higher than average Catholic populations; see the top 7 of ten states by electoral college votes.

And that's BEFORE we look at per capita political donations.

Probably a valid point

No, the catholic footprint in politics is tiiiiny in America.

Probably not.


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sebster wrote:The other issue is that the Catholic Church doesn't focus around political activity like many protestant groups do.

I probably wouldn't either if I were the Church in America as the last time I can think of hem actively sticking their necks into politics was the American Bund. I would also agree that Catholics and Anglican Protestants (most Americans, Britons, and former British Colonies) vote along similar lines. I was simply pointing out that the largest bloc of potential voters was unified under one institution. Rather than Protestants who unless you paint in broad strokes like "evangelical Protestant" are rather more divided. And when you apply say Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, etc you find much smaller groups. And "Evangelical Protestant" is a lot like saying "European" or "all those white people living on the same continent" which ignores the underlying differences between the groups.
The day the Pope endorses an American presidential candidate though: I'll eat my hat.


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Or maybe his.

AustonT wrote:I probably wouldn't either if I were the Church in America as the last time I can think of hem actively sticking their necks into politics was the American Bund. I would also agree that Catholics and Anglican Protestants (most Americans, Britons, and former British Colonies) vote along similar lines.

They're pretty similar, on issues like abortion and opposition to gay marriage. They're very different on issues like social welfare.

More than that, though, is the level of direct political action encouraged through each organisation. As you said, the Pope isn't going to endorse any political candidate over another, and that certainly isn't true of many protestant groups in the US.

If we are going to groups instead of the church itself wouldn't it stand to reason that several of those groups are heavily populated with Catholics, maybe as much as thier national average? Or that there are less well known and affiliated groups of Catholics, I'm really taking out of my ass on this aspect.

You are really overestimating the unity of Catholicism and underestimating the unity of evangelical protestants.

dsteingass wrote:OK NEW TOPIC!
I had the displeasure recently of having a conversation about this photograph of then Senator Obama (2007)

This was taken at a campaign BBQ in Texas.
The story behind the picture is this was taken during the playing of the National Anthem.

The argument was:
"Don't vote for this man, because he hates his country"
based of course, entirely on this picture.

You guys don't believe me, but the uneducated, racist, extreme right-wing people who refuse to even THINK for themselves that I have been talking about during this entire thread are everywhere in this part of the Country!

So you hate them because they were prescient?


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Huffy wrote:It's fairly easy to get most shotguns/rifles in any state..handguns are the real tizzy

Try getting them in NY.

Frazzled wrote:So you hate them because they were prescient?

More because they're inane (and occasionally insane) than anything else.

They are certainly not prescient, quite the opposite in fact, they're usually ignorant of pretty much everything going on in the world.

Melissia wrote:

Frazzled wrote:So you hate them because they were prescient?

More because they're inane (and occasionally insane) than anything else.

They are certainly not prescient, quite the opposite in fact, they're usually ignorant of pretty much everything going on in the world.

In your opinion. In their opinion they were probably right, especially after the Obama world Apology Tour I, II, and III.

Frazzled wrote:In your opinion.

No, there's a lot of factual errors in their beliefs which have nothing to do with opinion.

Isn't a opinion formed somewhat from a belief?

Frazzled wrote:

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Huffy wrote:It's fairly easy to get most shotguns/rifles in any state..handguns are the real tizzy

Try getting them in NY.

.....well I guess they need to leave the union

Jihadin wrote:Isn't a opinion formed somewhat from a belief?

belief leads to opinion leads to view leads to...HERESY!

Huffy wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

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Huffy wrote:It's fairly easy to get most shotguns/rifles in any state..handguns are the real tizzy

Try getting them in NY.

.....well I guess they need to leave the union

Or challenge the constitutionality, I'm pretty sure that requires breaking the law at some point.

hey sir dave, seeing as this is a politics column, might i ask where you stand canidates wise? democrat? republican-(which)? if you dont wish to share i take no offence, i am just curious

None, really. Technically, my political compass can be considered Libertarian, iin that I am for fiscal conservatism with my hard-earned tax-dollar, but I can't stand someone else's morals or religion or anything being shoved at me in the way of legislation. What people do in their own private lives and in their own homes is their own business, Racism needs erased from history as far as I am concerned, one old person dying at a time is helping that, but more importantly that we don't teach it to new generations like we were taught it.

good an answer as any. watching the cnn debate (not nearly as good as fox's) got me in the whole political mindset, altough i dont really like to talk about politics because its not something i am confident arguing in is all. but i do know that i would enjoy seeing mit in the white house, although gengrich is such a good debater (which dosent matter all that much to me) but out of pure entertainment watching people ask him questions

I see politics much like this pressure gauge


It's a battle of hot air blowing from both red zones. extreme left and extreme right. The green zone is my freedom scale. That's the threshold where I want the politics needle to be.

i see your point and i agree completly, i am right up in the middle there although i consider myself republican because i am sided with what they are saying on a more things than i agree with democrats

Rogue Wolves wrote:good an answer as any. watching the cnn debate (not nearly as good as fox's) got me in the whole political mindset, altough i dont really like to talk about politics because its not something i am confident arguing in is all. but i do know that i would enjoy seeing mit in the white house, although gengrich is such a good debater (which dosent matter all that much to me) but out of pure entertainment watching people ask him questions

Why would you like to see Mitt in the White House. And Newt is most certainly the smartest person in the room at debates, it hasnt made him many friends in the past, when he was speaker most other Reps thought he was a total dick.

I know but thats just the way newt is and i have no problem with that because i like him