Donn,
"Good" and "evil" are relative concepts...MY absolute "evil", obviously, is not yours. And obviously MY absolute "good" isn’t yours either. Finally, I AM concerned about voter fraud...when the elections committees have done their job and found "fraud" they can prosecute it. But again, who knows what’s true and what’s being reported as truth or even if there is ANY truth in the reports. We can not trust our media sources, some are controlled by the Republicans and some are controlled by the Dems and everyone’s doing what they do best, muddying the waters. I am NOT like you... I cant say "oooooh...LOOK...the Democrats have some potentially fraudulent voters registrations... BURN 'EM"... because, like I said, I remember no such outrage coming from you when GW was guilty of it in 2000 and 2004 and they never even did any real investigations. The one or two Fed Prosecutors that DID look into it were fired by the GW Administration for behaving in a non-political manner. Again, you keep claiming you’re not a Republican but you fall, hand over foot, to defend him when his positions are defenseless. As for Obama, this is where you guys get ridiculous, ALL these guys give monies to voters drive registration groups, yes, even Republicans and media, the so called "liberal media" which is OWNED by right wingers that control content, nary says a word when the right is caught doing the same. For instance, there's John McCain whining about how much money Obama took from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but NO one is pointing out that HIS campaign took nearly 30,000 a week from them for almost 2 years. The relative truth is CORPORATIONS GREASE BOTH SIDES and the side with the power gets the most, but they grease BOTH sides. You want a law completely outlawing corporate influence on Congress?? I'll go along with that 100% ...NEITHER side will, EVER!!! I'd do it like they do it in China, it’s a CAPITAL OFFENSE. But I’m realistic neither side will do it because THEY (politicians and corporations) control the votes, they control the media and they won’t ever take monies out of their own pockets. Finally, you can say what you want about Clinton, when he left, our country was in the best shape it had been in years, 7 years of right wing policy have completely turned everything into the worst mess I have seen in my lifetime. Two wars, one against a country that never attacked us and wasn’t threatening us. The biggest budget fiasco I have seen in years. The banking industry running rampant under deregulation and collapsing under their own bad investments and gambling and, your boy McCain, proposing that the government buy EVERY bad mortgage at FULL VALUE and making US, the taxpayer take the hit and, in actuality, bailing out those corporate executives at the full, inflated value ( I actually laughed at him when he proposed THAT at the debates .. he said That’s MY plan, not Bush's and NOT Obama’s MY plan). At LEAST, Obama's plan of requiring the industry to renegotiate the loans to help the homeowners certainly seems more palatable than rewarding the predatory lenders. MAKE em work together and not be at odds with each other. I’m sorry, I WISH that GW had found a 22 year old intern to screw rather than having him stand there at the top and continue to screw us all.
Marx
Marx,
Damn! You are incorrigible! John McCaine is NOT “my boy.” I don’t think I’ve said anything about Bill Clinton, either.
More importantly: Good and Evil are NOT relative terms. If we disagree about what is good and what is evil, it is because one of us, or both of us, is WRONG. I think my discussion about man’s inherent rights [the rational standard for judging good and evil on this planet] made my point irrefutably clear. You are wrong, and if the US continues to move in the direction you promote [socialism] that evil will be your grandchildren’s REALITY. Dying Europe will go first, so I hope in your lifetime you will get to see firsthand how the TRUTH will most certainly out. Inherent INDIVIDUAL rights cannot be compromised without destroying the lives and liberty of all men.
Donn
Donn,
Not incorrigible, you keep defending them. Stop washing your hands of them when they say things you can no longer defend.
Marx
Marx,
I've checked the record...I have not once [in our discussion] defended the 2008 version of John McCain!
Donn
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Yellow Dog [Part 19]
Donn,
When someone uses a stereotypical picture to present their case, expect to be stereotyped. There IS evil, and there's NOT so evil, and there’s ok, and there’s pretty good and there’s better and there’s even great and fantastic. I won’t join you in your black and white interpretation of the world. You and GW and you’re "either with us or agin us" has to go because there ARE people with us, some sort of with us, some somewhere in the middle and some sort of against us and some totally against us. THAT’S what diplomacy is for: to move those countries polarized against us and bring them back, slowly to the fold. Consider the concept of the "lethal hug" ... THAT’S what Obama is espousing and it works far more often than invasion and occupation.
Marx
Marx,
Christ! I AM NOT A SUPPORTER OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION!! I’m not a Republican.
Terrific! You acknowledge that there is evil in this world. Let’s say you have acknowledged the existence of WHITE. I’m not sure, but I think when you say “fantastic” you mean “good.” You acknowledge that there is good in the world. You have acknowledged the existence of BLACK.
So, you live in a world where there is good and there is evil; there is truth and there is falsehood; there is black and there is white.
Now, I have never said that the various shades of gray do not exist. Of course they exist. My point is simply that if you know what the good is, any movement in the other direction is movement towards evil. For example: There is truth. Anything less than the truth is a lie. There are little lies, bigger lies, huge lies, dangerous lies, evil lies.
Consider the following: All men have inherent rights. Among them are life, liberty and property [property means: the wealth created by your productive work]. These rights are not granted to men by their government. These rights are inherent. All men have them because all men are rational, thinking beings, responsible for their own existence. The greatest violator of these rights through history has been governments usually married to some church. The common justification for their atrocities: the collectivist-altruist code.
If man does not have an absolute right to his life, than he can be sacrificed by the collective will of other men. Every genocide in history was carried out by some government, usually with the backing of some church. The collectivist-altruist code is the “justification” used in every instance. The rights of the individual are sacrificed for the good of the community. The unequivocal protection of this inherent, individual right is an absolute good. Any movement in the other direction is movement towards absolute evil. Everybody talks about 6 million dead Jews. Nobody recalls the name of the first to be killed. Evil need not be multiplied by 6 million in order for it to be evil. If only 3 million had been murdered, would it have been less evil? How about 600? How about just you or your daughter?
A bird is free to use its wings to fly away from danger to preserve its existence. A lion is free to use its fangs and claws to tear the flesh of its prey so that it can survive. Human beings do not have wings, fangs, or claws. The key to a human being’s survival is his brain. If man is responsible for his own existence, a man must be at liberty to use his brain to preserve his own existence. Any institution that restricts man from the rational use of his brain for his own preservation is anti-man and evil. [Harming others, stealing, etc. are irrational, that’s why we call these behaviors “crimes.” Nobody is free to harm others even if he is trying to preserve his own existence.] Nobody has the right to control the thinking of any other man. Men, of course, are free to try to persuade one another. Again, through history no institution has been a bigger violator of man’s liberty than government usually married to some church.
Because man is responsible for his own existence, man must be free to produce the necessities of life. He must either produce food or trade with somebody who has. If you plant the crops, care for them, and finally harvest them, you own whatever your labor yields. The product of your labor is your property. Nobody can rationally make any claim to that which was produced by you. When we pay tribute to our government, we are paying a fee for services rendered [police protection, for example.] The redistribution of wealth IS NOT a government service. It is extortion. It is government forcing individuals to hand over the fruits of their labor. Why? So that it can be given to other people who did not produce it. Slavery is an absolute evil. Enslaved humans were forced to hand over 100% of their property, the product of their labor. In communist China, the Chinese were forced to hand over 100% of the property. Communism is pure evil. I guess by your standard socialism is less evil because people in Europe the few producers left are only 50-75% slave. Here in the United States the productive 60% of the population [the people who actually pay taxes] are only 30% slave.
Movement in the direction you promote is movement in the direction of pure evil.
Movement toward the absolute and unequivocal liberty of rational individuals is THE ABSOLUTE GOOD you fail to realize. You think so little of mankind. You think mankind is evil. You think that this IDEAL is unreachable, that government can create all things for all men BY FORCE. You are the advocate of force even as you rail against war! You are the cynic who restricts man’s freedoms and then damns freedom when the statist economy you created fails.
Donn
When someone uses a stereotypical picture to present their case, expect to be stereotyped. There IS evil, and there's NOT so evil, and there’s ok, and there’s pretty good and there’s better and there’s even great and fantastic. I won’t join you in your black and white interpretation of the world. You and GW and you’re "either with us or agin us" has to go because there ARE people with us, some sort of with us, some somewhere in the middle and some sort of against us and some totally against us. THAT’S what diplomacy is for: to move those countries polarized against us and bring them back, slowly to the fold. Consider the concept of the "lethal hug" ... THAT’S what Obama is espousing and it works far more often than invasion and occupation.
Marx
Marx,
Christ! I AM NOT A SUPPORTER OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION!! I’m not a Republican.
Terrific! You acknowledge that there is evil in this world. Let’s say you have acknowledged the existence of WHITE. I’m not sure, but I think when you say “fantastic” you mean “good.” You acknowledge that there is good in the world. You have acknowledged the existence of BLACK.
So, you live in a world where there is good and there is evil; there is truth and there is falsehood; there is black and there is white.
Now, I have never said that the various shades of gray do not exist. Of course they exist. My point is simply that if you know what the good is, any movement in the other direction is movement towards evil. For example: There is truth. Anything less than the truth is a lie. There are little lies, bigger lies, huge lies, dangerous lies, evil lies.
Consider the following: All men have inherent rights. Among them are life, liberty and property [property means: the wealth created by your productive work]. These rights are not granted to men by their government. These rights are inherent. All men have them because all men are rational, thinking beings, responsible for their own existence. The greatest violator of these rights through history has been governments usually married to some church. The common justification for their atrocities: the collectivist-altruist code.
If man does not have an absolute right to his life, than he can be sacrificed by the collective will of other men. Every genocide in history was carried out by some government, usually with the backing of some church. The collectivist-altruist code is the “justification” used in every instance. The rights of the individual are sacrificed for the good of the community. The unequivocal protection of this inherent, individual right is an absolute good. Any movement in the other direction is movement towards absolute evil. Everybody talks about 6 million dead Jews. Nobody recalls the name of the first to be killed. Evil need not be multiplied by 6 million in order for it to be evil. If only 3 million had been murdered, would it have been less evil? How about 600? How about just you or your daughter?
A bird is free to use its wings to fly away from danger to preserve its existence. A lion is free to use its fangs and claws to tear the flesh of its prey so that it can survive. Human beings do not have wings, fangs, or claws. The key to a human being’s survival is his brain. If man is responsible for his own existence, a man must be at liberty to use his brain to preserve his own existence. Any institution that restricts man from the rational use of his brain for his own preservation is anti-man and evil. [Harming others, stealing, etc. are irrational, that’s why we call these behaviors “crimes.” Nobody is free to harm others even if he is trying to preserve his own existence.] Nobody has the right to control the thinking of any other man. Men, of course, are free to try to persuade one another. Again, through history no institution has been a bigger violator of man’s liberty than government usually married to some church.
Because man is responsible for his own existence, man must be free to produce the necessities of life. He must either produce food or trade with somebody who has. If you plant the crops, care for them, and finally harvest them, you own whatever your labor yields. The product of your labor is your property. Nobody can rationally make any claim to that which was produced by you. When we pay tribute to our government, we are paying a fee for services rendered [police protection, for example.] The redistribution of wealth IS NOT a government service. It is extortion. It is government forcing individuals to hand over the fruits of their labor. Why? So that it can be given to other people who did not produce it. Slavery is an absolute evil. Enslaved humans were forced to hand over 100% of their property, the product of their labor. In communist China, the Chinese were forced to hand over 100% of the property. Communism is pure evil. I guess by your standard socialism is less evil because people in Europe the few producers left are only 50-75% slave. Here in the United States the productive 60% of the population [the people who actually pay taxes] are only 30% slave.
Movement in the direction you promote is movement in the direction of pure evil.
Movement toward the absolute and unequivocal liberty of rational individuals is THE ABSOLUTE GOOD you fail to realize. You think so little of mankind. You think mankind is evil. You think that this IDEAL is unreachable, that government can create all things for all men BY FORCE. You are the advocate of force even as you rail against war! You are the cynic who restricts man’s freedoms and then damns freedom when the statist economy you created fails.
Donn
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Yellow Dog [Part 18]
Marx wrote: What I can tell you is this, you want me to prove ANY point? Anything, I can find it. If I can’t find it, I can create it in Photoshop and lift a couple official looking seals and logos and post it on the internet and I guarantee I'll find a group of people that will completely believe it. Finally, I believe that ANY time you venture into fanaticism or extremes you’re dooming this country. We were created with Checks and Balances for a reason; we were created with forums for a reason. I believe our founding fathers wanted this country to be diverse and accepting. I believe our Congress and Senate is FAR too centrist. We need RAGING Liberals in Congress battling it out with hard core Right Wingers, ONLY that way can we arrive at a true consensus. Like I quote I once read said "a bird needs both its right wing and its left wing to fly straight". Our current politicians are one thing and one thing only, corporatists. By the way, the Chinese are extremely proud of their deliberative body, as they said to me, there is FAR more diversity in ours than in yours. They said we have hard, hard right left wingers going toe to toe with hard right wingers every day.
Marx,
Your views [once again] suffer from the belief in a commonly held misconception about the Framers and the constitution they created: that the Framers compromised their values in order to achieve consensus, that the Constitution of the US is the result of your "pastiche" principal. Politicians in Washington also believe that oil and water can be mixed to produce a palatable colloid. This is not at all what the Framers did.
The Framers NEVER compromised a core value: they compromised on particulars. For example: That we have a republican form of government was never debated; how to elect a president was. That we have a separation of powers, and especially an independent judiciary, was never debated; how best to ensure an independent judiciary through various checks and balances was. That we have a federal system was decided on day one; decisions about federal and state power are still being debated today. That our Constitution is amendable was never debated; how to amend the Constitution was. That government is dangerous was never debated; whether or not a national Bill of Rights was a necessary addition to the Constitution was.
Capitalism is a core value. Unfortunately, a couple of loop-holes in the Constitution [namely, the Commerce Clause and the Elastic Clause] enabled politicians over time to compromise this value. From Hamilton’s National Bank, to Lincoln infrastructure projects, to TR’s trust-busting, to the 16th Amendment, to FDR’s and LBJ’s socialism this country has been on a steady course to self-destruction by undermining justice in the economy. Property rights were a core value dating back to John Locke’s 17th Century treatise, if not “thou shalt not steal.”
A perfectly just system is not improved by compromising with evil and incorporating some injustice into the system.
Donn
Donn,
You are FAR too ingrained with a belief to see the fallacy in what you say. You now label things you do NOT believe in as "evil" and the things you DO believe in as "good"...THAT’S a problem, there are way too many grey areas out there to try and divide everything into good and evil categories. The way you DO it, a lot of people with good ideas will go by the wayside.
Marx
Marx,
No Marx. Evil exists. Your failure to acknowledge it, to identify it, to fight it will be your undoing. How does one compromise with an armed thug who has sworn to kill you because you drew a picture of Mohammad?
Donn
Donn,
You don’t but, what about all the wonderful, law abiding decent Muslims? Funny, ALL the Muslims I have met have been wonderful, decent people. By YOUR rubric, people that believe in Mohammed are evil. Sorry, I won’t join you there.
Marx
Marx,
Subgunaditch! How did you come to that conclusion? I gave one goddamned example of evil. Here are others:
>Any institution that denies a human being the right to think for himself.
>Any institution that forbids human beings the right to speak their minds.
>Any institution that forces a man to work for the benefit of others...charity must always be a private matter and a choice.
>Cruelty, torture
>Sloth
>ETC.
Donn
Marx,
Your views [once again] suffer from the belief in a commonly held misconception about the Framers and the constitution they created: that the Framers compromised their values in order to achieve consensus, that the Constitution of the US is the result of your "pastiche" principal. Politicians in Washington also believe that oil and water can be mixed to produce a palatable colloid. This is not at all what the Framers did.
The Framers NEVER compromised a core value: they compromised on particulars. For example: That we have a republican form of government was never debated; how to elect a president was. That we have a separation of powers, and especially an independent judiciary, was never debated; how best to ensure an independent judiciary through various checks and balances was. That we have a federal system was decided on day one; decisions about federal and state power are still being debated today. That our Constitution is amendable was never debated; how to amend the Constitution was. That government is dangerous was never debated; whether or not a national Bill of Rights was a necessary addition to the Constitution was.
Capitalism is a core value. Unfortunately, a couple of loop-holes in the Constitution [namely, the Commerce Clause and the Elastic Clause] enabled politicians over time to compromise this value. From Hamilton’s National Bank, to Lincoln infrastructure projects, to TR’s trust-busting, to the 16th Amendment, to FDR’s and LBJ’s socialism this country has been on a steady course to self-destruction by undermining justice in the economy. Property rights were a core value dating back to John Locke’s 17th Century treatise, if not “thou shalt not steal.”
A perfectly just system is not improved by compromising with evil and incorporating some injustice into the system.
Donn
Donn,
You are FAR too ingrained with a belief to see the fallacy in what you say. You now label things you do NOT believe in as "evil" and the things you DO believe in as "good"...THAT’S a problem, there are way too many grey areas out there to try and divide everything into good and evil categories. The way you DO it, a lot of people with good ideas will go by the wayside.
Marx
Marx,
No Marx. Evil exists. Your failure to acknowledge it, to identify it, to fight it will be your undoing. How does one compromise with an armed thug who has sworn to kill you because you drew a picture of Mohammad?
Donn
Donn,
You don’t but, what about all the wonderful, law abiding decent Muslims? Funny, ALL the Muslims I have met have been wonderful, decent people. By YOUR rubric, people that believe in Mohammed are evil. Sorry, I won’t join you there.
Marx
Marx,
Subgunaditch! How did you come to that conclusion? I gave one goddamned example of evil. Here are others:
>Any institution that denies a human being the right to think for himself.
>Any institution that forbids human beings the right to speak their minds.
>Any institution that forces a man to work for the benefit of others...charity must always be a private matter and a choice.
>Cruelty, torture
>Sloth
>ETC.
Donn
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Yellow Dog [Part 17]
Marx wrote: Anyone can find anything to support the views that they have, some of it may very well be true but there is NO way to tell what is and what isn’t true.
Marx,
As a man, I seek the truth. If you are ill, for example, nothing short of the correct diagnosis, the truth about the cause of your illness, will enable medical science to develop a remedy for your condition. Guessing will not do. Wishing your illness away will similarly do nothing to alleviate your symptoms. Granted, a positive attitude may postpone the inevitable for some time [We’re only beginning to understand the healing powers of our own minds.], but without treatment, without eradicating the growing cancer, you will eventually succumb to your illness. People have been praying for thousands of years, and for thousands of years life expectancy for humans was forty-something. True medical science is only about a hundred years old. Since its birth, right here in the West, humans live twice as long. Have we discovered a truth here? Will you continue to credit your prayers for health and healing that science created? Probably. But know this: you are not being truthful.
Truth is not determined by majority vote. Truth is that which exists in reality. All of your holy books were written millennia-ago by people who thought they lived on a flat plane. None knew even the nature of the planet that gave birth to the human race. Up until about 500 years ago, had there been a poll, 99% would have checked the “flat-Earth” box. The vast majority of Earthlings didn’t know their Earth is a relatively puny globe floating through space, orbiting its sun with clockwork regularity. Had the majority voted and the poll results been published, the vast majority of people would have been comforted by the results. Their wrong-thinking would have been “confirmed” truth. “I must be right! Ninety-nine percent of my neighbors agree.” Did the fact that nearly everybody agreed the Earth is flat alter the reality, change the truth? No. Of course not. The Earth remained, stubbornly, an orb.
The truth is identifiable. It is definable. If the majority fails to see the truth, the truth remains, still, unaltered. The converse is also true: Something that you consider “true” must be identifiable, definable. People of faith through time and across the globe have prided themselves on their willingness to leap into the abyss of the unknowable and declare that they have found the truth. As it turns out, what they declare to be the truth is whatever they want it to be, the laws of nature be damned! If you are hungry, bread falls from the sky. If you want to live forever, believing in this man can deny nature the right to exercise on you every living thing’s inevitable, death. If you sacrifice your life for Allah, and take a number of the infidels with you, you will be rewarded with seventy virgins for some indefinable eternity. If you’re fortunate enough to be born with lots of good karma, you might be lucky enough to be re-born a sacred cow in your next life. All of the examples above have at least one thing in common: none of these beliefs is knowable.
Truth is knowable. It stands firm, unchanging, uncompromising. Man can know truth and falsehood—like good and evil, like black and white. If something seems to be "a gray area" that is only because presently we may lack some knowledge essential to full understanding or we may have erred in our interpretation of the data.
People of faith are actually comforted by the fact that no one can prove their irrational beliefs certifiably false. Their comfort is the result of an integrity deficiency, their absolute refusal to acknowledge: A proof requires data. There can be no data on anyone’s ideas about what happens after we die. Even Carl Sagan threw people of faith a bone when he wrote famously “the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” Before you break into a “halleluiah” verse, read Sagan’s maxim again. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence in a world governed by natural law, i.e. the world Sagan spent his life trying to explain. In the natural world, however far away the subject of our query, however microscopic, however difficult the problem, there is data. As long as the possibility of data exists, there is an existent worthy of our attention, there may be something to learn, and rational men can debate the possibilities. If data exists then proof is possible. There can be no data on anyone’s ideas about what happens after we die. God theories and life-after-death stories offer nothing worthy of our attention, nothing rational men can debate. [This is why people of faith have been killing each other for centuries... they have nothing to debate, no data with which to persuade honest men. Like the playground bully they have only one tool with which to convert their more thoughtful peers who wish to live: that is, FORCE.]
Our failure presently to solve a problem does not alter the solution. The solution—the truth—is there for us to discover. In other words, whether we know the facts of reality or not, the facts of reality do in fact exist.
Given the fact that humanity faces so many real problems, real threats to our existence—from disease to global warming, from despotic governments to crime to hunger—I think it is immoral that so many of us spend so many hours and so much wealth and brain matter propagating falsehood, dreaming about eternity in paradise. Earth is paradise. Eternity [for a 21st Century American] is about a hundred years with proper diet and exercise.
Donn
Donn,
That’s nice, but incorrect. I can find data to support ANY position I have and if I cant find it? I can manipulate it to say whatever I want it to say and, being as YOU, personally are taking someone’s word that THEY did this research because NO one has the time in their lives to research everything...you can NEVER know what’s true and what isn’t. Finally, your reference to the medical industry? Let me tell you what my Chinese physician said "American Doctors, diagnose and manage health problems with an eye on getting you on some prescription medication and NOT on a cure"...fact is, the AMA themselves have said Americans are "overmedicated". There you, go, where's the truth in that?
Marx
Marx,
Are you suggesting that using your “manipulated data” you can reason a truth, alter reality?
Existence exists. Your failure to acknowledge reality will not change it.
Donn
Donn,
No, you can NOT impose YOUR truths on everyone, no matter how hard you try
Marx
Marx,
Truth exists.
Donn
Marx,
As a man, I seek the truth. If you are ill, for example, nothing short of the correct diagnosis, the truth about the cause of your illness, will enable medical science to develop a remedy for your condition. Guessing will not do. Wishing your illness away will similarly do nothing to alleviate your symptoms. Granted, a positive attitude may postpone the inevitable for some time [We’re only beginning to understand the healing powers of our own minds.], but without treatment, without eradicating the growing cancer, you will eventually succumb to your illness. People have been praying for thousands of years, and for thousands of years life expectancy for humans was forty-something. True medical science is only about a hundred years old. Since its birth, right here in the West, humans live twice as long. Have we discovered a truth here? Will you continue to credit your prayers for health and healing that science created? Probably. But know this: you are not being truthful.
Truth is not determined by majority vote. Truth is that which exists in reality. All of your holy books were written millennia-ago by people who thought they lived on a flat plane. None knew even the nature of the planet that gave birth to the human race. Up until about 500 years ago, had there been a poll, 99% would have checked the “flat-Earth” box. The vast majority of Earthlings didn’t know their Earth is a relatively puny globe floating through space, orbiting its sun with clockwork regularity. Had the majority voted and the poll results been published, the vast majority of people would have been comforted by the results. Their wrong-thinking would have been “confirmed” truth. “I must be right! Ninety-nine percent of my neighbors agree.” Did the fact that nearly everybody agreed the Earth is flat alter the reality, change the truth? No. Of course not. The Earth remained, stubbornly, an orb.
The truth is identifiable. It is definable. If the majority fails to see the truth, the truth remains, still, unaltered. The converse is also true: Something that you consider “true” must be identifiable, definable. People of faith through time and across the globe have prided themselves on their willingness to leap into the abyss of the unknowable and declare that they have found the truth. As it turns out, what they declare to be the truth is whatever they want it to be, the laws of nature be damned! If you are hungry, bread falls from the sky. If you want to live forever, believing in this man can deny nature the right to exercise on you every living thing’s inevitable, death. If you sacrifice your life for Allah, and take a number of the infidels with you, you will be rewarded with seventy virgins for some indefinable eternity. If you’re fortunate enough to be born with lots of good karma, you might be lucky enough to be re-born a sacred cow in your next life. All of the examples above have at least one thing in common: none of these beliefs is knowable.
Truth is knowable. It stands firm, unchanging, uncompromising. Man can know truth and falsehood—like good and evil, like black and white. If something seems to be "a gray area" that is only because presently we may lack some knowledge essential to full understanding or we may have erred in our interpretation of the data.
People of faith are actually comforted by the fact that no one can prove their irrational beliefs certifiably false. Their comfort is the result of an integrity deficiency, their absolute refusal to acknowledge: A proof requires data. There can be no data on anyone’s ideas about what happens after we die. Even Carl Sagan threw people of faith a bone when he wrote famously “the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” Before you break into a “halleluiah” verse, read Sagan’s maxim again. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence in a world governed by natural law, i.e. the world Sagan spent his life trying to explain. In the natural world, however far away the subject of our query, however microscopic, however difficult the problem, there is data. As long as the possibility of data exists, there is an existent worthy of our attention, there may be something to learn, and rational men can debate the possibilities. If data exists then proof is possible. There can be no data on anyone’s ideas about what happens after we die. God theories and life-after-death stories offer nothing worthy of our attention, nothing rational men can debate. [This is why people of faith have been killing each other for centuries... they have nothing to debate, no data with which to persuade honest men. Like the playground bully they have only one tool with which to convert their more thoughtful peers who wish to live: that is, FORCE.]
Our failure presently to solve a problem does not alter the solution. The solution—the truth—is there for us to discover. In other words, whether we know the facts of reality or not, the facts of reality do in fact exist.
Given the fact that humanity faces so many real problems, real threats to our existence—from disease to global warming, from despotic governments to crime to hunger—I think it is immoral that so many of us spend so many hours and so much wealth and brain matter propagating falsehood, dreaming about eternity in paradise. Earth is paradise. Eternity [for a 21st Century American] is about a hundred years with proper diet and exercise.
Donn
Donn,
That’s nice, but incorrect. I can find data to support ANY position I have and if I cant find it? I can manipulate it to say whatever I want it to say and, being as YOU, personally are taking someone’s word that THEY did this research because NO one has the time in their lives to research everything...you can NEVER know what’s true and what isn’t. Finally, your reference to the medical industry? Let me tell you what my Chinese physician said "American Doctors, diagnose and manage health problems with an eye on getting you on some prescription medication and NOT on a cure"...fact is, the AMA themselves have said Americans are "overmedicated". There you, go, where's the truth in that?
Marx
Marx,
Are you suggesting that using your “manipulated data” you can reason a truth, alter reality?
Existence exists. Your failure to acknowledge reality will not change it.
Donn
Donn,
No, you can NOT impose YOUR truths on everyone, no matter how hard you try
Marx
Marx,
Truth exists.
Donn
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Yellow Dog [Part 16]
Fine. You asked for this, Marx.
So, you have heard me when I say that I am not a Republican, and you are wondering why I seem to be defending them. The answer is simple: We’re discussing an economic issue. If we were discussing a social issue—abortion, gay marriage, the posting of the Ten Commandments on the school or courthouse wall, embryonic stem cell research, the teaching of Intelligent Design in biology class, etc—I would be defending the Democrat position. On virtually every social issue [except gun control] I stand squarely on the side of the Democrats.
The reason you think I am defending the Republicans is because we are discussing an economic issue, and while the Republicans have sold out capitalism and are nearly as interventionist as Democrats, Republicans are not [yet] socialists. That’s the crucial difference: Democrats are European-style socialists...have been since FDR.
You Yellow Dog Democrats like to call the Republicans fascists because of their wrong-headed positions on social issues, and I agree with you. What about economic fascism? Why is there no freedom in your world where a person’s productivity is concerned? You know every true fascist regime in history was [and is] socialist...see Nazi Germany, Saddam’s Iraq, Chavez’s Venezuela...all socialist states.
When you call the USA Patriot Act and NSPD 51 fascist, I wonder where you’re getting your news. Whenever I have a question about legislation and/or an executive order, I go to the same place members of Congress, the Executive Branch, and the Supreme Court go. I go to the Library of Congress and read a bi-partisan description of the legislation in question from the Congressional Research Services before I go to any media.
Congressional Research Services: Summary of NSPD 51
“On May 9, 2007, President George W. Bush issued National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD) 51, which is also identified as Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD) 20, on National Continuity Policy. The directive updates longstanding continuity directives designed to assure that governing entities are able to recover from a wide range of potential operational interruptions. Executive branch efforts to assure essential operations are similar to those that are broadly integrated into many private sector industries. Government continuity planning also incorporates efforts to maintain and preserve constitutional government, based on the assumption that certain essential activities typically provided by government must be carried out with little or no interruption under all circumstances.”
National Continuity Policy has been on the books for a long time. Abe Lincoln, for example, declared marshal law and suspended Habeas Corpus during the Civil War crisis; FDR imprisoned Japanese Americans in concentration camps with an executive order during WWII. NSPD 51 becomes effective ONLY in a national emergency, i.e. New York or Washington DC are leveled in a nuclear attack. It’s there so that our country doesn’t unravel into chaos during a national emergency. You better be glad it’s there. Take the chaos in New Orleans after Katrina and multiply it by about 85,000 localities nation-wide and you may get the picture. Trust me, if Obama becomes president, NSPD 51 doesn’t change.
You can research the USA Patriot Act yourself, but the story is much the same. Nearly every provision outlined in the USA Patriot Act was already in the books. The purpose of the act was to organize and consolidate US counter-terrorism efforts, to make sure everybody in law enforcement and intelligence was on the same page. The USA Patriot Act was bi-partisan, and the most controversial amendment to the law [the one you reference above when you’re damning Bush for listening to your phone calls and reading your e-mails “without a warrant,” was passed three months ago by a Democratic Congress! Why did they pass it? Let’s take a look at what FISA Amendment Act of 2008 actually says:
If you go to the American Civil Liberties Union website to find a description of the FISA Amendment Act of 2008, you’ll find the headline: Unconstitutional FISA Bill Becomes Law, followed by the following description of the law: "On July 10, President Bush signed into law the unconstitutional FISA Amendments Act, which gives the Bush administration virtually unchecked powers to monitor Americans' international phone calls and emails, and grants immunity to telecommunications companies that illegally aided in the president’s warrantless wiretapping program."
Putting aside for now the fact that the Obama Administration will have the same power, if you go to CRS, look up the legislation, and read the prepared summary, you will find out what the ACLU means by “virtually unchecked.” Section 4 of the FISA Amendment Act of 2008
"Allows that in emergency situations, the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence to authorize surveillance for up to 45 days of non-United States persons who are reasonably believed to be outside of the United States and who may be communicating with someone inside the United States, but that within seven days, an application must be filed for approval from the court established under FISA."
It seems to me giving our intelligence community seven days to file for approval by the FISA court is a reasonable check on our government’s surveillance activities in emergency situations. Requiring a warrant prior to the initiation of surveillance activities places cement shoes on the feet of our operatives who are expected to protect us from terrorist threats coming from “wherever” in the very fluid, high tech global environment. When a lead shows itself, it must be acted upon immediately, or it will soon become cold and useless.
This whole argument reminds me of an Emo Phillips joke. [It’s been years since I heard the joke, but I’ll do my best to explain it.] Emo starts off making the point that his sister is choking on a chicken bone. He tells us a few funny things about his sister and then goes into a five minute discussion of how he parks his car, goes into the library, finds the book he’s looking for, asks the librarian for change of a dollar so that he can make a copy of the page he needs; he cracks on the stupid librarian for a while and the library’s stupid policy of not making change, walks across the street to the KFC to get change, then back to the library to make his copy. Five minutes and a dozen little jokes later, Emo finally lets it be known that the page copied at the library explains how to do the Heimlich maneuver… “By this time my sister is just blue, choking on that chicken bone…”
The ACLU’s right about a lot of things, but not this one. Effective intelligence can not be achieved by a lumbering bureaucracy. Rules for stopping these unconventional warriors, the terrorists, must give our agents broad latitude to do their most important work. Intelligence officers must act quickly without fear of prosecution should they make an honest mistake. If they have made a mistake, the FISA Court will have the power to order the cessation of surveillance activities on the subject[s] in question.
The logic is similar to the War Powers Act, where the President can order U.S. combat troops into action anywhere on the globe without prior Congressional approval. Within 60 days the president must convince Congress that the deployment is just and necessary or Congress can order the troops home. The War Powers Act, like the FISA Amendments Act, gives the executive branch the power to act quickly in an emergency, while Congress and the FISA Courts, respectively, retain the power to check the executive action and order corrective action.
ACLU cynicism in this case assumes that the professionals who make-up our intelligence community, tasked with the life or death responsibility of weeding out Al-Qaida terrorist cells in our neighborhoods and across the globe, will use their new tools to read e-mails and listen to phone conversations of ordinary Americans. Fortunately, our Republican president, our Democratic Congress, and most Americans do not share their doubts.
Donn
So, you have heard me when I say that I am not a Republican, and you are wondering why I seem to be defending them. The answer is simple: We’re discussing an economic issue. If we were discussing a social issue—abortion, gay marriage, the posting of the Ten Commandments on the school or courthouse wall, embryonic stem cell research, the teaching of Intelligent Design in biology class, etc—I would be defending the Democrat position. On virtually every social issue [except gun control] I stand squarely on the side of the Democrats.
The reason you think I am defending the Republicans is because we are discussing an economic issue, and while the Republicans have sold out capitalism and are nearly as interventionist as Democrats, Republicans are not [yet] socialists. That’s the crucial difference: Democrats are European-style socialists...have been since FDR.
You Yellow Dog Democrats like to call the Republicans fascists because of their wrong-headed positions on social issues, and I agree with you. What about economic fascism? Why is there no freedom in your world where a person’s productivity is concerned? You know every true fascist regime in history was [and is] socialist...see Nazi Germany, Saddam’s Iraq, Chavez’s Venezuela...all socialist states.
When you call the USA Patriot Act and NSPD 51 fascist, I wonder where you’re getting your news. Whenever I have a question about legislation and/or an executive order, I go to the same place members of Congress, the Executive Branch, and the Supreme Court go. I go to the Library of Congress and read a bi-partisan description of the legislation in question from the Congressional Research Services before I go to any media.
Congressional Research Services: Summary of NSPD 51
“On May 9, 2007, President George W. Bush issued National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD) 51, which is also identified as Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD) 20, on National Continuity Policy. The directive updates longstanding continuity directives designed to assure that governing entities are able to recover from a wide range of potential operational interruptions. Executive branch efforts to assure essential operations are similar to those that are broadly integrated into many private sector industries. Government continuity planning also incorporates efforts to maintain and preserve constitutional government, based on the assumption that certain essential activities typically provided by government must be carried out with little or no interruption under all circumstances.”
National Continuity Policy has been on the books for a long time. Abe Lincoln, for example, declared marshal law and suspended Habeas Corpus during the Civil War crisis; FDR imprisoned Japanese Americans in concentration camps with an executive order during WWII. NSPD 51 becomes effective ONLY in a national emergency, i.e. New York or Washington DC are leveled in a nuclear attack. It’s there so that our country doesn’t unravel into chaos during a national emergency. You better be glad it’s there. Take the chaos in New Orleans after Katrina and multiply it by about 85,000 localities nation-wide and you may get the picture. Trust me, if Obama becomes president, NSPD 51 doesn’t change.
You can research the USA Patriot Act yourself, but the story is much the same. Nearly every provision outlined in the USA Patriot Act was already in the books. The purpose of the act was to organize and consolidate US counter-terrorism efforts, to make sure everybody in law enforcement and intelligence was on the same page. The USA Patriot Act was bi-partisan, and the most controversial amendment to the law [the one you reference above when you’re damning Bush for listening to your phone calls and reading your e-mails “without a warrant,” was passed three months ago by a Democratic Congress! Why did they pass it? Let’s take a look at what FISA Amendment Act of 2008 actually says:
If you go to the American Civil Liberties Union website to find a description of the FISA Amendment Act of 2008, you’ll find the headline: Unconstitutional FISA Bill Becomes Law, followed by the following description of the law: "On July 10, President Bush signed into law the unconstitutional FISA Amendments Act, which gives the Bush administration virtually unchecked powers to monitor Americans' international phone calls and emails, and grants immunity to telecommunications companies that illegally aided in the president’s warrantless wiretapping program."
Putting aside for now the fact that the Obama Administration will have the same power, if you go to CRS, look up the legislation, and read the prepared summary, you will find out what the ACLU means by “virtually unchecked.” Section 4 of the FISA Amendment Act of 2008
"Allows that in emergency situations, the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence to authorize surveillance for up to 45 days of non-United States persons who are reasonably believed to be outside of the United States and who may be communicating with someone inside the United States, but that within seven days, an application must be filed for approval from the court established under FISA."
It seems to me giving our intelligence community seven days to file for approval by the FISA court is a reasonable check on our government’s surveillance activities in emergency situations. Requiring a warrant prior to the initiation of surveillance activities places cement shoes on the feet of our operatives who are expected to protect us from terrorist threats coming from “wherever” in the very fluid, high tech global environment. When a lead shows itself, it must be acted upon immediately, or it will soon become cold and useless.
This whole argument reminds me of an Emo Phillips joke. [It’s been years since I heard the joke, but I’ll do my best to explain it.] Emo starts off making the point that his sister is choking on a chicken bone. He tells us a few funny things about his sister and then goes into a five minute discussion of how he parks his car, goes into the library, finds the book he’s looking for, asks the librarian for change of a dollar so that he can make a copy of the page he needs; he cracks on the stupid librarian for a while and the library’s stupid policy of not making change, walks across the street to the KFC to get change, then back to the library to make his copy. Five minutes and a dozen little jokes later, Emo finally lets it be known that the page copied at the library explains how to do the Heimlich maneuver… “By this time my sister is just blue, choking on that chicken bone…”
The ACLU’s right about a lot of things, but not this one. Effective intelligence can not be achieved by a lumbering bureaucracy. Rules for stopping these unconventional warriors, the terrorists, must give our agents broad latitude to do their most important work. Intelligence officers must act quickly without fear of prosecution should they make an honest mistake. If they have made a mistake, the FISA Court will have the power to order the cessation of surveillance activities on the subject[s] in question.
The logic is similar to the War Powers Act, where the President can order U.S. combat troops into action anywhere on the globe without prior Congressional approval. Within 60 days the president must convince Congress that the deployment is just and necessary or Congress can order the troops home. The War Powers Act, like the FISA Amendments Act, gives the executive branch the power to act quickly in an emergency, while Congress and the FISA Courts, respectively, retain the power to check the executive action and order corrective action.
ACLU cynicism in this case assumes that the professionals who make-up our intelligence community, tasked with the life or death responsibility of weeding out Al-Qaida terrorist cells in our neighborhoods and across the globe, will use their new tools to read e-mails and listen to phone conversations of ordinary Americans. Fortunately, our Republican president, our Democratic Congress, and most Americans do not share their doubts.
Donn
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