“Israel is what’s right with the Middle East”
Bookworm on May 24 2011 at 7:12 am | Filed under: Israel
Excerpts from Netanyahu’s speech to AIPAC. Please note his clarity, as opposed to the muddled, self-exculpatory, whining, ahistorical, ignorant speech of our own “great communicator.”
Yesterday, they let me out.
My wife got to visit Washington’s majestic memorials.
I read Jefferson’s timeless words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.”
I read Lincoln’s immortal address reaffirming “Government of the people, for the people, and by the people.”
You know why these words resonate so powerfully with me and with all Israelis.
Because they are rooted in ideas first championed by our people, the Jewish people.
The idea that all men are created in God’s image.
That no ruler is above the law.
That everyone is entitled to justice.
These revolutionary Jewish ideas were spoken thousands of years ago when vast slave empires ruled the earth.
Israel is the cradle of our common civilization, crucible of our moral ideals.
The Jewish state was founded on these eternal values.
This is why Israel’s more than one million Muslim citizens enjoy full democratic rights.
This is why the only place in the Middle East where Christians are completely free to practice their faith is in the democratic State of Israel.
And this is why only Israel can be trusted to ensure freedom for all faiths in our eternal capital, the united city of Jerusalem.
[snip]
Now, more than ever, what we need is clarity.
Events in our region are finally opening people’s eyes to a simple truth.
The problems of the region are not rooted in Israel.
The remarkable scenes we are witnessing in town squares across the Middle East and North Africa are occurring for a simple reason.
People want freedom.
They want progress. They want a better life.
For many of the people in the region, the 20th century skipped them by.
Now 21st century technology is showing them what they missed.
[snip]
It’s time to stop blaming Israel for all of the region’s problems.
Let me stress one thing.
Peace between Israelis and Palestinians is a vital need for us.
Peace would be the realization of a powerful and eternal dream.
But it is not a panacea for the endemic problems of the Middle East.
It will not give women is some Arab countries in the Middle East the right to drive a car.
It will not prevent Churches from being bombed.
It will not keep journalists out of jail.
What will change all this? One word.
Democracy. Real, genuine, democracy.
By democracy, I don’t just mean elections.
I mean Freedom of Speech. Freedom of the Press. Freedom of Assembly.
The Rule of Law. Rights for women, for gays, for minorities, for everyone.
What the people of the Middle East need is what you have in America, and what we have in Israel.
Democracy.
It’s time to recognize this basic truth:
Israel is not what’s wrong about the Middle East.
Israel is what’s right about the Middle East.
You can read the whole thing here.
Email This Post To A Friend
145 Responses to ““Israel is what’s right with the Middle East””
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Historically, of course, that is not exactly true. Part of our heritage comes from Israel, although much of the Old Testament comes from older civilizations like in Sumeria, which gave us large chunks of it. But a bigger part of our heritage comes from Greece, and the Jewish people experienced a tremendous influence from Hellenic culture about 2,000 years ago. Christianity and Christian culture have been more influenced by Plato than by Abraham. You only hear this narrative from nationalistic Jews like Netanyahu and by the editorial page of the WSJ, which has similar folks like Dorothy Rabinowitz. It is also important to clarify that Jews did not concern themselves with slavery in general, but just slavery against their people, which is very different than the modern idea, which originated in England rather than in Jerusalem. There were, afterall, devout Jewish slaveowners in the American south in the 18th and 19th century. This is propaganda rather than history. Mythology rather than fact. It is amazaing that it passes for “truth” on this website. Finally, I have to ask, if Jefferson’s words so moved Netanyahu, then when will he make Israel more like our ideal, with a secular state rather than a Jewish one? The titular head of India is a Muslim, a religious minority alongside the many Hindus, but nothing of the sort could happen in Israel. That doesn’t sound like our American ideal…much less the source of it.
abc, since I was raised as a Christian, I can’t really speak to Jewish history. I can tell you that I studied the Old Testament, not Plato’s Republic. I was taught about Abraham, not about Plato. I certainly felt like my ideals came from my Judeo-Christian upbringing, not from anything the Greeks contributed.
I’m interested to know why you consider Isreal being a Jewish state such a terrible thing, but don’t condemn its enemies even more vigorously for being not only Muslim states, but oppressive states as well. The truth is the freedom of the practice of religion exists in Isreal to a far higher degree than it does in the states that surround her. When those states provide the freedom of religion that Israel already does we can begin to talk about religious versus secular leadership. When those states provide the level of real democracy that Israel does, we can talk about any deficiencies you find in Israel’s democracy.
What passes for truth on this blog is that by any measure Israel is far more democratic than her neighbors. Yet she receives far more criticism from folks like you, and has far greater demands placed on her, than those neighbors do. It’s this double standard that so irritates. It is not that every word Netanyahu, or anyone else, speaks “passes for ‘truth in this web site.” We (well, I, anyway, and I think I can speak for the room on this point) evaluate statements from the right with the same critical eye as we do those from the left, or we try to, anyway. But what Netanyahu said was far closer to the truth than what our own president said. And, given the unrelenting use of the double standard by the left, it badly needed saying. I certainly wish we had conservative leadership in America who spoke as well.
“much of the Old Testament comes from older civilizations like in Sumeria, which gave us large chunks of it.”
I was reading my Sumerian Old Testament and came across the Psalms, the story of David and the Macchabees, Exodus, Isaiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Micah, Hosea, Joel, Daniel, Baruch, Sirach, etc., and thought to myself, “Wow, look at all of this stuff the Sumerians wrote! Who would have thought that they could foresee Deborah smiting the Canaanites or David commiting adultery? Man, those Sumerians sure were some awesome dudes!”
It’s appropriate for Netanyahu to call attention to the positive values of Israel, and its contributions through history. He pushes the point somewhat when he says “Government of the people, for the people, and by the people” was first championed by the Jews. The Republic is attributed to the Greeks, then the Romans, including discovering the flaws inherent in self-governance (pride, jingoism, corruption, ambition). America was a fusion of Biblical and pagan ideas.
Netanyahu: This is why Israel’s more than one million Muslim citizens enjoy full democratic rights.
Yes, but millions more in the West Bank live under an oppressive occupation, while Gaza is a virtual prison.
Netanyahu: It’s time to stop blaming Israel for all of the region’s problems.
Agreed.
Netanyahu: Peace between Israelis and Palestinians is a vital need for us.
Agreed. The question is whether Netanyahu can bring his people to the table with an acceptable compromise. The belief by some in Israel that they can keep much of the West Bank is simply untenable.
Gaza is an area with two borders: Israel and Egypt.
How is it a prison, Z?
Forget it, Don. Right there – as you can see – is where you run squarely into the wall.
jj, I think Danny is having a lot of fun with Zach and abc. It’s kind of like the joy the Conrad Janis character took with Mork and Exidor on “Mork and Mindy.”
Danny Lemieux: Gaza is an area with two borders: Israel and Egypt.
Access between Gaza and Egypt has been under Israeli control since the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty, excepting the single crossing at Rafah. That crossing has been almost always closed by Israeli security, but was finally opened for good last month, after the Egyptian revolution. How
“That’s OK, though, we understand: such information does not fit the religious template of the Temple of Orthodoxy and must therefore be considered anathema.”
Zach says, “The belief by some in Israel that they can keep much of the West Bank is simply untenable.” Why? Israel won it in war fair and square. Besides, it makes the difference between Israel having what, 1 1/2% of the land area of the Middle East instead of only 1% (the numbers are made up, but you know what I mean)? What is so important about that land that Israel must risk its own security and give it back to buy peace?
Don Q, Zach does not recognize ownership of land gained by victories in a defensive war. Now, if the UN had voted in favor of Israel keeping what it had won legitimately, he would have no problems with it. As long as a sober, temperate international body, scrupulously humane and guided by the highest ethical standards, says something is OK, it’s OK!
Don Quixote: Israel won it in war fair and square.
Conquest is no longer considered a legitimate means to acquire territory. Now, you could simply ignore the law, but it will erode your international standing, making international cooperation more difficult, including on issues of trade.
More practically, it means there are millions of people who have no self-governance. If you were to incorporate them into Israel, then Jews would be the minority. Or you could have a two-state solution. Or you could allow the problem to fester, build walls that divide communities, undermine moderates who are trying to find a path to peace; but sooner or later, people will demand a say in their own affairs.
Zach, what is this “law” of which you speak and why should Israel endanger its existence to abide by it? I’d suggest those millions of people find homes in the 98% of the Middle East already controlled by the Muslims. By the way, how many of those millions were there in 1967? How many were there when Israel was formed? Showing my ignorance again, but was this a part of the territory that was originally suppose to be a part of Israel?
It just stuns me that rational people argue that the religious group that already controls 98% of the Middle East should receive still more territory while demanding that the religious group that controls 2% must give up territory. This is a manufactured crisis designed to force Israel to return to impossible-to-defend borders as one step in the process of driving her into the sea. Why on earth would she agree to it?
Z observes: More practically, it means there are millions of people who have no self-governance.
What? The Palestinian Authority? Hamas? Hesbollah? The problem is not that they have no self-governance, of course they do. The problem is that they have bad governance.
BTW – I understand your argument regarding “conquest is no longer a legitimate means to acquire territory”. I mean, look at the Chinese after their 1950 conquest of Tibet. Their international standing has suffered terribly and it certainly has stood in the way of China’s trade relationships with the world. Good call, Z!
In the end the only thing that matters is who has the bigger and better army.
Which, in a way, is why Leftists and anti-Americans seek to sabotage our own military.
Danny Lemieux: The Palestinian Authority? Hamas? Hesbollah? The problem is not that they have no self-governance, of course they do. The problem is that they have bad governance.
People don’t have self-determination when another country can set up settlements, and build walls through the middle of their territory.
Danny Lemieux: I mean, look at the Chinese after their 1950 conquest of Tibet. Their international standing has suffered terribly and it certainly has stood in the way of China’s trade relationships with the world.
Communist China wasn’t even a member of the United Nations at that time. Hundreds of thousands of Tibetans died during the Great Leap Forward. But China today is not the China of that time, and their global integration is relatively recent. Tibetans continue to push for their rights.
Don Quixote: Zach{riel}, what is this “law” of which you speak …
It’s the collection of agreements that countries have made, including the Charter of the United Nations, governing war and peace, and the Geneva Conventions, which concerns the treatment of people under occupation. Israel is a signatory to both treaties, and has always vigorously defended its interests based on international law.
Don Quixote: and why should Israel endanger its existence to abide by it?
Israel has a right to self-defense. Building settlements in the West Bank is not self-defense, though.
Don Quixote: I’d suggest those millions of people find homes in the 98% of the Middle East already controlled by the Muslims.
That would be like telling you to abandon your home and move to other lands just because they share your religion.
Don Quixote: By the way, how many of those millions were there in 1967?
About 750,000 in 1948, more than half the population. About 300,000 in 1967, though many of these were the same refugees as in 1948, only displaced again. These people and their descendants represent the problem of right of return.
Meanwhile, there are about 2 million Palestinians under Israeli occupation in the West Bank, and about 1.5 million Palestinians living in very poor conditions in Gaza.
Don Quixote: It just stuns me that rational people argue that the religious group that already controls 98% of the Middle East should receive still more territory while demanding that the religious group that controls 2% must give up territory.
Most people would think it unjust to be forced from their homes, and that they have the right to self-determination. Are you seriously suggesting that millions of Palestinians should be expelled from the West Bank and Gaza?
Netanyahu’s speech to Congress, selected quotes:
“Congratulations, America. Congratulations, Mr. President. You got bin Laden. Good riddance.”
“Thank you all, and thank you, President Obama, for your steadfast commitment to Israel’s security.”
” But as President Obama said, the border will be different than the one that existed on June 4th, 1967. Israel will not return to the indefensible boundaries of 1967.”
“There are millions of young people out there who are determined to change their future. We all look at them. They muster courage. They risk their lives. They demand dignity. They desire liberty.”
“Now this is not easy for me. It’s not easy because I recognize that in a genuine peace we will be required to give up parts of the ancestral Jewish homeland,”
“In any peace agreement that ends the conflict, some settlements will end up beyond Israel’s borders. The precise delineation of those borders must be negotiated,”
Important speech. You will notice how closely it tracks to our discussion over the last several days. Israel is now publicly committed to giving up much of the West Bank, including lands that include Jewish settlements, as part of a final peace settlement. Netanyahu adjusted his stance on how he interpreted Obama’s statement on the 1967 borders. (Notice that Obama’s statement helped push that process forward.) And Israel threw its support to those in the Arab world who are fighting for democracy, even though it can unleash dangerous instabilities in the Middle East.
Zach asks me, “Are you seriously suggesting that millions of Palestinians should be expelled from the West Bank and Gaza?” It would be tougher to do now, but they certainly should have expelled everyone from those lands in 1967, prohibited anyone else, including themselves from settling there, and turned them into uninhabited demilitarized zones. That would have solved many of the problems we have today.
Zach also asks if I’d feel the same way if I were the one being displaced, and that’s a fair question. I’d want to be fully compensated for the home I was giving up and for the cost of the move, but I could definitely be bought and, if paid enough, I’d be quite happy to move.
Neither Zach nor abc has yet addressed why our standards for the Muslim world are so low when our standards for Israel are so high. I suspect the main problem of relocating those 300,000 you say were there in 1967 is that the Muslim nations that controlled the other 98% of the Middle East would not allow them to immigrate.
I would love to see Zach and abc pushing as zealously for Tibetans’ rights as they do for Palestinians’.
=cricket= =cricket=
Z observes correctly that “Communist China wasn’t even a member of the United Nations at that time. Hundreds of thousands of Tibetans died during the Great Leap Forward. But China today is not the China of that time, and their global integration is relatively recent. Tibetans continue to push for their rights.”
But, that’s immaterial, isn’t it? China’s abilities to forge agreements and promote trade relations haven’t suffered a bit.
But China today is not the China of that time, and their global integration is relatively recent.
So Z thinks the US of today isn’t the US of the “land grab” days? Is that it.
Z never cared a whit about all the Israelis displaced from their homes when the government forcibly relocated them. What, the Jews can force their people to re locate but the Arabs and their Z allies are too lazy to do the same? Spineless cretins.
Zach correctly points out that “People don’t have self-determination when another country can set up settlements, and build walls through the middle of their territory.”
However, that does not apply to the “1.5 million Palestinians living in very poor conditions in Gaza”.
Imagine, if instead of laying awake at night dreaming up new ways to murder Jews the 1.5 million Palestinians instead spent their time dreaming up ways to turn Gaza into another Macau or Singapore, what they could accomplish. They could build even more shopping malls and high-end resorts, like the ones that I shared with ABC in another post today. Not only that, but I suspect that nobody, including Israel, would begrudge them their own country then, including on the West Bank.
But, nooooo….instead, they prefer to launch rockets at Israeli population centers and preach genocide, secure in the knowledge that no matter how depraved they behave, the Zs, ABCs and EUros of the world will always be there to enable them.
Don writes:
” since I was raised as a Christian, I can’t really speak to Jewish history. I can tell you that I studied the Old Testament, not Plato’s Republic. I was taught about Abraham, not about Plato. I certainly felt like my ideals came from my Judeo-Christian upbringing, not from anything the Greeks contributed.”
The ideas in the New Testament and in Christian teaching, as opposed to the Old Testament and Jewish teaching are very platonic in nature. They deal not with laws enforced by a vengeful God, although there is some of that, but they also deal with universal rights that apply to all men. This is the critical break from Jewish thought, which focuses only on the welfare of a single tribe of people. To the extent that Jewish laws became universalized, this developed as hellenistic thought began to influence Jewish thought, not the other way around. That you haven’t read Plato means that you do not understand the degree to which he influenced important Christian thinkers, from Augustine through Aquinas.
“I’m interested to know why you consider Isreal being a Jewish state such a terrible thing, but don’t condemn its enemies even more vigorously for being not only Muslim states, but oppressive states as well.”
If a Muslim state’s leader had made similar comments about his country and culture being the exclusive source of our values that underlie our civilization, and had said that he was moved by ideas that underscore our uniquely American belief that anyone can become President, regardless of their religious beliefs, then I would have criticized that leader for his hypocrisy as well. As it happens, it was the leader of Israel that made this foolish statements, so I criticized him.
“The truth is the freedom of the practice of religion exists in Isreal to a far higher degree than it does in the states that surround her. When those states provide the freedom of religion that Israel already does we can begin to talk about religious versus secular leadership. When those states provide the level of real democracy that Israel does, we can talk about any deficiencies you find in Israel’s democracy.”
Wrong. We can talk about deficiencies in all democracies and non-democracies, including the US or Israel or India or Turkey or Indonesia. And I never said that Israel didn’t have a better democracy than the non-democratic states in the region. I said that Israel is not beyond reproach, but apparently you think otherwise…
“What passes for truth on this blog is that by any measure Israel is far more democratic than her neighbors. Yet she receives far more criticism from folks like you, and has far greater demands placed on her, than those neighbors do.”
Last I checked, Israel receives far more money and attention than any other state. Quick. Name another leader of a European country that has spoken before Congress and had private meetings with the President as frequently as Israel’s leaders. It doesn’t happen. China is far more important a country in the world than Israel, yet the NYT, WaPo, WSJ, CNN and Fox run more stories each year on Israel than on China. And much of the coverage is very positive, so the idea that I cannot note the unequal treatment that Israel receives for such a small country is just silly. It reveals an unwillingness to face quantifiable and verifiable facts.
“It’s this double standard that so irritates. It is not that every word Netanyahu, or anyone else, speaks “passes for ‘truth in this web site.” We (well, I, anyway, and I think I can speak for the room on this point) evaluate statements from the right with the same critical eye as we do those from the left, or we try to, anyway. But what Netanyahu said was far closer to the truth than what our own president said. And, given the unrelenting use of the double standard by the left, it badly needed saying. I certainly wish we had conservative leadership in America who spoke as well.”
The only double standard is that there have been about ten times as many positive comments on this blog about Israel, Netanyahu and Jews in the Middle East and in history, as there have been negative ones, yet you continue to claim that a 10% of the time being critical ratio is too much. The imbalance is on your part, not mine. I freely acknowledge that Israel is a freer place than other countries in the Middle East, but the central cause of Western civilization it is certainly not, and the foundation of American style democracy it hardly is at all. And my saying so merely clarifies the record that Netanyahu chose to confuse and obfuscate with propagandistic comments.
Charles writes: “I was reading my Sumerian Old Testament and came across the Psalms, the story of David and the Macchabees, Exodus, Isaiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Micah, Hosea, Joel, Daniel, Baruch, Sirach, etc., and thought to myself, “Wow, look at all of this stuff the Sumerians wrote! Who would have thought that they could foresee Deborah smiting the Canaanites or David commiting adultery? Man, those Sumerians sure were some awesome dudes!”
It is funny you mention the Psalms. There are older works from Sumeria that the Psalms follow literally line-by-line. Those that study the Bible as a document, as opposed to a magical book of fairy tales, will tell you that much of the Bible was actually borrowed from older cultures and cilvizations than the Jews that preserved it (thank God) for us. In fact, one Biblical scholar at Columbia estimates that the MAJORITY of the Old Testament was not written by Jews. But, as Bookworm clearly highlights in another one of her posts, if those earlier groups arent’ around, then some Jews are apparently free to claim the Good Book for themselves. This is not the real sequence of events, but I suppose the victors get to write their version of history…
ABC waxes indignant, huffing that:yet the NYT, WaPo, WSJ, CNN and Fox run more stories each year on Israel than on China. And much of the coverage is very positive,”
WSJ and Fox, yes. The NYT, WaPo and CNN?
It’s quite clear to ABC that the news coverage that Israel gets in this world is waaay unbalanced in Israel’s favor. Heavens!
“In fact, one Biblical scholar at Columbia estimates that the MAJORITY of the Old Testament was not written by Jews.”
Well, does that make him or her a skeptic or do they represent the consensus?
Danny,
Actually, it is widely recognized outside the US how pro-Israel the news coverage and academic discussions on Israel and US foreign policy toward the country are. The types of articles written in Europe cannot be written in this country. Take the scholarly paper written by Mearsheimer and Walt, which prompted Alan Dershowitz to call for condemnation, as he has done to others, including some scholars he’s helped to have fired. And this is at Harvard, a very liberal and tolerant university. Anyway, those two gentlemen were invited to speak in Jerusalem to reporters and scholars, and the discussion there around whether the current relationship with the US is actually in the best interest of Israel could take place more openly than here. This should make Americans, including Jewish Americans, feel some modicum of shame. Merely quoting Al Jazeera on Fox News is tantamount to treason, based upon the apoplectic reactions I’ve seen from Hannity and O’Reilly. But if you would like to maintain otherwise, you can. You just will have to produce a few facts to establish your case, rather than (again) asserting your opinion without support as fact.
As for the Columbia Biblical scholar, I believe the assertion that the majority of the Old Testament was not written by Jews is a minority view, but the idea that large chunks of the Bible, including Psalms, were borrowed from earlier cultures and peoples is widely held. The professor who taught a Bible history class I took at Harvard as an undergrad made the same argument, and he was using a textbook from another scholar. So that’s three. Not sure how many scholars, who use evidence, as opposed to religious people, who do not, are on the other side. Perhaps you could enlighten us…
Which Psalms would those be?
Danny Lemieux: It would be tougher to do now, but they certainly should have expelled everyone from those lands in 1967, prohibited anyone else, including themselves from settling there, and turned them into uninhabited demilitarized zones.
O Jerusalem! You would really force hundreds of thousands of people to leave their homes.
Charles Martel: I would love to see Zach and abc pushing as zealously for Tibetans’ rights as they do for Palestinians’.
The Tibetans have every right to self-determination, and China has made every attempt to stifle the Tibetan culture. It may take time, and there will be sacrifice, but the Tibetans will eventually have some form of autonomy, and a say in their own government.
Danny Lemieux: China’s abilities to forge agreements and promote trade relations haven’t suffered a bit.
Yes, it was. They didn’t have normal trade relations in the wider international community until they began to abandoned their most destructive behavior.
Ymarsakar: So Z thinks the US of today isn’t the US of the “land grab” days?
The U.S. works mostly within the international framework they helped devise.
Danny Lemieux: Imagine, if instead of laying awake at night dreaming up new ways to murder Jews the 1.5 million Palestinians instead spent their time dreaming up ways to turn Gaza into another Macau or Singapore, what they could accomplish.
Gee whiz, Danny Lemieux. We went through this (#8). Israel has blockaded Gaza for decades. The Gazans barely have enough to eat, much less to trade.
abc, I’ve asked it before, and your silence about it tells me you’re very uncomfortable with the question: What made you so contemptuous of Christianity and Judaism? Is it just those two religions or do you equally despise Islam, the Indian religions, Buddhism, etc? Are you an atheist? Despite having attended church for many years, as you claim, what was the turning point?
I’m always curious about people who are so strong in their hatred for orthodox Judeo-Christianity (or religion in general) that it colors almost every part of their thinking.
“The Tibetans have every right to self-determination, and China has made every attempt to stifle the Tibetan culture. It may take time, and there will be sacrifice, but the Tibetans will eventually have some form of autonomy, and a say in their own government.”
Yes, yes, Zach, very nice words. You do such beautiful boilerplate. But my question was whether you were going to stand up as forcefully for Tibetans’ rights as you do for Palestinians’. How come you have not condemned China as strongly and as often as you have condemned Israel?
Also, as a scientist, doesn’t it strike you as strange your touching faith, based on no evidence whatsoever, that the Tibetans will someday have a form of autonomy?
Israel ships food into Gaza. The blocade is to keep weapons out, mainly rockets, which the “Palestinians” shoot into Israel, without much aiming, even less guidance, so that they land on civilians or wherever. By contrast, the Israelis identify the precise location of a missile launch, telephone the house at that location, and warn the people to get out, because the Israelis have a policy of blowing up places that are used for launching missiles at Israel. Naturally, this makes the “Palestinians” very unhappy, but not unhappy enough to prevent their homes from being rocket launch pads. Ah, but they are given no choice by Hamas. I suppose that that is why they elected Hamas to be their government, even after reading the Hamas charter, which calls for the extinction of Israel and the killing of the Jews. The charter is available on line, for anyone who wishes to read it.
As for land acquired by conquest, the 1967 borders stood, until the Arabs started a war with Israel. Giving back all the formerly “Palestinian” land land means that they can start wars with absolute impunity.
And, while we’re on the subject of the poor “Palestinians,” they have a country, carved out from the former Turkish Empire for them, called Jordan. The partition of Palestine into Israel and Jordan was no more unjust than the partition of India, but it was received with far less equanimity. (Yes, there was violence in India, but there are more people seeking to “Reunite Gondwanaland,” than there are people trying to forge Pakistan and India into one nation again.)
Still waiting for those Psalm citations.
Z is frustrated with Danny Lemieux’s evident obtuseness: “Gee whiz, Danny Lemieux. We went through this (#8). Israel has blockaded Gaza for decades. The Gazans barely have enough to eat, much less to trade.”
Uh, I guess you missed my cites/sites to ABC on the other thread…, so here it is again:
Through rivulets of tears, ABC attempts to soften hearts in regard to the Palestinians of Gaza, saying:
ABC responds to an obstreperous Danny Lemieux: “Danny, the Palestinians are on medication. The Israelis call it the Gaza diet, which is about 50% of the recommended allowance of calories. The Israelis somehow have included chocolate and baby formula among the items to be prohibited from being allowed into the Palestinian territories. This is why the number of anemic babies in Palestine is over 50% according to international aid groups.”
Danny Lemieux, as unsympathetic as befits a troglodyte of the right, responds, “Funny, Gaza has a border with Egypt, an Arab country. It seems they could just as easily import their foodstuffs from Egypt, a fellow Arab country.
And, certainly, with the billions and billions of EUro-aid available, they could buy feedstuffs for their citizens instead of the rockets and missiles launched toward Israel that seem to provoke Israelis into unreasonable paranoia about just what crosses Gaza’s borders.
And, speaking of launch…I mean “lunch”, why don’t you and I dine at Gaza’s exquisite Roots Club, where chocolate is in abundance (see 1:39 of YouTube video) and discuss the problems of Gaza’s rampant anemia over a fine steak dinner. Then, if we have time, let’s shop at brand new mall in Gaza (I’ve linked to some nice photos for you from that noted Zionist propaganda outlet, the Huffington Post).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJvvkXYD12U&feature=player_embedded
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-shrybman/gaza-strip-mall-did-the-e_b_650362.html
So, Z…what is it about Gaza’s “Food for Rockets” program you don’t get?
Which statements, Charles, have I made that show unique hatred of Christianity and Judaism? I hold them in the same regard as those who believe in flying unicorns and magic crystals or Haitian voodo magic or Chinese feng shui. I believe in empirical data and sound reason, neither of which exist in religion or superstition or cult worship (and those three have much more in common than the church going population of the world would care to admit). I believe that those who choose to be good not because they fear an omniscient dictator in the sky, but because they know what is universalizable and right and necessary for civilization to work–and you don’t need religion to understand the sound rationality of the Golden Rule–are actually far greater than the prophets or saints. For they do it because it is right in and of itself, not because they seek 77 virgins or to become closer to Yaweh in heaven or some other self-interested reward. Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins have written at length about their views on religion, which essentially mirror my own. I would point you to their work for further understanding.
ABC starts to show his cards, when he/she says:
Danny, actually, it is widely recognized outside the US how pro-Israel the news coverage and academic discussions on Israel and US foreign policy toward the country are. The types of articles written in Europe cannot be written in this country.
I believe that this is along the lines of “The Jooos control the Media”.
ABC apparently finds very few anti-Israel screeds written in academia these days.
Some quotes from the Hamas Charter:
abc, you are one of the least self-aware people I have ever encountered. Your spew—there is no more charitable a word for it—confirms for all to see your deep, irrational hatred toward religion, as well as your feelings of moral superiority to those who practice it.
But even more revealing is your rank hypocrisy: You’ve admitted to attending church for years. Why would a superior being such as yourself, the most logical, lucid, educated and authoritative poster ever to visit this site, have stooped so low for so many years to do so?
Danny, yes: The Joooooos control the media. And the academy. That’s why there has never been a single incident of Muslim or Marxist violence towards pro-Israel speakers on college campuses. Never. Ever. Really.
[Please, Jooos, if you're reading this, can't you see I'm trying to be good?]
Michael,
I couldn’t find the links that I have read in the past, but this will get you going: http://phoenicia.org/ugarbibl.html.
Danny Lemieux: Funny, Gaza has a border with Egypt, an Arab country. It seems they could just as easily import their foodstuffs from Egypt, a fellow Arab country.
Through a border, which until recently, has been nearly always closed to trade. The fact that some goods are smuggled through, or are imported when Israel eases border restrictions, doesn’t change this basic fact, or mean that the vast majority of Gazans can buy those goods.
Charles Martel: Yessiree, Zach, just a little negotiation to get past this bit of good-natured Arab hyperbole, and the Israelis and Palestinians will soon be living in peace, justice, harmony, and love.
Yet Netanyahu not only thinks peace is possible, but essential.
Zach, yes. Netanyahu is sane. Sane people want to live in peace. Too bad the people he has to negotiate it with are barking mad haters, as you so capably addressed in your condemnation of Hamas’ s charter.
Thanks, a. We studied Ugaritic literature when we were reading Job. The Job story is told in Ugaritic, and probably other versions also existed. In the Bible he is described as a Moabite, so there was likely a Moabite version, too. The piece you linked was well written, so skillfully, in fact, that they were able to slide over some gaps, such as “It is likely that some of the Psalms were originally Hymns to Ugaritic gods.” although they had no citations for that.
The Bible actually speaks of these overlaps, but from a different point of view. The people who hold the sort of happy-clappy syncretist view of the entire world do not like to talk so much about why the prophets were so down on Canaanite religion. The prophets drew the multi-culti line well short of infant sacrifice. If one is not a Fundamentalist, which I am not, although I do respect them and their view, one is aware that in Semitic culture, rather than lengthy discourses on abstract topics, they tell stories. In this view, The Sacrifice of Isaac illustrates that the Hebrew people do not practice child sacrifice, in contrast to their neighbors. It has, in that light, a sort of Nyah Nyah theme.
The general overlap shows up in odd places, such as the story of fugitive Moses, taking refuge with Reuel, the Priest of Midian, or Jacob destroying the idols his wives worshipped.
That the Proverbs had echoes all over the Middle East is very well known. There was a general interest in “Wisdom,” such that the Queen of Sheba came to visit King Solomon to study under him.
As for poor Christopher Hitchens, we all thank God that he went into journalism, rather than physics, given his serious weakness in quantitative thinking. He is utterly unable to distinguish between Communism, with a hundred million deaths, at a minimum, Islam, with ten million, and Christianity, with about a million in “Religious wars.” I use quotes, because wars like the Thirty Years War and the English Civil War have a great deal more to do with the rise of the bourgeoisie, which did, indeed, prefer the more austere form of Christianity that is Protestantism over Roman Catholicism. However, it becomes difficult to call the Thirty a religious war, since the French Catholics fought on the side of the German Protestants, but you knew that, of course. In any case, the language of science is mathematics, and our boy Hitch does not speak it.
Believe in God, or don’t. I think the phrase is usually, “You can go to Hell,” not as an imprecation, but simply a statement of what we understand to be fact. However, God, if He exists, is outside of time and the physical universe. History is inside, and well known.
I would strongly suggest that you read JJ Rousseau on Inequality of Men. The first thing I noticed, re-reading it after thirty years or so, was how woefully deficient in lithium he was. Reading further, one sees that he thought that the great problem of the world was the bourgeoisie, and that we must be destroyed, including such bourgeois institutions as marriage and religion. It is from him that we get the notion of pervasive hypocrisy in church. After sixty years in church, I can assure anyone who is interested that there are plenty of instances of it, but no more than outside the church. That is remarkable, considering that we have a generally more difficult standard of morality, which we acknowledge every Sunday that we do not meet. Rousseau set up the problem, much as a mathematician might, and others in succeeding generations offered solutions, e.g. Marx, Proudhon, Goebbles, and many more.
Anyway, thanks for the link, although it was very familiar to me, and, no doubt to the Hammer and the Best. We just don’t think that such knowledge makes us smarter than God, rather different from the average Harvard prof.
In a discussion above on the double standard applied to Israel, it was written above:
> The only double standard is that there have been about ten times as many positive comments on this blog about Israel [...]
in which that author denies there is any double standard applied against Israel.
I don’t want that statement to be lost amongst the rest of all the debate. Repeating it here.
It speaks to the judgment and wisdom of the author.
Charles Martel: Netanyahu is sane. Sane people want to live in peace.
More than that; he believes that peace is achievable.
Well of course he does, Zach. What is his alternative? Perpetual war? Surrender?
It’s not peace that is essential but security. Netanyahu believes peace is the best path towards security, real peace not Z huckster peace deals. But if the leader of Israel believes peace is no longer possible, then security will be prioritized over “peace”.
Don Quixote: Well of course he does, Zach. What is his alternative? Perpetual war? Surrender?
Well, we know Netanyahu is just a hippie, but the long-term survival of Israel means facing the relevant facts. If that means perpectual conflict, then so be it. Instead, he says that peace is possible, but only with sacrifice.
Ymarsakar: Netanyahu believes peace is the best path towards security, …
Yes, that’s what he says.
Ymarsakar: But if the leader of Israel believes peace is no longer possible, then security will be prioritized over “peace”.
Yes, nations have a right to self-defense.
It’s not what Obama says and Z’s current policies toward Israel does not support Israel’s security situation or self-defense parameters.
Btw, the nation is neither a self nor a person. Thus it isn’t self defense but national defense. Aka nationalism.
Zach and abc, simple question. Do either of you honestly believe that if Israel gave back all of the land it seized and went back to the pre-1967 borders that there would be peace, true peace, in the Middle East?
Don Quixote: Do either of you honestly believe that if Israel gave back all of the land it seized and went back to the pre-1967 borders that there would be peace, true peace, in the Middle East?
You’re confusing a gift with an agreement. Peace also requires security, so any final border agreement has to include security guarantees. That will probably mean a demilitarized West Bank. In real life, of course, Israel will insist on Jerusalem and some of the surrounding areas which include dense Israeli settlements. They will give up most of the West Bank because there is no other way forward. There will be some compensation to the refugees, maybe even allowing some of the original inhabitants to return. Pride has more importance than most people realize, perhaps the most important issue.
There will be no de-militarization on the part of Palestinians. Any promise by Obama, the PAL, Hamas, Hizbollah, or Z on guaranteeing Israeli security, is a flat out lie.
“Peace also requires security, so any final border agreement has to include security guarantees. That will probably mean a demilitarized West Bank. In real life, of course, Israel will insist on Jerusalem and some of the surrounding areas which include dense Israeli settlements. They will give up most of the West Bank because there is no other way forward. There will be some compensation to the refugees, maybe even allowing some of the original inhabitants to return. Pride has more importance than most people realize, perhaps the most important issue.”
Thank you, God, for the collective intelligence of the Zach Collective! If it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t have this brilliant, detailed, nuanced plan for peace that not only contains never-before-offered insights (“peace also requires security”) but also flat-out, breathtaking clairvoyance (“that will probably mean a demilitarized West Bank”).
My only quibble—and forgive me, Lord, for even bringing it up—is the teensy eensy matter about how the security guarantees will be enforced. I mean, if the Zach Boys are smart enough to tell us what will unfold, they’re certainly smart enough to tell us how, right?
I eagerly await the Collective’s boilerplate about how such guarantees will probably require the vaunted restraint of the Palestinians, the legendary courage of the UN, and perhaps sober promises from the ever bold and decisive Nancy Boy of the United States.
(Martel gets out the popcorn popper and pulls up his comfortable chair.)
(Martel gets out the popcorn popper and pulls up his comfortable chair.)
You’re producing CO2 toxins and poisons. That’s forbidden, Martel. We’ll have to fine you for 50% of your income. Unless you buy carbon credits for 2,000 dollars, and you’ll be given a temporary permission to pollute.
Stripped of all the snide remarks, which I could do without, CM’s question is the correct one: How would security guarantees be enforced? Put another way, do Zach or abc honestly believe that the Muslims who have sworn to destroy Israel would we willing to make peace, real peace that they are actually committed to, under any conditions short of Israel’s destruction? I suspect few people who comment on this blog regularly feel that way. I certainly don’t. What evidence is there of such a willingness?
I do believe that the Gaza pullback was undertaken by Israel with “security guarantees” and the commitment that it would be demilitarized.
How did that work out, btw? Anyone know?
It worked, Danny. Entire families of Jews were targeted and destroyed. Mission Accomplished by Leftist Democrats.
Don Q, my snideness is intended to expose the Zachs for their real purpose here, which is to distract and obfuscate. It’s obvious by now that they are not interested in real back and forth in the way that normal conversations unfold. The intent is simply to try to wear interrogators down with misdirection or non-responsive replies that obviously have been cut and pasted from outside sources.
As I said before, the Zachs are playing a long game, and the tactic is to try to overwhelm opponents. I’m not overwhelmed, I’m amused. And I express that amusement as much as I can.
There is a silver lining to all this. As long as the Zachs and abcs are engaged here, where they more than meet their match, they are not pestering other conservative sites. Think of us the tonsils of conservatism—the opportunistic infections have to pass through us first.
Ymarsakar, I have taken the precaution of housing a family of 20 illegals in my yards. The police and authorities dare not touch me because they would have to go through my illegals first and that would be racist.
Wow, Zachriel 54, taken exactly at its face value and at its exact words, is a post I agree with.
Intervention! Intervention somebody!
———
The Guardian (uk) just gave Hamas an op ed today. You know who Hamas is – the terrorist organization, democratically elected by those fun-loving Palestinian people – that is dedicated by their own charter to the complete destruction of Israel and the genocide of Israelis.
You really should go read the op-ed. They are so peaceful! Just like the Amish.
Martel, Z still hasn’t said he disagreed with my execution scaffold proposal for solving British crime waves. He said he found it morally bad, but is it morally bad because it works or because it wouldn’t work?
Ymar, Zach is a utilitarian, so, technically speaking, he should agree with you. But the rub here is that his Cliff Notes say that what you are suggesting is an immoral thing, therefore it is bad.
Once you know his m.o., the comments from him are entirely predictable. Whether he actually believes what he is saying is immaterial.
Mike, I excerpted some passages from the Hamas Charter yesterday and asked Zach to comment on them. Guess how he responded? Exactly: he couldn’t.
I think he couldn’t respond because it didn’t make sense to him. He couldn’t understand what you were saying. You made ZERO sense for Z.
Danny Lemieux: I do believe that the Gaza pullback was undertaken by Israel with “security guarantees” and the commitment that it would be demilitarized.
The Gaza disengagement was unilateral, and the blockade continued. The reason they disengaged is because it was unsustainable.
Charles Martel: the real purpose here, which is to distract and obfuscate.
Ironically, your entire post was off-topic.
Mike Devx: Wow, Zachriel 54, taken exactly at its face value and at its exact words, is a post I agree with.
Must have been some sort of Ionian votex. We’ll try to adjust the controls.
“Ironically, your entire post was off-topic.”
QED: The Collective is now the room’s self-appointed traffic cop. Gotta love the chutzpah!
The reason they disengaged is because it was unsustainable.
I see, so Z wants to stop Israelis from building homes and walls (Z called em “forts”), in order to make it “unsustainable”, forcing them to retreat.
Isn’t that the same as Z waging unconventional warfare on the Jews? Where’s the peace negotiations there. The security guarantees?
Ymarsakar: Z still hasn’t said he disagreed with my execution scaffold proposal for solving British crime waves.
In case you missed it, we said your call to kill millions of people for their political beliefs is heinous and reprehensible. It was Charles Martel who said he disagree with it.
Charles Martel: I excerpted some passages from the Hamas Charter yesterday and asked Zach to comment on them.
“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”
Pretty typical boilerplate for a party to a conflict.
“The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up.”
Yes, and Israel lays claim to the West Bank based on a belief that God promised it to them. Again, each side starts from the most extreme position.
“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”
Hamas says a peaceful solution is not possible. Indeed, that seems to the opinion of many on this blog.
“After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates.”
They equate the Zionists with Western imperialism generally, which did stretch until modern times from the Nile to the Euphrates.
Doesn’t sound like Hamas is ready to talk peace. More importantly, they still use terrorism to advance their political aims. Anything else you wanted to know?
In case you missed it, we said your call to kill millions of people for their political beliefs is heinous and reprehensible.
You’re leaving out the context again? Why would killing millions of people for their political beliefs decrease the crime wave in England or London?
You’re not even talking about the real issue here, Z. You’re not here to lecture us about drinking water properly. So get yourself to the real issue and the real topic, none of this contextless end run around that is a red herring in disguise.
JKB: increased CO2 stimulates plant growth, increased temperature stimulates plant growth. Therefore, while perhaps some cool weather crops will fail, they will be replaced by very fecund warm weather and tropical plants.
The problem is agricultural disruption, desertification and coastal flooding.
JKB: What I know it that their models skipped over the hard boundary conditions and assumed a continuous unlimited atmosphere, thus missing out of the heat radiated into space.
The whole concept of the greenhouse effect has to do with the energy budget, meaning energy received, and energy lost. Can you point to the actual scientific studies in question?
JKB: See, right there you reveal your bad information. The sun can cause the earth to warm but the atmosphere cannot. The atmosphere can absorb heat and can slow the cooling but it cannot warm as it has no heat source.
Are you making a point, or arguing semantics? If the amount of greenhouse gases increase in the atmosphere, the temperature will increase. That’s called warming. You need to come to grips with your misstatement about thermodynamics. Do you really think it is plausiable that climate scientists all over the world are unaware of the thermodynamics as it applies to the Earth’s energy budget, or that the phycists community would overlook such an issue?
Folks, Martel shakes the Z tree and the nuts continue to pour down.
Now watch:
Hamas: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”
Zach: “Pretty typical boilerplate for a party to a conflict.”
Wow! Does it get any more cold-blooded and Dukakis-like than this? Notice that the Hive doesn’t offer the similar “typical” statement that’s embedded in the Israeli constitution?
[Somebody whispers to Martel: “That’s because there isn’t one.” “Oh,” says Martel. “Oh.”)
Ymarsakar: Why would killing millions of people for their political beliefs decrease the crime wave in England or London?
It’s very hard to take you seriously when you advocate killing millions of people for their political beliefs. It still disheartening that so many on this blog are silent.
To answer your question, adding the murder of millions of people would increase the level of crime, not decrease it.
Sorry, the comments directed at JKB were for another thread.
Ymar, what you need to do here is tell Zach that your mass execution statement “is pretty typical boilerplate for a party to a conflict.” Since he shrugs his shoulders at Hamas doing it, why can’t he extend you the same courtesy?
This isn’t a deliberative body like a U.N. panel, Zach. It’s a commentary section for those who wish to comment.
If after every controversial statement made, i had to wade through twenty “I disagree” or “I agree” comments, I’d start to get a little irritated myself. Scroll, scroll, scroll, down to something more interesting.
And besides, I’m starting to find it entertaining that you’re having to wonder where each non-commenter *really* stands…
TAKE ONE
“Now there’s one in the spotlight he don’t look right to meGet him up against the wallAgainst the wall!And that one looks jewish! and that ones a coon!Who let all of this riff raff into the room?There’s one smoking a joint, and another with spotsIf i had my wayi’d have all of them shot”
TAKE TWO
Silence means security
silence means approval
watch a zenith on the TV
tiger run around the tree
follow the leader
run and turn to butter.
God do I hate the javascript formatting engine for this commentary form, in so many ways.
But then, I hate almost everything about javascript.
Charles Martel: Since he shrugs his shoulders at Hamas doing it, why can’t he extend you the same courtesy?
Hamas doesn’t recognize Israel. You asked for comment on a statement which calls for the destruction of the state of Israel, not the elimination of its people. However, Israel is an internationally recognized nation, a member of the United Nations, and the Palestinians will have to recognize their sovereignty in any final agreement.
But for the record, killing millions of people is heinous and reprehensible. (Hmm. Thought we said this already.)
OFF-TOPIC
Mike Devx: If after every controversial statement made, i had to wade through twenty “I disagree” or “I agree” comments, I’d start to get a little irritated myself. Scroll, scroll, scroll, down to something more interesting.
Calls for mass murder are not “controversial statements.” Silence in the face of such commentary is not appropriate just to keep things genial or simple. Those who ignore the problem help create the impression that such conduct is acceptable, especially on a small forum such as this where each voice carries a large weight.
Consider this. The only person on this forum who has bothered to call him on his outrageous comments is someone who also is constantly ridiculed. This only reinforces the message that calling for mass murder is okay.
“Calls for mass murder are not “controversial statements.” Silence in the face of such commentary is not appropriate just to keep things genial or simple. Those who ignore the problem help create the impression that such conduct is acceptable, especially on a small forum such as this where each voice carries a large weight.
“Consider this. The only person on this forum who has bothered to call him on his outrageous comments is someone who also is constantly ridiculed. This only reinforces the message that calling for mass murder is okay.”
Folks, I don’t feel in the mood to allow this thoroughly amoral collective, which knows that it cannot argue on moral terms because it has no morality, to presume it can command this site. This is yet another attempt at misdirection.
The “person who is constantly ridiculed” is the Zachs’ reference to themselves. The reason why they are ridiculed is that nobody here takes their moral posturing seriously. These Hamas-excusing basementeers, who say that calling for the extirpation of Israel is just “boilerplate,” sound like the incorruptible Captain Renault in “Casbalanca,” who was shocked—shocked!—that gambling was going on.
It’s very hard to take you seriously when you advocate killing millions of people for their political beliefs.
Like I said, the context in which my remarks were generated was to deal with the crime wave in Britain. You’re making it out to be an isolated issue, that the executions are an end in themselves rather than a means to an end. These things have what are called “connections” and “meanings” in the greater frame.
Ymarsakar: Why would killing millions of people for their political beliefs decrease the crime wave in England or London?
Z has conniptions: “It’s very hard to take you seriously when you advocate killing millions of people for their political beliefs. It still disheartening that so many on this blog are silent.”
Z…you’re still a newbie on this blog. Those of us that have been commenting with Ymarksaker for years now understand his rhetorical style and put it into proper context (as he does as well).
For example, not to put words into Ymarsaker’s mouth or anything…but oh heck, I will…he might respond to particularly obtuse point about DDT and the environment made by some well known contributors to this blog and make a rhetorical challenge (as he did above) to point out that those same bien pensant people that shudder with self-righteous horror at idea of Israelis killing Palestinians in self-defense seem to be quite OK with the millions of human lives discarded as collateral damage in the environmentalist war on DDT.
Capicse?
Ymarsakar: What you need is to build an execution stand, take around 80% of the Leftists and bureaucrats in government, and execute them. That’ll solve the problem soon enough.
Ymarsakar: Like I said, the context in which my remarks were generated was to deal with the crime wave in Britain. You’re making it out to be an isolated issue, that the executions are an end in themselves rather than a means to an end.
Saying you would murder millions to reduce crime doesn’t salvage your advocacy. It’s still heinous and reprehensible.
Danny Lemieux: Those of us that have been commenting with Ymarksaker for years now understand his rhetorical style and put it into proper context (as he does as well).
We considered satire, irony or trolling, but he just provided the context—again. The fact that you have been having these discussions for years just emphasizes why it is important to contest such statements, not just that your readers will know that you reject such an idea, but so that Ymarsakar will learn why it is not acceptable, listening to you when he may not listen to others.
As I stated before. Zach has absolutely no moral standing here. He is incapable of mounting a persuasive moral argument because he subscribes to no morality himself.
So by Z’s lights, it’s not acceptable for people to say things he dislikes here on someone else’s blog and community. Z has to “control” the “narrative” in order to make it “understandable” to the masses, somehow.
Well, Z, you don’t actually control much of anything here. Including yourself or rather yourselves.
You actually think stating something is heinous and reprehensible is a logical argument? That’s an emotional and completely self biased opinion. No logical claim whatsoever.
Get yourself an argument before you battle those with nuclear weapons: fighting unarmed is unwise.
The context is pretty basic. Mike Devx provided a link or story concerning how victims and citizens in Britain are kept as slaves, at the full mercy of criminals and the British government/police. Mike Devx wondered how this would be resolved. I viewed a feasible solution as overturning the status quo entirely in Britain and wiping out their former Powers That Be and replacing them with …. well anyone really. At that point, the criminal problem can be worked on using local solutions without the totalitarian authority of centralized British government.
If any bureaucrats or Leftists are to be purged, they won’t be purged for their political beliefs. They will be purged because they refuse to allow the people of Britain to live their lives as free men and women.
Simple as that. And maybe 20% will confess and convert, they will be saved. Maybe 50% will. 80% is an estimate and an assessment of how many will refuse to give up their power monger ways.
To Martel’s 76, I guess it is primarily because Z can’t convince himself that Hamas would care what is or isn’t said on the net (meaning here). They’ll go after Z and get his head one way or another. But Z knows that we are different, that we can be pressured and locked up and restricted. So he goes after us verbally in order to make a difference on the information battlefront.
OFF TOPIC cont’d > Silence in the face of such commentary is not appropriate just to keep things genial or simple. Those who ignore the problem help create the impression that such conduct is acceptable, especially on a small forum such as this where each voice carries a large weight.
Translation: silence = approval (but with a lot of qualifiers)
I could dissect all the qualifiers, but I’ll spiral on down into likely ultra-boring thoughts here, and comment on the most salient one:
“that such conduct is acceptable”
—–
(begin likely ultra-boring commentary)
If such conduct weren’t acceptable, Book would bar Ymar.
One thing that does interest me is that you’re actually trying to compel each of us to “DECLARE YOURSELF!”.
And why? Solely because you want to see it. I don’t think you’re genuinely deeply concerned about the quality of discourse on “a small forum such as this“.
(and good luck trying to compel us. hehehe, I’m not the only iconoclastic ultra-nonconformist here. Suddenly, now as a matter of principle, you’d have to drag me kicking and screaming into actually leaving a comment yay or nay! :-)
Besides both you and Ymar are perfectly capable of standing on your own. Or are you truly asking for assistance here because you feel you’re floundering… you think you’re losing the argument… out of your depth? (Ahem, I didn’t think so. :-)
(end likely ultra-boring commentary)
“This is unacceptable!”
“It is heinous and reprehensible!”
“You are off topic!”
—This string of statements Zach rehearses every morning when he looks into the mirror has been brought to you by Chuck Martel as a public service.
I used to think I should go with the herd and say/do/believe whatever the herd told me to do, or else I’d be punished.
Eventually I figured out }to hell with that, I’m going to start thinking for myself and making decisions, by myself for myself”. And wow, can you imagine, that generated a whole sea change from my previous behavior.
So no, I’m pretty sure people here will think whatever their conscience tells them to, and not anyone else’s “conscience”.
True freedom is not so much the ability to do anything you want, but instead it is the ability to tolerate the fact that other people ARE STRANGE. Words such as alien, foreign, incompatible, can also be included.
That being DIFFERENT doesn’t necessarily mean they are unacceptable or of no human value. I know the Left likes to dehumanize their enemies and foes, and that’s their little personal quirk, vice, and problem. But that’s not a problem most of us here have.
Ymarsakar: So by Z’s lights, it’s not acceptable for people to say things he dislikes here on someone else’s blog and community.
You are perfectly free to say what you will. We are free to point out when your proposals are reprehensible. (You’ve had ample opportunity to clarify your remarks.)
Mike Devx: One thing that does interest me is that you’re actually trying to compel each of us to “DECLARE YOURSELF!”.
You are under no compulsion whatsoever. As you are not a Leftist, why should you speak out?
Michael writes: “Thanks, a. We studied Ugaritic literature when we were reading Job. The Job story is told in Ugaritic, and probably other versions also existed. In the Bible he is described as a Moabite, so there was likely a Moabite version, too. The piece you linked was well written, so skillfully, in fact, that they were able to slide over some gaps, such as “It is likely that some of the Psalms were originally Hymns to Ugaritic gods.” although they had no citations for that.”
As I said, the materials I was looking for I could not find online. Mark S. Smith at NYU has shown these links, but the scholarship appears not to be on the web. Perhaps you should check out his books for that evidence.
“The Bible actually speaks of these overlaps, but from a different point of view. The people who hold the sort of happy-clappy syncretist view of the entire world do not like to talk so much about why the prophets were so down on Canaanite religion. The prophets drew the multi-culti line well short of infant sacrifice. If one is not a Fundamentalist, which I am not, although I do respect them and their view, one is aware that in Semitic culture, rather than lengthy discourses on abstract topics, they tell stories. In this view, The Sacrifice of Isaac illustrates that the Hebrew people do not practice child sacrifice, in contrast to their neighbors. It has, in that light, a sort of Nyah Nyah theme.”
It is surprising to see you generalize across centuries of Israeli/Hebrew practice, since the culture evolved from polytheistic to monotheistic over time, as many historians and archaelogists can tell you. It is believed, furthermore, that sacrifice of some sort or, more likely, many sorts were known at some point to Israelis/Hebrews, as it was to their neighbors. Smith’s work covers this evolution as well, incidentally.
“The general overlap shows up in odd places, such as the story of fugitive Moses, taking refuge with Reuel, the Priest of Midian, or Jacob destroying the idols his wives worshipped…That the Proverbs had echoes all over the Middle East is very well known. There was a general interest in “Wisdom,” such that the Queen of Sheba came to visit King Solomon to study under him.”
This is the problem with Biblical analysis. You need to consult a variety of other texts to establish the validity of the Bible, line by line, passage by passage. However, fundamentalists and many others start with the presumption that the Bible is completely true, so they do not scientifically examine the Bible for accuracy but conclude it before they start. The gaps cannot be solved using the Bible alone, nor can the areas that are not even recognized as gaps. You have to study it like any other book as a piece of the historical record. It is ironic that you criticize Hitchens for failing to establish empirical analysis, but condone religious people that make bigger epistemological errors…
“As for poor Christopher Hitchens, we all thank God that he went into journalism, rather than physics, given his serious weakness in quantitative thinking. He is utterly unable to distinguish between Communism, with a hundred million deaths, at a minimum, Islam, with ten million, and Christianity, with about a million in “Religious wars.” I use quotes, because wars like the Thirty Years War and the English Civil War have a great deal more to do with the rise of the bourgeoisie, which did, indeed, prefer the more austere form of Christianity that is Protestantism over Roman Catholicism. However, it becomes difficult to call the Thirty a religious war, since the French Catholics fought on the side of the German Protestants, but you knew that, of course. In any case, the language of science is mathematics, and our boy Hitch does not speak it.”
Larger populations and technology of the modern era have more to do with any differences in death counts than something inherently restraining in religion. Also, given that religion is supposedly a superior source of morality, I would think that it would have much lower numbers of such deaths than it does. I don’t compare the behavior of democracies to that of terrorists, nor would I compare the willingness to kill amongst religious people to unethical monsters like Stalin or Mao. Setting aside the politically-motivated undercounting of religious deaths and overcounting of atheist deaths (since Stalin and Mao didn’t kill for their atheist beliefs but for political reasons that had nothing to do with religion), I think you need to think about how one would frame the analysis to see whether society requires religion to be good. I maintain that it doesn’t. Marcus Aurelius had more power than Stalin or Mao, but he ruled virtuously. He also was an atheist. I think that is the key point that religious people, who continue to claim that man is “fallen” or “doomed” without religion need to confront.
“Believe in God, or don’t. I think the phrase is usually, “You can go to Hell,” not as an imprecation, but simply a statement of what we understand to be fact. However, God, if He exists, is outside of time and the physical universe. History is inside, and well known.”
I’m not sure I understand this, but you hopefully understand that until you can empirically prove the existence of Hell, you are not allowed to impose your fear of it on me. You are entitled to your religious beliefs, but not your right to impose them on me. To set policy, you ought to have to prove some sort of benefit or harm-avoidance empricially. For the rest of it, I really don’t care whether you are praying for me or praying against me in your church, mosque or synagogue.
“I would strongly suggest that you read JJ Rousseau on Inequality of Men.”
I’ve read it.
“The first thing I noticed, re-reading it after thirty years or so, was how woefully deficient in lithium he was. Reading further, one sees that he thought that the great problem of the world was the bourgeoisie, and that we must be destroyed, including such bourgeois institutions as marriage and religion. It is from him that we get the notion of pervasive hypocrisy in church.”
Hardly, we got that same idea about pervasive corruption in the Church from Luther. What you forget is that the church was for a long time the government. The anti-government movements in the US would be analogous to the grievances of people back then, except the Pelosi or Boehner didn’t have the ability to threaten citizens with being sent to hell, so that Church was far more oppressive than the supposedly out of control Bush or Obama administrations. No one thinks of Rousseau as breaking ground in his criticism of the church. Some point to him as the precursor to Marx and to communism, but this is an oversimplification of what Rousseau believed. In any case, you don’t need to believe in a utopian natural state of man before the bougeoisie or the Church to criticize the record of either of those institutions in history. You create a false dicotomy between a false line running from Rousseau to Stalin versus another false line running from the Church and bougeoisie to modern right-wing thinking. Both are severely flawed lines, and they obscure the truth, which is that you don’t need religion to be good, and many with religion have done terrible things.
“After sixty years in church, I can assure anyone who is interested that there are plenty of instances of it, but no more than outside the church. That is remarkable, considering that we have a generally more difficult standard of morality, which we acknowledge every Sunday that we do not meet.”
Actually, I have a different opinion, namely that the man who does good without an omniscient dictator in the sky forcing him to is the morally superior man.
“Rousseau set up the problem, much as a mathematician might, and others in succeeding generations offered solutions, e.g. Marx, Proudhon, Goebbles, and many more.”
That false dicotomy again…
“Anyway, thanks for the link, although it was very familiar to me, and, no doubt to the Hammer and the Best. We just don’t think that such knowledge makes us smarter than God, rather different from the average Harvard prof.”
I don’t believe knowledge makes us godlike either–your implied assertion is another false dictomy. I just don’t think that any being accessible to us has the kind of power that the religious assign to God. We live in an imperfect world with imperfect knowledge, and people ought to recognize that and make the best decisions under the inherent uncertainties that we face. That is what science does, and look how much progress it has made, while religion has made precious little. Perhaps it is time to reevaluate the methodology and framing…
abc uses an interesting turn of phrase. He says that knowledge does not make us godlike, yet two sentences later says—in a godlike manner—that “we live in an imperfect world with imperfect knowledge.” How does he know that? What standard does he use, based on what, to arrive at that pronouncement?
Then he calls on us to make the “best decision.” How is a decision determined to be the best? Again, by what yardstick?
Also: “Marcus Aurelius had more power than Stalin or Mao, but he ruled virtuously.” Funny, I don’t recall the emperor having the power to kill 20+ million people (Stalin) or 50+ million (Mao). I’d even add that railroads and electrified concentration camps are a form and extension of power. Of course, given how Italian railroads have performed historically, Aurelius was probably correct to eschew using them.
Charles writes: ““we live in an imperfect world with imperfect knowledge.” How does he know that?”
Perhaps Charles hasn’t heard of the Heisenberg uncertain principle… And it didn’t take a God to figure it out, just lots of hard work and intellectual freedom to follow the science wherever it leads and whoever’s religious dogma it undermines.
Charles: “How is a decision determined to be the best? Again, by what yardstick?”
Several. It’s called a market. it’s called a democracy. Each person has their own personal interests, and we work it out peaceably (hopefully). But the best outcomes in the market and in democracy come when people are rational and base their beliefs on empirical evidence rather than fantasy or ignorance.
Charles, your comments on Aurelius reveal a profound ignorance. The ancient emperor could not know of italy, much less its roads. And in his time, he ruled over one-quarter of the world’s population and had life-or-death power over all of those subjects. As a percentage of humanity, he had far more power and, given their prowess in war, the Romans had ample technology at the time to kill large numbers if desired. Instead of acting as a tyrant, he was remarkably ethical in his use of power. You reveal much about yourself with comments like these. Perhaps you ought to read about him rather than making up nonsense to post here.
Squiffy—may I call you Squiffy?—walk right in, mirthless one! Yes, I know that the railroad was invented many hundreds of years after Aurelius. But you are so vested in being the quickest, most intelligent one here that you couldn’t bother to slow down and perceive the tongue in my cheek when I wrote that.
Another thing, Squiff, the Romans called the big peninsula they lived on “Italia,” which in modern Hahvardese translates into. . .wait for it. . .Italy. So, yes, the emperor knew the name of his own heartland.
Your clumsy answers to my questions tells me that you would be clueless in a debate about the origin of “good” and how we arrive at conclusions about it. Muttering stuff about “the market” and “democracy” just makes you sound like the cliche-spewing Obama that Bookworm describes in another thread.
Charles, hard to perceive tongue-in-cheek via a blog, especially when you write so many factually incorrect things in earnest…
Charles: “the Romans called the big peninsula they lived on “Italia,” which in modern Hahvardese translates into. . .wait for it. . .Italy. So, yes, the emperor knew the name of his own heartland.”
I never said that they didn’t. They just didn’t forsee a modern country called Italy, as opposed to a name for a geographical location only. They also didn’t foresee trains.
Finally, it is not a cliche to state that you need empirically accurate data for democracies and markets to function. There is actually enough research and scholarship on this to fill a library. In fact, one of the key reasons for bubbles, manias and violent revolution is a failure for the facts to win out.
And Obama really has little to do with it.
Heh, ABC thinks he can control human behavior, mob panic, and the band wagon with “facts”? That’s a hint that one requires a bit more life experience to understand what it is that truly controls human reality.
Y, who spoke of control? You assume too much. I offer explanation, not solutions, with the above post.
In fact, one of the key reasons for bubbles, manias and violent revolution is a failure for the facts to win out.
oh, this explanation? When someone explains the causes of human behavior as being related to “facts winning out”, they are the same as those I described above.
Btw, causality is control. Control the cause, and one controls the consequences.
Y, the internet bubble occurred because people lost touch with the numbers and facts. They no longer independently checked assumptions around internet traffic rates, monetization rates, etc. There is an entire literature around this showing that when people stop checking the facts, the bubbles and mania prevail. This dynamic cannot be controlled, as history has clearly shown. I really don’t know what you are talking about, but it bears no relationship to the explanation for manias that I am describing here.
“They also didn’t foresee trains.”
Squiffy, thank you for showing for the umpteenth time your uncanny ability to zero in on the inconsequential while earnestly avoiding taking on the big stuff: What is the good, Squiff? Not what research and scholarship—your twin gods—say, but what you say.
PS: Given the inability of airlines to deliver on-time performance, I’m not surprised that Aurelius eschewed airbuses as a means of moving legionnaires up to the Rhine and Caledonian borders. <–Quick, tear into that! Arf! Snarl!
Claude Shannon is the most important scientist that you have never heard of. His ground-breaking information theory is the foundation for our entire digital economy, since he laid the basis for it. The theory also explains information content in signals, including those that occur in a market. Essentially, we have built on his theory that makes CDs and DVDs and computers possible the notion that markets and, to a lesser extent, elections cancel out the errors and leave the factually accurate information. This is because statistically, the accurate information is more likely to persist after all the random errors are eliminated. The problem occurs when a false belief becomes more pervasive than reality, and this occurs when you no longer have rational, empirical minds doing independent work (i.e., thinking for themselves) rather than merely believing what someone else told them (e.g., their stock broker or their priest) even thought that person doing the telling is as clueless as they are. The pervasiveness of a false meme can wreak havoc on a market, and famous examples include overestimations of internet traffic growth that came out of Worldcom (to abet their fraud) or the wrong-headed notion that real estate prices on a national average only rise. The same can be said for decisions made in democracies by vote, where the risks are actually higher, since the “vote” is a single event rather than a continous process that occurs for much of the time.
Martel resorts to ad hominems but lectures me on what is inconsequential. Note that you haven’t addressed the issue at hand: how could Aurelius be an atheist but govern more ethically than most religious leaders?
Oh, I forgot. You don’t need to answer anything. You just have to tear down by any means–rational or otherwise, truthful or otherwise–any argument that conflicts with the conservative narrative. Fine. Don’t answer it, but let all here take notice of the glaring omission.
“. . .rather than merely believing what someone else told them (e.g., their stock broker or their priest).”
This from a man who compulsively drops scholarly names right and left and has never offered an original insight or theory on this blog.
That is rich!
“how could Aurelius be an atheist but govern more ethically than most religious leaders?”
Squiff, I would take your rhetorical question more seriously if you were to add another one: How could Louis IX be a Christian but govern more ethically than most atheists?
Actually, it is extremely difficult to offer an original idea. Most people do not make it to the edge of a field to contribute in this way, but that is okay. It is hard enough becoming knowledgeable on what is factually accurate and what is not. I haven’t claimed to offer original insights, since I understand how high that bar is. What I object to is the spreading of ideas that are obviously wrong, but are clung to for irrational reasons. And I especially object to those who defend such false memes with dishonest methods. Deceit is worse than ignorance.
“Deceit is worse than ignorance?” By what standard? Why do you keep appealing to some standard that you can’t even explain?
Charles,
You claimed that one needs religion to avoid descent into immorality, correct?
Assuming I have that right, I showed an example of a very powerful leader that didn’t, although he is an atheist.
It is incumbent upon you (assuming you want to logically defend your position) not to show me a Christian leader who did better than some unspecified and unnamed group of atheists. Rather is is incumbent upon you to show me that either Aurelius was religious, or that he was not more ethical than the average Christian leader. I doubt you can do either.
I think it was clear from the “i object” part that I was speaking normatively. It is my opinion, although I reasonably believe it widely shared, that one who injures on purpose is worse than one who does it accidentally, all else being equal.
ABC “What I object to is the spreading of ideas that are obviously wrong, but are clung to for irrational reasons.”
And so spaketh ABC at the Galileo inquisition.
In fact, one of the key reasons for bubbles, manias and violent revolution is a failure for the facts to win out.
In a perfect world…
“You claimed that one needs religion to avoid descent into immorality, correct?”
Nope, never did. Come back when you’ve run out of red herrings.
By the way, Aurelius’s stoicism was hardly the kind of atheism that so charms you among your modern Mandarin-speaking Mandarins. It imposed limits on passions—actually, a studied indifference to them—such as power seeking and power wielding.
As to the “average Christian leader,” I have no idea what you are talking about. If you’d care to offer a definition of average, I’d be all ears.
Now, back to the big, scary elephant in the room, Squiff: What is the good and on what basis do you define it? You refer to it all the time in one form or another, yet seem to be unable to offer an explanation for its source or substance.
So I’ll assume, Charles, that your warning about ignoring religion was just tongue-in-cheek. Thanks for the clarification. I’m glad you recognize that you don’t need religion to be moral.
As for Aurelius, his stoicism was not based upon a belief in religion. His writings include passages in which he clearly states that belief in the gods is for the masses and not an idea to which he subscribes. You can be stoic without being religious, afterall.
I think you must understand that if an atheist were merely better than the very last Christian, then my argument would be pretty weak. If that atheist were better than the best Christian, then that would be a strong case. I picked the middle and assumed a normal curve. Hence the average. If you have a better way to look at it, please let me know…
The source of good is what we collectively work out in markets and democracy. It changes with context and over time. It is something that we figure out with new information. Some of it is obvious and rarely changes much, like “do not kill little children.” Other parts of it are tougher to figure out, like the question of trying terrorists in military or civilian prisons. I personally like to maximize utility, so I like markets when they are functioning and hate them when they are not. I also personally like beliefs that tend to increase the happiness of the greatest number while setting minimum requirements for all, including protections against tyranny of the majority. But context matters and more narrowly tailored questions are easier to address than this “what is the good?” business, since much brighter minds than mine, from Socrates and Confucius to Sartre and Nozick cannot answer them as well as the collective, dynamic systems found in markets and democracies. You ask very large questions that require what I consider to be static generalizations that do not work for me. In any case, no ethical theory makes sense to me that cannot be born out by empirical data. If it doesn’t fit the facts about human nature and the world around us, then it is most likely a bad ethical theory.
Danny: “ABC “What I object to is the spreading of ideas that are obviously wrong, but are clung to for irrational reasons.”
And so spaketh ABC at the Galileo inquisition.”
I don’t get it. The Church leaders were obviously wrong… Oh, right, I would be, like, speaking on BEHALF of Galileo. Thanks.
Danny: “ABC “In fact, one of the key reasons for bubbles, manias and violent revolution is a failure for the facts to win out.”
In a perfect world…”
Not a perfect world. Our world.
Squiff, thank you. I knew you couldn’t find the quote you attributed to me that I never said. But nice try to rescue your, uh, misstatement by repeating it.
I’ll address your other statements in a bit. Unlike you, I prefer my dissections to be based on actual thought, not knee-jerk reactions to somebody talking about ancient Roman railroads.
Have to break for lunch, folks. The Chuck & Squiffy Show will resume later this afternoon.
Charles, it’s just not worth the time to go look up your quote. And you’ll keep shifting what you say anyway. Example: you brought up railroads, not me.
Squiff, I’ll translate:
1. I know the quote doesn’t exist.
2. It would be embarrassing to admit that I made it up.
3. And anyway, even if it did exist, you’d just twist things to make me look foolish.
Speaking of looking foolish, I joked about railroads in ancient Rome because I thought even a humor-challenged savant would get that it was meant as a riff on Italian efficiency. . .
Oh, never mind. This is like talking to Exidor.
I’ll be back later to fisk your theory of good. Ta!
Only #3 is true, and you just aren’t that funny.
A response to abc. His statements in boldface.
The source of good is what we collectively work out in markets and democracy. It changes with context and over time.
I derive from this statement the following:
You can name a source for good, but cannot define the good.
Whatever the good is, it can only be determined by markets and democracy. If there is no democracy or markets, good cannot occur.
Good changes according to context, although that context is not described or defined. Does context mean a change in political parties, in which case the good is defined by who’s in power as opposed to being something all agree on?
For example, what about abortion? If a democracy eventually decides to ban it, will that be the good? If so, why wasn’t it a good before? If a democracy votes in National Socialism, is that the new good? The Soviet Union, which was neither a democracy nor a market economy, fought against Nazi Germany. By your lights, was that then not a good?
It [the good] is something that we figure out with new information. Some of it is obvious and rarely changes much, like “do not kill little children.” Other parts of it are tougher to figure out, like the question of trying terrorists in military or civilian prisons.
This is a partial attempt to provide context, but it still fails to tell us what the good is. It simply says the good is something that will come if we have enough information, and will change as we have more information. (An aside: Does new information from sonogram technology change your attitude toward abortion? Also, it’s interesting that you believe we have to figure out the good anew with each added piece of information. Exhausting!)
What is obvious to you, such as the admonition not to kill little children, does not define the good, it only defines a point you will not cross in your system of good. Some systems of good, such as terrorists’, think it is a great good to kill children to make a (good) political point. Of course terrorists lack markets and democracy, and that may disqualify them from generating good the way you propose above.
As for trying terrorists, that is a procedural question, not a question of good or evil. But if you want to make it that, then you’d have to answer—which you are extremely reluctant to do—what is your moral basis for considering something not good?
I personally like to maximize utility, so I like markets when they are functioning and hate them when they are not. I also personally like beliefs that tend to increase the happiness of the greatest number while setting minimum requirements for all, including protections against tyranny of the majority.
I knew that your Benthamite beliefs would eventually will out. Utilitarianism is a seductive philosophy since it flatters its holders into believing they know things that they cannot possibly know:
· It pretends to provide maximum happiness, but cannot define happiness. By what standard do you define happiness? Could you give us examples of it?
· You “personally like” beliefs that tend to increase happiness, which means that your core beliefs are based upon what pleases you rather than any objective standard. So why should I subsume my differing, equally subjective, ideas of happiness to yours? Since you have no objective standard that you can/will articulate, how do we decide what is this “happiness” you talk about? Gallup polls?
· You believe that you have enough data and information to empirically determine what creates happiness for the greatest number. How could you possibly know this—ever?
But context matters and more narrowly tailored questions are easier to address than this “what is the good?” business, since much brighter minds than mine, from Socrates and Confucius to Sartre and Nozick cannot answer them as well as the collective, dynamic systems found in markets and democracies.
I don’t disagree with you that I’ve asked difficult questions that are hard to address, thus, your desire to steer questions into “easier” realms where you feel more comfortable. It is interesting that your tack here is to try to steer the discussion from what Socrates, et al., might have said about the good into a restatement of your contention that markets and democracies are what create the good.
Still, you are so wary of defining the very thing that you claim they create.
(I have to chide you for putting the second-rate Sartre in the same sentence as Socrates. The man who described the psychotic killer Che Guevara as “the most complete human being of our age”? The man who advised that the Soviet gulags be ignored lest the French proletariat be disheartened? Wow, abc.)
In any case, no ethical theory makes sense to me that cannot be born out by empirical data. If it doesn’t fit the facts about human nature and the world around us, then it is most likely a bad ethical theory.
An interesting idea. Say you live in China and are a member of the ruling elite. A group of college students begins demonstrating in Tiananmen Square, directly challenging your legitimacy and rule. What is your ethical response to them based on what empirical data? (I’m going to assume that you will have them killed, since the empirical data indicate that you could lose power—a bad thing—if you don’t, since you know what’s best [happiness for the greatest number] for the country.)
Your wife comes to you and says that she is having an affair. She says that, empirically speaking, she is far happier and more satisfied with her lover than with you, as indicated by her suddenly frisky and energetic behavior. What empirical data-based argument do you offer to persuade her to quit the affair? And why would you, considering that she is so happy—happiness being the summum bonum of your philosophy?
abc 119, to Charles Martel: Only #3 is true, and you just aren’t that funny.
Rosie O’Donnell to Angelina Jolie: You read stupid books, and you just aren’t that beautiful.
Martel flutters what’s left of his eyelashes: “Why, Michael dear, you say the nicest things!”
A, the panel that examined Galileo’s claims was convened by the Church because the Church was the most respected institution in that century. It was not The Inquisition, which most half-educated moderns do understand at all. It was an “inquiry,” which might be called an inquisition, but it was not a Church court charged with rooting out diversion of eleemosynary funds to private use, nor was it interested in heresy, as the Inquisition was sometimes asked to examine. Rather, a panel of the leading scientists of the day, including theologians, examined Galileo’s assertions, and found his mathematics severely deficient. A few years later, when Copernicus made similar statements, but with better math, his findings were rather quickly accepted.
I am sorry to say that much of the bad rap on the Inquisition was circulated by Protestants like me, at about the same time that the English had the Court of the Star Chamber, which in its turn had more in common with the Spanish Inquisition, a largely political court. As a matter of fact, Benefit of Clergy refers to the right to be tried by the Inquisition, because they did not usually use torture, nor mete out death sentences. Remember Henry and his quarrel with Beckett? That was over the Benefit.
Oddly, while anticlericalism dates back at least to the time of Chaucer, people still looked to the Church to restrain the worst excesses of the State, e.g. Thomas More.
One of the delights of age is the ability to laugh at ourselves. It is unfortunate for you that being no longer able to take ourselves very seriously, we are likewise somewhat lacking in according you the dignity you might believe that you deserve. And, just in case you are wondering, one of the indicators, for many of us, of your tender years is an apparent dearth of humor. (I do not mean snark. Just laughing, even at yourself. )
I could cite several examples of your apparently offended dignity, but for brevity’s sake, I’ll choose just one: I did not say that that Church held us to a higher standard. I said that our standard is a difficult one, having to do with restraining sexual impulses and greed. In church, every Sunday, Danny, Chuck and I say a prayer, called the Confession of Sin (Well, that’s its Anglican title. I think Hammer is RC) Whether God is listening or not, we are surely reminded of our sinfulness. While we generally believe that we are better people than we would be without our Faith, we never, ever hold ourselves out as better than other people. We are extremely leery of people’s praise.
Also, I did not threaten you with Hell. I made a joke about unbelief. We laugh about that, too. Deal with it
Michael Adams: It was not The Inquisition, which most half-educated moderns do understand at all.
“Sentence of the Tribunal of the Supreme Inquisition against Galileo Galilei, given the 22nd day of June of the year 1633″
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1630galileo.html
Michael Adams: nor was it interested in heresy, as the Inquisition was sometimes asked to examine.
I, Galileo, … have been pronounced by the Holy Office to be vehemently suspected of heresy, that is to say, of having held and believed that the Sun is the center of the world and immovable, and that the earth is not the center and moves:
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/galileo/recantation.html
Michael Adams: As a matter of fact, Benefit of Clergy refers to the right to be tried by the Inquisition, because they did not usually use torture, nor mete out death sentences.
Giordano Bruno was burned by the Inquisition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno
Zach, I said “usually.”
Oh, I see another one above. You need to read Master A’s comments, so you can understand the necessity of reading and studying multiple sources, to have some context. The Supreme Inquisition would be what we would call a Blue Ribbon Commission. Inquisition just means inquiry. It is also the type of courts that they have in Continental Europe, as distinct from our Anglo-American adversarial system.
I hope you understand what heresy means, “religious teaching that differs from the received truth, the straight skinny, Orthodoxy”. Galileo confessed to “heresy,” because that had become the catch-all term. However, there is nothing religious in his teaching. In any case, reading the proceedings, one can see that there were serious scientific objections to Galileo’s theory, and, again, context, a few years later, Copernicus said the same thing, and had no problems. He was also not so unfortunate as to lose his political and financial backing. The Catholic Church, of which I am not now nor have I ever been a member, was not opposed to science, but to bad science, and sloppy math.
Enmity between church and science arose after Rousseau.
Here’s a relevant link to add to the discussion. Given that the room pests are addicted to pedigrees, the bona fides of the author of this book are going to be hard for them to dispute: His PhD was awarded by Cambridge, which I believe holds a high, holy position in the Pantheon of Secularist Godlike Things.
http://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2011/05/19/has-christianity-held-back-the-progress-of-science-what-about-galileo/
Michael Adams: The Supreme Inquisition would be what we would call a Blue Ribbon Commission. Inquisition just means inquiry. It is also the type of courts that they have in Continental Europe, as distinct from our Anglo-American adversarial system.
Galileo was tried by the same “Supreme Tribunal of the Holy Office of Rome” that burned Bruno.
Michael Adams: I hope you understand what heresy means, “religious teaching that differs from the received truth, the straight skinny, Orthodoxy”. Galileo confessed to “heresy,” because that had become the catch-all term. However, there is nothing religious in his teaching.
Read the findings of the Inquisition, and Galileo’s abjuration. The Inquisition found that the Earth’s movement was contrary to the authority of the Holy Scriptures, while Galileo was forced to confess that the Earth’s movement was a false doctrine contrary to Holy Writ. Let’s review:
Michael Adams: It was an “inquiry,” which might be called an inquisition, but it was not a Church court charged with rooting out diversion of eleemosynary funds to private use, nor was it interested in heresy, as the Inquisition was sometimes asked to examine.
It was a capital trial of the Inquisition, with the sentencing options including death by being burned alive. And the charge was heresy.
Michael Adams: The Catholic Church, of which I am not now nor have I ever been a member, was not opposed to science, but to bad science, and sloppy math.
Or anything that would upset the apple cart.
Charles reveals himself as a slippery commentator who refuses to be pinned down on much of anything and who is untroubled by the profound contradictions in his own writing that facilitate this. He is much more comfortable criticizing other’s opinions, although even doing this he continuously puts words in people’s mouths and twists things because he fails to understand all the assumptions that he makes that reflect someone who assumes too much. He also fails to recognize that natural language is not math, so he cannot possibly make the kinds of deductions from other comments that he tries to. Before delving into the rubbish that he writes, I will demand that he answer the same very large and impossibly difficult questions that he asks, and I will demand that he do better than simply regurgitate the Bible or his favorite theologian… Maybe for once he will demand of himself what he demands of people on the left…
Charles Martel: “A response to abc. His statements in boldface. The source of good is what we collectively work out in markets and democracy. It changes with context and over time.
I derive from this statement the following:
You can name a source for good, but cannot define the good.”
I do not use the word source as you do because I don’t view the good as you do. The good is not some platonic idea out in space or given by God. It is what we say it is. The only difference is that I admit it, while you pretend that some mythical superior being that you cannot prove handed it to you when the reality is that you are simply deciding what is good and then claiming some mythology to make your good and source of it superior to mine. It is a difficult thing to understand that one decides what is good, although it is hardly the wanting-to-be-God vice that you think it is. And unless you can establish God’s existence empricially, then you cannot prove that your source of good is superior to mine, so it is opinion only. As one of my college professors once said, the phrase “this is just” often really just means “I want it this way.”
Charles: “Whatever the good is, it can only be determined by markets and democracy. If there is no democracy or markets, good cannot occur.”
Another logical failure from someone who assumes too much. Because the good is subjective, in our society, we determine what the aggregated collective good is through markets and democracy. In societies that lack this, obviously they still have subjective good, since they have sentient minds–they also love and enjoy their children afterall–but they make decisions and harmonize differing views on what is good in different ways. Perhaps it is what the chief wants, perhaps it is historical tradition, who knows. I don’t presume to understand societies that I do not live in or know much about. But, unlike you, I don’t have a one size must fit all version of what the good is, since I think that it doesn’t exist in some platonic ideal form given by God. And until you can find it floating in space somewhere and show it to me with the Hubble, your expalantion of this using 2,000 or 5,000 year old texts is really not very compelling to me.
Charles: “Good changes according to context, although that context is not described or defined. Does context mean a change in political parties, in which case the good is defined by who’s in power as opposed to being something all agree on? ”
It might. It might not. If you are asking me personally, you’ll have to give me a specific example. If you are asking about our society collectively, then the markets or elections will decide. I think perhaps you understand better. And if you are asking my personal opinion on the markets and democracy, then I would say that I don’t always like the results, but it is the best system that we have. Much better than theocracies or belief in a dictatorship in the sky.
Charles continues: “For example, what about abortion? If a democracy eventually decides to ban it, will that be the good? If so, why wasn’t it a good before?”
Okay. A specific example. On abortion, people will continue to disagree with differing views on what is the good in this specific case, driven by different views of when humanity begins. But the collective decision on what is good will have changed, as reflected in a change in the law.
Charles: “If a democracy votes in National Socialism, is that the new good? The Soviet Union, which was neither a democracy nor a market economy, fought against Nazi Germany. By your lights, was that then not a good?”
I think you know the answer to the last question, since I do not maintain that good only can exist where markets and democracy exist. As for the decision to become a socialist state, if collectively a democracy votes for such a system then that is the good. Now, there are issues around tyranny of the majority that are inherent risks in both markets and democracy, which need to be addressed with safeguares, which I mentioned previously, but you didn’t (I believe) give me credit for, as discussed below…
Charles again, first quoting me:
“It [the good] is something that we figure out with new information. Some of it is obvious and rarely changes much, like “do not kill little children.” Other parts of it are tougher to figure out, like the question of trying terrorists in military or civilian prisons.
This is a partial attempt to provide context, but it still fails to tell us what the good is. It simply says the good is something that will come if we have enough information, and will change as we have more information. (An aside: Does new information from sonogram technology change your attitude toward abortion? Also, it’s interesting that you believe we have to figure out the good anew with each added piece of information. Exhausting!)”
It should be clear by now that my view of the good is not fixed and static as yours is, which is why your questions are more revealing of your view than mine. And it might be exhausting, but that is the best we have to work with. The good is normative, not positive, although positive data informs the normative view or ought to if one is ratinoal.
Charles again: “What is obvious to you, such as the admonition not to kill little children, does not define the good, it only defines a point you will not cross in your system of good.”
It does neither. But I don’t have an external, immutable definer of good, as you do and demand. And the admonition against killing children is not breachable, but in very limited situations.
Charles: “Some systems of good, such as terrorists’, think it is a great good to kill children to make a (good) political point. Of course terrorists lack markets and democracy, and that may disqualify them from generating good the way you propose above.”
I don’t know which terrorists’ systems of good you are referring to, since different groups resort to terrorist tactics over time. You assume that people are always terrorists or not, but I see people who use terrorist tactics at points in time, but some are more committed to those tactics than others. And different people that have used terrorism have vastly different value systems, belief systems, religions, etc. As for the use of child murder as a political tool, I don’t think that is good for anyone, including those that do the killing.
Charles: “As for trying terrorists, that is a procedural question, not a question of good or evil.”
Bad procedural rules can lead to bad outcomes, like innocent people being executed. That isn’t a lack of good? Surprising!
Charlles: ”But if you want to make it that, then you’d have to answer—which you are extremely reluctant to do—what is your moral basis for considering something not good?”
This is the converse of asking what the source of good is, so the answer is the same. It is subjective, although it should have rational basis in teh empirical world, since that is the realm in which humans live.
Charles again, first quoting me:
“I personally like to maximize utility, so I like markets when they are functioning and hate them when they are not. I also personally like beliefs that tend to increase the happiness of the greatest number while setting minimum requirements for all, including protections against tyranny of the majority.
I knew that your Benthamite beliefs would eventually will out. Utilitarianism is a seductive philosophy since it flatters its holders into believing they know things that they cannot possibly know…”
Actually, no. I recognize the risks of utilitarianism and call for safeguards against tyranny of the majority. Bentham may not have approved of the Bill of Rights and the non-democratic minority rights that are enshrined within it, but I appreciate it. You continue to assume far too much.
“It pretends to provide maximum happiness, but cannot define happiness. By what standard do you define happiness? Could you give us examples of it? ”
Actually, modern economics uses utility as the concept, and economics is very good at evaluating this. It uses rational choice theory and markets to discern it. But I am not a slave to the market alone, unlike many pro-business conservatives, as you know and perhaps have criticized in the past…
“You “personally like” beliefs that tend to increase happiness, which means that your core beliefs are based upon what pleases you rather than any objective standard.”
You take one comment and make it my core belief. You assume too much (again!). My core beliefs cannot be reduced to this, despite your argument’s demands. Also, there is no objective standard. There are objective causal arguments, and there are “objective” market and democratic outcomes. But there is no objective standard. Just subjective ones.
“So why should I subsume my differing, equally subjective, ideas of happiness to yours? Since you have no objective standard that you can/will articulate, how do we decide what is this “happiness” you talk about? Gallup polls?”
First, you shouldn’t. Utility is a personal and individual concept. Second, it is based upon rational choice theory, which assumes that you formulate your ordering of utility based upon rational thinking. You should have to establish that your ideas surrounding happiness to reason, logic and facts. So if you say that you are happy and life is good if marriage remains sacrosanct, tradition-bound and between a man and a woman, but you cannot show harm if the opposite were true, then I take your opinion less seriously (as you should) than if you say that you are happy and life is good if you are not stabbed by me. The point is that normative statements about your personal happiness or society’s collective happiness cannot be fantasy. They ought to be based upon empirical evidence and causal relationships. Third, we have democracy and markets to aggregate your and my competing views of the good.
“You believe that you have enough data and information to empirically determine what creates happiness for the greatest number. How could you possibly know this—ever?”
Another key difference, it seems, between you and I is that I view all knowledge probabilistically, while you view it apparently as revealed truth. Only someone with such a view of information would lament or be surprised by the idea that we live in a world in which we have to make decisions under tremendous uncertainty and with limited information. This doesn’t mean that all decisions have the same limited amount of information. I can know with reasonable certainty what I want for breakfast this morning, but I have much more limited information as I determine what stock to buy and hold for 10 years. But since we have done pretty well for 10,000 years making decisions, even very important ones, under uncertainty, this is hardly a reason to stop now. Particularly, since there is no alternative. Your “certainty” is a myth, and cannot be empirically proven, so you are trading the making of decisions under uncertainty with eyes wide open for the same behavior with eyes closed. You don’t solve the problem. You just ignore it.
Charles again, first quoting me:
“But context matters and more narrowly tailored questions are easier to address than this “what is the good?” business, since much brighter minds than mine, from Socrates and Confucius to Sartre and Nozick cannot answer them as well as the collective, dynamic systems found in markets and democracies.
I don’t disagree with you that I’ve asked difficult questions that are hard to address, thus, your desire to steer questions into “easier” realms where you feel more comfortable.”
Again, assuming too much. The reason for looking at things case by case is because grand systems fail and become hypocrtical on a case by case basis, and frankly the questions get too big to solve. Solving smaller problems and then cmoparing solutions to see that there is consistency across them is what we can do better. And given my definition of the good, it is actually how I believe we determine the good anyway. It isn’t a cop out. It is reality, or at least my rational view of it.
Charles: ”It is interesting that your tack here is to try to steer the discussion from what Socrates, et al., might have said about the good into a restatement of your contention that markets and democracies are what create the good. Still, you are so wary of defining the very thing that you claim they create.”
It is not a tactic. The history of philosophy is a history of different explanations of what the good is. And they all differ from one another in key aspects. That history proves my point. And that inconsistency is why I am “wary” to provide what you demand: a fixed, objective standard of good.
“(I have to chide you for putting the second-rate Sartre in the same sentence as Socrates. The man who described the psychotic killer Che Guevara as “the most complete human being of our age”? The man who advised that the Soviet gulags be ignored lest the French proletariat be disheartened? Wow, abc.)”
First, because I believe all of these explications of the good are subjective, I would highlight that yours is an opinion to which you are entitled. Second, I would note that Sartre’s theories are separate from his opinion of Che Guevara, so I don’t think the latter should enter into the discussion on the former, just as I might rank Richard Wagner’s music higher than you do even if he was an anti-Semite, since I don’t hear anti-Semitism when I hear his music. Third, given the second, it really is no sullying of me if I happen to have randomly put Sartre and Nozick in a sentence with Socrates and Confucius–I was trying to establish a line of philosophical thought running from the ancients to the very modern and contemporary.
Charles, quoting me first: “In any case, no ethical theory makes sense to me that cannot be born out by empirical data. If it doesn’t fit the facts about human nature and the world around us, then it is most likely a bad ethical theory.
An interesting idea. Say you live in China and are a member of the ruling elite. A group of college students begins demonstrating in Tiananmen Square, directly challenging your legitimacy and rule. What is your ethical response to them based on what empirical data? (I’m going to assume that you will have them killed, since the empirical data indicate that you could lose power—a bad thing—if you don’t, since you know what’s best [happiness for the greatest number] for the country.)”
I don’t understand the question. I live in a democracy and believe in human rights. I care about those students because I care about my fellow man–and I happen to personally know one of the three leaders of that movement, so that concern is actually personal. On that basis, I have a different view on the right action than Deng Xiao Ping, who cared about maintaining stability and Communist control of the country. I don’t understand how you get from my demand that empirical data matters, to insisting that I must agree with Deng. My point is that if I believe that aliens are coming to earth to take away the elect and I must proselytize and gather my flock to be swept away on space ships, I ought to rethink my ethical system. Similarly, if I believe that I get 97 virgins in heaven for killing innocent people who don’t happen to love Allah or Mohammed, I ought to rethink my theory. Or if I say that letting gays marry will cause straight marriages to fail, I ought to rethink my theory. There is no rational basis for these last three beliefs. As for Deng, he has a rational basis for his belief–he killed fewer people than Lincoln by having a Civil War to hold together the US and make it a democracy with no slavery on a nation-wide basis (i.e., maintain control by non-slavery parties)–but I happen to not agree with them. Importantly, the majority of Chinese likely would side with me, which is why the events in Tiananmen have been expunged from the record and many students studying at Beida don’t even know about them. Hopefully, the point is clear now.
Charles: “Your wife comes to you and says that she is having an affair. She says that, empirically speaking, she is far happier and more satisfied with her lover than with you, as indicated by her suddenly frisky and energetic behavior. What empirical data-based argument do you offer to persuade her to quit the affair? And why would you, considering that she is so happy—happiness being the summum bonum of your philosophy?”
Why do you assume that I would demand that she quit the affair? I have friends who have learned of wives’ affairs and immediately asked for a divorce. Others have done the opposite. You assume a lot here. I don’t even know how I would react to that situation, but you seem sure of how I would respond. Curious.
Charles,
The link to the Nature article was very interesting. This view differs markedly from the view of a lot of other historians of science, but it is well argued and should be considered. It made me rethink some of my views on the role of the Church during medieval times. Having said that, the author does also state in both the article and in his book that religious dogma has been an enemy of science. His point is that the Church hasn’t been as dogmatic throughout its history as its critics claim, and I can accept that. My problem is that I see much relgious dogma continuing to hinder science even today, as the fights over evolution in school or climate change research highlight. As I stated when you originally asked me why I hated religion, I do not hate religion–and I should add religious institutions–but I do hate religious dogmatism, which closes the channel that must remain open to new ideas wherever they lead. So thank you for the link and the added insight on the level of dogmaticism demonstrated by the Church over its history.
Devx, assuming that you are a superior authority on what is beautiful or funny, your comment makes sense. Otherwise, it is useless noise. But thanks for playing.
Michael, even the authority that Charles has supplied admits that Galileo was wrongly threatened and imprisoned by the Church, so this is beyond dispute in my opinion, and your defense here appears weak. As for prayer and being reminded of sin, that is well and good for you and others. It doesn’t have to be the only way to maintain humility, which many religious people lack, or peace of mind or whatever. It works for you, and that is great. As for hell and damnation, I couldn’t tell what was a joke–conservatives are not very good comedians, as their paucity in mass media highlights–but I think you understand that many Christians sincerely believe that I am going to hell for my atheism or for a another’s belief in a false god or another’s desire for a lifestyle that those religious people find objectionable for faith-based reasons only. Those people can be dangerous since they have no rational basis for a belief that leads to harm to others.
A doesn’t know what religion, politics, or ethics is for. How can he judge what the beautiful is or is not?
We are free to point out when your proposals are reprehensible.
The Arrogant are not the free. They are the chained slaves of lowly ambitions.
Btw Z, your problem isn’t whether you were or were not pointing something. Your problem was trying to make other people, like Martel, do things your way via verbal intimidation and hectoring.
When you say “we are free”, you don’t actually mean anybody other than yourself in the end. Such is the presence of arrogance and the distortion of deception.
abc, thank you for your lengthy response to my questions about your thinking. I’ll respond at greater length later.
Your reply tells me what I and others here have suspected for a long time, that you are a relativist who does not believe in objective truth, especially when it comes to moral conduct. For instance, your answer that a democracy like Germany could vote in National Socialism if it wanted to was followed by some quick boilerplate about necessary safeguards—something that obviously cannot happen when a regime like that is voted into power. But what you neatly evaded addressing was the subjective morality of the new regime once it proceeded to slaughter 12 million Jews, Gypsies, Poles, Russians and homosexuals.
Based on your response, because your morality is contigent and subjective, the Germans did no evil. Perhaps your faith in epiricism would lead you to claim that the German ethical system was faulty because it empirically invited its own destruction. Beyond its clumsy statescraft, though, I don’t know what the basis of your condemnaton of Germany’s (or Russia’s, or Rome’s) atrocities (a subjective word, no?) could possibly be since each society and individual is free to determine good and evil based on the information at hand—such as, “Jews or Kulaks are parasites.”
Another thing I noticed is while you scream to high heaven about being pigeon-holed regarding your moral beliefs or philosophical bents, you love to throw references to a sky fairy or divine dictator (I’m paraphrasing) or such into any discussion you have with me. Since I did not mention God even once in my discussion, you are as guilty of flying into a non-existent breach as you claim I am.
You have your own private Eternal Return, don’t you? In your case it is an eye-bulging, neck-popping, spit-flecking hatred for God and dogma that you return to again and again, like a dog to its puke. This despite what others in the room have commented on as your almost slavish regard to authority if it comes from the same preppie elitist well that you’ve drunk from all these years. (Unless you disagree with it. Then it’s right-wing swill that the goddess Reason has sent you here to correct.)
As for your comment on the humorlessness of conservatives, I hope you have a mirror with immense light-gathering power. It’s going to need it to reflect an image of the room’s darkest, duskiest, swarthiest pot evuh calling us kettles black.
As for your comment on the humorlessness of conservatives, I hope you have a mirror with immense light-gathering power.
Mentally weak people have to project their problems unto other people, and thus they receive relief two ways: they get to blame others and they get to feel superior about themselves.
This would be the opposite if they realized the faults they found in others never existed in others, only in their original and true selves. It is much worse than the accuser and accused both having the same faults, with one blaming the other. In that scenario the accuser may not be entirely justified in his complaints, nonetheless his complaint was right on target about the accused.
I consider Martel’s 137 striking in the power of imagined imagery but I would make a correction; we are not the kettles but the fine white china.
Charles, I disagree with your response.
“Your reply tells me what I and others here have suspected for a long time, that you are a relativist who does not believe in objective truth, especially when it comes to moral conduct. For instance, your answer that a democracy like Germany could vote in National Socialism if it wanted to was followed by some quick boilerplate about necessary safeguards—something that obviously cannot happen when a regime like that is voted into power. But what you neatly evaded addressing was the subjective morality of the new regime once it proceeded to slaughter 12 million Jews, Gypsies, Poles, Russians and homosexuals.”
You didn’t ask directly, so I didn’t answer. Now that you do, I happily will. The Holocaust doesn’t comport with my personal value system or belief in what the good is. I avoid words like “evil” not because I think other people cannot use them, but because they are inherently subjective and meaningless terms. But that doesn’t mean that my view of how offensive the Holocaust was is any different than yours. I just get there in a different way. You speak of moral relativists in seemingly pejorative terms, as though I might find th Holocaust acceptable, just because I don’t share your moral system. That is not true, and your assertion of it (if my inference is remotely correct) would be another example of your assuming too much.
“Based on your response, because your morality is contigent and subjective, the Germans did no evil.”
Wrong. As I just explained above, I don’t need to follow your value system to arrive at a similar (or maybe even stronger) aversion to what the Nazi’s did. I don’t need God to love humanity. Without a belief in God and an afterlife, the loss of those lives is more tragic, so perhaps I feel worse about it than you do…
“Perhaps your faith in epiricism would lead you to claim that the German ethical system was faulty because it empirically invited its own destruction.”
I live in the empirical world in which I can easily understand pain and suffering. I don’t need a belief in God to feel empathy for the people who were hurt. That the German system led to such tragedy–and it is tragedy of epic proportions–is not lost on me merely because I don’t believe in your moral system.
“Beyond its clumsy statescraft, though, I don’t know what the basis of your condemnaton of Germany’s (or Russia’s, or Rome’s) atrocities (a subjective word, no?) could possibly be since each society and individual is free to determine good and evil based on the information at hand—such as, “Jews or Kulaks are parasites.”
I don’t remember ever saying that. I specifically stated before that I could object to China’s oppression without resorting to fantasy beliefs about magical Gods in the sky. The same applies in this case. I value the lives of people, so I can object to their senseless murder. Further, I think I can safely assume that they didn’t commit suicide, so that group would not agree to such treatment. In the case of China, that would be a majority suffering, so I would point out that under a functioning democracy their desire to be left alone and not harmed would aggregate up and prevent Deng from doing what he did. In the case of Germany, where it was a minority that was oppressed and killed, my belief in theBill of Rights and safegards for minority rights would have done the same. I am at a loss to see how you get from my argument to your assertions.
“Another thing I noticed is while you scream to high heaven about being pigeon-holed regarding your moral beliefs or philosophical bents, you love to throw references to a sky fairy or divine dictator (I’m paraphrasing) or such into any discussion you have with me. Since I did not mention God even once in my discussion, you are as guilty of flying into a non-existent breach as you claim I am. ”
Well, the difference is that I have asked for you to give the same kind of lengthy explanation that I have and I have asked for data or sources of authority from you on multiple occasions, but you don’t afford me the same courtesy I supply you. So what can I do but draw inferences based upon what you write, your moniker, etc.
But make no mistake, it is clear that you believe in a moral system ordained by God. I think we can both agree on that. Otherwise, there is no point discussing this, since you are too shifty for anyone to understand your position, so any misunderstanding on my part is your fault, not mine.
“You have your own private Eternal Return, don’t you? In your case it is an eye-bulging, neck-popping, spit-flecking hatred for God and dogma that you return to again and again, like a dog to its puke. This despite what others in the room have commented on as your almost slavish regard to authority if it comes from the same preppie elitist well that you’ve drunk from all these years. (Unless you disagree with it. Then it’s right-wing swill that the goddess Reason has sent you here to correct.)”
This is weird. How can I hate what I don’t believe in? I hate it when people use dogma to ignore facts, but that has nothing to do with a hatred toward a fictitious character. It has to do with the harm that is done to real characters (i.e., people). My slavish regard for authority comes when the authority is, in fact, an authority, so it is perfectly rational. I have slavish regard for the doctor that saves my child’s life. Don’t you?
“As for your comment on the humorlessness of conservatives, I hope you have a mirror with immense light-gathering power. It’s going to need it to reflect an image of the room’s darkest, duskiest, swarthiest pot evuh calling us kettles black.”
I know that I am not funny. I never said I was. You have commented that I am humorless, and I never offered a retort.
“we are not the kettles but the fine white china.”
Of course I agree with you, Ymarsakar. But I was referring to Mike Adams’ fine observation that whereas all of regulars here are aware of our foibles and poke fun at ourselves a lot, Mr. Grim has not yet learned how to do that, let alone detect it.
Didn’t A come from Huffington Post or Black Lake Dog Fire? Those places are notorious for their use of humor as a cult loyalty test.
abc, I’ll cut through your endless chatter and summarize your last reply:
A tragedy is what you say it is. No more, no less. As to why it’s a tragedy (or even what a tragedy is), you simply cannot say because it is obvious that you fear treading on ground where you yourself said you are highly uncomfortable.
I’ll repeat: There is no way here that you can coherently explain what as wrong/evil/tragic about Nazi Germany without wrapping yourself in logical knots.
This leads to another thing: What lies exposed here is your fear of engaging in a philosophical discussion because there are no URLs and Authorities you can run to. You have this rigid set of permissions in your head that you have consult before you can discuss something.
That’s the difference between you and me: I don’t believe I have to be a genius or authority-dependent to venture thoughts or speculations about why we believe what we do. Isn’t that ironic? You, who accuse us here of needing priests or stockbrokers to think, is scared shirtless by the idea of answering a simple question: What is the basis of your discomfort with the [non-evil*] Nazi regime?
(*Evil being such a useless word.)
Imagine us sitting on a bench in Harvard Yard having a typical college bullshit session that wanders over to ”the meaning of it all.” You refuse to engage becasue you do not enjoy examining your own beliefs. Your loss.
(A kudos to you for admitting your lack of humor. I just thought is was hilarious that the room’s least humorous person nevertheless assumed his default position of intellectual superiority to inform us that our side has nobody funny batting for it. How the hell would he know?)
Charles writes:
“abc, I’ll cut through your endless chatter…”
Wow. And you call me an elitist and imply that I am arrogant. At least I show the courtesy of revealing how I think, while you ignore my repeated requests and supply only put-downs. Not that they bother me, since my respect for someone who argues with such an obvious double standard is very low.
“… and summarize your last reply…”
Translation, I will continue to put words in your mouth, as I have done since day one.
“A tragedy is what you say it is. No more, no less. As to why it’s a tragedy (or even what a tragedy is), you simply cannot say because it is obvious that you fear treading on ground where you yourself said you are highly uncomfortable.”
I thought I did. I value human life, so I view it as a tragedy. You value human life because God tells you to, so you view it as a tragedy. If God is a fiction, then you either join my view or you don’t. And you cannot prove God isn’t a fiction, so you really cannot assail my viewpoint with empiricism. You could use the rack to force me to recant, but let’s not go there, shall we?
“I’ll repeat: There is no way here that you can coherently explain what as wrong/evil/tragic about Nazi Germany without wrapping yourself in logical knots.”
I just did. I hope to avoid pain and suffering and value human life, so I seek to avoid the former and protect the latter whenever possible. I take those as starting points. There is nothing incoherent about it. You are making unsupported assertions.
“This leads to another thing: What lies exposed here is your fear of engaging in a philosophical discussion because there are no URLs and Authorities you can run to. You have this rigid set of permissions in your head that you have consult before you can discuss something. ”
I see the opposite. I have answered all of your questions as best i can, while you have avoided answering mine. There is no fear on my side, but perhaps some on yours. If not fear, then maybe just a lack of reciprocity…
“That’s the difference between you and me: I don’t believe I have to be a genius or authority-dependent to venture thoughts or speculations about why we believe what we do. Isn’t that ironic? You, who accuse us here of needing priests or stockbrokers to think, is scared shirtless by the idea of answering a simple question: What is the basis of your discomfort with the [non-evil*] Nazi regime? ”
I don’t know what you believe. You haven’t really written as much about what you believe as you have about what I believe that is wrong. What authority do you rely upon to determine climate science, cancer treatment, etc.? Maybe you’ll answer for once…
“(*Evil being such a useless word.)” I think I said meaningless to me. Others find more use in it. Mistatements and twisting continues, with no alternatives explained in any detail. Typical.
“Imagine us sitting on a bench in Harvard Yard having a typical college bullshit session that wanders over to ”the meaning of it all.” You refuse to engage becasue you do not enjoy examining your own beliefs. Your loss.”
I answer your questions. You ignore mine, but I refuse to engage. Go figure. What are you afraid of? Or are you that rude??
“(A kudos to you for admitting your lack of humor. I just thought is was hilarious that the room’s least humorous person nevertheless assumed his default position of intellectual superiority to inform us that our side has nobody funny batting for it. How the hell would he know?)”
Intellect and a sense of humor don’t have to correlate, do they?
So questions that you should have to answer:
1. where does good come from?
2. what is the source of your moral authority?
3. should it matter if your source of moral authority cannot be proven empirically to even exist?
4. why do people need an objective authority to care about human life, denounce tragic events (e.g., the Holocaust)?
5. what good is the objective moral authority if it doesn’t lead to less tragedy?
There are more, but I’ll stop there… We’ll see if you can hold yourself to the same standard that you hold me. If not, it really isn’t worth responding to you anymore. Even atheists understand reciprocity.
Again, abc, it is not incumbent on me to explain good to a man who believes it only exists if he says it does.
If he cannot define what it is, because the definition is contingent, and he cannot exlain why he thinks human life is valuable when he freely admits that others are free to consider it otherwise, how am I to talk to such a man?
My goal—accomplished—was to show that your moral reasoning, because it has no foundation other than subjectivity, has no basis for objecting to ”tragedies” and other icky un-preppy things because it lacks a coherent basis for arguing against them. In your world, all moral systems have to be equal. Otherwise you’d have to criticize them against an objective standard (which I take to mean your “personal likes”). Even then, their adherents hold to them as fiercely as you do to yours. Your claim that the best ethical system is based on the best available empirical data carries no weight in face of the fact that many other moral systems (Marxism, feminism, post modernism) don’t care one jot about such data.
PS: I’d be happy to answer your question about how objective morality leads to less tragedy if I knew what the hell you’re talking about. What is a “tragedy?” You keep using the word, but never define it.
Wow. No questions answered. No reciprocity. Time to ignore Charles.