Nayib Bukele

[Carborendum]

Nayib Bukele is the current President of El Salvador.  He has recently gained notoriety by putting away many people from gangs and drug cartels.  He has cut the murder rate in half.  People actually have hope of living in peace.  And he has made the military and police feel like they can be proud to simply do their jobs without being attacked by their own government.  And they are looking forward to a time when they can say that they actually won the war on drugs.

This seems like the exact mirror image of what is happening in the United States.

One problem here is that in order to achieve this, he essentially suspended habeas corpus.  (People were thrown into a supermax prison without a trial.)  I don't know what the El Salvadorian Constitution says about that.  And I don't know their system of laws.  But it seems like an extreme measure.  Maybe his country needed it.  Maybe there was another way.  I don't know.  But that is what I would call a last resort.

Some sources are praising him for his accomplishments.  But his success may simply mean that he won't want to let go of power.  I don't know him or his history or motives.  I just know that when extreme measures have been used to accomplish "peace" sometimes the people doing so want to continue using extreme measures to hold on to power.  Maybe he will walk away as Washington did.  I hope so because of what he had recently said about his vision.

For eight months, we have been fighting this war against the gangs. And thank God, we are winning. This is a very surprising victory that is nearly within our grasp. Let it be clear that the glory is for God.  We humans are lucky to be instruments of God, all of us, to bring peace, liberty, and happiness to the Salvadoran people.

Peace is built with hard work, with sweat, with effort, and with the bravery that you and your brothers in the police have.  It is worth risking your life for that purpose that is more important than yourself alone. Values such as bravery, such as courage, such as strength, discipline, patriotism, honor, loyalty, and love for your fellow man.

These are the fundamental values for human society, but these values are increasingly scarce in the world. If you watch the international news, you will see how the most important values for human beings, such as honor, loyalty, bravery, courage, and love for your fellow man, are precisely the values that we are losing with each passing day. And that is why you can see how societies that seemed to have won, now are degrading, as they are losing the values that made them great. These values were probably not strong in this land, and were strong in other lands. And that is why those lands grew and became great. But they are losing those values now.

Over the past few years, many voices have been saying that if the United States is going to have a new birth of freedom, then we cannot do it with political will.  That is an after effect only.  The power to change comes from God.  As long as we put hope in a politician who uses political power alone to make change -- we will fail.

To succeed we need the power of God in our individual lives, and in the lives of those whom we elect.  But do we have that?  In anyone?

We obviously don't see it in either Biden or Trump.  Do we see it in DeSantis?  He seems to be popular among the Catholics (he is Catholic).  But I have no idea how much his faith influences his life.  I had no idea he was Catholic until I Googled it.  That tells you how much he has talked about it in public or how much the media cares.  Do WE care?  And if not DeSantis, who is?  

I have a friend in Utah who is highly involved in politics.  He says that Mike Lee is the real deal.  But there is no way he's going to be elected as President.  So, we can depend on him for excellent service as a senator.  How about anyone else?  Do we have any way of knowing?

Of the two Texas senators, John Cornyn is just a politician.  Nothing more.  Ted Cruz is a very honest man. And he is a dang good lawyer.  His ability to look at the law and explain it is top notch.  But I have no idea how much God is a part of his life.  Anyone else?  I have no idea.

If we don't have sufficient leaders who put God first, do we have hope?

 

[NeuroTypical]

22 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

To succeed we need the power of God in our individual lives, and in the lives of those whom we elect.  But do we have that?  In anyone?

We obviously don't see it in either Biden or Trump.

It's often disheartening to compare a politician's words with their actions.

For example, it was just weird having the message of Easter sternly thrown at me in businesslike political tones by the "you're fired" guy who was also now the president for some reason.

https://www.facebook.com/WhiteHouse45/videos/1629597660461294

[Guest Godless]

 

54 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

We obviously don't see it in either Biden or Trump.  Do we see it in DeSantis?  He seems to be popular among the Catholics (he is Catholic).  But I have no idea how much his faith influences his life.  I had no idea he was Catholic until I Googled it.  That tells you how much he has talked about it in public or how much the media cares.  Do WE care?  And if not DeSantis, who is?  

He definitely seems to be getting to his Catholic roots with the way he's trying to micromanage what is taught in schools, including universities.

54 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

I have a friend in Utah who is highly involved in politics.  He says that Mike Lee is the real deal.  But there is no way he's going to be elected as President.  So, we can depend on him for excellent service as a senator.  How about anyone else?  Do we have any way of knowing?

Isn't Mike Lee the guy who was documented on video talking about killing social security and Medicare, then looked like someone had just insulted his mother when Biden brought it up in the SOTU?

54 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

Ted Cruz is a very honest man. And he is a dang good lawyer.  His ability to look at the law and explain it is top notch.  But I have no idea how much God is a part of his life.  Anyone else?  I have no idea.

If we don't have sufficient leaders who put God first, do we have hope?

Ted Cruz's Senate career has been kept on life support by the fact that he's from a state that's very far off from ever electing a Dem senator. I have a very hard time seeing him have any success against other prominent Rs on a national stage.

[Carborendum]

16 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

It's often disheartening to compare a politician's words with their actions.

For example, it was just weird having the message of Easter sternly thrown at me in businesslike political tones by the "you're fired" guy who was also now the president for some reason.

https://www.facebook.com/WhiteHouse45/videos/1629597660461294

Yeah. I don't know if Trump realizes how artificial his attempts at religiosity sound to someone of sincere belief.  Heck even atheists can tell how artificial he sounds.

[Carborendum]

15 hours ago, Godless said:

He definitely seems to be getting to his Catholic roots with the way he's trying to micromanage what is taught in schools, including universities.

Not just Catholics.  Most conservatives agree with this.  In fact many of the "red-pilled" Democrats agree with most of the stuff he's been doing.

15 hours ago, Godless said:

Isn't Mike Lee the guy who was documented on video talking about killing social security and Medicare, then looked like someone had just insulted his mother when Biden brought it up in the SOTU?

I've only heard bits and pieces of this.  Partial quotes.  Not enough context.  It may be true.  But there are some things thrown back and forth that indicate that the devil's in the details.  I haven't had time to do a thorough research on this, but the gist of it is that:

• Lee did advocate for "sunsetting" those programs.
• Media said he didn't ask for sunsetting, but for immediate abolition.
• I'm getting mixed stories on what Biden actually said (details). 
  • Media says that Biden claimed that Lee wanted to sunset it.  And that was bad enough.
  • Lee said that what shocked him was that Biden claimed that he wanted to immediately abolish it.

Again, bits and pieces.  I never took the time to sort it out because it's never going anywhere.  And no one is even talking about it.

15 hours ago, Godless said:

Ted Cruz's Senate career has been kept on life support by the fact that he's from a state that's very far off from ever electing a Dem senator. I have a very hard time seeing him have any success against other prominent Rs on a national stage.

I agree (except for the life support thing).  He's still more popular than you seem to believe.  The only reason why Beto came so close was that Dems poured more money into his senate campaign than they normally do on a Presidential campaign.  Meanwhile, Cruz spent a somewhat below average budget on his campaign.