Tyme

It definitely made me think twice about resigning. I think you're right the dream was more for the future. That was the first and only spiritual dream I've ever had. I know God has always had me in the palm of his hand. That me resigning was all part of the plan. I'm coming back stronger than ever. It wouldn't have happened if I didn't resign. I also believe God allowed me to and possibly I even chose to have schizophrenia. It's made me a better person overall. I'm more humble and compassionate from what I can tell. I'll even say that as difficult as schizophrenia is it is the best thing to ever happen to me.

I'm trying to remember why I resigned. I can't remember and have no idea. All I know is the night before I resigned I had a dream of being in church with President Monson then being under the tree of life. I wish I would have kept a journal because details are slowly fading. It's amazing that I resigned after having that dream. I still did despite the dream. *perplexed*

Just had the missionaries over to teach and give me a blessing. They invited me to throw away all my tobacco and tobacco related products. That was tough!

It looks like I'm guilty of making assumptions too. I thought you were implying that I'm not worthy and don't listen to Prophets.

I know some people who would rather their kids go to BYU than Harvard. I'll never understand that.

There you go with the assumptions again. A lot of people around here seem pretty good at assuming.

If it went strictly to under privileged students that's a good thing. However, it covers any member who goes to BYU.

No, I don't. Although state funding has gone way down. With that said, tithing is very different than tax dollars.

State schools cost roughly double what BYU does. If BYU raised the tuition to be on par with state schools the school wouldn't need tithing dollars.

Does it actually cost less to operate BYU than other colleges or are tithing dollars covering the additional costs?

They should raise the price of tuition. That way they won't have to send as much tithing to the school. I don't understand why people who didn't go to BYU have to bankroll it.

I think gun owners stand a good chance against a tyrannical government. The government isn’t going to want to slaughter their citizens. This guys a joke and back tracked very quickly.

That means you should have empathy for those who leave the church due to its gay stance. It's essentially the same thing just a different position.

I think four things need to be done: eliminate the tax cap, raise retirement age, eliminate social security for those who make over x and increase the payroll tax.

I agree something needs to be done about social security and medicare expenditures. I'd be interested in hearing ideas on that.

Fair enough.

If you're counting Iraq as a civil war than you have to definitely count Vietnam as a civil war. I would even surmise that Vietnam was more of a civil war than Iraq. You clearly had two sides of the same country fighting each other in Vietnam. That wasn't the case in Iraq. ISIS was a group based out of Syria primarily that tried to take over the whole middle east.

I said 50% of discretionary spending. That's the spending the government decides over. The rest is mandatory. As far as "entitlement" spending of Social Security and Medicare the program didn't really hit it's stride until people started retiring. In other words, nobody was drawing off Social Security during WW2. It would be natural that you see more spending now as the program has hit its full bloom and there are more people.

You're right on civilian deaths. My research shows 2 million Vietnamese civilians died and 500,000 Iraqis died. You have to remember though that Vietnam's population is three times what Iraq's is. The amount of American military who served in Vietnam was also way higher than Iraq. If you do your calculations they are not that far off from each other.

How am I wrong on my budget numbers? https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/ I'd like to go over those numbers... An example is I had a SSG. who lost his leg in Afghanistan he would have died in Vietnam.

Social Security and Medicare aren't entitlements. They make about 60% of the total budget. Military spending makes up about 50% of discretionary spending. Also it appears like we are in an unprecedented era of peace because less people are dying from war. A big part of that is because war time medical has gotten better. If you account for all the injuries sustained during Iraq and Afghanistan it would come pretty close to equaling Vietnam causalities. Also, there isn't a world war going on so you'd expect less causalities. The utter damage laid upon Iraq is just as bad as what was done to Vietnam.

Chinese debt was done on purpose to prevent war.

Have you ever been to a citizenship ceremony? They are more patriotic than most Americans I know.

I'm all for a North American Union. Then possibly expand it over time. I'm going to show my inhumane side a bit here. When the U.S. first created the nuclear bomb why didn't we take over the world? It would be a much better and peaceful world right now.

I think making our military spending 2/1 would lower global military spending overall. That would be a good thing in my opinion. The money could be used domestically to improve peoples lives.