I am very much all over the map in topics I want to discuss but they all take lots of research and multiple links and all sorts of other things. I want to talk about Social Security, Tough Love, Taxation, Deficit Spending (enter Cloward-Piven), and many more things, but that takes a lot of time, effort and work. And procrastinators point at me as proof they don’t put things off.
So I decided to do a musical interlude (which will likely put you to sleep, due to my taste in music).
Thinking about how Obama has promised the moon (Jimmy Stewart reference) and delivered the finger, along with many faux pas on which the mainstream media gives him a pass but regular people who hear about it don’t, I thought of my favorite pop-rock band.
(This was before they became famous.)
Thinking about all the unconstitutional power-grabbing and unconstitutional czars swirling around Obama and his henchment, I thought of this song.
Thinking about the dire straits we’re in with all the government overreach into every aspect of our lives and the outcry of the small voices of regular people in concert, I thought of this happy song about a different sad and desperate situation.
Speaking of Dire Straits, we have a song about Class Envy.
(Need I mention all the anti-PC stuff in that song?)
While I can appreciate the power of music to communicate sentiments, let us likewise attempt to deal with some facts regarding our emerging American tragedy, hopefully short lived, hopefully that we can get through these very hard times. Just ask John H. himself, in central Ohio, attempting to live on $10k per year, as he tells us!
Robert L. Borosage, 02.03.2010
Co-Director of the Campaign for America’s Future
Find the rest of it here.
Sen. Byron Dorgan, 02.04.2010
Democratic U.S. Senator from North Dakota
Find the rest here.
Someone recently said of the GOP, it is Grand, Old, and Prosperous. There’s nothing particularly untoward about that, except for the means many are using to acquire their prosperity, extreme prosperity actually, the means being greed for self (high executive pay and bonuses), bribe the government (recent SCOTUS ruling), obstruct government (record number of filibuster threats), avoid taxes (overseas HQs, commit bank fraud (BofA), denial of Bush mistakes (Bush wars and deficits) ship jobs overseas, ….
This is not rhetoric here folks, they are facts, they are issues that need to be addressed. Why won’t you folks help to address and resolve them?
Good gravy. Czars. Was that you holding the sign that said, “morans” John? If you refuse to think, why do you keep writing?
still hilarious when people who voted for Bush take a sudden interest in the Constitution & consolidation of government power, btw
I agree with cbmc. Anyone who voted for a leftist like Bush shouldn’t throw stones when he’s followed by the Brown Mao. It’s just a continuation of Bush’s polices albeit, on steroids.
As difficult as it is to believe, there probably were people who actually did like ABBA. No doubt, they comprised some subset of the slightly larger class of genuine Elton John fans.
Well, as Art Downs has been fond of saying “De gustibus non est disputandum”. But, as I would counter: “How many dancing queens must one generation be subjected to?”
In other words: Why do you folks insist on being dragged into the cattle cars?
Hilarious, Herr Perry.
Of course, given their legislative and executive dominance, why do the social planners need anyone from the other-side’s cooperation?
So I take it my stock has fallen with you, DNW. And while Dancing Queen is a quality song, it is not even close to the top 5 ABBA songs in my book.
Only bad thing I can say about ABBA is they made me enjoy a musical, both on stage and at home.
Hard to tell whether you are being ironic with a facetious or even somewhat bitter question, i.e., “Why now object to the fire, after you previously turned up burner under the frying pan”; or, whether you are perfectly and literally serious.
If the latter case, I would differ to this extent. I think that Bush – and I believe his political actions consistently demonstrated this – very mistakenly believed that he could “make nice” and come to an agreement with the left by marginally implementing policies directed at producing end-effects which they supposedly approved.
His hope was that by legislatively compromising and focusing on what he assumed to be particular of their social goals, that he could find a common ground; and in attaining solutions to certain social problems, then once and for all move beyond the conflict raised by these problems.
Bush’s problem however, was rooted in the same misreading of, and misconception held by, many other conservatives of what the left is actually foundationally about.
He might have superficially recognized the moral alien-ness of the dogmatic leftist worldview and anthropology; but when it came to actual policy implementation, he acted as if their ultimate substantive agenda was effectually the same one as the conservative or libertarian might have; and that the only important political difference centered on the means of reaching those goals via policies preserving a maximum of individual liberty.
That, unfortunately, is simply not true.
His persistance in attributing moral qualities to the left that were not only not there, but for which they have no conceptual use at all, resulted in his repeatedly having the chair pulled out from under him, by organisms like Ted Kennedy – as he tried to sit down. It became almost comical.
He was ostensibly intelligent enough – moreso than Kerry or Gore at least – that he should have been able to anticipate that the principle of reciprocity forms no essential part of the leftist’s moral framework.
Like so many traditional conservatives however, Bush had an emotional block that prevented him from really processing what he probably did intellectually know about the left.
This processing problem almost always leaves conservatives not only arguing for respect for their own humanity and freedom, but hauling the leftists philosophical water at the same time.
It may be generous, or even noble, to impute the qualities of soul, like-tastes, and an intrinsic and common humanity to “persons” who have rejected the basic premisses which underlie these qualities, but it’s a contradictory and ultimately futile task.
You can’t “deep” reason with such creatures, because they do not believe in the ultimate importance and metaphysical status of reason and truth as values. You can only survive them.
DNW must be furiously trying to invent sunglasses like in They Live! with which to identify the utterly inhuman and monstrous demonic creatures infesting his world.
Hint: Psychotherapists have good drugs. Go talk to one for several years.
(big chunk for context)
The first sentence suggests Bush was a Conservative, if you read it wrong. Bush was not a Conservative and DNW did not classify him as such in that sentence.
Adjusting the second sentence, we get “this legalism problem almost always leaves Law Enforcement not only defending their actions in a court case with a clear-case criminal on trial, but also jumping through hoops through which the criminal, by his own nature, does not have to jump.” It is very clear to me that the Right has much higher and much more rigid standards than do the Left. It is also very clear to me that the Left viciously attacks individuals on the Right that fall short of the standards that the Left count as wholly disposable. And this automatically puts those of the Right (the ones with the higher standards) at a decided disadvantage.
If someone on the Right mentions high standards, invariably someone on the left will throw out the “hate” card as if high standards are hateful. It is very childlike in my mind. From where I sit, the Left conflates rights with license, just like children do.
I would continue, and I have a lot more to say (which I probably won’t) but I’m already 15 minutes late in my normal departure-for-work time, so I gotta cut this off mid-stream.
LOL No not at all …
And I can’t quite tell whether you are serious or not. But Euro-techno-pop certainly did have quite a run for awhile on MTV back in its early days. Apparently you had and retain yet, a more profound knowledge of their catalogs than I ever had.
I do remember the 99 Rote Balloooons song however. It was played between songs by The Pretenders and The Clash.
Again, like Art Downs says …
Read much of your own left-wing literature? No, apparently not.
Better stick to making it up as you go along; as you recentlky did with your hand wringing “No room at the redneck inn” parable.
Not that it matters to you Nan, but just for the sake of clarity: what I am – taking your figure – trying to supply people with at this point, is not magic sunglasses or remote scanners that can detect a “socialist gene” in a human looking sea lamprey, but a pair of conceptual political bolt cutters, and a few definitional fences.
Hope this helps.
Obama talking about “Deficit reduction” is like an alcoholic saying he’s going to cut down to just one bottle per day …
Soon to be the former Democratic U.S. Senator from North Dakota!
Seriously, are you guys not getting the Massachusetts election yet? Or the elections in New Jersey and Virginia? The public is saying “enough!” to the Tax & Spending already. Ditto the Tea Party crowd. Or the fact that Sarah Palin’s book has been flying off the shelves.
Further, people are sick of blaming everything on Bush. It’s not working any more, no matter what Democrat strategists like Jim Carville say.
DNW:
“Hard to tell whether you are being ironic with a facetious or even somewhat bitter question, i.e., “Why now object to the fire, after you previously turned up burner under the frying pan”; or, whether you are perfectly and literally serious.”
Little of both, I guess. I was being facetious in that if one really likes leftists, what’s not to like about Bush? The only reason someone who gets a tingle with BHO didn’t with GWB is the (R) after the latter’s name. Do you, DNW, believe GWB was a conservative? I sure as hell saw no evidence of it.
I do agree with you about attributing moral qualities to the left, though. In my experience leftists are atheists or agnostics at best for the most part. They discount God as superstition and regard Him as irrelevant. But without God the highest power is government. Also, without God our rights flow from government. I don’t believe that, Conservatives don’t believe that. I believe our rights flow from God and it is we who empower government. In other words, we don’t “owe” our government Jack Shit. Cause government is just politicians. We do owe our loyalty and honor to the Idea of America. Or, more accurately, to “We the People”.
Because, up till now, the Dems, with the White House and super-majorities in Congress, felt no need to involve Republicans in anything. We’ve literally had no say in Obama’s big pet projects like the Stimulus, Cap & Tax, Health Care, etc.
Problem is, Obama and the Dems have turned out to be tone deaf to the people. They dismissed and even sneered at the Tea Party movement. The Mass election seems to have woken them up … but only slightly.
Anyway, many pundits are now predicting a new GOP Tidal Wave in November, which should shake things up. Remember how the same Tidal Wave swept out the Dem deadwood in 1994, and led to the country taking a more centrist path on things like Welfare Reform and balancing the budget. I would not be surprised to see a repeat from Nov 2010 onward …
DNW pontificates again: “His persistance [sic] in attributing moral qualities to the left that were not only not there, but for which they have no conceptual use at all, resulted in his repeatedly having the chair pulled out from under him, by organisms like Ted Kennedy – as he tried to sit down. It became almost comical.”
Right, more pontification is here from DNW, in his usual absolutist, arrogant, condescending vein.
Nangleator is absolutely right! “DNW must be furiously trying to invent sunglasses like in They Live! with which to identify the utterly inhuman and monstrous demonic creatures infesting his world.
Hint: Psychotherapists have good drugs. Go talk to one for several years.”
Well, I think DNW’s point was Bush thought he could negotiate in good faith with people whose intentions were essentially honorable. DNW’s point was that was his mistake. i.e., the Far Left isn’t interested in “Compromise”, nor are their intentions honorable. They simply want to Win, period, and any compromise is just a way to get their goal one step at a time, as opposed to biting off the whole thing in one gulp.
Anyway, agree with your assessment re: the moral qualities of the Left. When you don’t believe in God, nor in unchanging moral principles, then the government becomes King, the supreme authority.
Actually, DNW is quite right about what happened when Bush made the mistake of trying to appease the Left. His writing style may be a bit opaque, but he does make some pretty cogent points once you cut through the dense verbiage.
I know you guys like to tell each other that Bush spent time & political capital trying to appease the left, but he actually didn’t. He is what Republicans are always going to be: a big-spending, big-government, constitutional-rights-for-me-but-not-for-thee guy. That is all the Republicans ever give; they’re not conservative. They own you guys though; you’ll vote for them when they raise your taxes, and you’ll vote for them when they shred the constitution. you know what the one surer thing than a party-line voting Dem is? “conservatives.” they vote for people with R’s by their names no matter what they do.
Sorry Eric, but with the exceptions of attempting Social Security reform and a tax cut, Bush was part of the left. Had he spent more time “appeasing” the right we wouldn’t have the elitist we have now in the White House.
Don’t agree. One, Bush never shared the Left’s moral worldview, indeed, his judicial picks were quite conservative, hence all the opposition he got from the Left on them.
I agree with DNW. Bush’s intentions were good, but he thought he could “Compromise” with the likes of Ted Kennedy. That does not make him a leftist, just a guy who made some regrettable judgments.
Oh sure. That’s why conservative voters stayed home in droves in the 2006 and 2008 elections. That’s why a lot of Blue Dog Democrats got elected those same years in traditionally conservative states. It’s why McCain (largely regarded as a RINO) didn’t see his campaign gain juice until after he picked Sarah Palin.
And need I mention the Tea Partiers? And Glenn Beck’s success? There’s a real “Throw the bums out – ALL of them” mood among the conservative grass roots in this country.
Well Eric, perhaps you and DNW are right. I’m not saying Bush was a hard leftist, but I do think he was a RINO or liberal Republican. Just y view as an independent.
Now check this out:
(Courtesy:Real Clear Politics/Time/CNN)
“The Gallup Poll reports that a majority of Democrats, 53%, have a “positive” image of socialism, which includes independents who lean toward the blue party.”
Looks like the public schools are doing their job.
Eric: “the Far Left isn’t interested in “Compromise””
There’s very little ‘far left’ in our government. If you mean all Democrats, then remember they had a super majority for a while. Did they use it? Or did they negotiate and water down the HC bill, to please Republicans?
cbmc, spot on! They keep talking about fiscal responsibility and small government and conservative this-and-that, but every time they elect someone they like, a Democrat has to come along and clean up after the party. A thankless task, obviously.
“a majority of Democrats, 53%, have a “positive” image of socialism”
Not afraid of the Red Menace, apparently. Living in the modern world, apparently. Not afraid to recognize that it’s just another tool we use, in moderation. The pendulum has swung a little too far towards capitalism lately, and it has fucked us over. Please be patient while we correct. Thank you.
John H.: “the Right has much higher and much more rigid standards than do the Left.”
Eric: “Sarah Palin’s book has been flying off the shelves.”
“Sarah Palin Uses PAC to Buy Her Own Book”
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/sarah-palin-pac-buy-book/story?id=9718024
Capitalism didn’t “fuck us over”. Big government in collusion with big business and big labor fucked us over. There is nothing capitalistic about the government in bed with AIG,CITI, GM, Chrysler, Fannie & Freddie, SEIU et al. That sir, is socialist conspiracy to crush us in the middle. There is no ecomomic principle for public employees to earn more and have better benefits than their private sector counterparts who actually pay their salaries form their tax money. The only place I know of where Capitalism is on the rise is China, and they’re kicking our butts, case you haven’t noticed.
According to the Washington Post “Going Rogue” topped one million copies sold as of last week. The $63,000 worth purchased for promotional purposes account for about 2,500 copies. So as Eric said, they are flying off the shelves. Or are you as in denile of this fact as you are about exactly what (the housing bubble)and who (Barney Frank and Cris Dodd)screwed up this economy?
Eric moralizes: “Anyway, agree with your [DNW's] assessment re: the moral qualities of the Left. When you don’t believe in God, nor in unchanging moral principles, then the government becomes King, the supreme authority.”
Seriously, Eric? Shall I start a litany of the history down through the ages of the acts of people who proclaimed a belief in God? Bush professed such a belief, then attacked a sovereign nation, resulting in death and destruction. This is a moral high ground? But you discount that, don’t you, which in itself is immoral, in my view!
It’s worth repeating to the absolutists on here who arrogantly tell themselves they are on the moral high ground while the other side isn’t. Hogwash!
“The GOP is unable and unwilling to have a serious conversation with Americans about the fix we are in. Republicans don’t have a policy, they have a posture.” That’s a fact!
“When Republicans in Washington, D.C. launch their non-stop “anti-Obama” rhetoric, they do so from an “evidence-free” zone, where everything is President Obama’s fault and their own record doesn’t matter. That’s a place far, far from reality.” That’s a another fact!
Ok, I see that this computer was set up in such a way as I couldn’t tell if the post took or went into moderation, therefore, I’ll repost and leave it up to the editor whether to place it or not. —
JohnC wrote:
My view, and it’s not yet written in stone, is that George Bush tried to be more or less what he said he thought he was: a “compassionate conservative”, who figured he could use some of the welfare state infrastructure and programs and practices put in place during the previous generations, in order to correct those “social problems” or inequalities that the left has always been crying out as needing to be addressed.
His idea, I take it, was to use these procedures to promote an opportunity society and to mainstream certain supposedly alienated segments of the American population once and for all; and in so doing, change the playing field in a way that would make further redistributionist policies unnecessary.
The flaw in this thinking, is that the left would ever be satisfied and grant that: “Ok, we go this far with our managerial and planning regime, and no further“.
You could strip all the wealth from the “privileged” portion of the population and redistribute it in equal shares, and the left would still not be satisfied.
This is because they – if one bothers to read their literature -realize that natural human inequalities in talent, energy, drive and health, the personal possession and management of private property, and the existence of private and exclusionary social relations, would all tend over time to breed new inequalities.
Thus from the socialist perspective, there never is a fair starting line, nor race, nor can there be; and the state must therefore continually interfere with natural assortative processes, and coercively restructure human alliances and goals in order to attain the leftist’s idea of social justice.
Now one more thing. What I have been trying to point out here at endless and dismal length, is not just that leftists don’t believe in God, nor in a human soul, nor in an objectively discoverable basis for human morality, and that therefore they cannot be trusted. But in addition, that their announced beliefs, if they actually hold them, imply that the very notion of what it is to be a human person is radically different from the conservative or natural law believer’s notion of what it means to be human.
Conservatives, while realizing that it may be bad policy to play poker with someone who says it’s not wrong to cheat [C.S. Lewis's illustration] at cards, nonetheless have problems coming to full grips with what it means to talk and reason with a leftist, if we take what they say about humanity, as applying to themselves [C.I.Lewis's point].
This places the conservative in a kind of political and argumentative double bind the leftist does not share.
So, instead of the Conservative’s saying to the leftist, “Yeah, you are right there is no God, and we make morality up as we go along based on personal preferences, so it’s all the same if I bash your annoying head in based on a cost benefit calculus“; or saying, [with C. I. Lewis] “Your assumptions don’t lead to the same moral conclusions and costs mine do so we better face that if we are going to somehow share a political space“, the conservative instead tries to pretend that – like George Bush did – if you treat them as having souls and natural value, they will eventually come around to being nice people who will see the light, believe the same things, and value freedom and self-direction and personal responsibility.
But they won’t.
And they won’t, because what they want, ultimately, really is different from what you want.
Released from moderation, 1642, 05Feb10; PH
This just in: 383K in stimulus money used to send teachers to a Hollywood spa for a meeting. Keep it up you guys, soon the blood will flow in the streets like borst.
Perry you need to learn the difference between a “fact” and an “opinion”. Neither of those two thing you quoted were “facts”.
And when Eric and I were talking about God we were referring to Our Unique American Perspective of the relationship between man, government and God. Not all that crap about other cultures down through history. And Bush did not invade and kill anyone, WE DID. The USA did. Bush asked for it, Congress funded it and WE DID IT. The people you voted for did it. The people I voted for too. And they did it in OUR name.
Speaking of Dire Straits, we have a song about Class Envy.
“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” – Warren Buffett, 26 Nov 2006.
I have to love the attempt to rewrite history – now that Bush Jr is generally regarded as one of the worst Presidents in history, NOW he3′s suddenly a Leftist! Woooo, he was the Boogeyman all along! Wingnuts just love them that Minitrue, don’t they?
So, watch this – let’s say, as seems likely, the President in 2012 is Republican. Now, let’s say, as seems possible, that he or she is bought in due to Teabagger influence. Hell, let’s go out and say the words “President Palin”.
Four or eight years of President Palin will do as much, if not even more damage than Bush. Probably considerably more as there are far more serious problems facing that President than were facing Shrub when he came in, and they require intelligent action. So come 2017 or 2021, the country is way worse than it is even now – the debt chickens have come home to roost, government has proved ineffective in addressing them, money is being channelled to the very wealthy elite, the middle class has gone down the gurgler completely, and the only growth industries left are the occupations of Iran, Venuzuela, and Lichenstein.
And at that point, suddenly, the wingnuts here will discover that Palin was a Leftist all along. My God – another Boogeyman! They’re insidious little bastards, aren’t they? Fortunately there’s an answer – elect (another) Real Conservative!!
Speaking of Dire Straits, we have a song about Class Envy.
“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” – Warren Buffett, 26 Nov 2006.
I have to love the attempt to rewrite history – now that Bush Jr is generally regarded as one of the worst Presidents in history, NOW he3′s suddenly a Leftist! Woooo, he was the Boogeyman all along! Wingnuts just love them that Minitrue, don’t they?
So, watch this – let’s say, as seems likely, the President in 2012 is Republican. Now, let’s say, as seems possible, that he or she is bought in due to Teabagger influence. Hell, let’s go out and say the words “President Palin”.
Four or eight years of President Palin will do as much, if not even more damage than Bush. Probably considerably more as there are far more serious problems facing that President than were facing Shrub when he came in, and they require intelligent action. So come 2017 or 2021, the country is way worse than it is even now – the debt chickens have come home to roost, government has proved ineffective in addressing them, money is being channelled to the very wealthy elite, the middle class has gone down the gurgler completely, and the only growth industries left are the occupations of Iran, Venuzuela, and Lichenstein.
And at that point, suddenly, the wingnuts here will discover that Palin was a Leftist all along. My God – another Boogeyman! They’re insidious little bastards, aren’t they? Fortunately there’s an answer – elect (another) Real Conservative!!
John:
Fact or opinion? Take your choice. The Congressional Repubs have focused on obstruction. That’s a position. That’s a fact! Are you unwilling to admit it?
Blaming everything on Obama? That’s what you Conservatives do on here all the time. There’s no taking responsibility! DNW in effect has written an apology for Bush’s behavior, like Bush didn’t know any better? I guess we’ll have to wait for the historians to figure it all out. Even then, I’m pretty sure you will disagree, as you tend to do with Reagan’s mistakes. Facts mean very little to ideologues, because only they know what is right and moral, because they believe in God. Give me a break!!!
So if Republicans do it, it’s obstruction. But if Democrats do it, it’s dissent? I see. The Congressional Repubs refuse to sign onto a nationalized health care scheme with special carve outs for “privileged” groups, ever expanding coverage from dental to hospice and unmanageable escalating costs. Just like we have with SS and Medicare. That’s not obstruction, it’s principle. You guys have got to STOP SPENDING MONEY on every half-baked idea you think is good. I think a new Rolls Royce would look good in my garage; too bad, no can do.
I’m starting to believe you guys think money isn’t earned it’s just printed.
How ’bout a couple of songs, sort of related to each other? First, the Dixie Chicks:
And then Paula Cole:
I disagree. Once the Dems had their super-majority, they proceded to act like medieval barons with Obama as their king. And the GOP were the peasantry, who could safely be ignored. On health care, they could have proposed anything they liked. Indeed, I would have preferred they had gone with Single Payer, which at least had the virtue of simplicity, and was comprehensible to the voters, but for whatever reason, they came up with a convoluted 2,000 page mess. If they really cared about what the Republicans thought, they’d have thrown in some Tort Reform and provisions for insurance companies to compete across state lines, but no dice.
Bottom line: the Dems ruled the House, they had 60 votes in the Senate, and they still couldn’t get this pig on a poke passed.
Well, he was on spending, but let’s not forget Congress’s role in this. They hold the purse strings, and they voted for all this crap.
Like I said above, it’s no wonder conservative voters stayed home in disgust the last two elections.
Right. Let’s get more Tax & Spend socialism. That should get the economy going again. Or maybe call it “Crony capitalism”, where we reward businesses that are failing, and screw businesses that aren’t.
Thanks for setting the facts straight. I’ve got a copy myself, just finished reading it (it was a Christmas gift from by lib sister-in-law, I got her Ted Kennedy’s book in return), and I plan to review it on this Site. Palin drives the libs nuts, and the success of her book even more so. Indeed, it was her presence on the campaign trail that got the GOP base fired up, not her RINO running mate.
I’ll take any of them over people who did not believe in God. The Inquision may have killed thousands, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao killed tens of millions. That’s what you get when men forget the fear of God, and act like gods themselves, accountable to no one and no moral code beyond what they make up for themselves.
Sovereign nation my ass! Iraq under Saddam was a totalitarian shithole, and we got rid of a total scumbag and his even scummier sons and heirs. If we had done that to Nazi Germany circa 1937, we might just have prevented the Holocaust.
Sometimes, it’s the job of the civilized world to take out the planet’s garbage …
You mean, Saddam’s Angels?
“Sometimes, it’s the job of the civilized world to take out the planet’s garbage …”
That’s one of your best lines ever, Eric. I will be using it in the future. I’ve witnessed since my Vietnam days that liberals hate wars of aggression. Any time we fight a war WE are supposed to be on the defense. Well, I speak from experience: defense looses wars. The United States does not fight wars to conquer and occupy. We do not subjugate our vanquished foes nor enact tribute. We do not enslave those we defeat. But if we continue to act as we can only fight when attacked first, with the weapons available today, we will pay a horrible price in blood.
Thanks, John!
That’s why it bugs me when the Left howls about “Imperialism” and attempts to smear America’s motives whenever we use military force. The whole thing smacks of cynicism and an ideological agenda, not respect for the truth.
Deficit Spending (enter Cloward-Piven),
Let’s not forget Saul Alinsky and Rules for Radicals.
Like I said before, worth repeating again: “Facts mean very little to ideologues, because only they know what is right and moral, because they believe in God.”
And, they (you) are war-mongers, well demonstrated in the last few posts in which you folks delude yourselves by exposing your lack of morality to the readers on this blog!
Although there have been hints before, I am overwhelmed with your right wing radicalism, right here for all to read. I’ll give you credit, you speak your minds!
Jeromy Brown over at Iowa Liberal expressed my sentiments very well the other day:
You, my friends, are that ‘bevy of revisionists’!
Eric: “Sovereign nation my ass! Iraq under Saddam was a totalitarian shithole, and we got rid of a total scumbag and his even scummier sons and heirs.”
Eric, that was up to the Iraqis to do, simply because Iraq is their country, their sovereign country. Your view expressed here is the view of a totalitarian, but I don’t expect you anymore to understand that concept. I do agree, however, that Saddam was a scumbag; there are a number of them around the globe, some here as well!
Except the Iraqis couldn’t do it, any more than the German people could overthrow the Nazis. The dictatorship was just too strong.
Should we permit evil to exist? Should we have intervened in Rwanda? Sudan? Somalia? The world sat back and let the Holocaust happen. Then we said “Never again”. The civilized world has a moral duty to step in where evil occurs. Else, what fo we stand for?
Right. And Eisenhower and Churchill were totalitarians for standing up to Hitler. This argument is insane! You are letting your own extremist anti-Bush ideology cloud your judgment.
Sorry, but it is you God-haters who reject morality. You sneer at God, and want government to reign supreme. You want morality to be made of mush, so that the Saddam’s of the world can rule without interference. You want to appease evil, because you have no moral standards of your own.
If it were up to you guys, Hitler would rule today, because you’d have no moral courage to stand up to him. You are a spineless wimp, Perry, a moral parasite. You believe in nothing, stand for nothing, and thus your wimp-like stance would render the US a paper tiger, and tell all the evil regimes of the world that we don’t care what they do, and all the oppressed people that we don’t give a damn about them.
Jeromy can sneer at the Tea Party people all he wants, but the facts are they are a genuine grass roots movement. This, in noted contrast to Obama, who has lost the pulse of the public, and his butt kissing apologists can’t change that fact.
PS Perry, I notice you keep sucking Pho’s dick. When will you be a man, grow a spine, and stand up to his far left evil? Are you still a Man of Mush?a man who lacks all moral principle, and will kiss the ass of any left winger who agrees with your ideological agenda?
Well, I speak from experience: defense looses wars.
Apart from, you know, the Vietnamese and the Afghanis…
The United States does not fight wars to conquer and occupy.
Nah – it just, you know, happens that you wind up attacking people who are no threat to you, bombing their civilians, and putting your troops in their country. Really – it’s a coincidence.
Should we permit evil to exist?
Dunno – should others allow evil like Abu Ghraib or countries starting wars of aggression to stand, or should they attack the US to stop it?
Jeromy can sneer at the Tea Party people all he wants, but the facts are they are a genuine grass roots movement.
Riiiiight:
Eric loses it and starts using bigoted slurs. Is that your god-given morality there?
So, in the video of the dog dragging his injured friend off the busy highway… what religion does that dog adhere to? Or is morality intrinsic to social animals?
American fundamentalists use religion as a short-cut around morals and get-out-of-hell-free card while claiming to be the source of morals. It’s perverse and sickening. They embrace a philosophy that is thoroughly opposite the teachings of Jesus Christ, although it’s pretty close to the Old Testament stuff, particularly if they believe, as they do, that they’ve got God on a leash. If Jesus came back today and tried to teach the far right what he really meant… shit. They’d crucify him. He is their enemy.
Perry brought up Frank Luntz. Here’s a funny thing to look for in the future. Obama plans on Wall Street reform. He wants to prevent another crash like the last one, but the Street wants to keep the freedom to do it again. (Because it worked unbelievably well for them the last time. Not being sarcastic, there.) They’ve hired Frank. Frank has already written what Republicans will be saying in the near future. You’ll all be thinking how original and creative you are as you spout his talking points at us liberals, but it’s already written.
Be brave and ignore that last paragraph for a while, then, in a couple months, look up what Frank Luntz made you say, and you might start to realize what an abused little puppet you are, fighting so the richest can rob you further, hurt you harder, take more from you, and remove your means of recourse.
“Should we permit evil to exist?”
Who should trust you to judge what evil is?
Perry ignores the logical conclusion of his own arguments:
Let us suppose that der Führer had been a bit more restrained, and had decided to exterminate only the Jews within Deutschland. He at least started that process with the Nuremberg Laws, and the Nazis began establishing Konzentrationslager as early as 1933. The good people of Germany, thoroughly cowed by the totalitarian dictatorship, which was actually a fairly popular dictatorship at the time, were in no position to get rid of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime.
Had the Nazis proceeded to exterminations before they invaded Poland, would you say that, sorry, it would have been up to the German people to get rid of the Nazis, and, gosh, it’s too bad, but it just wasn’t anybody else’s business?
The Ba’ath Party regime was a little less systematic about its internal violence-for-control methods, but the estimates range from 500,000 to 1,500,000 of their own people killed to maintain dictatorial control. At what point between the Ba’ath Party regime’s internal vioolence, and that used by the Nazi’s, do you believe the responsibility for external intervention occurs? Or does it ever occur?
Nangleator wrote:
This comment strikes me as being at the heart of liberal political paralysis. We could look at the Iraqi regime, or the Iranian brutality, or the North Korean dictatorship, for example, and know that they were evil — President Bush certainly knew, as evidenced by the “axis of evil” comment — yet so many of our friends on the left immediately decried the President’s characterizations, were just so appalled that we would dare to judge another regime in such a fashion. Twenty years earlier, when President Reagan called the Soviet Union what it was, an “evil empire,” the left was aghast; you just couldn’t say things like that.
Quite frankly, I would trust Eric to be able to tell the difference between good and evil. Some things really aren’t that difficult to distinguish.
But we have become an overly litigious bunch of legal hair-splitters, so very interested in the trees that we never see the forest, so concerned that, well, maybe under this provision of Iraqi law, yeah, the police did have a right to detain this guy for saying the wrong thing, or mulling, you know, we don’t really know if Chemical Ali ordered the deaths of 3,000 people or 30,000 or 300,000, so we don’t actually do anything about it.
Eric wrote:
I’d say that President Bush fell into the category he self-described for himself: a “compassionate conservative.” Trouble is, in his compassion, he fell into the trap of accepting the liberal notion that it is the responsibility of government to take care of individuals and try to make society better. In his compassion, he pushed the Medicare Part D program, which is certainly a nice thing for the beneficiaries, many of whom are living on fixed incomes, but the program costs roughly $40 billion a year; the only positive thing that can be said is that it is less expensive than the more generous Democratic proposals being pushed at the time. In his zeal to help our education system, he pushed the misbegotten No Child Left Behind Act, further federalizing what should not be an area in which the federal government has any involvement at all. He was right on taxes, but way, way, way wrong on spending.
He was conservative in his judicial appointments, and did give us to excellent Supreme Court Justices. And he was aggressively neo-conservative in his foreign policy and belief in American exceptionalism.
If he could just have restrained his compassionate impulses on domestic programs, and kept federal spending under control, he’d have been one of our best presidents ever.
Well, I fail to see anything “Bigoted” in anything I wrote. Still, I admit I let my rhetoric get a little overheated, and for that I apologize. Still, I would add that Perry was the one who started with the attacks on prople’s morality, and throwing around words like “Totalitarian”, which got me a little hot under the collar.
Uh, somebody has to make those judgments. And the problem with moral relativism is there is no moral yardstick to work from. Hence Dana’s point about the Left recoiling when Reagan used the term “Evil Empire”. With moral relativism, everything is mush, and if evil doesn’t really exist, then why try to stand ip to it?
As for the rest of your post, Nang, it goes off on so many tangents it’s hard to know where to begin. Fundamentalists? Frank Luntz? Wall Street? As regards the latter, all I can say is letting Obama take a whack at our financial institutions is like letting a 3rd grader with a monkey wrench loose on the Space Shuttle.
Eric: “Uh, somebody has to make those judgments.”
My comment was actually more of a personal insult, and I was trying to get the point across that self-serving judgments might not always be trustworthy.
I actually agree that Saddam’s rule was evil. That’s why I was 100% behind Bush when he told the world that Saddam was evil and went to the U.N. and got multinational support for the invasion, which deposed Saddam, let the Iraqi people set up an interim government and withdrew from Iraq.
Oh, wait. That didn’t actually happen, did it?
You see, you’re taking his personal war, which he instituted for the wrong reasons, and lied to justify it, and you’re inflating a positive aspect for it as if it was the sole purpose of the war in the first place.
“…letting a 3rd grader with a monkey wrench loose on the Space Shuttle.”
Actually, he’s not trying to manage it. He’ll have very little control. He’s just asking Congress to create some regulation to close off some of the more incendiary avenues of financial pillage that Wall Street can now use.
Here’s one of the things you’ll be saying. I guarantee this. “It’s just another bailout in disguise!”
Get this. The bill isn’t written yet, but I know you’ll be saying this about it. In fact, I’ll bookmark this page and check back later.
I’d always regarded “99 Luftballons” as intending to favor unilateral disarmament – IOW, accidents are possible so don’t arm yourself for defense.
Nangleator, when you and your class warriors identify “Wall Street” regarding “financial pillage” to whom are you referring? Would it be Fannie & Freddie, cause they are qusai-governmental? Or would it be AIG, Citi and B of A, cause the former is an insurance company and the latter are banks? Still no “Wall Street”. Or are you referring to GM and Chrysler, which as we all know are not “Wall Street” they are auto makers. So tell me, who EXACTLY is this “Wall Street” you fear so much and ruined our economy?
By the way every one of those evil Non-Wall Street companies I just listed were and are regulated by Congress and a pleathora of alphbet agencies. Freddie & Fannie began the whole problem and according to Barney Frank (D-Mass.), there was no problem.
Wall Street consists of investment firms and as far as I know they are not being bailed out. Bernie Madoff (D-NY) was a Wall Streeter, is he the one you fear? Relax, he’s in prison.
(emphasis mine)
That bolded part is the only point where matters are still on-going. The rest is true. And the intention of the bolded part, while not quite accurate, still holds true. “An interim government?” What’s that? An interim head coach or an interim general manager is someone who holds a spot until someone else is selected. That’s part of a process of changing. It’s temporary, and part of an ordered flow. An interim government, in my mind, is a sham from the get-go. There is nothing ordered in it; it’s all chaos and totalitarian, two polar opposites at the same time.
We went in, destroyed a totalitarian regime that was paying families of suicide bombers, a regime that murdered hundreds of thousands of its own people, a regime that permitted the rape of school-aged girls, a regime that tortured its own national soccer team, a regime bent on genocide, a regime that used “oil for food” to line its own pockets, a regime that did not honor its peace agreements (such as refusing to allow people to inspect), and we set up a democratic form of government where freedom was its key.
There are multiple reports of the finding of weapons of mass destruction after the overthrow. There is also an undeniable proof (for those who view actual facts) of tools to create, while mobile, weapons of mass destruction. There is also overwhelming proof of insurgents (see the definition; it consists mainly of non-Iraqis entering the fray) mindlessly murdering innocents. There is also proof of members of IA and IP intentionally working to undermine the new-found freedoms in order to once again invoke totalitarian extremist Mohammedan rule through terror.
After WWII, it took several years, and many deaths to stabilize Germany and Japan so they could exercise their autonomy. It is very clear that not all they do is in line with what the US wants. We occupied France in WWII. Today, France is oftentimes at odds with the US. But France is also free, thanks to the US.
The Philippines, the Marshall Islands, the Marianas, the northern Africa nations, Grenada are a few of the lands we have conquered over the years, none of which did we absorb. They have their own independence, their own ability to decide matters. And they don’t always agree with the US. In fact, we have a long history of overthrowing threats to the US and the world without absorbing them. Nobody can claim the US is imperialistic without rejecting a century of American history. Nobody at all.
And when Iraq is stabilized, we will be out. It really doesn’t matter, history has proven, whether Iraq becomes our friend or a political trouble-maker, so long as it is stabilized and not a threat to peace. The US has a long history of “leave us alone and we’ll leave you alone” which cannot be denied without the rejection of history. And, quite frankly, that isolationism and peace-nik attitude is part of what made WWII so darn bloody.
Chamberlain’s ill-declared “peace in our time” pacifistic enabling of a power-hungry evil was a fail from the get-go, yet the left in our country (as shown by the left on this site) refuse to learn from history. They are too busy giving away the Sudetenland to the next generation of world conquerors to see the truth.
It is one thing to be isolationist. It is another thing to be a pacifist. To be an isolationist pacifist is quite another thing again. And yet, this is where the liberals live. They remind me of the movie “Enough” where the wife with the black eye shows up at the mother-in-law’s house and the mother-in-law remarkably asks “what did you do?” Nobody, on seeing that movie, would blame the wife. Nobody at all (if they respect people, that is).
But that is exactly where liberals live. All “feel good” and no brain. It’s that whole naive (or knave) idea of “be nice to them and they’ll be nice back” garbage. There are megalomaniacs in this world, and some of them own nations. They will not respond to anything but brute force. And if they are not met with brute force, they will rule the world as is their design. And, quite frankly, the vast majority of megalomaniac “world domination” sentiment has come from the left and has resulted in the deaths of over 100 million innocents. That, again, cannot be denied without rejecting the truth of world history.
Just look at our nation currently. Look at the auto manufacturers, the banks, health care, the education system, the union power-brokers, etc, ad infinitum. It is the left and their unquenchable thirst for power over every person and every aspect of a person’s life. Personal liberty be condemned.
Stan, you are probably right in your assessment of the song, and its intended message. But it’s also a message of the little voices rising up against the power. And that’s accidentally a call for We, the People to stand up against those who wish to rule us with an iron fist.
JohnC, I was imprecise with the blanket term ‘wall street.’ I meant the banks and AIG. I blame their activities for the global financial situation.
John H., you assume a lot from my discussion of reasons for fighting in Iraq. Your comments on my lack of historical perspective amused me in particular. I spend half my play time with tactical and strategic wargames of the 20th century.
As for “Personal liberty be condemned,” you and I must have a different definition of ‘person.’
Blame the banks for shooting for a certain percentage of their home loans to be among the target area the liberals in Congress made law? How intellectually dishonest of you. Just like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd and the rest of the intellectually dishonest and historically vacuous leftist power-brokers.
Nangleator, you, like most leftists, confuse liberty with license. You confuse rights with license. In a debate with liberty and rights on one side and license on the other, you will stand four-square on the license side. That, in a nutshell, is the difference between a Conservative understanding and a Liberal understanding. (Of course, the working definitions of each are paramount in understanding my point. But Perry absolutely rejects any overarching absolute, despite his own words defeating him.)
Eric yells: “Sorry, but it is you God-haters who reject morality. You sneer at God, and want government to reign supreme. You want morality to be made of mush, so that the Saddam’s of the world can rule without interference. You want to appease evil, because you have no moral standards of your own.
If it were up to you guys, Hitler would rule today, because you’d have no moral courage to stand up to him. You are a spineless wimp, Perry, a moral parasite. You believe in nothing, stand for nothing, and thus your wimp-like stance would render the US a paper tiger, and tell all the evil regimes of the world that we don’t care what they do, and all the oppressed people that we don’t give a damn about them.”
Eric yells more: “PS Perry, I notice you keep sucking Pho’s dick. When will you be a man, grow a spine, and stand up to his far left evil? Are you still a Man of Mush?a man who lacks all moral principle, and will kiss the ass of any left winger who agrees with your ideological agenda?”
To which Nangleator calmly responds: “Eric loses it and starts using bigoted slurs. Is that your god-given morality there? …. Who should trust you [Eric] to judge what evil is?”
To his credit, Eric apologizes: “Still, I admit I let my rhetoric get a little overheated, and for that I apologize.”
I accept your apology, Eric.
Now since the basic difference between us has to do with morality, absolutist morality (you), relativist morality (me), here is my observation: We are both proponents of a relativist morality, because our morality is based on our choices. The test for you is this: What is your basis for what you call absolute morality?
So my basic quarrel with you, Eric, is that you, just like me, pick and choose your personal version of morality, you call yours absolute, then take off on people like Nangleator and me when we do not fully subscribe to your choice!
So I will repeat one more time what I said before: “Facts mean very little to ideologues, because only they know what is right and moral, because they believe in God.”
I continue to think that statement applies very well to you, Eric, and a few others on here!
I note that Perry has recently found the exclamation point key on his keyboard. He is making heavy usage of it, despite a serious lacking in its need of usage (unless Perry is being angry and hateful).
I have news for you, Perry. You are an absolutist. Your absolute denial of any overarching absolutes is, in itself, an overarching absolute and, as such, is self-defeating by definition. You also believe there is such a thing as a “fact.” Such a belief is a belief in an overarching absolute by the very definition of “fact.”
To deny your absolutist belief system, Perry, is to be intellectually dishonest. And to revel in your intellectual dishonesty while you ineffectually try to skewer with people you weakly attempt to dysphemistically call “absolutists” only shows your own depravity. Your hate-filled, anger-filled, wholly intellectually vacuous words do not bring the fire and brimstone on your opponents as you believe they do, but rather on your own head.
John H.: “But Perry absolutely rejects any overarching absolute, ….”
Exactly, John. “Overarching” is the key word. Your absolute is personal, within you, and mine likewise. But you have no right to insist that I adopt yours, whether you have chosen yours based on some religious tome or what some religious leader proclaimed to you. This is simply a matter of personal choice, in my view!
So when I say that attacking Iraq was an immoral act, that is my personal view, not the statement of an absolutist, which you, and Eric, and a few others do not seem to understand. Of course you don’t have to agree with me, nor I with you, so for any readers on here, whoever is the most convincing might, just might, just might influence others.
Isn’t that what we are all about here on this blog?
PS: Your last blog is nothing but one long ad hominem attack, a sign of weakness, and quite absurd!
I will also note “Eric yells … Eric yells some more … nangleator calmly responds …” is a farcity in the first magnitude. It is full of dishonest and full of partisanship and full of hate.
To disagree is to hate, is that what you just said John? That’s really crazy!!!
Perry, don’t ignore this, from my comment you very narrowly excerpted:
Or ignore it like you have a long history of ignoring a great many things (and have been called on it by multiple people on multiple occasions). Your dishonesty has been well-noted by multiple people, so I expect you won’t meet that self-quote head-on at all (except to prove me wrong, if you even deign to approach it).
A list of fallacies to which Perry ascribes:
Appeal to authority
(for example, “let the reader decide”)
Relativist
Straw man
Red herring
False Dilemma
Special pleading
(for example, demanding others show all sorts of citations and then exempting himself when others demand so of him)
I’m sure others could extend the list of fallacies by which Perry lives, but those are just a quick “off the top of my head” list of fallacies Perry uses with regularity.
John, you are now behaving like an immature person, since you no longer are willing to discuss issues. That’s very weak!
*yawn* I would expect better from a former teacher if that former teacher didn’t spend half his time avoiding evidence, denying truth, valiantly bringing forth fallacies, etc, etc, ad nauseum. But since that is what you do, Perry, I don’t expect much from you and you still find ways to disappoint me.
Perry, I have short-comings I have admitted to on this site. I can’t say the same for you. Jeff has admitted I was right after he researched what I said, which was in contradiction to what he believed. I can’t say the same for you. You have demanded citations and sourcing from everyone on the right on this site and ignored a plethora of those citations and sourcing, then when others demanded the same of you, you considered yourself exempt.
These are facts that cannot be denied unless the denier is also a liar. But you want to “appeal to authority” by declaring anyone who brings up these facts as being immature and not wanting to discuss issues? As Maxwell Smart would say you “missed it by this much” in your failure to admit my statements were facts.
Dana: “Perry ignores the logical conclusion of his own arguments:
Perry: “Eric, that was up to the Iraqis to do, simply because Iraq is their country, their sovereign country.”
….
At what point between the Ba’ath Party regime’s internal vioolence, and that used by the Nazi’s, do you believe the responsibility for external intervention occurs? Or does it ever occur?”
I disagree. Let me begin to tell you why, one reason being that your Saddam-Hitler comparison is apples and oranges, with their own particular contexts that need to be taken into account.
The decision rests on a case-by-case basis, Dana. But let us focus on Iraq, instead of the Nazis, since they were entirely different historic episodes.
First, I think you are ignorant of the extent of our involvement in the Iraq-Iran war, on the side of Saddam, during the Reagan administration mainly, when we were supplying Saddam with WMD, both poison gas and anthrax. Before we go too much further, you need to read
this brief history , which details not only the Iraq-Iran War, but also the internal insurrections taking place within Iraq itself.
Second, to illustrate that even your numbers are off, you will find perhaps a closer approximation right here!
I think you will learn that there was a lot of Bush propaganda that arose to justify our preemptive, aggressive attack on Iraq, a sovereign nation.
Sure, Saddam was brutal to his enemies, some of whom were “his own people”, but the conflicts going on between Iran, Iraq, and neighboring nations, with much of the West involved, especially the US, paints a different picture than the pablum that our own government fed us in the 2002-2003 time frame to justify the invasion. Though certainly not forgivable, a knowledge of the region from the late ’70′s up to 2003 is required before passing intelligent judgments on the participants.
In contrast, Hitler was clearly on an Aryan crusade to conquer massive areas and peoples, so there is no comparison. Certainly we had to come to the aid of our allies, no question.
Most of it did. Bush did go to the UN, got a number of countries to join us, got rid of Saddam and set up a reasonably functional democracy. What more fo you want?
That “lie” thing is a canard, and you guys know it. Unless, of course, Tony Blair lied, too, and British Intelligence, and, well, a whole bunch of others.
Wall Street “Pillage”?? Isn’t that a bit extreme? Wall Street invests, they don’t pillage, indeed, if you have any stocks, then when Wall Street prospers, so do you.
Well, specifally Christianity, which lays down a number of moral absolutes. Morality is NOT based on personal choice, or else everyone could decide to do whatever they liked and call it “Moral”.
The result, of course, would be chaos.
I would also note that your “Personal” morality is in large part based on the Judeo-Christian moral framework. That’s because you, I, and everyone else that’s part of Western Civilization have been raised on a culture that is overwhelmingly Christian, and has been shaped by 3,000 years of Biblical tradition.
Absent that, those who choose not to believe in God would be set loose in a sea of moral chaos, something that at best resembled the Roman Rmpire with it’s corruption and cruelty, and at worst one of those pagan societies that practiced rampant human sacrifice.
So, the next time you want to challenge the concept of moral absolutes, just be thankful you live in a culture that has long been shaped by them.
“Certainly not forgivable”, Perry? Isn’t that asserting a moral absolute, not to mention passing judgment, which moral relativists condemn when done by religious folks?
Again, Eric, you don’t understand the distinction I made. I agreed, there are personal absolutes, but there is no compelling reason in my mind why I must accept your personal absolutes, based on your choices, from the Christian Bible or wherever else, because that is my choice, just as you made yours.
I suspect that you are a believer in the doctrine of some religious faith that demands your belief in and obedience to said doctrine. Again, fine, that is your choice for your personal absolute, which does not apply to me unless I choose for it to apply to me.
It amazes me that people who, on the one hand, make a big deal politically about personal freedom and liberty, as I do myself, but on the other hand think that there are certain absolutes that we all must accept, lest be condemned to some kind of a firey existence. That defies logic by being arbitrary!
Of course I am influenced in my beliefs by my culture. I have said many times that I am attracted to Jesus the man; I choose not to accept the doctrinal claim of Jesus the Son of God. To you this characterizes me as being “mushy”. So be it!
Hey, Perry! You are making frivolous use of the exclamation point you just recently found! I would suggest you stop being so frivolous in your usage! Because the frivolity denudes it of its value! You, of all people, should know that!
Except a “Personal absolute” is a contradiction in terms. A personal absolute is, in reality, just an opinion. Absolutes are, by definition, absolute. They are not subject to opinion or subjective thinking. 2+2=4 is an absolute. No one says “In my opinion 2+2=4, but your opinion might be different and they are both equally valid. That would be absurd! But that’s exactly the view of the moral relativists when it comes to moral laws.
Hey, Perry, why are you filled with hate and rage? (Note the question mark at the end.)
I say you are filled with hate and rage where you say you are not. I say you ignore all sorts of documentation showing your opponents are right and you are wrong where you totally avoid the question.
Let the reader decide who’s right and who’s wrong.
Interesting that the comments I made yesterday never made it onto the thread…
The Phoenician wrote:
I just fished six of your comments out of the Spam thread. I’m not certain why so many of your comments get caught there, but a lot do. You use a spoof email address; I don’t know if that has anything to do with it or not.
Perry wrote:
If one is to hold that there are no absolutes, save in people’s personal views, are we to assume that, for some people, rape is perfectly justifiable, and the rest of us have no right to impose our absolute opinion that rape is always wrong?
We do, in fact, impose majority moral values as absolute upon our society: what the majority believe to be wrong is, generally speaking, codified in our laws. Trading and profiting on insider information was once expected, and now it is viewed as wrong, and has been made illegal. Walking down Main Street naked doesn’t actually hurt anybody else, but we have a moral distaste for it, and we prohibit it in our criminal laws.
There are all sorts of things that you support being illegal that are thought of as perfectly reasonable by other people, yet you are willing to impose majority judgement upon them to make them illegal; our recent discussion concerning who should or should not have free speech rights speaks to that point.
Here’s a one-hit-wonder song just for John:
Gotta love a rock fiddle. I didn’t even play that song this time around (yet) but I love that song. Would that more groups would include a rock fiddle (like blue man group has). The rock banjo? nah.
And fishing in the spam filter? *shudder* I’m tired of looking through all the lists of cross-dressing men trying to propagate with goldfish and the medications that will allow such a thing to happen. If it bypasses the moderation file and heads straight to spam, I’ll never see it.
Dana: “If one is to hold that there are no absolutes, save in people’s personal views, are we to assume that, for some people, rape is perfectly justifiable, and the rest of us have no right to impose our absolute opinion that rape is always wrong?”
Of course not, Dana. One’s personal absolutes, if exercised, are subject to the laws of the land. So you are misunderstanding my point.
I have no basis, other than my own thinking and experiences, for my position on absolutes. The main point behind the idea is that our morals and our behavior are based on our choices. So the choice itself comprises the absolute that each of us has within ourselves.
The confusion in some, perhaps you, comes from the doctrines with which one is raised, either from parents, or church, or other influences, such that you accept these doctrines as absolutes, in that they must apply to everyone. So if I, for example, reject your doctrine, then by definition I am immoral or wrong. Am I making sense to you?
Frankly, for example, I find this absolutist attitude/belief prevalent in Catholics and Evangelicals I’ve known, having actually been an Evangelical myself in my late teens/early twenties, about five years.
Eric’s writings on this subject are an example of a person operating on absolutist principles, such that by his definition, I am “mushy”, coded word for morally wrong.
Problem is, Perry, the Laws of God apply to everyone, whether you “choose” to believe them or not.
There’s nothing “Arbitrary” about moral absolutes. Quite the opposite, in fact. It is moral absolutes, whether you “choose” to accept them or not, that assures the very freedoms you hold dear. The alternative is moral chaos, a sort of “Mad Max” world of moral anarchy. Is that the sort of world you want to live in?
Well, the “mush” comes in your first sentence. Would you have the moral courage to stand up to your culture if it was morally corrupt? If you lived in Roman times, would you have had the strength of character, as the early Christian martyrs did, to die for your beliefs, to stand up to the power of the Emperor even if it meant a cruel death? Or would you have chosen to “Go along to get along”, to go with the social tide, and not stand up for justice and a system of moral absolutes that condemned the evil, corruption, and cruelty?
Which is exactly where they belong!
Divine justice? Pho the Troll reduced to Pho the spammer? Most of his posts are spam anyway, good the system is recognizing them as such.
Not quite. You seem like a decent chap. But then, so was Neville Chamberlain. And both of you seem to believe in moral mush, that there are no standards, and that evil can be appeased. Only those who believe in moral absolutes, those with steel in their spine, like Winston Churchill, have the guts to stand up to evil.
Well, Perry, here’s an example that blows your Moral Relativism to bits. Imagine you are Pontius Pilate. You are confronted with sentencing an innocent man to death. Pilate knew he was innocent, indeed, he publicly proclaimed such. On the other hand, you have an angry mob that just might riot if that man is not is not put to death, thus resulting in many more people being killed. Of course, Pilate, being a man of Moral Mush, famously washed his hands of the whole affair.
OK, Perry, you’re Pontius Pilate. What do you do? Kill an innocent man, or appease the mob and prevent the deaths of many? And on what moral principles do you base your decision?
OK, Perry, you’re Pontius Pilate. What do you do? Kill an innocent man, or appease the mob and prevent the deaths of many?
I know – why not call him a terrorist, decline any need to show evidence on “national security” grounds, and execute him without trial?
And on what moral principles do you base your decision?
Conservatism.
Eric, is your silliness so total that you’re suggesting Pilate ought not have sentenced Christ to be crucified? You do realize, right, that had he not done so, you wouldn’t be redeemed. Would you trade a point won in arguing on the internet for salvation? Let’s be clear about this: Pilate’s decision is central to the salvation story. Without it, you get nothing. Christ’s innocent and should have been released? Cool; the salvation of untold billions is on your conscience, then.
Of course, realizing this poses complicated moral questions, and you are against complicated moral questions; you like things simple. Good! Evil! Ne’er the twain shall meet! Good luck with that.
Perry wrote:
Actually, we didn’t come (fully) to the aid of our allies, until we were attacked ourselves.
Much of what you have referenced was this comment, in which I asked whether, under your philosophy, it would have been entirely up to the Germans to overthrow the Nazis had they not been expansionist, but had simply started their “final solution” within the borders of Germany. That question, you seem to have missed.
As nearly as I can tell, according to what you have said, it really doesn’t matter how badly subjugated or terrorized a population is, if it is done within the borders of a single country, then we have neither the obligation nor even the right to intervene. I suppose we could never have taken action against Ratko Mladi? and Slobodan Miloševi? and Radovan Karadži?, because, after all, all of their actions were taken to insure the survival of a united Yugoslavia and the rule of the recognized government, right?
You are pretty much left with two alternatives:
There’s nothing “Silly” about it. The question concerns basic justice, and what moral standards it is based on. And my point was the relativist has no objective moral standards from which to conclude that Pilate’s actions were either right or wrong.
At any rate, I’m still waiting for Perry to respond, since I think this is one historical example of where his relativism simply breaks down.
Eric: “OK, Perry, you’re Pontius Pilate. What do you do? Kill an innocent man, or appease the mob and prevent the deaths of many? And on what moral principles do you base your decision?”
The problem I see with your hypothetical is that you limit me to two choices. Another difficulty is not knowing the context of the scene in detail.
Possible solutions: How about presenting the unruly crowd with the dilemma Pilate faces with his decision. Or, how about having Jesus himself speak to the people. Another approach is to postpone the decision and seek wise counsel in the meantime. Another, ascertain the leaders in the crowd, and have a meeting only with them.
Well, the reason I presented that dilemma is because it wasn’t a hypothetical, it actually happened. And the “Context” is very well known, since was described in some detail in the Bible. And yes, ultimately, Pilate did only have two choices, and at some point he had to make a decision. He was the final authority in that scene, and it was his judgment that was on the line.
And that’s my point about relativism. In the above scenario, it simply provides no guidance, no objective standard of right and wrong with which to make a moral decision. Which means you can’t really answer my question directly, but instead present several “Alternatives” that, while nice, only puts the decision off further.
So, the bottom line: What decision should Pilate have made, and why?
Eric, I already answered your question. For reasons already explained, I cannot accept only the two alternatives you offered. Of course you are free to conclude anything you want about absolutism or lack thereof.
Let me turn the question back to you. Of all the alternatives you and I both offered, which one would you choose?
Eric, I want to ask you again: do you think Pilate shouldn’t have sent Christ to Golgotha? Do you not understand that the salvation story speaks clearly in favor of ambiguity here? Pilate’s action makes your salvation possible. You’re trying to remove it from the context of the salvation story, but it’s meaningless outside of that broader and more important story. If you’re saying Pilate shouldn’t have washed his hands of the matter and handed Christ over to be crucified, you’re essentially denying Christ’s saving work on the cross, in order to win an argument on the internet. Congratulations on those priorities, pal.
No you didn’t. You provided a Moral Mush answer. You did not provide a definitive answer. What should Pilate have done, Perry? That is the question. You do not seem to have an answer, aside from Moral Mush.
Now, answer the question. What should Pilate have done, and why? Your moral mush/moral relativism will not serve you here. It’s time to rely on moral absolutes, which is the only way you can make such a decision. Stop being a Man of Mush, Perry, and be a man and make a moral decision based on what is right.
That’s because you are a moral wimp. You have no guts, no spine, and so you want to take the easy way out. You don’t want to make a decision, so you waffle.
Now, be a man, Perry, and not a Man of Mush. Make a hard moral decision. What should Pilate have done, and why?
Well, it’s obvious. You let the innocent man go free. Any normal person with a sense of moral absolutes would say so. Only the Men of Mush, the moral relativists, would say differently. The Men of Mush, lacking a moral spine, would have argued for the Crucifiction, since it was the “Easy” way out. Men of moral character would have argued the opposite, based on objective standards of justice. Thankfully, it is the Men of Character, not the Men of Mush, who have determined our history.
There’s no ambiguity at all. Pilate was wrong. Period. The Bible makes that clear.
OK Eric, that’s your opinion, not mine. So be it!
Eric: “Problem is, Perry, the Laws of God apply to everyone, whether you “choose” to believe them or not.”
Who says?
The so-called, by you, “Laws of God”, is fine for you, Eric. And please, refer to them as moral absolutes, if you wish. And continue to call me the “mushy” one, if you wish.
My observation is that these laws were written by man, claiming to have been the recipient from God of such laws, nevertheless naturally subject to human flaws in their implementation. Thus, in my view, there is no such a thing as the indisputable “Laws of God”.
Take Pope Pius XII, whose relationship to the Germans during WWII, in favor of Germany over Poland, is an example of a flawed human who was recognized by millions as a man of God.
Thus, it is my prerogative to pick and choose based on my observations and experiences. Certainly my cultural heritage plays a huge role in this as well, to an extent that I do not fully understand, never will. But I try, always, to keep an open mind, like in the Pilate hypothetical you presented.
Again, I have paid attention to these “Laws”, and pick and chose from them. I suspect that you do exactly the same thing, without realizing or admitting that you do.
My guiding personal absolute is the Golden Rule, by the way, and I know well when I fail to live by it! The Golden Rule, to me, represents the tension between doing for others and doing for self, from which good works can arise.
Finally, to relegate some personal decision to some absolute “Law of God”, is to push off the critical thinking required to make good choices. In other words, that’s easy, but it binds one to a behavior or position that may in fact do great harm to others. That’s not for me, Eric!
Well, 3000 years of the Judeo-Christian moral tradition, for starters.
Anyway, I saw you really don’t (or can’t) provide an answer to Pilate’s dilemma. I don’t see why it’s so hard to just come out and say he was WRONG, period. But moral relativism provides no answer to this issue, and the result is, I’m sad to say, a bunch of “Mushy” waffling, not a straightforward answer.
Eric,
Pretty interesting exchange, not for what it provided, but for what it didn’t.
I figured that I’d keep out, try not to interfere, and just observe as you attempted to get a straight answer to your moral dilemma, and the hypothetical involving Perry himself. [If Perry, then ...].
If Perry had the executive power, would he judge it best to set an innocent man free in the face of a mob crying out for his juridicial murder, or would he decide to provide legal cover for the killing?
However, because you used Christ as an example in order to maximize impact and reduce situational ambiguity, you all of the sudden have on the one hand some person trying to side track the question from one of a clear-cut moral dilemma, to one of soteriology.
And on the other hand you have from Perry, his squirming refusal to address the moral dimension of whether he would be willing as an executive to become complicit in the murder of an innocent man, in order to satisfy the bloodlust of a mob.
Instead he tries to confuse the issue by confusing the concepts of “dilemma” with “hypothetical”.
The hypothetical is not whether Jesus should be yielded to the mob, that’s the dilemma.
The hypothetical is: “If Perry had the power, then which of two decisions allowed by the circumstanes would he make?”
Perry however tries to avoid the dilemma, by confusedly claiming that the “hypothetical” is defective because he cannot escape between or grasp the horns of the dilemma by introducing new parameters or assailing the conditionals. LOL
But all he has been called on to do, is to say whether or not his sense of what is moral would enable him to approve the judicially colored murder of an innocent man in order to appease a mob which – both historically and ex hypothesi – cannot be negotiated with, and therefore stipulatively exhausts the possibilities.
A mob stands outside Perry’s house with torches in hand, falsely accusing his daughters of witchcraft, and crying out for their deaths. “Unlock your doors and render them up to us to be hanged today, or we will return with a larger group tomorrow, and burn your house down.”
What’s Perry do? Unbolt his doors and invite the “leaders” in for an education seminar on the non-existence of witches, or try to at least persuade them that if witches do exist, they are in fact socially beneficial, and burning them is an overreaction?
If he refuses, does he refuse to turn his daughters over because they are innocent; or because they are his?
Or does he instead calculate their relative utility to him in the face of his loss of a dwelling and potential ostracism?
Well, it’s obvious. You let the innocent man go free. Any normal person with a sense of moral absolutes would say so. Only the Men of Mush, the moral relativists, would say differently.
Uh-huh…