A Fundamental History Lesson

A good article - at least from the “liberal democratic” perspective - but with a very puzzling ending. A few questions come instantly to mind:
- From which side of the Atlantic is the main danger to the community of liberal democracies now coming?
- What country is ruled by a religious fanatic (hint: the religion in question is not Islam) financed by big business believes Providence has chosen him to save (rule?) the world? And let’s not forget that his main rhetorical weapon is to stoke the flames of fear in the populace.
- In what country does a significant portion of the population believe that the earth will end within 50 years (and many of those wish to do their bit to help it end!)? Let’s not mention that these people are so deranged as to seriously believe the universe is only about 60 centuries old…
- In what country are the bill of rights being actively dismantled by the powers that be at this very moment?
Many more quesitons come to mind, but I assume the reader catches my drift.
Anarcho-Sozi
Writing from the former East Germany

Posted by Anarcho-Sozi on Oct 10, 2005 at 8:26 AM

An exercise in a little friendly Parody (or is it Sarcasm?).

A good article - at least from the

Posted by Jay Cline on Oct 10, 2005 at 11:40 AM

Oops, missed one.

What organization is ruled by a religious fanatic…

Posted by Jay Cline on Oct 10, 2005 at 11:42 AM

We have seen the enemy and it is us.

Posted by David in Canada on Oct 10, 2005 at 12:08 PM

Kalil writing from NYC

Seems to me that fundamentalism is threat to liberty and individual rigts not matter where it’s coming from.

Whether the fanatics are Christians or Muslims the result is the same.

Perhaps the broader point here is that the “bill of rights” or any document of this type rests on a foundation of tolerance and reason, openess and an understanding that the “only thing to fear is fear itself”.

Posted by Neruda on Oct 10, 2005 at 12:26 PM

What does your post have to do with liberal trans-Atlantic democracies, Jay?

Yes, the man you refer to is financed by oil-rich Arabs, some of them personal friends of the Bush family in states ruled by autocratic puppet-regimes of the US. And who was the godfather of his movement? (Hint: his first name was Ronald and he was not pleased with Soviet involvement in Afghanistan.)

How many in these countries have their sights set on the 100 virgins - and how many Americans have their sights set on the “prime seats” after Armageddon?

An argument could easily be made for the view that no religious fanaticism in the world is as irrational and inhuman as the Rapture variety in the US (or is as widespread within its respective culture…) - but that would have nothing whatsoever to do with Fritz Stern’s article, so let’s drop it.

Posted by Anarcho-Sozi on Oct 10, 2005 at 12:42 PM

Oingo Boingo - Nothing to Fear (But Fear Itself)

Hey neighbor let me give you some advice
The russians are about to pulverize us
In our sleep tonight
That is if the crazy arabs
Or the riots don’t get us first
And the fire will rain down from the sky
The fire will rain down from the sky
People will die—people will die
People will die—people will die
But go ahead sleep tight in your beds
Remember what the wise man said

Chorus
There’s nothing to fear nothing to fear
There’s nothing to fear nothing to fear
There’s nothing to fear (but fear itself)
There’s nothing to fear (but fear itself)
And the temperature’s starting to drop now
The temperature’s starting to drop now
The temperature’s starting to drop now . . .

Hey little girl won’t you come this way
Won’t you let me buy you candy or perhaps a chocolate shake
Or perhaps some nice cocaine or perhaps a little kiss
Or perhaps a ride in my big car
Perhaps a ride in my big car
Won’t you make an old man happy
Won’t you make an old man happy
Won’t you let me show you paradise
(don’t ask your mother for advice)

Chorus

If they don’t turn you into a junkie or a zombie on the street
If they don’t turn you into a yo-cat or a grinning jesus freak
If they don’t take away your brains or turn your body inside out
If they don’t take away your passion with a color tv set
They’ll take away your heart and soul
They’ll take away your heart and soul
They’ll take away your heart and soul
Don’t let them take away your heart and soul
But remember what the wise man said

Chorus

Posted by David in Canada on Oct 10, 2005 at 12:48 PM

The argument I would make is that this is a facetious argument. Comparing Nazism with the political rights of people, religious or not, is like saying my car is blue and so is water so my car must be made of water.

Nazism was not about religion or the religious views of one segment of the electorate, it was a gang of thugs seizing power. When the American religious right stages a violent brown-shirt putsch, I’ll change my tune.

Until then, I will not drop my beliefs simply because you say so.

Posted by Jay Cline on Oct 10, 2005 at 1:40 PM

The point of my parody was to show the illogic of argument and assertions of the first posting.

Posted by Jay Cline on Oct 10, 2005 at 1:42 PM

Jay says, ”  When the American religious right stages a violent brown-shirt putsch, I

Posted by David in Canada on Oct 10, 2005 at 1:58 PM

Coming soon to a town near you or a town far away.

What is the difference?

Posted by David in Canada on Oct 10, 2005 at 2:03 PM

And it is not the “American religious right” or anyone other convenient label, it is the “thugs” who have usurped their ideals and pander to anyone as it serves their thuggish and selfish agenda.

Posted by David in Canada on Oct 10, 2005 at 2:15 PM

David,

Of course, silly me. I forgot about the Great and Glorious (and very bloody) Revolution of ‘94. Oh what times those were!

But let us not forget the coups of ‘96, ‘98, aught-aught, aught-2, aught-4, and coming to a town near and far, aught-6.

I believe in both Canada and Germany, those would be called, what? Elections?

To my point, comparing the rise of the German Nazi party to the political aspirations, and successes of the American religous right is like comparing mountains to mole-hills.

Not only is the difference of size apparent, but they are qualitatively different, both in fundamental characteristics and origins.

Posted by Jay Cline on Oct 10, 2005 at 3:08 PM

It is possible that the zealousness with which the Religious right wants to legislate personal morality may not conitnue to amount to some version of a psuedo-fascist party.

However the point of the article and the history of the rise of the Nazi party is that these movements gain prominence and power slowly and through existing legal means-elections, etc…

In addition, some of the signs are there: a reliance on fear and terror as weapons of persuasions; gearing up the war machine; a government propoganda machine (fake news stories broadcast as real ones, journalists paid to endorse administration positions, using the pulpit to endorse candidates and collect signatures for petitions; the scapegoating of a segment of society (gays, the poor), the quest to consolidate power across all levels of government-eliminating the possibility of real checks on power, and the alliance of business and religious interests in the quest for social and economic power.

For the really paranoid or aware, moves to enable the president to deploy U.S. military within national boundaries.

Posted by Neruda on Oct 10, 2005 at 3:39 PM

“...comparing the rise of the German Nazi party to the political aspirations, and successes of the American religous right is like comparing mountains to mole-hills.”

And like all protrusions from the ground, each can appear mammoth depending on your perspective.  Let us recognize the very ambivilance our man Jay applies towards the religious-(not)right was identical to that displayed by most Germans towards the National Socialists as the Weimar Republic declined.

Whether you are inclined to believe religion aided the Nazis in their accension to power or not, the fact remains that fascists by definition will draw on sources of power wherever they may be found.  And once all usefullness has been drawn, others must be obtained.  The only group who ever truly benifits from fascism are the corporations. As true in 1945 as it is today.
Just wait - as the neocon agenda advnaces we may yet see them abandon their legions of plastic jesus christian fundamentalists in search of another power source to feed upon.

Posted by jon t on Oct 10, 2005 at 6:40 PM

JAY CLINE please go and do some research.

FASCISM =======  Corporate State.

NAZISM   =======  Neo-conservatism.

Jay Cline why do you come into an obviously small and well informed forum with such a paltry grasp of even the most nasic comprehension of history, politics or economics?  Are you a massochist?

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 10, 2005 at 7:04 PM

Jay Cline says

“Until then, I will not drop my beliefs simply because you say so”

Jay laddie nobody round here except maybe the Monk is under any illusion that you are likely to “drop” your beliefs, either because we say so or because FACTS around you are make it seem wise.  Honestly Rabbit has long since concluded that you are a very stupid example of Dittohead and have long since dug yourself into a tight defensive position, devoid of all facts or reason, based on faith alone and a grim determination, never to change any ideas.

Those things you call ideas have taken you a lifetime of rehearsing and learning by rote and they form the whole basis of your self worth. Without them you are a farcical fool, a Clown with no clues, a joke of history.

You cannot change ANY of your beliefs because the only support any of them have is each other.

In short JAY, either everybody else is wrong or you and your dwindling band of colleagues are becoming extinct and will eventually face the retribution, we, your opposition are planning for you bunch of Nazis and Nazi supporters.  Do you prefer NEO-CON supporter JAY? 

The chance is that it will be less offensive to call someone a NAZI than to call them a NEO-CON within a few years.

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 10, 2005 at 7:15 PM

Anarcho-sozi, please ignore Jay, he is just a very dim troll we have at ITT at the moment, maybe formally known as Thinky actually.

The comparison of the article is obvious and it is delighful to see the Jay Cline can see it too. He is always so obvious in defensive mode.

“....... moderates and ....... elites underestimated ........, assuming that most people would not succumb to his Manichean unreason; they didn

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 10, 2005 at 10:56 PM

Jay also wrongly states the Hitler and his “gang of thugs” seized power. In fact they used the electoral system that was in place at the time, aided by backroom deals and impotent opposition. Today’s fascists own the computerized paperless voting machines and won’t let anyone examine their software. Today’s opposition party is utterly and criminally useless, the “good germans” of our country’s brush with fascism.

Posted by Kenneth D. Brown on Oct 10, 2005 at 11:51 PM

This modern mingling of particular sectarian agendas with politics points up one of the weakness of democracy, at least as most people conceive it. “Majority rule” is a central tenet of democracy, and as is well known was expressed as a political value to oppose minority rule (by royals and their noble allies, or by imperial rulers and the colonizers who supported them). As an ethic guiding the decisions of who should hold political power, its a vast improvement over what it sought to replace.

But the hazard is, of course, suppression of minority rights by an aggressive majority. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a religious, racial, or sex-preference minority, unless some institutional provision for protection of their rights is part of the inherent workings of the system, it’s all too likely that the aggressive majority in question will marginalize and abuse them. Each country has its examples, in the US skin color, religion, and sex-preference have all been (and so often continue to be) the basis for bullying of the smaller group by the larger. Is this democratic? Of a sort, perhaps, but its alien to the value of informed, free people being able to follow their own lights and contribute to their community by way of their work, intellect, and creative contributions. That’s a long way of saying, it’s oppressive. Inherently and irredeemably oppressive.

The simple solution of holding an election to decide what the law shall be and who shall hold power is not enough. A document that specifically preserves certain rights for all people, regardless of majority or minority status, has to be part of a constitutional system and, even more to the point, upheld and enforced even in spite of majoritarian demands. We have the document, the Bill of Rights (as well as other amendments to the Constitution) but it appears to me that the party in power and the crusader faction who provide a massive part of their energy have no intention of upholding it. Perhaps they’s just as soon see it repealed.

Short of devoted protection of rights against big-group bullying, an unopposable tyranny (because the majority will be the de facto tyrants), and the resulting alienation and possible violent uprisings from minorities are likely to follow.

This is why I always advocate the strictest neutrality when it comes to government’s position vis a vis religion. It’s impossible for faith-as-law to be anything but a burden upon those who believe differently. And you can preserve law and order, as well as life, liberty, property, etc etc perfectly well with a religiously neutral government. Reference to specific religions’ codes of morality are not necessary.

So if activist American Christians gang up and try to pass laws that foist religiously based limitations upon the community at large, they should be denied, period. That includes prohibition laws, laws that define other peoples’ marriage status, specific scriptures or sectarian monuments (unless several different traditions are represented in a tableau as an acknowledgment of diversity, i.e. still actually neutral legally)being erected on public property, teacher-guided prayers in government schools, scriptural myth being given equal time in public school biology classrooms etc.

The fact that law-from-religion can be allowed to stand in modern America demonstrates that too few people understand the risks associated with it. Or, they’re too bloody polite, fearing that they’ll be called atheists or religious oppressors (when it’s the writers of such laws who are the actual oppressors) and so kowtow out of an overweaning sense of political correctness.

Or, they want the freedom to live according to one’s own conscience to be deleted from American life.

That would make them unAmerican, I believe. Another reason they shouldn’t control the law!

Posted by Kuya on Oct 11, 2005 at 12:46 AM

sorry for all the typos in that last bit, but you get my point…

Posted by Kuya on Oct 11, 2005 at 12:48 AM

1) I have not yet seen (even in the original article) how Nazi’s usurped the electoral process. Nazi’s, as a political party, used the electoral to get their foot in the door, but subverted the process and then were able to outlaw the opposition. Mr. Brown does touch upon the subject, but the accusations of electoral fraud ar skimpy at best. Especially when you consider that the national elections apparently being referenced (2000, 2004) were faulty for NOT using such equipment. Is it a danger? Could be, but we haven’t gotten there yet.

2) jon t. and neruda are absolutely right the danger is from fascists and assigning that lable to the legitimate political aspirations is just wrong.

3) rabbit, as always, says a lot but says nothing.

Posted by Jay Cline on Oct 11, 2005 at 4:41 AM

Kuya argues that it is okay to pursue a political agenda, as long as he/she agrees with it.

Posted by Jay Cline on Oct 11, 2005 at 4:43 AM

My apologies to Kuya.

That is not what was being said. I was in a hurry to catch the bus and was responding to merely one sentence in the first paragraph.

Posted by Jay Cline on Oct 11, 2005 at 6:50 AM

Part 1

While I emphatically agree with Kuya on most points, I would take exception to three of them, at least from the perspective of my belief that they are already fully dealt with within the dominion of the American Constitution. I concur with the theoretical background of these three points, but I believe they were quite adequately addressed two centuries ago during the drafting and ratification of the US Constitution.

The simple solution of holding an election to decide what the law shall be and who shall hold power is not enough.

The Founding Fathers were well aware of the tyranny of majority. They had the lessons of Cromwell and the English Glorious Revolution, of their own contemporary experiences with the British Parliament, and of the behavior of the American colonists themselves.

Basic rights should, and are, guaranteed; and they are enforced through the separation of powers. No single system is ever perfect, and our system of governances does not attempt to be. However, the excesses of the dynamic tensions of legitimate political intercourse are adequately contained by the balance of power in the system established. Germany in the first quarter of the last century did not have those moderating structural influences and fatally suffered because of it. Any comparative analysis between contemporary issues in American democracy and the failure of German democracy in the last century needs to address that critical difference.

but it appears to me that the party in power and the crusader faction who provide a massive part of their energy have no intention of upholding it (the Bill of Rights - jc)<i>. Perhaps they

Posted by Jay Cline on Oct 11, 2005 at 8:22 AM

Part 2

The right of the people to bear arms to maintain a well regulated militia has certainly been one of the most contentious Rights in contemporary times. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures is open to the interpretation of what is unreasonable, especially when it runs afoul of the Preamble, to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,

But right at the top, the establishment clause of the First Amendment, is the most contentious. From the point of view of the religious right, it is important to remember that the establishment clause contains TWO parts, each pulling in opposite directions. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. For example, it has oft been argued that not allowing voluntary prayers in school clearly violates this second half of the establishment clause. This argument is not an attempt at usurpation of democratic power, but an expression of legitimate political interest.

The point I would make is that, far from creating an opportunity for a brown-shirt conspiracy to usurp democratic principles, the Founding Fathers deliberately avoided being too exact in their wording (a lesson the proposed European Constitution could learn from). Why? Because they had no wish to impose their own tyranny upon Posterity. Each generation should be allowed to govern themselves.

Short of devoted protection of rights against big-group bullying, an unopposable tyranny (because the majority will be the de facto tyrants), and the resulting alienation and possible violent uprisings from minorities are likely to follow.

Exactly. Well, almost. The logic of this conclusion rests on the assumption that majority rule will always result in the majority become tyrants, and thus unopposable.

I believe I have already made the counter-argument to that.

Posted by Jay Cline on Oct 11, 2005 at 8:22 AM

“From the point of view of the religious right, it is important to remember that the establishment clause contains TWO parts, each pulling in opposite directions. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. For example, it has oft been argued that not allowing voluntary prayers in school clearly violates this second half of the establishment clause. This argument is not an attempt at usurpation of democratic power, but an expression of legitimate political interest.”

However Jay, when the far right attempts to legislate “end of life” decisions by holding special sessions of congress and having the president actually take time from one of his many long vacations to intervene in a specific case that is an attempt to impose a specific religious belief upon all citizens.

Another example, when plebiscites are used to determing that certain people are not entitled to access the right to enter into a legal marriage with a same sex partner the tyrrany of a majority, driven by religious dogma, violate individual rights. When the courts step in to invalidate these attempts at legal discrimination they are accused of judicial activism and so a concerted effort by the right to take control over the judiciary takes shape (in this instance the cronyism of appointing a Bush “yes woman” to the supreme court).

Kuya makes this point quite well: “the fact that law-from-religion can be allowed to stand in modern America demonstrates that too few people understand the risks associated with it.”

The establishment clause was meant to protect religion from government and to protect government from religion. It brilliantly creates a division between legal/civil authority and religious authority. What the above demonstrate is an attempt by the reilgious right to tear down that wall and govern from the pulpit. The authors of the consitution saw only to clearly the result of that among Puritan colonists in New England.

For those who merely seek power, taking advantage of zealousness is strategic. Whether racism or homophobia or anti-semetism, justify hatred in the name of god, then enact laws that marginalize (in effect dehumanize), and prop up those marginalized groups as straw men for everything wrong (moral decay—homosexuals, terrorist attack and natural disasters-homosexuals, feminists, liberals, those other people not like us).

It’s a fact of human psychology that people build up to brutality, start with namecalling, marginalize, deny rights, tolerate acts of violence, and soon you make your way to policies like the nazis.

Posted by Neruda on Oct 11, 2005 at 9:38 AM

Neruda,

Now I see where I got that mistaken notion about Kuya’s beliefs. That was actually you that really believes that those who have political beliefs that differ from yours are, by default and definition, wrong.

I agree with everything you said, except for your conclusion. You find the right’s political beliefs offensive and therefore they have no right to object.

When the courts step in to invalidate these attempts at legal discrimination they are accused of judicial activism ...

Isn’t that exactly what you are arguing against?? Not having a voice to oppose what you believe is wrong??

... and so a concerted effort by the right to take control over the judiciary takes shape

So? That is how a participatory democracy is supposed to work. When one group believes their rights are being infringed upon, they can engage the democracy and attempt to effect change. Note the word attempt. Just because the effort is concerted, doesn’t make it inherently evil.

I still see no evidence of brown-shirted usurpation; just the proper use of participatory democracy in action. Far from an impotent electorate, American democracy is stronger than ever. The left has the same rights and abilities and enfranchisement of the right.

And vis-versa.

Posted by Jay Cline on Oct 11, 2005 at 10:03 AM

<i>It

Posted by Jay Cline on Oct 11, 2005 at 10:05 AM

“So? That is how a participatory democracy is supposed to work. When one group believes their rights are being infringed upon, they can engage the democracy and attempt to effect change. Note the word attempt. Just because the effort is concerted, doesn

Posted by Neruda on Oct 11, 2005 at 10:33 AM

However you are free to go to church, condem anyone you want there,

But God forbid you should stand up in Hyde Park and protest, heh? Sounds like someone is putting unfair restrictions on the other part of the First Amendment.

You seem to conflate the idea that a minority (however ill-liked) having equal access and rights is similar in impact to having a majority (however much driven by a sense of moral certainty)deny that same minority equal access and rights. This again is a parallel to the rise of Nazis (easy moral certainties used to regulate personal freedom).

Nope. Never said that. In fact, I said both sides have the same rights.

Posted by Jay Cline on Oct 11, 2005 at 11:06 AM

Jay,

“I said both sides have the same rights”

Again which rights are you talking about?

You think the religious right had the right to deny access and rights to gays?

Do you think this the same as gays wanting equal rights?

Do you think assembling a special session of congress to intervene in a private medical decision is the same as the right to make private medical decisions?

Do you think the right of women to choose is the same as the right to restrict women’s right to choose?

You seem to propose that both sides simply need to marshal enough votes and that makes what they want ok. You seem to equate the fight for the right to choose with the fight to restrict the right to choose.

And for the record I did not mean that the religious right could only vent in church. They can vent wherever they choose so long as they don’t promote verbal and physical attacks on others as a result of their deep rooted hatred. Much like the klan they can asseble, parade, and preach. And like the klan, they should not be permitted to enforce their personal belief systems on others. That partly is the role of the courts.

Yet you feel that they both have the right to leglislate lifestyle choices and that this is the same as fighting for equal rights and access.

Posted by Neruda on Oct 11, 2005 at 11:20 AM

like the klan, they should not be permitted to enforce their personal belief systems on others. That partly is the role of the courts.

Exactly. Well, not quite.

You continue to confuse legislative authority with enforcement authority, and both of them with judiciary authority. The courts do not enforce, they judicate. The legislature does not enforce, they legislate.

That is called separation of power.

Posted by Jay Cline on Oct 11, 2005 at 11:43 AM

You are right that is the seperation of power.

But think about this: Segregation was legislated into law. Police enforced those laws, Governers ordered police and national guard to suppress protest, judges sentenced protesters instead of upholding individual rights.

This is how all branches of government can be brought to one purpose by shrewd politicians, and the power of custom and tradition.

And Jay, I was hoping you would answer even one of my questions. Do you equate the right to exclude people from full participation and to deny equal rights with the right to full participation, access, and equality? Do you equate the right to make medical decisions based on personal morality with the right to leglislate personal morality?

Posted by Neruda on Oct 11, 2005 at 12:00 PM

Segregation was legislated into law. Police enforced those laws, Governers ordered police and national guard to suppress protest, judges sentenced protesters instead of upholding individual rights.

Yes, but you just disproved your whole argument. That sounds like the fascist that is being decried here, yet, what happened to it? Did democracy fail? or did it prevail?

As I said before, and I will now elaborate with my favorite Churchill quote; democracy is the worst form of governance, except for all that has been tried thus far.

Democracy is not perfect, yet I have not read anything here, short of extreme hyperbole, that would demonstrate that American democracy is in danger of a Nazi brown-shirt putsch.

Posted by Jay Cline on Oct 11, 2005 at 12:40 PM

Do you equate the right to exclude people from full participation and to deny equal rights with the right to full participation, access, and equality? Do you equate the right to make medical decisions based on personal morality with the right to leglislate personal morality?

I have not answered either of these questions for two simple reasons. I agree with you, and my agreement is irrelevent to the question of equating American democracy to Nazi fascism.

No one is saying, except in hyperbole, that the religious right has the right to exclude, merely the right to object and participate in the shaping of our government.

No one is saying, except in hyperbole, that the religious right has the right to legislate personal morality, merely the right to object and participate in the shaping of our government.

Certainly, there is a segment of the religious right (a very vocal minority of that group) that would bring about what you appear to be describing as a theocracy. But again, the only arguments made against a theocracy, and the alleged connection with the “majority”, has been all hyperbole, and to be honest, sheer scare tactics of the kind that the religious right is being accused of.

I would have thought that was evident from what I have already said.

Posted by Jay Cline on Oct 11, 2005 at 12:47 PM

“Yes, but you just disproved your whole argument. That sounds like the fascist that is being decried here, yet, what happened to it? Did democracy fail? or did it prevail?”

In reality what prevailed here was republicanism (not the party by the way). Minority rights were finally and ultimately upheld despite opposition by the majority and at a large political cost to the Democratic party.

I wholeheartedly agree with you about Democracy (read republicanism). It is not perfect but it is the best system we have tried so far. What I am arguing is that the way in which the republican power goes about the business of politics results in the weakening of the system of checks and balances and the weakening of the church/state boundary. These are the steps that we must counter in order to avoid the erosion of the American we love and that the founders envisioned.

Posted by Neruda on Oct 11, 2005 at 12:48 PM

“Certainly, there is a segment of the religious right (a very vocal minority of that group) that would bring about what you appear to be describing as a theocracy. But again, the only arguments made against a theocracy, and the alleged connection with the

Posted by Neruda on Oct 11, 2005 at 1:24 PM

Are there challenges to democracy, like ID in school systems, etc? Yes. Should we abolish those challenges merely because they are contentious, and probably wrong? No. Democracy isn’t pretty, it isn’t quick, it does not proceed in a straight line. But there are democratic mechanisms in place that thus far have survived the very real challenges thrown up at it in the past two centuries.

Absolutely, there are challenges that go against the grain and ultimately prove wrong. but we don’t live in a George Jetson future where you can just plug in questions and get instant answers. Even slavery, that hideous institution that even many if not most of the Founding Fathers opposed, took 80 years to kill, and then only at the point of a gun.

Life isn’t easy, life isn’t obvious. But to abolish challenges without “their day in court” , to condemn one man’s opinion and right to say it because he is an idiot, is one of the worst forms of Tyranny. Because ultimately someone has to make that decision, and I for one have no desire to live in a Platonic society.

Posted by Jay Cline on Oct 11, 2005 at 1:39 PM

The Rise of Nazism was more about the search for easy answers, than anything else.

Posted by Jay Cline on Oct 11, 2005 at 1:40 PM

Jay you say, ” to condemn one man

Posted by David in Canada on Oct 11, 2005 at 9:30 PM

The last Rabbit post was made before reading the last 2 Jay posts….............................................................This twerp makes Rabbit want to throw up. It is the most overweaning, whining pompous little dimwit ever to pass this way.  Rabbit swears it’s worse than THINKY ever was.

It thinks it’s silly little homilies pass as some sort of worthy comment, it babbles on about things it knows nothing of, expounding generalities. Decryng the very things it has itself created and was only just in the process of arguing in favour of.  It is in short an IDIOT.

“The rise of Nazism was more about the search for easy answers, than anything else”

JAY almost nailed it then, must have been an accident. 

The rise of Nazism was a consequence of an ACCEPTANCE of easy answers, when they were fed up in the right way.

IT is obvious to anybody else, except Jay of course, how well this would describe the rise of the NEO-CONS.

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 11, 2005 at 10:16 PM

This was the post that should have preceeded the last post which was not meant to be the first post but was.  Jay like many such morons keeps referring to the US constitution as if it still stands as it once did.  The past five years of Neo-con government has passed without his noticing anything they have done. It has completely escaped his notice.  Incredible.

Jay cannot possibly agree with anything Kuya says, but he thinks he does.  Kuya you deserve Kudos for a very concise and insightful post.

You don’t need Rabbit to tell you to ignore the yapping from the pretentious little troll, he doesn’t even understand half the words let alone the concepts they convey.

Nobody condemns Jays right to say any garbage which occurs to him to say. Stop being so defensive you stupid little troll. We can point out the illogicality and the lack of reasoning and the mistakes in your opinions without telling you not to say it.

By all means keep on repeating your determined Ditto. It is always useful to have an object lesson of all that is wrong with the USA, on hand so to speak. Just because we already know everything you believe, doesn’t mean we don’t want to hear it all again. We enjoy pointing out the flaws in your argument, content and method.

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 11, 2005 at 10:18 PM

Wow, I wish I had been able to participate in the exchange between Jay Cline and Neruda following my earlier post. Alas, work duties had to take precedence.

I would certainly never advocate any suppression of religious practice per se, as long as it wasn’t crime or victimization in religious guise. And as long as the people involved freely consented and participated as a free-will decision.

I actually do think that the Constitution and Bill of Rights as written could provide sufficient protection if the principles they advocate (require, actually) were implemented in the spirit that the writers seemed to have in mind, i.e. what I call relgious neutrality, what most others call separation of church and state.

But I don’t see that in action. So perhaps it’s less the formal structure I have a problem with, and more what I see as the freaking of that structure to subvert its intent.

Mentioning two high-profile issues that to me are very meaningful: unequal marriage rights and Old Testament mythology becoming required curriculum in biology classrooms.

What these have in common, I think, is a source-point in passionately held beliefs, which fuels “democratic” activity leading to laws that compel specific theological stances upon the community, some proportion of whom do not adhere to those belief systems’ ideas.

Passionate belief? No problem with me. But when they have the force of law, I have a big problem indeed. The law is a heavy and sharp weapon. It may be a necessary social factor to avoid law-by-vendetta, but it’s still a force. Force is its mechanism. Cops, courts, fines, handcuffs, jail cells, confiscations, appropriations, and (sometimes) executions.

I don’t want someone’s passionate religious beliefs having that kind of force behind them.

So when a man loves a man, and wants the same legal rights and benefits I enjoy as a married man myself, I believe he should have them. Or she-and-she, as the case may be. Some want to tweak the meaning of the word “marriage” so as to reserve it for religious references, but I don’t agree. I don’t see a reason to fiddle around with terminology. As I’ve said a few times on this site when the marriage rights issue has arisen, marriage is not a Judeo-Christian invention. My respect for the wisdom (and there’s plenty of wisdom to be found) coming out of those traditions do not make me feel as though they deserve special dispensations with regard to legal rights held by citizens, or to be able to claim as their own a ritual that goes back to caveman days in one form or another.

There can be Christian marriage, but not all marriage derives from Christianity.

So the attempt to force the law (or language) into a shape that suggests any such equation is, to me, invalid. If, that is, equal protection under law and protection of rights is the agenda. If there’s another agenda, perhaps one based on influencing society and culture into a more Christian mold (or select whatever religion you’d fill in here), I feel they should be directly and unequivocally denied.

Of course this would have nothing to do with particular couples living in accordance with Christian teachings and limitations if they so choose. Of course they must be able to follow their own lights in that regard, with no hassle from law or neighbors.

Posted by Kuya on Oct 12, 2005 at 1:49 AM

(continuing from the previous post)

As for Creationism (or any of its euphemistic synonyms) becoming required curriculum in biology class, I have equally little patience. The fact that some teachers and textbooks give a simplistic or outdated take on evolution, natural selection, speciation, and the origins of life and humanity (which is a justification I’ve heard for allowing “equal time” to the Book of Genesis) should be the basis for improvement of schooling practices. It does not warrant pretending that a millennia-old creation story (read: myth) has the same value as a scientific principle compared the realizations that have come to light since Wallace and Darwin published their theses as the basis for modern investigative techniques.

The simple truth is, evolution is not just a belief system on par with creationism, unless of course one stops at a cursory description without reference to the decades of investigation, debate, and scientific challenge since The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man were published. Evolution has become not just an alternative theory, but a paradigm for how to understand the way life on this planet works and has worked from the beginning. It may be imperfectly described by current theoretical models, but the benefit of the scientific method is that theories are challenged and tested against empirical evidence. And there is evidence, more each year.
There isn’t a bit of evidence that the Earth and universe were created in 6 days by way of almighty, i.e. magical powers. Actually, if understood allegorically or symbolically, even the Genesis story has real merit as a bit of anthropological data helping us to understand what the forebears of modern Judeo-Christian-Islamic believers had in mind when they wrote their scrolls.

So again, forcing a bio teacher by law to teach a Bible story as if it had the same scientific grounding as evolutionary theory is invalid. They’re simply two different ways of thinking, fundamentalism and scientific inquiry. They’re not interchangeable, even if a majority of people in a given community have a passionate attachment to scripture.

If anyone wants to teach their children Genesis-as-scientific fact, I suppose they will. They’re mistaken, but there’s no crime in that (although I think their children may be the losers, in terms of their intellectual development). But at school, particularly public school, keep Bible teachings out of the biology class. That’s not the proper venue for it. Even if the majority wants to believe that it is. There’s evidence to support one stance, and none to support the other.

Create a class on cultural anthropology or on the study of religion, if you want the Bible in the curriculum. At parochial schools, include worship services.

But don’t permit religion to be mistaken for science. It isn’t. Not Christian relgion, nor Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish, animist, or New Age.

Why would we allow any of those belief systems to have the force of law? Only to negate the influence of the others, as well as negating scientific inquiry.

Well, forgive the harangue, as I said above, these are extremely meaningful issues to me and I guess I went off a bit. But I’m still convince my views, if they were the ones to guide law instead of sectarian beliefs being allowed to, would still allow free worship while ensuring equal rights and intellectual advancement.

Posted by Kuya on Oct 12, 2005 at 1:50 AM

I have been reluctant to get into the debate on specific issues that some see as egregious, mostly, as I have indicated, my opinions on same-sex marriage, evolution vs ID, abortion, etc are irrelevant to the original authors implications of danger of a rise in American counter-democratic forces.

Whether I believe that same-sex marriages are not prohibited by the constitution (they’re not), whether ID or any flavor of Creationism is ignorant and not science (it is, and it isn’t), whether Roe v Wade was justified (it was) contributes nothing to my attempt to rebut the hysteria, the fear-mongering of those who would claim American democracy is in peril just because those beliefs are not universally accepted.

To argue that one’s beliefs are self-evident to oneself, and then project that to the democratic body as a whole, is disingenuous. To then claim, but that is what the religious right is doing, is like listening to my four year old when she says, “But Johnny hit me first.”

Passionate belief is no excuse for intolerance, from either side.

Posted by Jay Cline on Oct 12, 2005 at 4:34 AM

“Passionate belief is no excuse for intolerance, from either side.”

I think Jay that we are all in agreement here. While we may have no patience for the beliefs of the Religious Right for the reasons that Kuya articulated and, it seems, you agree with. However we are not advocating leglislation that curbs their way of life or indoctrinating their children with our “faith”.

“I have been reluctant to get into the debate on specific issues that some see as egregious, mostly, as I have indicated, my opinions on same-sex marriage, evolution vs ID, abortion, etc are irrelevant to the original authors implications of danger of a rise in American counter-democratic forces.”

By avoiding specific issues you are skirting the principle argument that we (I believe in this instance I am echoing Kuya and Rabbit)are making. The threat to our democracy (Republic) is that the Religious right is seeking to use the force of law in order to impose their views on sexuality, creation, conception, end-of-life, etc. on everyone else. They are seeking to curb other people’s right to equal access. They are seeking to indoctrinate everyone’s children with their faith. They are seeking to regulate the public domain. They don’t simply want a place at the table. They want the table and they want to decide what is on the menu for everyone, how people eat, what they drink, and what conversations they can have. And they are enlisting considerable influence with the Repub party to gain the force of law for their beliefs.

Jay, the difference between our “sides” is that we are perfectly happy to share the table with the Religious right. And we don’t want to make the accept equality for gay americans through force of law. We are seeking to protect every persons right to live their lives as they see fit so long as they are not causing harm to others. They are not as generous in thier position.

That is why by avoiding the specifics you are able to stay at this abstract and removed level which they enables you to equate to very different views of the process of and outcomes of government.

Posted by Neruda on Oct 12, 2005 at 6:21 AM

Part two.

Jay I want to lay this case out one last time. There are converging lines of policy that are undermining the liberties we have always treasured in this country.

Religion fundamentalism seeking to usurp the law to impose their theocratic vision of America.

+

The exploitation of public fear arising from national disaster (via attack or force of nature)to pass legislation that undermines our basic freedoms. For example protections from illegal search and seizure have been routed by provisions of the Patriot act whereby police and intelligence services have the right to search your home without your knowledge.

+

Administration propoganda made with federal funds (see previous entries).

+

Massively deregulation of various industries, the loosening of protections for workers, and the doling out of no-bid contracts where the contracter is given free reign to “blead the beast”. Those who speak seem to have a pattern of resigning, being harrassed, or being demoted.

+

We have a president who pushes the boundaries of executive authority and priviledge and seems to see congress and either a rubber stamp or an encumbrance. And as far as the Supreme Court, the more “yes people” (cronies) the more control he has. Even now he seems to believe that it is a priority to allow the president to deploy the American military on American soil. That’s why we have police and the national guard. There was a reason why Roman generals did not bring their troops across the tigris. And when they did, the Romans lost their Republic.

Religion + Increased government authority + decreased freedoms + Corporate/government cronyism and quid pro quo + Increased executive power (in fact the most imperious presidency in U.S. history) + decreased checks on power between branches of government (put another way, the enlistment of all three branches of government in the service of a fundamentalist-easy answer-idealogy).

Posted by Neruda on Oct 12, 2005 at 6:35 AM

<i>However we are not advocating leglislation that curbs their way of life or indoctrinating their children with our

Posted by Jay Cline on Oct 12, 2005 at 7:44 AM

While we may have no patience for the beliefs of the Religious Right for the reasons that Kuya articulated

No, we are not in agreement.

I have infinite patience for ANYONES beliefs. I have absolute intolerance for people who have no tolerance for other points of view.

Posted by Jay Cline on Oct 12, 2005 at 7:51 AM

“The threat to our democracy (Republic) is that the Liberal left is seeking to use the force of law in order to impose their views on sexuality, creation, conception, end-of-life, etc. on everyone else.”

Let’s clarify a point you seem to be deliberately obfuscating. Giving gay couple equal access may be disagreeable to religious fundamentalist but it does not deny them equal access. Whereas enshrining discrimination in law certainly does deny gay americans equal access. Giving women the right to choose does not mean that women have to choose to have abortions. Whereas rolling back that right means women no longer can make that choice. Giving someone the right to decide how to end their lives does not mandate that everyone end their lives or not end their lives. Denying people that right certainly keeps them from having the choice. The differences is the left or secularist or whatever you want to call us are not denying anyone the right to live the way they want to. Whereas the right or at least that very powerful and very vocal minority is in fact trying make people live according to their religious principles.

What don’t you get here? It is not about tolerating their beliefs it is about saying loudly and clearly that their beliefs must live alongside ours, that personal morality is just that personal.

At to the “allowing teenage girls to get abortions without parental consent, handing out condoms in health classes, teaching safe sex and not no sex; all that infringes on their right to raise their children per their own beliefs, a right which you have already paid lip service to.”

Schools should base and I did say SHOULD on research, evidence, and scholarship. They are not supposed to tell kids which choice is more moral. They are supposed to educate them about their bodies, about sexuality, about what research shows by way of teen sexuality, including information about the impact having sex and the impact of not having sex on teens’ lives. The research on abstinence only, by the way, is positive. And the areas where it fails have everything to do with moralizing and misinformation.

What we are saying is that the bible, the koran, the torah, or any other holy book has no place outside of classes on religion or spirituality in schools. That does not stop parents from raising their kids in faith.

Once again you seem to be purposefully equating a position of tolerance and openness that allows for the free expression of religious faith with the desire to make religion into law. That is a belief shared by secularists and people of faith on the left and, I believe center.

Perhaps Rabbit is right, you stuck on talking points where you obfuscaste facts to draw facile and erroneous comparisons.

Posted by Neruda on Oct 12, 2005 at 8:23 AM

Jay:

No one is saying the Religious Right have to send their children to public schools.  No one is saying parochial schools have to teach secular values.  You say they are justified in insisting on the right to ‘voluntary prayer’ in public schools without saying what that means.  In truth, there is no force on earth that can effectively forbid voluntary prayer as it is the silent act of an individual’s inner thought.  Do you mean something else? 

One wonders if you are at all cognizant of the formal paradox of your statement vis~a~vis intolerance.  Inferring from the poor level of reading comprehension and logical incoherence you so blatantly display with your unprincipled screed, one finds it doubtful.

Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 12, 2005 at 8:32 AM

Does no one see the double standard here?

No one is saying the Religious Right have to send their children to public schools.

No one is saying kids have to say “In God We Trust” when saying the Pledge of Allegiance. No one is saying gays have to self-confess their sexual orientation when the enlist in the military (“don’t ask; don’t tell”).

Why is it alright to object to these impositions of our Rights, but not alright to object to them just because you go to church every Sunday?

That is the issue, people. No matter how much one accuses of me of obfuscast(ing) facts to draw facile and erroneous comparisons, isn’t that exactly the argument methodology and logic being employed to counter my arguments?

Posted by Jay Cline on Oct 12, 2005 at 9:10 AM

You’re right.

American Democracy is in danger of a fascist take over.

Posted by Jay Cline on Oct 12, 2005 at 9:13 AM

“No one is saying gays have to self-confess their sexual orientation when the enlist in the military (“don

Posted by Neruda on Oct 12, 2005 at 9:20 AM

<i>NO one is saying that gays can

Posted by Jay Cline on Oct 12, 2005 at 10:04 AM

“NO one is saying that gays can

Posted by Neruda on Oct 12, 2005 at 10:30 AM

You do understand what a double standard is?

If it is alright to tell one group of people to just deal with it ( No one is saying the Religious Right have to send their children to public schools. - your words, not mine), then why is it not alright to tell another group to just deal with it?

Why do gays have rights to object and advocate a change in the law based on their beliefs and rights, but the religious right does not?

Rights apply universally, or not at all.

Posted by Jay Cline on Oct 12, 2005 at 10:47 AM

Specific issue, please respond.

Why is it wrong for parents to object to laws that allow their teenage girls to get abortions without parental notification? Why is it wrong to advocate for laws that require parental notification?

Posted by Jay Cline on Oct 12, 2005 at 10:49 AM

“Why do gays have rights to object and advocate a change in the law based on their beliefs and rights, but the religious right does not?”

Because gays are fighting for equal access and full participation and the religious right is fighting to deny gays equal access and full participation.

The fight for the right to equal access and full participation is not equivelant on any level with the fight for the right to deny someone equal access and full participation.

Posted by Neruda on Oct 12, 2005 at 10:54 AM

Do you not see how very stupid this example is?

Yes, exactly. That was my point.

Posted by Jay Cline on Oct 12, 2005 at 10:58 AM

“Why is it wrong for parents to object to laws that allow their teenage girls to get abortions without parental notification? Why is it wrong to advocate for laws that require parental notification?”

There is nothing wrong with advocating for parental notification.

However parent’s rights and responsibilities regarding their children must always be weighed against the rights of their children and the ability for adolescents to begin making important life choices.

Should a 16 or 17 year old girl have no reproductive rights?

What about cases of child abuse, rape?

Would parental notification laws lead to back alley abortions for teenage girls?

Here there is room for a conversation about the rigts of parents and the rights of their teenage girls. Here there is room for principled discussion about rights that doesn’t involve discriminating against a class of people based on theologically based prejudice. Here we are not talking about the right to equal access versus the right to deny equal access to a a class of people.

Posted by Neruda on Oct 12, 2005 at 11:12 AM

“That is the issue, people. No matter how much one accuses of me of obfuscast(ing) facts to draw facile and erroneous comparisons, isn

Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 12, 2005 at 1:15 PM

” In truth, there is no force on earth that can effectively forbid voluntary prayer as it is the silent act of an individual

Posted by David in Canada on Oct 12, 2005 at 1:31 PM

There is already enough coercive pressure on students, forcing them into prayer;  it’s called the pop math quiz.

Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 12, 2005 at 2:20 PM

Jay,

I agree with Kuya, Neruda, and Luminous Beauty and Rabbit too.

But I hope this helps you feel less alone.

I wish that there was no murder and violence. But there is and always will be. In this world at least.

I wish there was no rape, no unwanted pregancy and no abortion too. But there is and always will be. This world, again.

I hope for a better world here and now and believe in a better world for the next

We (should) have universal laws, and we (should) have personal morals that tell what is right and wrong. Sometimes the laws will conflict with the morals. It could not be otherwise.

Advocate for what you think is truth and justice but sometimes you have to tell yourself to let the wicked be wicked.

Free will exists.

Posted by David in Canada on Oct 12, 2005 at 2:53 PM

Jay, Thank you for patiently explaining to others that “viewpoint discrimination” against Christians endangers everyone’s freedom. Some posts clearly equate voting by Christians as a form of immoral behavior. The “enemy is us” description belongs to those who shout down anyone who disagrees, and who believe they are rational as they refuse to listen to the reasons why others disagree. Carry on, at least you are forcing some folks to justify their positions. The irony of the original article by Mr. Stern is that today’s liberals and leftists are the ones who see sexist, homosexual-killing, oppressive Islamofascists as “freedom fighters” and deny Jews the right to defend themselves. Also, he tosses in comments about christians but as you correctly observed, Fascism sought to corrupt power wherever it found it. Neither the Nazis nor the Communists were Christian, yet they were the greatest mass murderers in history. Those who congratulate themselves on their moral rectitude due to unbelief need to ask themselves whether they, too, have become friends of murder as they embrace anything opposed to Christ.

Posted by ScottAln on Oct 12, 2005 at 3:07 PM

“Thank you for patiently explaining to others that

Posted by Neruda on Oct 12, 2005 at 3:17 PM

“Neither the Nazis nor the Communists were Christian”

Have you never seen a history book?

Hitler wrote: “I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord..”

In addition Nazis were anti-communist. And Communist were themselved fanatical fundamentalists of a type.

Posted by Neruda on Oct 12, 2005 at 3:25 PM

Not defending what Scott said. I am not sure what Scott said.

But I would like to comment about this quote :

Hitler wrote:

Posted by David in Canada on Oct 12, 2005 at 4:05 PM

David,

I think what this quote illustrates is what happens when someone invokes religion to justify prejudice and impose an idealogy on a whole nation.

Posted by Neruda on Oct 12, 2005 at 4:20 PM

Neruda,

” This aspect of Christianity is best of it and yet it is the voices of fire and brimstone that dominate the current conversation. “

Exactly, I am pointing out the hypocrisy of some of the voices you refer to. Letting my little light shine.

” If you truly love others and Jesus loved then you don

Posted by David in Canada on Oct 12, 2005 at 5:33 PM

or conversely ..

Exactly, I am trying to include their participation and setting a good example for them. What else can I do? Beat them over the head with __________? Then I have become like them.

.. fair is fair. Any good words to fill in the blank?

Not trying to play both sides. More like playing another side.

Posted by David in Canada on Oct 12, 2005 at 5:57 PM

I have to say that I like your approach David.

As for the blank hmmm… can’t think of one now.

What is frustrating in these conversations is that passing leglisation the excludes is seen as merely a “viewpoint” not as the oppression that it is. What’s more frustrating is seeing religion used to justify that opression.

Posted by Neruda on Oct 12, 2005 at 6:12 PM

“viewpoint discrimination”

Scott said, ” Jay, Thank you for patiently explaining to others that

Posted by David in Canada on Oct 12, 2005 at 7:34 PM

Neruda,

You just said ” What

Posted by David in Canada on Oct 12, 2005 at 8:20 PM

I agree that there defintely are honest men trying to reclaim the ideals that we all have in common. And they need all the support they can get.

I also agree that the “other side” by which I take you to mean the “left” of someting like that. The difference is that for a long time churches have enjoyed a priveledged (tax free) role in our society. Part of that status came from the recognition that churches would not explicitly endorse candidates, particularly during elections. This has been part of the long existing seperation of church and state. It’s recognition of that the power that churches possess should not be turned into a political weapon.

“don’t forget these selfish oppressors too. The list is long and we are of accord on it”

I wasn’t sure if you were referring to the ones who are using religion to attack and suppress others.

Posted by Neruda on Oct 12, 2005 at 8:42 PM

Good point on the tax free privileges. Aren’t there some non profit orginizations on the “left” that enjoy tax free privileges too, ones that might endorse candidates or collect signatures for signing. Anyone from the “right” know of any?

Enough. Don’t like playing one side against the other. We are all on the same side. Or should be.

Besides, a non profit church that uses it’s resources to feed and shelter the poor and homeless is very different than TV evangelist who lives a life of luxury and vice.

The selfish oppressors are anyone that uses universal ideals to deny the universal ideals of others. Whatever side of the fence they might think they are on.

See the “Reckoning with the God Squad” thread where Bill Moyers writes ” My spiritual forbears did not take kindly to living under theocrats who embraced religious liberty for themselves but denied it to others.”

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2327/

Posted by David in Canada on Oct 12, 2005 at 9:12 PM

I see. Have you been enjoying these exchanges? Blog exchanges turned to verbal wrestling, complete with masked wrestlers.

The Moyers piece is great. He is clearly one of those men trying to reclaim the ideals we all share.

Posted by Neruda on Oct 12, 2005 at 9:23 PM

And I don’t think that churches or mosques or synangogues are necessarily right or left. I have never heard a pulpit endorsement at any church I have been to. Are all the people in churches or mosques or synangogues all robots marching in unison to whatever the fallible guy behind the pulpits tell them? They should not be.

Posted by David in Canada on Oct 12, 2005 at 9:24 PM

Definitely enjoying these exchanges.

But not for the sake of confrontation.

For better understanding of the issues all around.

Posted by David in Canada on Oct 12, 2005 at 9:27 PM

Verbal wrestling, as you say, is better than name calling, discrimination, oppression or worse.

How about you? Are you enjoying these exchanges? Learning anything? I sure am.

Posted by David in Canada on Oct 12, 2005 at 9:33 PM

Verbal wrestling can be a good mental workout.

Have been enjoying the discussions and I have been def been learning and thinking through issues.

Posted by Neruda on Oct 12, 2005 at 9:46 PM

Right on. We are taking the masks off.

Posted by David in Canada on Oct 12, 2005 at 9:58 PM

Thank Gaia Rabbit did not have to deal with all that rubbish Jay is still posting.

Did the Rabbit or did the Rabbit not tell folks this was a particularly stupid troll?  Some of them are so dull they have an ANTI-SHINE, they glow on the page in every posting.  Big NEON lights…..............I AM A SELF RIGHTEOUS WILLFULLY IGNORANT PEST…...............

The troll has an opinion about anything. Has anybody seen it produce any sort of a Factual reference, even un-sourced yet?

MONK.  Stop giving the damn troll a bone. It will only choke on it.  You are not helping it.

JAY is short for POPINJAY isn’t it?

Neruda and Kuya you are wise and reasoned and Luminous Beauty is…...... as always….......

There is simply no way of communicating with such an one, honestly is there?

We are not all on the same side. We are definately not all on the same side yet. If it was only about opinions and freedom of speech issues as the Troll and others even might pretend, but it is not.  The matters in reality are a reduction in security and rights and freedom and democracy.  As the Troll shows us, and we have seen the same dance of the dunce performed so amny times, have we not? The troll gives an object lesson in what is wrong with the USA. The troll says nothing is wrong with the USA./ It is the rest of the world that is and has always been wrong. You and Rabbit know the Troll is very wrong. The troll is the proof that something is wrong, its reasoning, or lack, its attitudes and beliefs, all absolutely insane.

You poor, poor Americans. Rabbit sincerely expresses his condolences on this fact, he truly means it. The fact is and many realise it too I guess, the Troll is the face of America to the world.  If you really want to understand, why the feelings in the world are as they are, regarding the USA, look no further than Troll, number 1,365,876, JAY CLINE.

Gruesome thought that this may be, most of us have an idea of the Generic American, which is not far removed from JAY, or SCORPY even.

It is thanks to the internet only that Rabbit knows that there are such fine and enlightened Americans as many who are represented on this site.  If this hasn’t occurred to you before, rabbit is sorry for the sadness this information is sure to bring. Hopefully it will help you to deal with DANGEROUS LUNATICS like him. 

Bad enough as it must be to have DUBYA fronting for your nation, the shocker must really be that the majority of the world only sees him as an uncommonly IGNORANT American, they assume that people like Jay Cline are TRUE BLUE AMERICANS.

You are are you not Jay Cline? You are the best American on this thread, tell the good people…..........

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 12, 2005 at 10:04 PM

Hi David and Neruda. Rabbit sees you in the grass.

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 12, 2005 at 10:09 PM

Nope Rabbit was wrong….that was last night-time here. .......................................Rabbit looking down at the ground, between his toes….........................thinks about it again…..............................his friends are down there…..............Rabbit looks up and sees the sun…....................................Soon that sun will leave Rabbit and go to his friends, down there…....................Rabbit looks down again…...............Such a clever world…...............hops away…....................^^...........................

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 12, 2005 at 10:13 PM

Reflecting upon Jay Cline’s point way upthread about abortion rights having a central place in the religion/state debate, plus other posts about condom hand-outs at school…

I actually do have misgivings about schools handing out condoms. The thing is, my own teens know that I’ll help them get condoms if by some bizarre circumstance they couldn’t get them, and I won’t throw them out of the family if they become sexually active (presuming their not at the moment, which I do believe they’d feel reasonably comfortable sharing, considering the status of our relationship). Not all teens have this security at home.

It does seem a bit far-fetched to say that a teen who wants to get it on needs to be able to access condoms at school. A generation ago I could get them at the drugstore easy as can be, it’s even easier today. When all one has to do is drop into the nearest Rite-Aid, why does school have to be the source for birth control technology?

This is meaningful to me because I’m a schoolteacher, and I would be very unhappy with a district-mandated responsibility to give out condoms. I think I have a different job than that, as a teacher. I also don’t prefer the scenario in which the school nurse hands them out. They’re not hard to get around town, hell you can mail order them in assorted colors and flavors.

I also have misgivings about abortion rights, and not because don’t see the outcome of prohibition (I used to live in Pakistan, where abortion is illegal and is always either literally back-alley, toxin-induced, or done by a handful of sleazy “doctors” in sickeningly unsterile conditions). But to paraphrase Robert Heinlein in “Time Enough For Love”, life is already cheap, and abortion just makes it cheaper.

Still, I know that if my wife, stepmom, or daughter were raped and wanted to terminate the fetus, I’d help. If my daughter had an untimely pregnancy, we’d help her out so she could keep the baby (yes, again, I already know many women can’t count on that support), but in the end she would be the one to decide. It’s the conundrum between the tragedy of an unwanted and potentially unloved baby (is there something sadder than that?), and the other tragedy of doltish attitudes about sex and flushing away potential children as if they were valueless. Also, I really do see a difference between early termination and waiting around 5 or 6 months to abort, because of the differences in neural development at varying stages of pregnancy (i.e. consciousness, pain perception, budding self-awareness).

Granting person-hood status to fetuses (or not) and therefore granting them equal protection (or not) is the point of contention, and I admit to having at least two minds about it.

Perhaps “morning after” drugs that clear the uterus extremely early in the pregnancy could avoid (or maybe just evade) this conundrum.

(continuing)

Posted by Kuya on Oct 12, 2005 at 11:59 PM

(to continue)

One thing I will say, though. I believe I own this body. If I can own anything at all, land or gold or my toothbrush, then I surely own this body as sole possessor. I think that the consciousness within it has sole charge of the meat-and-bone it rides in, whatever the true nature of that consciousness. I don’t ask permission of anyone about what I eat, drink, smoke, or do for sexual pleasure. If I decide it’s time for this body to die because it’s in chronic, unendurable pain, I’ll find a way to check out. And since I claim that right for myself I have to grant it to everyone else. I don’t like the fact that this enables things that I don’t like (abortion makes me sad, it says such ignoble things about people and their ability to count upon each other for support), but I can’t gainsay anyone in their decision about how they govern their own body on any grounds that I myself would accept if they tried to control the way I govern my own.

And so I prefer to keep abortion legal, and regulated, and sanitary. And EARLY! As for parents having rights over their children, maybe liberalized emancipation laws are a way to approach it, so that minors can claim for themselves the same rights I claim.

I can’t say this is a coherent argument, it’s not really an argument at all, but I was provoked to thought by the posts I mention so I wrote. I re-read what I’ve written and I’m not satisfied with it, but I’ll post it anyway because I think it links to the religion/state topic. Y’all can do with it as you will.

Posted by Kuya on Oct 13, 2005 at 12:00 AM

Yes, I know I also don’t own the body of a fetus that might be within me. A further conundrum. I also don’t own the bodies of the parasites I’d unhesitatingly kill if they were within me.

Christ, who seriously thinks of a baby-within as a parasite, that just fucking sick!

You can see this bit confuses and distresses me.

Posted by Kuya on Oct 13, 2005 at 12:06 AM

Kuya, these are not easy issues to find answers to in a personal sense. From the point of view of law, it should be there to safeguard our liberty above all. The right to decide with and about one’s own body is FUNDAMENTAL to life. Nobody grants that right, it just is.

The conundrums you mentioned at the end are there, but only if one fails to recognise the fundamental right of every individual to control their own body. It is this BIRTHRIGHT, which is what comes first.  Iit comes from birth, not before birth in Rabbit’s book. It is one thing to protect the life of an unborn child, but just as it’s blood and life are its mothers so its rights should be treated as an extension of the mother’s rights, until birth. Thereafter a just and enlightened society would consider the child as having entered life as an individual and as such owns certain rights as an individual.

The thing is a line has to be drawn. We cannot go on aguing which came first the chicken or the egg, which is otherwise what the debate about abortion is.  This is a reasonable and natural line to draw, and it answers the main conundrums (Different connundrums), like rape, mothers health etc which the RIGHT to LIFERS cannot answer.

A very personal example.

Many years ago Rabbit was a ‘Swagman’, a bum, for reasons we need not delve into at this time. While travelling he hitched up with a young Scandinavian girl, (Only 3 years younger) and we travelled together a bit. Rabbit and the girl did what Rabbits and girls do, and one fine occassion a condom failed catastrophically, with the result that she fell pregnant.  She was 19, and backbacking around Oz and NZ. Rabbit was just over a sad divorce and broke, no job no home, just a swag and a rifle.

We stayed together through the abortion, and it was hard for a few weeks especially, our relationship was very strained.  Eventually things settled down, we travelled on, eventually to Asia and on to her homeland in Denmark. There we were married and now twenty years later we have three beautiful and very talented children.

We had been married a few years and had jobs a home and prospects, even though we were not and never have been wealthy, there came a time where we both felt like breeding, and we did.

We have never regretted what we did, though she like Rabbit has an occassioanl wistful thought no doubt.  The thing to compare to is that we also lost two pregnancies in early stages as many couples do along the way. These were not treated and usually are not treated as “Deaths” in the normal sense of the word.

Sure there will be some who will feel emotionally otherwise, but emotion is not always right. Motherhood is a natural and universal experience. Mothers are the best to decide for themselves and the unborn child within them. Nobody else should ever be allowed to usurp that right.

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 13, 2005 at 1:08 AM

“Naturally the common people don’t want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, IT IS THE LEADERS of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is TELL THEM THEY ARE BEING ATTACKED, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. IT WORKS THE SAME IN ANY COUNTRY.”

Hermann Goering, President of the Reichstag,
Nazi Party, and Luftwaffe Commander in Chief,
from Gilbert, G.M. (1947). Nurenberg Diary, New York: Signet

——————————————————————
http://www.hermes-press.com/militarismindex.htm

“The current political-economic rulers in the U.S. and Europe have duped the people into thinking that war is a last resort which “we” must adopt when our national or bloc sovereignty is threatened or when a ruthless leader engages in “ethnic cleansing” or some other unspeakable act.

    The “National Defense State” scam works this way in the U.S.:

Congress sinks huge sums into the “defense” budget.

Congress transfers the money to the Pentagon and the Pentagon distributes our tax money to the various defense industries.

Corporate executives “buy” congresspersons and presidents.
        This process gives controlling-interest owners of corporations outrageous profits and control over the government. “

———————————————————————-
The link is a good article. Perspective, graphs and pictures.

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 13, 2005 at 2:56 AM

It too involves a history lesson, the most relevant link to the thread so far…............Thinks Rabbit.  Again…...

http://www.hermes-press.com/militarismindex.htm

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 13, 2005 at 2:58 AM

Kuya and Rabbit, thank you for bringing to the surface the complexity of issues involved in abortion rights and teen abortions. It is only in the details that the failings of moral absolutism become clear.

Perhaps part of the answer lay in the distinction between the fetus at different stages of development. My understanding is that many European countries make this distinction in their laws. And clearly the morning after pill is one way to approach the issue.

Teen abortions add yet another layer. Because of such relevant questions as when teens are able to make these choices and what the alternatives are. It is a demonstration of empathy that you can understand the situation facing kids whose parents do not offer the openness and support that you offer your own. Perhaps it’s time to think of graded rights as kids age as opposed to the no rights and then your 18 and now you have most all rights.

Kuya, your misgivings about schools handing out condoms are well taken. Perhaps for kids in smaller towns or too afraid to buy condoms at a pharmacy the compromise is school nurses. It’s not ideal but at least it means that teachers are not tackling issues that are clearly beyond the scope of their role as teachers and kids have access to condoms from someone who can give them the condoms and some information.

I wonder what you thoughts are about sex ed in schools. Of late, I have begun to think that we should begun introducing delayed onset as an option. It seems obvious that teachers should provide info on sexual development, sexuality, and on the research that looks at how teens have been expressing their sexuality and the impact of that form of expression on their lives. Teachers should discuss STIs, pregnancy, forms of protection, abstinence as and option and also delaying onset until a specified set of criteria are met.

I taught a college level class on adolescent development and one student discussed her mother’s approach. Her mother advised her to make sure her first time was something she would want to remember and the best way to ensure that was in the context of a relationship where she loved and admired her partner and felt that she in turn was loved and admired. The student took the advice and at 16 had her first sexual experience with her then boyfriend (had been together 6 months or so). She felt that she really could look back on this experience with fondness not regret.

What does all of this have to do with the articel we started commenting on? I suppose it goes back to the idea that the search for easy answers and a facile morality leads to dangerous absolutism. That respecting individual choice means recognizing their right to make choices that you would not make. It has to do with making a distinction between the right to voice disagreement and the right to impose our perspective through oppessive legislation.

Posted by Neruda on Oct 13, 2005 at 7:59 AM

Moral absolutism is exactly what comprises the “EASY ANSWERS” so ironically referred to by JAY CLINE. 

We have discussed details which make it patently obvious there are no easy answers, but Fundamentalist Cowards would like to believe there is always an easy answer. Theirs.

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 13, 2005 at 6:12 PM

by Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers
by Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers

US President Harry S. Truman, with consent of his top brass, ordered the atomic bombings of Japan in order to save one million US lives. The Japanese were fascists. They were religious fanatics who worshipped the emperor as their God and were prepared to fight to the death. This was evidenced by the Kamikaze pilots and vicious fighting in Saipan and Okinawa. The annual Hiroshima and Nagasaki commemorations are exercises in blame-shifting and obfuscation; the fact is that WW II in Asia and the Pacific was a war between aggressive Japan and everyone else, and in each case, Japan was the aggressor. Japan attacked the United States first.

~ An average US history professor

What a bunch of post-war revisionist nonsense. The above statement is pure US government propaganda. It contains almost as many outrageous lies as it does individual words. The only part of this statement that is absolutely true is, “US President Harry S. Truman ordered the atomic bombings.” This drivel, in many forms, has been repeated again and again to US schoolchildren over these past 60 some years to the point that even some (supposedly educated) US scholars have begun to repeat the mantra. This lie has been so overblown that, recently, the absurd amount of “saved lives” has ballooned from “one million lives” to “two million lives” to even the point where President George W. Bush has stretched it to “millions of lives.” At this rate, by the year 2025, the atomic bombings will have saved 20 million lives. America, this is a lie. It

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 13, 2005 at 7:26 PM

By the way. Lest anybody forget, Rabbit is an Aussie. His Grandfather fought the Japanese and Rabbit has not been brought up to love the Japanese.

In truth Rabbit does not love the Japanese. As tourists they are as arrogant and almost as insensitive as Americans. They seem to Rabbit to suffer some deformity of soul as a people, around some rather gross expressions of sexuality. That is the best Rabbit can describe something which he feels is well represented by the Japanese cult films, “Weather Girl”. 

We had a lot of diggers at war with them and our country was bombed the only times in its history by the Japanese. Rabbit has known a few, who were in Japanese POW camps.  This must be taken into account when the above link is read. Despite all this Rabbit accepts that the article which is sourced above is a good representation of the truth.  Things just are not so black and white, you may wish they were, but they are not.

Rabbit knows that those who survive the US torture and POW camps for UN-POWS will not tell a kinder story of their time in US captivity, than our POWS tell of the Japanese. There are some good stories about Japanese soldiers and guards too and there will be some good stories told one day about US guards at Guantanamo Bay.  Maybe.  We are not talking about the USA in WWII, we are talking about GITMO and ABU GHRAIB, and hundreds of other such camps actually, which you have probably never even heard named.

Do you know how many other torture and prison camps the USA has?  Do you imagine they are just two, because that is all the MSM has bothered to focus on?

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 13, 2005 at 7:41 PM

More from Mike Rogers

“Japan attacked the United States first.”

“If you mean that the Japanese bombed the military base of Pearl Harbor, before the US bombed the Japanese, then this is a difficult question to answer (see #1 below). If you mean that Japan committed acts of war against the United States first, then the answer is a definitive, “No!” The United States committed at least two acts of war under international law against Japan before December 7, 1941. They were:

US military pilots

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 13, 2005 at 8:41 PM

Rabbit raises some ugly truths. Some truths we would rather not look at here in the U.S.

And I am convinced that Americans will only see the greatness of our country and it’s founding ideals when we can honestly face the truth of our history.

too much “my country right or wrong” and not enough I want to right my country.

What we need is a gigantic mirror.

Posted by Neruda on Oct 13, 2005 at 8:53 PM

Only half jestfully….................If you want a gigantic mirror, look no further than POTUS, and how he got where he got…........

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 13, 2005 at 9:56 PM

Some sympathy please.

But how long do you think it will be before the majority of the country finally starts to see that?

Posted by Neruda on Oct 13, 2005 at 10:18 PM

The majority of the country?  When its too late.

Here is a new one in from Iraq.

“Iraqis apprehend two Americans disguised as Arabs trying to detonate a car bomb in a residential neighborhood of western Baghdad’s al-Ghazaliyah district on Tuesday.
 
A number of Iraqis apprehended two Americans disguised in Arab dress as they tried to blow up a booby-trapped car in the middle of a residential area in western Baghdad on Tuesday.
 
Residents of western Baghdad’s al-Ghazaliyah district told Quds Press that the people had apprehended the Americans as they left their Caprice car near a residential neighborhood in al-Ghazaliyah on Tuesday afternoon (11 October 2005). Local people found they looked suspicious so they detained the men before they could get away. That was when they discovered that they were Americans and called the Iraqi puppet police.
 
Five minutes after the arrival of the Iraqi puppet police on the scene a large force of US troops showed up and surrounded the area. They put the two Americans in one of their Humvees and drove away at high speed to the astonishment of the residents of the area.
 
Quds Press spoke by telephone with a member of the al-Ghazaliyah puppet police who confirmed the incident, saying that the two men were non-Arab foreigners but declined to be more precise about their nationality”

http://iraqwar.mirror-world.ru/article/66432

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 13, 2005 at 11:47 PM

Thanks Neruda and Rabbit for your responses to my post above, I always end up adding my own responses at big intervals within the threads because I have to fit in my visits to ITT among many other tasks.

I also prize rights, and certainly believe that any society worthy of a half-grain of loyalty from anybody must be one in which a number of pre-assumed rights ought to be part of its cultural and legal fabric. Sexual rights are always a big subject of debate when religion is being addressed, perhaps because it’s so vitally bound up in life itself (being the source of new life, as well as being connected to issues like family, morality, are, and sublime joy).

Neruda, you asked my take on sex ed in school. I have no problem with it since it has obvious links to health, culture, ethics, medicine, psychology, and other things that are common currency in schools. Also, it’s obvious that ill-informed people are more likely to make ill-informed decisions, although it cannot be assumed that well-informed people make smart choices. Humans are notorious with their dipshit choices, smart as they believe themselves to be. Even the values that govern sexual choices can be discussed in classrooms, although best if it’s elder middle school and high school, i.e. able to somewhat comprehend the subtleties of the issue (as if adults could be relied upon to comprehend them). This would include the issues surrounding hetero/homosexuality

(side note: Americans seem so hung up on who other people fuck, it’s really bizarre to witness).

I teach social studies/psych/anthro to high school kids, topics are in-bounds that range far and wide and that include sex-related issues. I forbid insults and bullying, but kids can say what they really think on the occasion that sensitive topics arise. Respectful listening is an expectation; generally disagreements or clashes of values are dealt with amicably. Not always, but there’s no rancor, insofar as I can control for it.

Once in a great while a parent will question me about sensitive topics that are discussed in my classes, so far they’ve been able to see that I don’t have a proselytizing agenda. However I do make clear that I feel free to question what kids say and to make them self-reflect to whatever extent I can convince them to do it. Little is sacrosanct, in my class, and very few kids (or their parents) get too badly provoked by my methods.

I’ll still be wrestling with the abortion question though. Neither answer (legal or prohibited) quite satisfies. True, a line has to be defined, but no matter which side of the line I imaginatively place myself on, I still feel discontent. There is a part of me that wants new life to always be welcomed for the lovely miracle that it is, but I also know that despite the propaganda, few people really think human life is sacred. They (we) certainly don’t act as if we believed that. And people really don’t take very good care of each other, either. If they did, maybe the issue of abortion wouldn’t exist because it would never occur to anyone to terminate, whatever the circumstances of the pregnancy.

How’s that for some utopian thinking? “Utopia” means “no place”, eh?

It’s just a personal quandry, stemming from my spiritual curiosities and theistic attitudes clashing with my political philosophy emphasizing rights and freedoms, but anyway I appreciate your thoughtful replies.

Posted by Kuya on Oct 14, 2005 at 12:57 AM

that’s “family, morality, art, and sublime joy”

typo, typo, typo…

Posted by Kuya on Oct 14, 2005 at 12:58 AM

As the first poster for this article, I wanted to apologise for my absence after my second post. I was perplexed by Jay Cline’s oblique and off-the-topic comments and then things just went all over the place with topics reflecting America’s hang-ups about religion, personal lifestyles, sexual persuasion, teenage sex, etc.

It is fascinating to see how the first country to establish the separation of church and state as law (a VERY respectable achievement indeed!) has the biggest problem with the issue today - and is doing more to undermine the principle than any other “liberal democracy”. Legal separation of church and state as the long-term breeder of religious fundamentalism? Perhaps a good topic for a doctoral dissertation or two in political science…

As someone who lives in a society virtually without religion (I’d guess that 80 to 90 per cent of the population of the former East Germany is atheist or agnostic), I personally find it very unfair to poison children’s minds and spirits with the fears, closemindedness and bigotry of religious dogma. Obviously, society cannot prevent parents doing this, but this makes it so very, very important that schools maintain a strictly secular stance both on issues of science and morality/philosophy to achieve some balance. Unfortunately, we here have had the West German system shoved down our throats post-unification, which allows for religious instruction in schools, but it is limited to religion class, which is not a core subject (i.e. the marks don’t really count for anything) and it is optional - the vast majority opt out.  (On an aside: many on the left argue here that public schools should also provide Islamic religious instruction to the millions of Turkish children here as a counterbalance to the more radical forms they are often confronted with in the Koran schools they attend after school - perhaps there is something to this, I don’t know…)

I personally have nothing against religion (this does not include religious institutions!) and though I was brought up an atheist, I find myself wondering more and more - the older I get - whether the universe might in fact have come into existence through something other than accident. In fact, I find myself more open to various religious musings on mysticism, reincarnation, etc. than most Christians I know, whose minds, seemingly, were closed for them as children. The point I wish to make is this: religion, like pornography, is fine and good, but for adults (and teens) only. I don’t think it is fair to burden children with questions of the meaning of life, moral guilt, etc.

Posted by Anarcho-Sozi on Oct 14, 2005 at 4:38 AM

My original post referred to the final three paragraphs of Stern’s article. Without really coming right out and saying it, he seems to be implying that German democracy is in danger and that close cooperation with America could be the guarantee that we won’t slip back into the ways of our fascist past…

The purpose of my first post was to say: this would be an unbelievable insinuation. Not only does Stern offer no basis whatsoever for this potential accusation (which, again, he does not express directly): if there is one country on earth at the moment that should NOT be lecturing others on the nature of democracy, it is the American Empire.

Stern mentions the “serious flaws and shortcomings” of Germany’s democracy without naming them. Obviously, no democracy is perfect, but the reader craves to know what, specifically, he had in mind. And does he admit that American democracy also has serious flaws and shortcomings? I wonder what he has to say about electronic voting (especially when the CEO of the company that owns the software views his main task as delivering his state (Ohio) to Bush - and there is no way to check the results), or the third-world-style goings-on in Florida in 2000 and the third-reich-style decision by the Supreme Court to stop the vote-recounting and hand the election to W. Does he have an opinion on what the British call the “first-past-the-post” system, which virtually guarantees that no third party can ever be successful (and, ultimately, that the two parties are more or less identical - both whores to the real power in the land). Put differently, does it bother him perhaps that when 10 per cent of Germans vote for the Greens then the Greens have 10 per cent of the seats in parliament and when 10 per cent of Germans vote for the party called “the Left” then they have 10 per cent of the seats? (In Europe, we call this proportional representation - seems pretty democratic to me. Obviously unimaginable in the American or UK systems - where extremely large minority stances can, in principle, be entirely without representation in government.)

I wonder what Stern thinks of other structural aspects of American democracy such as the fact that the half million citizens of Wyoming have the same say in the more powerful of the two houses of congress (the senate) as the 30 million Californians? (I’m being generous and unrealistic here in that I’m assuming citizens have anything to say whatsoever - in contrast to the corporations and special interests that buy the politicians (and the advertising people and mainstream media who sell them to the public just like they sell toothpaste, to quote Chomsky).

Running out of steam here ... end of post.

Posted by Anarcho-Sozi on Oct 14, 2005 at 4:42 AM

Anarcho-Sozi

Rabbit was living in Danmark (Jutland) from 1987 to 1992. Travelled often across the border to Germany, but was not there for the “WALL”.  In fact though I was involved in an argument with a Danish friend the night before the announcement and I swear the topic was German re-unification.  Rabbit argued strenuously that he expected it would be very soon and the friend said no way. The point I was also making was that it would happen in one of two ways, each meaning something totally different overall.  If it was announced and then proceeded with a series of meetings and discussions of a number of years, maybe up to a decade, then it was good and natural and would be a sign of positive growth in the world.  If on the other hand, it was announced as a fait accompli or if the process was completed in a very short time, say a year or two at most, then this would be a BAD sign. to achieve such a thing would have required many secret meetings having already taken place between VERY powerful people, and this never bodes well for the rest of us.

The NEXT day, the news broke, and the rest is history.

Rabbit was a keen fisherman and lived only a hundred meters from Gudena (A major River) where he often went to fish for Pike, Perch and Eels.  Especially in the summer Rabbit met many other people, often visitors from Germany, Holland, Other scandinavian countries etc.  Quite incredible some of the people I met over time, some very remarkable people.

On a couple of occassions I bumped into groups of East Germans.  This was a very interesting experience for Rabbit.  They referred to themselves as EAST Germans, and when questioned on it explained thye situation, basically that they were getting the rough end of the pineapple in the deal. They were basically a ready made, lower class. Shitkickers for the West Germans. The biggest difference they saw from the whole process was now they knew what they didn’t have. The idea that they were now on an equal footing with the west was rubbish.  This has affected Rabbit’s view of the whole thing ever since, but it occurs to me that this was not long after the re-unification.

Is it still a valid claim Anarcho?  By the way Rabbit is an Anarcho-socialist himself.

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 14, 2005 at 6:31 PM

Obviously Rabbit was in Danmark when the Wall came down, bare ikke i Tyskland.

Your comments about USA in relation to German Democracy, as an example/partner, or not…....., are similar to Rabbit’s views.

Both Germany and Japan are looking better on the democratic front than the USA, at the moment. The USA is more likely to drag them down if it has any say on their continued development. 

The bigger picture remains that they are none of them, Governments, doing things in OUR best interests. WE being the PEOPLE, the CITIZENS who pay the bills. The taxes and the BUTCHER’s bill on War Day.

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 14, 2005 at 7:35 PM

This has been a wide ranging discussion, from international geopolitics to intimate life details. The subject of the article was international geopolitics, of course.

Reading the article and all the posts, one would think that fascism was the biggest, baddest thing that happened in the Twentieth Century.  One would be wrong.

Before there was fascism there was socialism, and after fascism was dead and discredited, socialism continued.  Fascism in Europe probably caused 6-9 million deaths of innocents, besides the military casualties.  Socialism world-wide resulted in close to 100 million deaths of civilians.  The end of the Soviet Union was a great victory for freedom and a release from the threat of arbitrary death and destruction for millions.  But socialism continues its destructive path in Europe even now, and within the USA when Liberals are able to achieve political power. 

With absolutely no evidence, Liberals attempt to identify Conservatives as fascists.  But a more accurate association would be the conflation of Liberals-progressives-socialists-communists into a single political spectrum, varying only in degree.  In real capabilities, socialism is a much greater threat than a few religious terrorists.  Communism may be damaged, but it is not sufficiently dead and discredited.  For tactical reasons we may have to deal with the religious terrorists first, but the real destructive power and the real enemy is socialism.

Posted by scorp on Oct 15, 2005 at 8:10 PM

Wow, folks!  We’ve got a real nastie in the house.  This tune’s for you scorpy-baby:

Well, John the Baptist after torturing a thief
Looks up at his hero the Commander-in-Chief
Saying, “Tell me great hero, but please make it brief
Is there a hole for me to get sick in?”

The Commander-in-Chief answers him while chasing a fly
Saying, “Death to all those who would whimper and cry”
And dropping a bar bell he points to the sky
Saying, “The sun’s not yellow it’s chicken”

B. Dylan

Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 15, 2005 at 8:34 PM

Scorpy you are a FASCIST and your posts have long since become one track spleen venting bombast.

Go back and read the things which have been posted to you, check the links and get off on shame as must be your game.

All your real enemies have dissapeared, up your backside, where they came from in the first place, you ignorant BUSH TOADIE.  They all stand behind you in ranks, waiting for you to lead the way. Lead them into the fire and brimstone like a good moron would.

Bet you were the second choice of the beastmen after Bush.

Sick Scorpy.

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 15, 2005 at 9:21 PM

GhostRabbit,
  Your last post has a lot of name-calling.  It has nothing of substance, however.

Posted by chopper on Oct 16, 2005 at 9:10 PM

This is true Chopper, but if that is all you have to say on the subject then it must be the only post you have read. When you have found out why Rabbit calls the Scorpy a Fascist, maybe then you can make a sound judgement.

The history of this thread will show that much of substance has been put up by Rabbit and others, Scorpy has done no more than rant, ignore everything sent his way and generally be everything he is called in MY last post.

Actually the post describing Scorpy is probably generous.

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 16, 2005 at 9:58 PM

Another thing Chopper, who is rarely seen but this doesn’t mean he is not online but silent, Scorpy has been dodging around the place and LB and Rabbit are mostly dealing with him on other threads. This one is not one of his main stomping grounds yet.

Like Rabbit says, excuse the last short Namecalling for itslef, it is the followup to a lot of experience with the Scorp. It is being assumed that you either know nothing of Scorpy or you have as said not seen his ranting the past week.

It has not even occurred to Rabbit that you would be his mate, but we’ll see in your next post.

This thread is about history and many have found relevance in the comparison of the rise and fall of Nazi germany to the rise and impending fall of the Neo-Con America.

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 16, 2005 at 10:04 PM

I’ve been holding back on the supreme irony (or smoking gun?) that Leo Strauss, the root guru of the Neo-Cons, was one of those bourgeois German Jews that supported Hitler.  He even applied for a position in the Nazi government.  The Straussian political philosophy is identical to Fascism with the minor caveat of the racist component being transfered from anti-semitism to anti-islam.

Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 17, 2005 at 7:36 AM

If he did it must have been very early, as he fled Germany in 1934, as opposed to Heidegger (who seems to be a darling of some leftists) who did become a Nazi.

Posted by chopper on Oct 17, 2005 at 4:55 PM

Rabbit hadn’t thought of that in this context but knows of this, indeed it is an irony.  Sadly conservatives do not comprehend Irony. 

Sometimes Rabbit thinks Conservatives could be called IRONISTS.

They really are a repulsive bunch these Neo-cons.  The bastards have usurped the Name LIBERAL in Oz which is another IRONY.

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 17, 2005 at 6:27 PM

“Conservatives do not comprehend Irony”.  Rabbit, leftists don’t comprehend humor at all.

Posted by chopper on Oct 17, 2005 at 7:51 PM

The last statement is not really fair, as most blanket statements are not.  I was responding to an absurd blanket statement that Rabbit made.  Obviously, some leftists comprehend humor, just as many conservatives comprehend irony.

Posted by chopper on Oct 17, 2005 at 7:56 PM

Strauss never actually fled Germany.  He took a series of academic posts that took him from France to England to the US.  It was while he was in France, I believe, when he asked Carl Schmitt to help him secure a government job in Germany.  Schmitt arranged to get him a Rockefeller grant instead.

It’s not that conservatives are particularly humorless or unable to perceive the form of irony.  They are just hapless at combining the two.  If leftists had no sense of humor, they all would have blown their brains out a long time ago.

Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 17, 2005 at 8:20 PM

Rabbit never met a conservative that comprehended irony, nope.  Irony may be distantly understood by some of them, but most no. They could describe it, they can read dictionaries of course…Of course generalisations can be picked arpart on the details. But for every example of an ironically aware conservative Rabbit will find ten examples of Ironically blind conservatives.  It is a generalisation, but it is nonetheless accurate as one.

Actually it is “generally” accepted among English speaking countries, that Anericans are low on satire comprehension.

An example of how tragic the consequences of the recent Hitchikers guide to the Galaxy, dumbed down rubbish.

Having the original BBC version on Video and the books on the shelves allowed Rabbit to recover from the half assed slapstick, dumbed down rubbish served up by hollywood.  We are udes to seeing American comedy as being pretty lame, fart jokes are still cool to you guys as often as not, for gods sake look at Seinfeld. That is supposed to be a comedian?  Rabbit has sat through a few runs of the guy and he is not funny! He is embarrassing, lame and slapstick in monologue.

Americans have repeatedly seen some of our and Britains best satire and taken it seriously.

Ali G

Crocodile Dundee

Kath and Kim

These are all Satire yet they recieved reviews in the USA that showed the Americans had failed to see most of the satire. They were merely judged on their slapstick merits, which even the pommies are long since over.

That sort of humour went the way of Benny Hill.

Now he was very funny in his day. Now days Benny Hill is not at all funny. In fact his form of humour is quite sad and embarrassing these days.

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 17, 2005 at 9:07 PM

Can Chopper see the Irony inherant in all the arguments being put forward to justify the US militant stance at present? 

When a party can be led by a man who says that freedom and democracy must be protected by reducing freedoms and democracy at home and attacking other nations, it cannot claim to be able to recognise Irony.  When a court appointed and unpopular president can threaten to remove a democratically elected president in a peaceful neighboring country, for the sake of Democracy, then somebody somewhere is not aware of Irony, and it starts with the Conservatives, because Baby, he’s YOUR CHIMP.

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 17, 2005 at 9:18 PM

Another great article:

“Americans spend $450 billion annually on defense, which is nearly as much as all of the world

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 18, 2005 at 3:23 AM

Greetings, Rabbit. Yes, I detected a soulmate in you right from the start. I happened upon this website via a link in a Counterpunch article, the only American source I read regularly. I think I’ll hang around for a while. It’s important to keep in touch with some level-headed citizens of the Empire in these globalised days - at least until we’ve given “globalisation” a new and human face. And then Americans will be - whether they like it or not - no more important than you and me and the rest of us…

The west-east divide in reunified Germany is a very complex topic - and this is probably not the place to get into it. In answer to your question, yes, you were pretty much right on the mark with your analysis back then. After unification, the federal privatization agency was going to turn our large state-owned (or

Posted by Anarcho-Sozi on Oct 18, 2005 at 3:26 AM

Who IS this guy Scorp??? The bullshit coming off his keyboard is older than my long-dead grandmother’s socks. It can’t possibly be worth our while to respond to any of this here, can it? American ignorance of history is well-known, but 8 to 9 million non-military deaths in WWII??? What planet is he living on? Socialism as the world’s greatest evil? We should have let the Morgans and the Rockefellers take over the world completely (as opposed to more-or-less completely, as things have turned out)? Is Scorp not aware of the proud socialist tradition of struggle in his own country? Has Scorp never read Howard Zinn’s “People’s History of the United States”???

Posted by Anarcho-Sozi on Oct 18, 2005 at 3:38 AM

Det er vel nok flot, med din Dansk. Rabbit can laese Tysk, mere eller mindre.  Det med at tale forskellig sprog kommer bag om Americanerne, men det er shove at vise dem at det kan lad sig gore.  Rabbit burde maske vaer Kanin, pa Dansk men det lyder underligt..

Scorpy is a RIGHT WING NUT. He may in fact be a Government shill, he has certain things in common with known SHILLS, not least his tactics. He gets the false details in too good an order and holds a couple of views which would not fit a normal dittohead even. They are however views which are being pushed by the US government. So he is likely an up to date shill.

Scorpy is also a complete Idiot, but you can see that.

Rabbit sticks mostly to taunting him these days. He isn’t worth responding to in deatil because as you can see he just repeats standard lines and without reference to sources or anything serious which is posted in reply. 

Give him a few wacks with a Good stick and he soon moves on. He regularly packs it in and runs away, only to pop up somewhere else to start all over as if he just came down in the last rain shower.  This si a funny little site.  The articles are not too prolific to keep up with and there is some exceptionally enlightened company to be found.

There are also a couple of entertaining Morons, a wicked little Troll or two and one or more very committed shills.

Not to mention, at least one maybe another soon, conservative who is evolving somewhat. An interesting process in itself.

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 18, 2005 at 6:37 PM

Well Rabbit, I suppose you are writing about the Patriot Act (certainly not flawless, but not nearly as bad as some of the more hysterical would have us believe) and Chavez and Venezuela.  Bush hasn’t actually threatened to remove Chavez, Chavez just keeps saying he has. 

For the record, I didn’t like Seinfeld, I thought Benny Hill was great, and real leftists I’ve actually known are generally a humorless lot.  And it is truly ironic that the only American source your “soulmate” reads was founded by an aging Stalinist.  Communism will never die, because no matter how bad it is in real life it is such a beautiful idea!  Just as there will always be anarcho-socialists, (or libertarian-socialists, or whatever) because it is such a lovely floating abstraction.

Posted by chopper on Oct 18, 2005 at 8:00 PM

Anarcho-socialism is what we will be left with when people with delusions have finished screwing up the planet.

Thankyou for identifying your stance so effectively, your last post tells a lot to the well informed.

Benny Hill was only used as an example that Americans probably thought funny once. Actually he was not funny he was a rude and embarrassing slapper.  You would not understand Leftists humour, it is above fart jokes and slapstick more often than not.

We laugh at a lot more than you, but we do laugh at you too. There are few more extraordinary examples of Ironic Humour, Self satire, than Conservatives in America who are still talking as it it is 1984, and that everything they say is not a farce, compared to the realoity which surrounds them.

Once we found it tragic, but now that so many Americans are waking up to the Hubris and Delusions, we are all able to share in the JOKE that is you clowns.  Horrible and destructive as it all is, we can yet laugh at the ludicrous rhetoric and hysterical slogans which make up “Your Beliefs”.

Naturally you would not see the humour in it.

You have probably not known to many “Leftists” in your life from the sound if it. You probably once thought they lived under your bed.

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 18, 2005 at 9:05 PM

Chopper you are factually wrong about Bush and the USA not being actively engaged in threatening Venezuala.

What planet are you living on?
This is the latest, by the way.

http://tinyurl.com/7jdj7

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 18, 2005 at 9:09 PM

I know, you don’t think the invasion of Iraq, or th upcoming invasion of Venezuala and attacks on Iran have anything to do with oil do you?

You think it is all about a War On Terror don’t you? 

Counterpunch is not bad at all, as any educated person knows.  Aging Stalinist?  Reds are under the Bed…Chopper….go find em boy….

Anarcho-sozi

Rense.com is one of the best news sites, they include the full spectrum of news, do have some writers in-house, but mostly just good sourcing of relevant news.  Maybe you are familiar anyway. It was via Rense Rabbit came by here. Landed on the Radioactive Wounds of War thread and stayed for the show.  Rabbit does wander about from time to time, here and there on the web.

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 18, 2005 at 9:22 PM

Name-calling, name-calling, Chopper. Go for the messenger, not the message, right? Nobody here is making anything out of the fact that so many neo-cons are self-confessed former Trotskyites…

You are referring to Alexander Cockburn, of course. I’ve been reading Counterpunch for a few years now and have never read anything smacking of Stalinism. I really have no interest in defending the publicaton, though. I read it just because one has only limited time for American sources, and it’s semi-mainstream in the non-MSM area, i.e. recognised as a “standard” of sorts… The only reason I mentioned it was so others could judge what “informational background” I was coming from.

Kaninchen (bzw. Karnickel - klingt auf Deutsch nat

Posted by Anarcho-Sozi on Oct 19, 2005 at 1:57 AM

chopper:

Glad to see you’ve finished licking your wounds and are back in the fray.  Have you checked out ‘Rhapsody in August, yet?  How about the Hayek essay?  I posted the entire thing on this thread.  Did you read it?  Have you checked out Political Compass.  How did you do?
The Wilbur book?  Here is a website that might give you a clue:

http://integralinstitute.org/

You said you have somewhat exotic tastes, well here you go.  Revel in the exotica.

Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 19, 2005 at 7:41 AM

http://www.politicalcompass.org/

It’s cool, everybody.  Check it out.

Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 19, 2005 at 7:42 AM

chopper:

It is amusing that you think that the worker’s co-op that I’m associated with, which did over $5M in business in the last fiscal year, the co-housing collective which keeps my basic living expenses below $400/mo. and the local Food Not Bombs group of kids I help are lovely floating abstractions.

Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 19, 2005 at 8:16 AM

PROOF that lefty Yanks aren’t totally humorless!!!

http://tinyurl.com/9vy7h

Kaninchen,  do you get The Daily Show Down Under?

Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 19, 2005 at 11:43 AM

“Kaninchen” - Ich liebe es. Danke Anarcho-Sozi.

Luminous Beauty - Kannst du Deutsch? .. or are you just enjoying the new name for Rabbit as much as I am?

Posted by David in Canada on Oct 19, 2005 at 3:32 PM

Luminous Beauty - Thanks for the Little Pony Story. It made me laugh. The comments even more so.

.. and I think that everyone has some sort of sense of humour (and irony). Some can see it in others, some themselves too.

Posted by David in Canada on Oct 19, 2005 at 4:55 PM

RE : http://www.politicalcompass.org/

I am sitting next to Ghandi.

Your political compass
Economic Left/Right: -6.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.85

Thanks Luminous Beauty. It was cool.

Posted by David in Canada on Oct 19, 2005 at 5:21 PM

RE : http://www.politicalcompass.org/

My political compass
Economic Left/Right: -2.38
Social Libertatian/Authoritatian: -5.23

Not sure who I am sitting next to.

My thanks also Luminour Beauty. Quite fun.

Posted by Neruda on Oct 19, 2005 at 6:32 PM

Bitte schoen, meinen Freunden.  Ja, ich lese eines bisschen Deutsch.

You are right again, David.  About the basic humanity of humor.  As has been said:

“Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps, for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be.”

William Hazlitt

I tested at -7,-7;  Emma Goldman country.

Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 19, 2005 at 8:11 PM

Thinking of Hazlitt reminded me of the Russian take on Hobbes:

Life is cruel…but brief.

Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 19, 2005 at 8:36 PM

Rabbit did it.

Rabbit is sitting just to the right of Ghandi.

Economic Left/Right: -3.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.28

Definately the right side to be an Anarcho-Socialist.

We don’t get the Daily Show down-under, but Rabbit has seen a bit on the net.

Luminous Beauty, I am not prepared to accept humour is unique to Humans.  Parrots are full of fun and tricks and Rabbit has known a few that play tricks and are so obviously laughing about the result.  Cats have a cynical sense of humour and Dogs ahave a goofy slapstick sense of humour.  Dolphins have been seen to play tricks and apparently laugh about it, and I’m not referring to the permanent and deceptive smile on their dials.

Rabbit’s have a sense of humour. I have seen wild ones fooling about and obviously just kidding each other.  Our Dwarf Rex Rabbit is a riot sometimes.  He likes to spring out from under a coffee table grabbing an ankle or foot, then dahses back again, looking pleased as punch with himself.  He also goes berserk when someone uses the bench for sit-ups.  He seems to think that it is just made for fun.  Start the sit-ups and he starts running round and round in circles, jumping over us in the prone position and sitting so that your head lands on him, which makes one react in surpirse. Once when we washed him in a tub, the cat sat and watched with the biggest smile on her face, I swear she was amused. To her he was suffering immensely, since she isn’t fond of water. 

When we had the farm, the Pigs were often showing apparent humour. The piglets would run under the wire and tear about all over the farm. As they got bigger they soon learnt what they were not meant to dig up. So sure enough they would dig that area up and then when they’d see us coming to chase them, off they’d run and it wasn’t hard to imagne that all that delighted squealing was giggling kids. 

Not so sure about the Sheep, but there were times when I suspected they were amused. Once when chasing them on the motorbike I ended up in a small muddy dam, SPLAT.  The amount of Baa-ing and running about in circles that followed as they watched me climbing up out of the mud had to be laughter.

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 19, 2005 at 9:13 PM

Thomas Hobbes - Leviathan

“solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short”

Thank God.

Posted by David in Canada on Oct 19, 2005 at 9:22 PM

Oh!  I’m with you, Rabbit.  In fact, I declare, Humans are just another kind of critter.  Many the dog I have known with more wit than his master.  Hazlitt was relatively enlightened for the 18th Century, especially next to Hobbes.

Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 19, 2005 at 9:32 PM

.. but I try to be neighborly, generous, happy, selfless, and long ..

You can’t always get what you want.

Sometimes you do.

Thank God.

Posted by David in Canada on Oct 19, 2005 at 9:35 PM

The more people I meet the more I like my dog.

Posted by David in Canada on Oct 19, 2005 at 9:38 PM

” The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.” - William Hazlitt

(thank you LB)

Posted by David in Canada on Oct 19, 2005 at 9:53 PM

luminous beauty-
  Au Contraire, I never considered that I had any wounds to lick.  I don’t think whatever organizations you are involved with are floating abstractions.  What I think is a floating abstraction is the anarchist idea (either of the right or the left) that government will eventually go away, or be abolished.

Posted by chopper on Oct 19, 2005 at 10:28 PM

Ok Rabbit, what source do you have that shows that Bush has threatened to overthrow Chavez or invade Venezuela?

Posted by chopper on Oct 19, 2005 at 10:30 PM

Have you read the one already given? 

More to follow.

Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 20, 2005 at 1:20 AM