My friend HP has a new post up about a joke that he morphs into an unsubstantiated smear on Glenn Beck, and his 8/28 rally at the Lincoln Memorial. Abandoning the certainty which made the smear appropriate, he asks:
In order:
What does Beck mean by honor?
I suppose the first step is to ask him…and if you can’t ask him, you can do the next best thing and plug the keywords into youtube:
Talking about holding up examples of honorable people…Washington, Adams, Jefferson…
And of course, he actually tells us…
“Honor is…
Doing the right thing when everybody tells you not to do it.
Doing the right thing when it goes against your interests.
Doing the right thing when nobody will ever notice.”
I suppose it would be wonderful if it stopped there, but I listen to him for 45 minutes to an hour on my way into work in the morning. (I’ve seen the show enough to know that sometimes, it recycles some of the radio show, and sometimes, he has a specific focus he doesn’t address as deeply on the radio, but seeing as I’m at work when it’s on in the afternoon here, and it doesn’t repeat until 11 pm here on the Left Coast, I don’t often watch it.) That daily experience means that I understand that he also sees us as having a problem with our moral compass as a nation because we don’t have God at the center of our lives, as an overwhelming majority, including the Founders and the Framers once did. He’s talked at length, drawing on the words of these men, as well as their accomplishments to demonstrate that their beliefs translated into virtues, and gave them character, rather than a lack of virtues making them characters. He’s done this with his eyes open to the fact that they couldn’t ignore, namely that they were still men, regardless of their achievements and intellect, but this knowledge is to keep them human, rather than to delight in their failings. And he’s reflected on the fact that because of their beliefs, even these men of titanic deeds understood that their accomplishments did not belong to them alone, and that none of it would be possible without the actions of God, however they acknowledged him and his role, be it “Almighty God”, “The Sovereign Ruler of the World”, “Divine Providence”, or “Nature’s God.” And he has always taken great pains to acknowledge his own failings, including drug abuse, battling the bottle, and a broken marriage. I would be hard-pressed to think of another media personality who has been as forthright about “the bad parts”, and the fact that he believes that his current sobriety is not about his ability to overcome as it was the power of his faith to lift him up. Regardless of whether or not you buy into his belief that the current spiritual inanition is a contributing factor to our current predicament, a lot of people look at our government today, and don’t feel that there is much worthy of respect or emulation.
How was that honor lost?
Again, the theory that he has set forth is that we started to lose it when we lost the humility and respect to God that was inherent in the concept of Divine Providence and let it morph in to Manifest Destiny. When we no longer acknowledged that our blessings were bestowed because of the respect paid to God, and instead took them for granted, and committed tragic acts because we believed it was our right to do so, and started to bury the history we couldn’t rewrite, because it did not favor this mindset. And of course, once you start taking these blessings for granted, it is a short step to the place where you start to believe that your accomplishments are your own, and you have no need for God, or the virtues that reporting to a higher authority will instill in you. You become answerable only to yourself, and you become the beginning and the end of wisdom. This has not served us well, and we have come to embrace something ugly and unworthy of the nation we were born to be. We are impassioned about saving the trees and animals, but sleep untroubled in the midst of an ongoing slaughter of human babies. Our leaders grant themselves generous salaries, luxuriant travel, the best liquor, and partake of lucrative “business” opportunities when they pretend to work for us. And when their behavior can no longer be tolerated, they can “retire” with generous pensions and health care that exceeds that of their employers, “We the people”, by unfathomable degrees. Public Service, which once was a sacrifice undertaken as a duty, has become a career path, which cannot avoid making it about the desires of the politicians rather than the will of the constituents. What once was endured as miserable obligation keeping one from a career, from the maintenance of property, and the comfort of family, for meager pay, and miserable living conditions has become a coveted sinecure, where ambition and avarice can be fed in equal measure, and more time, effort, and attention is focused on the almighty re-election bid than on conducting the people’s business. Think I’m wrong? Ask your Representative or Senator how much time they put into reading the health care bill, and then ask them how much time they spent going to, attending, and coming back from fundraisers and campaign appearances in the last three weeks.
How does he plan on restoring it?
He doesn’t. He knows he isn’t the poster child for virtue or character. He doesn’t believe that making this happen is his job, which I think is a relief to him. As I said earlier, his life is an open book, and he’s already a favorite lightning rod for the smear merchants of the left. If he tried to carry this message himself, it would be completely obscured by the media circus falling all over itself in the attempt to make sure their accusations and derisions would come out much louder than his words. His whole plan was to offer an alternative…to demonstrate that we cannot expect our leaders to have what too many of us lack as individuals, and that if we expect to put it back into government, we must first put it into ourselves. As long as we hold the wrong values, we will get the self-dealing, tax-cheating, narcistic leaders that curse the corridors of power and act as though they are entitled to the trappings of office, regardless of the cost or the damage. It was an invitation to consider what we as a nation were born to, what we turned away from, and what we could commit to as individuals. As one man he could do nothing; but as thousands, we could change ourselves, and those around us, and those around us could change those around them. And the best part is that this wouldn’t require collective demonstrations, and it doesn’t demand that government do anything or give us anything.
————————————————————————————————————————-
Much like HP believes that we wouldn’t like the metaphor that constitutes his smear, I don’t imagine he’ll think much of this response. I base this on the fact that he has never disguised his contempt for Beck. That’s fine. I happen to believe that the answer doesn’t matter nearly as much to him as the pretense underlying the questions. You see, the answer was easily discoverable, even for a busy professor. And the form in which it was presented was a series of questions bookended by a nasty-minded joke and a conclusion casting the subject with the same dishonorable intentions. Manure may help roses to grow, but it is still a flower in manure. I guess I missed the part in school where the art of character assasination was taught as an intellectual pursuit. Maybe he could win over our betters if he would simply do the whole show in his tweed jacket, and holding a pipe while talking about how much smarter he is.
In considering my answer, I spent some time in the Bible reading about honor, and I found a few verses that I think actually dovetail into a few of the issues regarding honor that Beck has been discussing for a while.
On the attitudes underlying Divine Providence:
Proverbs 15:33: The fear of the LORD is the instruction of wisdom,
And before honor is humility.
On the drift into Manifest Destiny and the belief in national entitlement:
Proverbs 29:32: A man’s pride will bring him low,
But the humble in spirit will retain honor.
On the current propensity to mock and ridicule attempts to infuse oneself with a sense of accountablity to a higher standard than pleasing oneself:
Job 2:9: Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!”
On the constant attacks, smears, and obvious disapprovals of the left and the legacy media (but I repeat myself) toward Beck:
Matthew 13:57: So they were offended at Him.
But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country and in his own house.”
BiW, I’ve only skimmed this post and will read it in more detail tomorrow … but …
The 8/28 rally is an interesting case. As I wrote on my own blog and readily admit here, Beck’s rally was about as inoffensive as it could possibly have been. He had the good PR sense to keep signs out. He had the good “inclusive” sense to have blacks on stage with him (many more than were in the audience). He was remarkably apolitical, resisting the temptation to take any pot shots at Obama.
As you can guess, the only part I found mildly offensive was Beck’s implicit message that there is no place for atheists in our society. “America is turning to God”. Well, no actually some Americans are not turning to God and they are as patriotic as the next guy.
As HP made clear on his blog (and which I think you misrepresent here), although Beck played nice that Saturday he seldom plays nice. He is more often divisive. He is more often careless with his language. He has delusions of being the Howard Beale character from “Network”. He is to some a buffoon, to others a very dangerous man and to still others an inspiration.
Love him if you please, but don’t condemn HP for not sharing your view. It is a free country after all. 😉
R, I don’t condemn him for not sharing my view. I’m simply not enlightened enough to see all the layers of nuance that make his perspective so much more informed than mine. What I have a quarrel with is the smear first, ask questions after approach that he took to this particular issue.
Beck isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. I understand that. I can take about a minute and a half of Olbermann before I have to change the channel or secuumb to the urge to put a chair through the screen. If ratings are any indication, I’m not alone in that. But where you see someone careless with language, I see someone who’s mind is going in three different directions at once. I figure it is a major feat for him to actually finish one sentance before going on to the next. You see someone divisive. I think that’s funny, considering the rhetoric that comes from the rug salesman at 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, who clearly enjoys living a life of excess while decrying it in those who may have actually earned it and pay for it with their own money, and who spends time trash talking in a desperate attempt to conceal the fact that he’s in over his head.
BiW….. it is a busy morning and I won’t have time for a detailed response until sometime this evening. I haven’t read your post in detail yet – but at first glance it isn’t as nasty as what I had expected. I am not sure if that was intentional or not – but I appreciate it nonetheless. It makes rational conversation easier.
Here is one quick thought:
You claim that honor is:
Doing the right thing when everybody tells you not to do it.
Doing the right thing when it goes against your interests.
Doing the right thing when nobody will ever notice.”
I am going to pass by #3 for now because by definition it will be hard to establish. Lets look at the first two, though – and use Health Care Reform as an example.
Obama pushed through a package of health care reform because he believed that it was the right thing to do. I happen to believe it was as well. He did it despite poll numbers suggesting that many people were against the plan. This seems to qualify as “Doing the right thing when everybody tells you not to do it.” He is now taking serious political heat for HCR – and will continue to take heat through the 2012 elections. I think that qualifies as “Doing the right thing when it goes against your interests.”
So, by the definition you provide, Obama has acted honorably.
I suspect that isn’t a conclusion you would be happy with.
Your definition of honor rests entirely on how we define what the “right thing” is. But, the “right thing” is pretty damned subjective and is most certainly open to debate.
Two reasonable, ethical, and honest people can have completely opposite ideas about what the “right” thing is, and each of them can believe they are acting honorably. And, because the “right thing” is such a subjective concept, both would be correct.
I think this highlights pretty clearly why I am seeking a definition of honor. The concept sounds very nice at a political rally and everyone seems to understand it – but when you get down to it such understanding is perhaps misguided.
I have to run for now. More later.
HP, the definition is that of a character trait, not a concept. It is by its very nature subjective in its application. However, in this instance, the term is only vague because you choose it to be. If Beck supplied his definition (or framework) of what he meant by honor (as it seems he has), then you really don’t need to play games with the definition to quibble with or criticize his message. That tactic is way beyond tiresome. But in fairness, you did say you had more to offer. . .
Tigre said: If Beck supplied his definition (or framework) of what he meant by honor (as it seems he has), then you really don’t need to play games with the definition to quibble with or criticize his message.
Tigre, I have to quibble because some people on my blog and on Rutherford’s blog and on this very blog (not to mention people “out there” in the non-blogging world) have made the claim that liberals don’t understand honor and can’t in fact be honorable. I take exception to that. I try to live an honorable life. I don’t always succeed – none of us do – but I think people who know me RL would call me honorable.
So, I am liberal and I try to be honorable. To some that is an impossibility. Before I argue against the notion I need to establish what honor means, and that is what I am trying to do here.
Ah, the subjective non equivocal argument. I think it is safe to say that THIS is what Beck is talking about. The fact that we’ve essentially seen both moral and ethical compasses tossed out the proverbial window in the interest of political correctness, or non-offensiveness. I think we know what the right thing is, and it certainly doesn’t extend to public policy from politicians who were elected to represent the will of the people.
In fact, I would be willing to guess that this is an abject fear of the left: a moral compass in the electorate voting on candidates.
Gorilla said: Ah, the subjective non equivocal argument. I think it is safe to say that THIS is what Beck is talking about. The fact that we’ve essentially seen both moral and ethical compasses tossed out the proverbial window in the interest of political correctness, or non-offensiveness.
Gorilla, do you really find it all that impossible to recognize that two people can operate from different moral compasses and for both of those people to act honorably in accordance with their moral compass?
Are you so certain that your personal moral compass is really the correct one? Many of you have taken great pleasure in calling me arrogant from time to time. I would suggest that it is the height of hubris to believe with absolute certainty that your personal moral compass is the one and only correct moral compass.
Contrary to the accusations of arrogance, I constantly reflect on my personal moral compass. I happen to think it is the right one – but I would never claim absolute certainty. I am humble enough to admit I could be wrong. Are you?
In fact, I would be willing to guess that this is an abject fear of the left: a moral compass in the electorate voting on candidates.
On the contrary. I would prefer that people apply a mortal compass to their voting. What I fear is the claim I hear coming from the right that they know with absolute certainty what the one and only moral compass might be. I further fear the tendency of the right to define anything contrary to their views as being dishonorable and unAmerican.
And this is where you lose the line.
No, I do not claim a monopoly on morality. That said, I find it fairly easy to point out that those that live under a banner of God, have a moral compass that vast majority of Americans would agree with.
There are exceptions, of which I consider myself one. I am not a church going man, nor do I heavily subscribe to religion in general, but I live by tenets that are by and large in line with Christian teachings. Maybe it has something to do with my upbringing (was raised Seventh Day Adventist), maybe it has more to do with genetic inherent belief of right and wrong. Who knows, but I suspect that those who hold to the line of God benefit society far more than those that don’t. (My religious story is a long and complicated one).
I think you on the left go wrong when you attempt to remove any vestige of God from sight. Really, are the Ten Commandments so bad? Your side of the isle has accepted abhorrent behavior to push the limits, when maybe those limits were there for a reason.
Gorilla said: There are exceptions, of which I consider myself one. I am not a church going man, nor do I heavily subscribe to religion in general, but I live by tenets that are by and large in line with Christian teachings.
Oh…. I am about to really scare you Gorilla. I would describe myself in the same way. Indeed, I lead what I consider to be an honorable life, with of course the occasional failings we all fall victim to. I think what I do in my life is largely consistent with Christian teachings.
Maybe it has something to do with my upbringing (was raised Seventh Day Adventist), maybe it has more to do with genetic inherent belief of right and wrong. Who knows, but I suspect that those who hold to the line of God benefit society far more than those that don’t. (My religious story is a long and complicated one).
Another similarity. I was raised Catholic, with 12 years of formal Catholic education. High quality education, too (particularly highschool). I credit much of my success to that very education. The Jesuits in particular taught me to think. I don’t really attend Church too often anymore (my story is complicated too) but I actually still consider myself Catholic, at least culturally.
I think you on the left go wrong when you attempt to remove any vestige of God from sight. Really, are the Ten Commandments so bad?
There is nothing wrong with the Ten Commandments. They are are very good principles to live by. I make every effort to live by them myself, with the exclusion (as explained above) of the first three that are explicitly religious. It sounds like you do that as well.
See – we are a lot more alike like than you think.
Where we differ, perhaps, is your claim that you need a God concept to get there. You and I both apparently arrived there via religion, even if we don’t actively practice it now. But, I think you can also arrive at the commandments with simple rationality. They contain much wisdom and are good principles by which to live.
One final statement: I think a combination of commandments 4 through 10 (those that are not explicitly religious) plus the Golden Rule could serve as a fine set of moral principles for everyone in the world to live by, regardless of their religion and regardless of their political beliefs.
Yet we are not seeing those principles taught outside the religious community.
Do you think that those areas with the highest religious exercise have the most crime?
Gorilla said: Yet we are not seeing those principles taught outside the religious community. Do you think that those areas with the highest religious exercise have the most crime?
I am not sure you can make such a blanket statement. Good parents teach their kids good morals, regardless of their religious affiliation. As for crime? The strongest predictor of crime is poverty – again, independent of religious belief.
Call it anecdodal. I would agree that poverty is the biggest predictor of crime, but I don’t see religious communities plagued with crime.
But let’s ignore the religious aspect for a moment and I’d like you to expand on how those moral teachings that you and I both got from years in church school are happening in secular environments? Do you see our current social environment teaching the ‘7’ commandments?
Have you watched MTV lately?
But let’s ignore the religious aspect for a moment and I’d like you to expand on how those moral teachings that you and I both got from years in church school are happening in secular environments? Do you see our current social environment teaching the ’7′ commandments? Have you watched MTV lately?
Gorilla – Cathy already said this at length, but there are countless examples of secular organizations teaching good ethical principles. The Boy Scouts are an example, or the Indian Guides, or any of the secular kids organizations.
TV can present solid morals too. Look at Sesame Street…. it is all about ethics. Granted, some of the ethics it teaches are on the liberal side (i.e., multiculturalism) but it hits the big universal ones pretty well. Most of the educational programming for younger kids is similar. I would even see educational programming for older kids as presenting solid values. Even something as edgy as Degrassi tends to have a moral message nestled into its edginess.
Things like The Simpsons and Jersey Shore are of course another matter – and I think they serve very poorly as moral role models.
Interesting…. if you will allow me to slip a little jab in here… children’s educational programming typically requires substantial subsidy because it doesn’t sell well. Stuff like Jersey shore does just fine on the free market. See any irony here?
Kids don’t buy stuff.
There use to be a social pressure on those kind of programs. Producers dared not go that route because there was a civic gut reaction to it. Then the 60s, Hippies and the Baby Boomers showed up.
Gee thanks for that moral compass you so gratefully provided…
Gorilla said: There use to be a social pressure on those kind of programs. Producers dared not go that route because there was a civic gut reaction to it. Then the 60s, Hippies and the Baby Boomers showed up.
Gee thanks for that moral compass you so gratefully provided…
Gorilla, you could use smileys a little more often….
I was 10 years old during the summer of love, so I refuse to take credit.
😉
I would remind you that here is still civic pressure against those shows. But – producers who indeed once would not go there are more than happy to go there now because – ahem – there is money in it. The free market speaks.
Do you have kids? Your statement that “kids don’t buy stuff” suggests not. Kids don’t buy stuff – but parents buy lots of stuff for kids – and to keep their kids happy.
I think this highlights pretty clearly why I am seeking a definition of honor.
You didn’t seek “a” definition of honor, you asked what Beck meant by it. I answered that question. A working definition of honor that two reasonable, ethical, and honest people could agree on isn’t necessarily the same thing.
Initially, before I decided to answer the question you actually asked, I pulled my Websters Enclopaedic Unabridged and looked up the definitions. I’m fairly certain that they are all definitions that the two people you described could agree upon.
Where those two people would disagree is not in the definition, but the perspective from which it is applied. From our conversations, and those I’ve had with Rutherford, I gather that both of you believe that ethics are a stand alone concept that is separable from a core belief system, and at least in Rutherford’s case, he believes that he can be “good” without subscribing to the philosophy that has shaped the western notions of good (and evil). But this is the reason why we as a society find ourselves in a place where we seek to redefine already existing terms and concepts as to pretend that “new” institutions and choices are the same thing as the things we seek to redefine. rather than simply calling these “new” things what they are and having an honest discussion about the value that these things have. It is an attempt to grant these new things a legitimacy they do not hold for society at large by co-opting the value that society has placed upon that which already exists.
The perspective of your example is that the end result of health care is one that you believe is good, and therefore, to pass it was an act of honor, regardless of the means, and the method.
From my perspective, even if I were to deny my empirical knowledge that tells me that government involvement with any activity or entitlement is to make that thing unduly costly, ugly, inefficient, and generally a byword, and accept the premise that the end result is “good”, I would still have to ignore the deliberate deceptions, lack of transparency, and graft and corruption committed in our name to get it passed, and all so my government could compel me to do something, in a manner that only it can approve, so it can then claim an interest in my diet (and a window into my bank account) and other health decisions because “now we all pay for it” is offensive to the very notion of the independence of the individual from the state that made this nation different from those that came before, and is foreign to those definitions of honor that Mr. Webster so wonderfully provided.
That presupposes ObamaCare was the right thing to do. And a majority of Americans, including the majority of health care providers and their patients say it is not.
And I noticed with the advent of ObamaCare, health care costs in California this coming year are projected to “INCREASE” by 20-30%.
There is nothing honorable about bucking the majority to do the WRONG thing. That’s called haughtiness in all circles but Leftists.
And you forget Obama serves the people – we don’t serve Obama. We’ll remind him of that fact in less than two months.
That presupposes ObamaCare was the right thing to do.
No, Tex, I don’t think it does.
Look, I don’t want this to go off on a tangent about the merits of HCR. We have discussed that to death elsewhere. Obviously we disagree – and history will tell us (perhaps) who was correct.
I am simply thinking through the definition BiW provided. He says that honor is doing the right thing when everyone tells you not to do so.
People like me and your President firmly believe with an honestly clear conscience that HCR needed to be done – despite what you and the insurance lobby say. I believe that fits the definition of honor that was provided.
Note that “an honestly clear conscience” is critical to what I am saying. Note also that if you remove that clause the definition of “honor” degrades to “whatever I say it is.”
Honor isnt bribing Senators with tax payer money to vote a certain way jackass. Honor isnt passing a 2000 plus page bill and telling the people it must pass so they know whats in it moron.
Liberals have no honor.
Honor isnt making someone buy something they dont want.
“My friend HP has a new post up about a joke that he morphs into an unsubstantiated smear on Glenn Beck, and his 8/28 rally at the Lincoln Memorial.”
Thats all drones know how to do. You almost sound shocked.
Dont know why you call him your “friend’. Starting to sound like Juan McVain in calling people that want to destroy this nation destroy as your friend.
With “friends” like that, who needs enemies.
HP, I don’t speak for BiW, but I do believe that truth is objective and there is such a thing as absolute right and wrong. So when two people are debating about the right thing to do and don’t agree, at least one of them must be wrong. In fact, both are probably wrong, because it can be difficult to know the right thing. That’s where prayer comes in – we ask for guidance. That ties into the humility BiW mentions – knowing that there is much that you cannot know.
CAIR Vows to Replace 200 Burned Korans With 200,000…
http://weaselzippers.us/2010/09/09/cair-vows-to-replace-200-burned-korans-with-200000/
Any drones want to take a stab why the left has a soft spot for islam? Prove you arent drones and actually articulate a response. Not cower from the truth which I speak. Its the honorable thing.
Wow Elric … that sounded damn near poetic. You’re starting to sound like a cult leader. I got a nice compound in Waco I can rent out to you. 🙂
Honor isn’t calling someone you hardly know “jackass” and “moron”.
Guess so far no drone will comment on why the left have such a soft spot for islam.
Love it when drones prove me correct. Not that its all that difficult. They are drones so therefore predictable. 🙂
Mrs Peel said: HP, I don’t speak for BiW, but I do believe that truth is objective and there is such a thing as absolute right and wrong. So when two people are debating about the right thing to do and don’t agree, at least one of them must be wrong. In fact, both are probably wrong, because it can be difficult to know the right thing. That’s where prayer comes in – we ask for guidance. That ties into the humility BiW mentions – knowing that there is much that you cannot know.
You might be surprised that I think there is an absolute truth as well. The problem is that, as imperfect humans, it is hard for us to know exactly what that truth is. It is an epistemological problem, not an ontological problem.
You mention that prayer is one method of discerning the truth. Indeed it may be (though I would also hold that there are other methods). I am sure you are aware, though, that two people praying about the same thing can still come to different conclusions about what is right. Perhaps one or both are lying to themselves – but you can bet that neither of them realizes it and both believe themselves to be honorable.
I will again maintain that it is possible for two people with drastically different ideas to both act honorably.
P.S. I miss The Avengers
Rutherford said: Honor isn’t calling someone you hardly know “jackass” and “moron”.
Back on my blog I tried to explain to BiW that I would rather this conversation occur on my blog than on his. This is an example of why I felt that way.
BiW, do you get it?
HP, this response was a bit long for a comment. Maybe you wouldn’t care, but I wouldn’t be thrilled if someone had written an essay in response to something I wrote and put it in my comment section.
In addition, in posting it there, I lose control over my content. Maybe that isn’t really an issue as far as you’re concerned, but if I’m going to spend more than an hour writing something, I don’t want any doubts as to my ownership of it, and editorial control will be mine alone.
I’m not really afraid of Elric. Like many people, I get annoyed when he attacks but doesn’t engage, but at the same time, I get annoyed when people engage, but do so on their own terms, with reframing and focusing on issues not in controversy by the original post, or even the conversation in the thread.
“I get annoyed when he attacks but doesn’t engage.”
I get annoyed when people engage marxist drones and call them friends.
You’re ready to abandon them.
I’m not…yet.
“I further fear the tendency of the right to define anything contrary to their views as being dishonorable and unAmerican.”
Like what your side is doing with opposing this “president” and opposing the Ground Zero Victory mosque? Or perhaps opposing open borders or runaway spending.?
Afghans Already Protesting Burn a Koran Day, Chant “Death to Christians” While Torching American Flags…
http://weaselzippers.us/2010/09/09/afghans-already-protesting-burn-a-koran-day-chant-death-to-christians-while-torching-american-flags/
Something tells me the MSM and the leftist hacks will never bring this up. Burn baby burn.
Interesting that this was your response. When I read
the subjective non equivocal argument. I think it is safe to say that THIS is what Beck is talking about. The fact that we’ve essentially seen both moral and ethical compasses tossed out the proverbial window in the interest of political correctness, or non-offensiveness.
I took it as an assertion that when political correctness and non-offensiveness (what would be the difference between the two, btw?), became the standard, the only “hard” application of a constant became that religion embodied by Christianity and Judiasm became an object of derision and scorn, something to be belittled and mocked, and publically rejected, while everything else was to be permitted, celebrated, or excused. When the prevailing “wisdom” became opposition to a faith that ushered in the idea of rule of law rather than rule of men, with no other discernable standards, honor became a foreign concept because there is no standard; when your only goal is to not offend (unless it is to offend that one group), then you don’t really stand for anything, and there is no honor in that.
BiW said: I took it as an assertion that when political correctness and non-offensiveness (what would be the difference between the two, btw?), became the standard, the only “hard” application of a constant became that religion embodied by Christianity and Judiasm became an object of derision and scorn, something to be belittled and mocked, and publically rejected, while everything else was to be permitted, celebrated, or excused.
You know, I can’t speak for other liberals, but the above doesn’t describe me. I do not have scorn for Christianity and Judaism. See my response to Gorilla above. I will repeat what I said earlier: I think a combination of commandments 4 – 10 (in the Catholic Bible) and the Golden Rule would provide a decent moral framework for everyone to live by. Note that the golden rule part would do away with the issue of political correctness. I want to be treated with respect, and thus I need to treat others with respect.
Again, I can’t speak for other liberals, but for me the real issue comes down to commandments 1 through 3 and the insistence by some Christians that everyone needs to follow those 3 in exactly the same way.
“I think a combination of commandments 4 – 10 (in the Catholic Bible) and the Golden Rule would provide a decent moral framework for everyone to live by.”
Interesting you left out islamic teachings. You an islamophobe or something? 🙂
“have made the claim that liberals don’t understand honor and can’t in fact be honorable.”
Damn right. Anyone still supporting this regime has no honor.
Tex,
These drones will never answer if al-thuggy is either doing all this destruction on purpose or is totally incompetent. Do the drones think he honestly believed this national healthcare would lower cost. They wont answer because they are cowards like all drones.
Finding out what’s in ObamaCare: premium hikes
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posted at 10:12 am on September 8, 2010 by Ed Morrissey
After the polls showed that the newly-passed ObamaCare bill remained deeply unpopular with voters, the Obama administration reshuffled the rollout in order to convince Americans what a great deal they would get. By “front-loading” the most popular provisions to make them effective immediately, the White House hoped that the momentum would shift to support for the one legislative achievement of Barack Obama’s turn — or at least neutralize its negative influence. Instead, ObamaCare remains as unpopular as ever, and the bill will come due just before the midterms:
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/09/08/finding-out-whats-in-obamacare-premium-hikes/
Really drones? al-Thuggy is an “honorable” man? Really?????
Anyone still defending this regime has no sense. 😉
Though I do have to admit some surprise that Hippie is still hard at it. I thought by now the hard edge would have dissipated to a degree. I think I have him pegged as more stubborn that old Rutherford.
I would suggest that terms such as “honor”, “moral”, “ethical”, etc. are dependent upon a historical, general consensus. If they are viewed as “subjective”, they then lose their validity. Careful review of the major religions will reveal certain attributes and characteristics of human behavior that are considered positive by all of them. Religion, however is only one source of guidance. Societies and cultures will always provide guideposts for behaviors that are identified as favorable and reinforced over time and they will be relevant to the milieu in which they are developed.
Perhaps humanity would be better advanced if we were to look for the characteristics that we have in common that will advance and unite societies – kindness, for instance, or generosity.
BIC, you are correct when you point out that a core value system is the wellspring of moral, ethical behavior …. just as a lack or dismissal of societal shared values contributes to the deterioration or prevents the growth of a culture.
Tex,
Deep down, drones are all the same. Some may come off as more reasonable but they are all alike.
See what I mean? Prof Bong cant answer simple questions and BiW wonders why I dont engage these drones. But I guess I shouldnt be too hard on his “friend”.
No, I don’t wonder why you don’t engage them. I get annoyed when you attack but don’t engage them, because there are times when it distracts from ongoing conversations. That said, you seem to come up with some “inconvenient” counterpoints to the drumbeat narrative we continue to get from the legacy media.
Is it “honorable” for a president to tell a private citizen not to exercise his freedom of speech?
I am simply thinking through the definition BiW provided. He says that honor is doing the right thing when everyone tells you not to do so.
No. You’re thinking of Beck’s definition which I conveniently posted for you. It wasn’t something I said, it was something I repeated. My definition would mirror that of Mr. Webster, which would be more expansive than Beck’s.
I’m curious if Rutherford,Hippie prof or anyone else think Beck is dishonorable as it pertains to his current campaign.
I’m no fan of Beck but he clearly came to the plate on this one with class and I haven’t seen anything from anyone other than his opposition and detractors play it any other way.
Alfie, I think Beck is dishonorable in general – so it is hard for me to view the events surrounding his rally without that belief affecting my judgments. I will elaborate later – but I have a meeting in 2 minutes.
I believe that Rutherford is on record in support of Beck’s actions at the rally.
I’d add to BIC’s last comment that context is key here.
Isn’t it obvious Beck was speaking more that he felt it was the right thing to do,the event,even though people said NO,and that was fueled by the MLK angle.
I get going outside and addressing honor etc. but the post and sidebar seems to be clear that we’re primarily looking at the Beck event.
I’m primarily looking at the Beck event because the question asked about Beck’s perspective. My perspective would be a different post.
Oh I get that and I apologize for the improper use of the term “sidebar”.
I’m disappointed in HP’s response.
That’s because HP is playing the word/definition game rather than accepting and focusing on what Beck meant. In other words, trying to substitute his own framework for Beck’s so he can attack it. That’s why I made the caveat early on.
Alfie said: I’m disappointed in HP’s response.
Well, I am glad that your approval is not near the top of my priority list, Alfie. 😉
In all seriousness, I trust you know that I do value your perspective – so if you get a moment please elaborate. Remember, as I said right at the top I haven’t made my full response yet.
Tigre said: That’s because HP is playing the word/definition game rather than accepting and focusing on what Beck meant.
Tigre, you seem to be forgetting that I was the one who asked the question in the first place (over on my blog). You can’t accuse me of changing the question what it was my question to start. Sheesh.
I will reiterate what I said earlier.
1) I wasn’t clear to me what Beck meant by honor.
2) Some people have made the claim that liberals can’t have honor. I think this is false.
3) An understanding of what Beck means is perhaps critical to resolving the question. That is why I asked the question to begin with.
4) So far, I have seen nothing in the discussion of Beck’s definition that would preclude liberals having honor – yet people are still making that claim.
Once again, I am not changing the question. This is the question I asked originally.
I will ask you directly: What in Beck’s definition would preclude liberals having honor?
HP: I went to your site. I read the comments until it grew tired and cisrcular (not entirely your fault). But You asked about Beck’s perspective, you received an answer. Why do you feel the need to change the paradigm?
I never said that liberals couldn’t have honor. But frankly, I think the liberal agenda today represents what happens when a bunch of rationalizing pussies that know nothing of personal sacrafice run amok — the antithesis of what “I” find honorable.
“I get annoyed when you attack but don’t engage them, because there are times when it distracts from ongoing conversations.”
And why are marxist/fascists drones worth engaging? I tried, but I got tired of the dodging, the smears, the lies and the strawmen arguments they engage in. Perhaps thats your cup of tea but not mine. I’ll engage in conversation with real freedom lovers like Tex, Cathy, Agiledog etc. But engage with people that vote for people ripping this nation in half? Never. They deserve scorn and ridicule, not civility.
But the dance says as much about the dancer as the dialogue sometimes.
“But the dance says as much about the dancer as the dialogue sometimes.”
Very true. I pose simple questions that they will either dance around or dodge totally. Like asking them if they support polygamy like they do gay marriage. But I have seen them dance long enough. Get bored seeing the same dance over and over.
Honestly, what in the hell would Liberals know about honor?
Seriously, think about for a second.
Does anybody here have a good recipe for pound cake or homemade fragmentation grenades?
And I need a trigger for the pound cake.
Dick said: Honestly, what in the hell would Liberals know about honor? Seriously, think about for a second.
It is nice to have such an easy example of exactly what I am talking about. I made the claim earlier in this thread that some people claim liberals cannot have honor – and – viola – Dick provides proof of my claim. There are plenty of other people who make this claim too. It is exactly why I raised this question to begin with.
Dick, I have thought about it a lot – much longer than the second you suggest.
Would you care to elaborate on your claim? Why can liberals not have honor? What is it about Beck’s definition that would preclude liberals having honor?
Hippie I’ll await your full statement but say this for now.I appreciate your full disclosure clause and can relate to it via my absolute belief I could not veer my car away if Olberman suddenly appeared in front of me outside a crosswalk.
Alfie said: Hippie I’ll await your full statement but say this for now.I appreciate your full disclosure clause and can relate to it via my absolute belief I could not veer my car away if Olberman suddenly appeared in front of me outside a crosswalk.
One quick response and then off to yet another meeting.
I have said this before, but I am not an Olbermann fan. I think he and Beck are cut from the same cloth. The only real difference is that I agree with the things Olbermann says more than Beck – but that is about the message and not the man.
The only TV “pundits” I like are Stewart and Colbert – and they are bloody comedians.
I guess I missed the part in school where the art of character assassination was taught as an intellectual pursuit.
BiW. Thanks for this post. You nailed it.
There seems to be a sort of sick pride in bashing conservatives who’ve demonstrated they lead relatively decent lives. Not perfect, but decent. For some weird reason I picture Cissy Spacek being shamed and violated in the movie ‘Carrie.’ Need to watch that again, but her character in the movie is an archetype. Sad.
On the other side, the good news, I picture the young shepherd named David, who shows up at a ‘street-fight’ where a rather large bully is threatening his neighborhood ‘gang’ including his big brothers. The pint sized younger bro, who is only there because he was sent with the picnic lunch for the brothers to eat, ends up being the very dude that God picked to nail that effin’ arrogant bully. Story simplified a tad, but the reality is that sometimes the very person called to kick the bad guy in the nuts is a very unlikely candidate.
Bottom line, whether it’s the very imperfect goofball like Beck, the spunky conservative ladies Palin, Bachmann, Angle, O’Donnel, or quiet mannered Joe Wilson, or Joe the Plumber, or whomever the lefties bash, I figure that there is something about the capability, decency, honesty, and humility that lefties find very threatening to spend so much of their time and effort bashing with such vitriol.
Makes me wanna explore their characters more, not less.
“What is it about Beck’s definition that would preclude liberals having honor?”
Suddenly you care about what Beck says jackass?
So what is so honorable about the government siccing the DOJ and the Sec of Defense on a private citizen because he wants to exercise his free speech?
Nobody gave me a recipe for pound cake, bastards…
HP, tell me about the hardest thing you ever did for the United States of America.
Placing your right hand across your chest during the National Anthem doesn’t count.
what in the hell would Liberals know about honor?
Seriously, think about for a second.
My wife is a church social worker. You’d call her a liberal. She is part of a Christian agency full of people you’d call liberals. They help house homeless veterans in one of their programs. In another, they help veterans addicted to drugs to get off and get back to a normal life.
In yet another program, they provide housing for homeless families. For instance, there was the family where the two children BOTH got cancer and the working parents, as a result, went broke and ended up homeless AND STILL dealing with children with cancer (at least one is in remission, I believe was the last I heard).
These are honorable actions, I’d say. Anyone care to disagree?
I attend a church full of folk you’d call liberal. Our church is located in a poor urban neighborhood, between two housing projects, several homeless programs and amongst the mentally ill.
One couple at the church befriended a woman who was dying and helped take care of her in her final days. Not only her, but her two grade school children. When the mother died, this couple took in the two children as their very own, for truly, they were. This, in spite of not having the money to do so and not really getting any money from any “official” source (although, of course, the church stepped up and helped out). All in a tiny little two bedroom house down the street from the church (the couple was past child-bearing years).
And then, when another beloved child in the church who was nearly orphaned was getting in trouble at schools and on the streets, they basically took in this boy and his mentally challenged mother in addition to the first two children, all in their tiny little two bedroom house and with no real money to speak of.
All those children are adults now and doing well in college, thank you very much. That couple quite literally SAVED those children’s lives, there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind who knows the situation.
THAT is honorable. Do you doubt it?
I could go on and on with story after story about my so-called “liberal” friends. The teachers who pours their lives into the lives of the children they teach are, indeed, honorable. Social worker after social worker after mental health worker, all greatly intelligent and capable people who could easily have applied their skills into some area to get wealthy in their own lives, but who, each and every one, chose helping fields and thus demonstrating honor with their every day of work with the least of these.
My friends who’ve poured their lives out in love in Muslim Morocco are people of honor.
Can anyone seriously doubt any of this and, if so, on what possible basis?
These are people of great honor well worth knowing. Believe it.
BiW, in your post, you stated…
Again, the theory that he has set forth is that we started to lose it when we lost the humility and respect to God that was inherent in the concept of Divine Providence and let it morph in to Manifest Destiny.
And I largely agree. To the degree that we have lost any honor, it is inasmuch as we have abandoned ideals of community, love of neighbor, respect for those with whom we disagree, concern for the down and out… the Ways of God as exemplified in Jesus and his teachings.
My only caveat would be that I don’t know that things are worse in regards to “losing honor.” People have always been people. There have always been miscreants along with the saints, and the saints have always been flawed humans.
There was no honor in the slavery and racism that so defined our nation for so long. There was no honor in the sexism that treated women as second class citizens. In some ways, things have gotten worse, BUT in some ways, we have also gotten better.
Thus it always has been, seems to me.
These are honorable actions, I’d say. Anyone care to disagree?
Does she have a recipe for pound cake?
And nobody here is making judgment of your wife Dan.
First, it would be boorish, and second, she never comments here.
Only you do, and that hippie guy with the long hair.
You asked what liberals know about honor, I was just providing several examples of honorable liberals.
Turns out, at least some liberals know quite a bit about honor. As do at least some conservatives.
You know what I’d find honorable for Beck to do? Accept Jim Wallis’ polite and rational invitation to have a face to face dialog.
Smearing someone from their radio show is not honorable. Being willing to meet and discuss differences rationally is.
My wife is a church social worker. You’d call her a liberal. She is part of a Christian agency full of people you’d call liberals. They help house homeless veterans in one of their programs. In another, they help veterans addicted to drugs to get off and get back to a normal life.
Dan, your wife sounds like an admirable woman. I’m assuming as a church social worker she is paid by the church and donations from good hard working folks who reach deep into their pockets to give UNCONDITIONALLY to the efforts that are chosen within the church. All admirable endeavors.
I’m not sure I’d call her a liberal. She is not expecting others to redistribute their wealth to help pay for the programs in which she serves, is she?
Anyway, you wife gets a pass. She lives with you. (okay laugh now!)
According to her, she’s the flaming liberal one in our household. I’m just an old crusty neo-Amish guy.
Im really surprised with this talk of freedom and honor no one is talking about the Federal government trying to strong arm a private citizen into not exercising his 1st Amendment Rights.
My only caveat would be that I don’t know that things are worse in regards to “losing honor.” People have always been people. There have always been miscreants along with the saints, and the saints have always been flawed humans.
Okay, everybody. ALERT the MEDIA!
I agree with Dan on about 92% of this.
We have always been and always be flawed human beings. The sinner & saint predicament.
The distinct difference I sense right now is in our leadership, both in government and also personalities that influence us (such as the main stream media, entertainers, Hollywood types). These folks don’t seem to set honor, integrity, and decency as their personal high priority. And this problem is not just in our liberals.
I still ache for the days when I watched the evening news with my mom and dad, reported to us on a black & white tv by Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. We didn’t know their political position or agenda, because it was the NEWS – – the who, what where, when, and how. They left the ‘why’ spin to the editorial section of the newspaper.
Glad we agree, Cathy, at least a little.
Still, I think it wise to keep in mind that along with every Jefferson who seemed to set honor, integrity and decency as a high priority, you had other politicians who were just as base, just as much skirt-chasers and bribe-acceptors, just as greedy and short-sighted as any of our politicians today. It’s just that they are protected by the separation of generations.
And even Jefferson was a slave-owning, and slave-sexing and otherwise flawed human fella just like his namesake, William Jefferson Clinton, has been today. They just kept things more quiet back then.
History has a way of sanitizing itself, oftentimes.
Cathy said: I still ache for the days when I watched the evening news with my mom and dad, reported to us on a black & white tv by Chet Huntley and David Brinkley.
I also remember the days of the Huntley-Brinkley report – and I suspect I was just about the same age as you were. My memories are a bit different, though. My parents were very conservative, and felt that Huntley and Brinkley were yet another example of the liberal media bias – particularly Brinkley, of course, who carried on solo for a number of years after Huntley retired.
So – my memories of the good old days are perhaps a bit jaded….
And I still have no recipe for pound cake…
Talk about a bitter middle aged white guy.
And I still have no recipe for pound cake…</I.
*removes Bo Freiberg's "Professional Pastry Chef" from shelf*
*looks up recipe for pound cake*
*considers delight of Dick's participation*
*closes book and returns it to shelf*
fin.
^ tag thing!!!
Amish Pound Cake…
Five-Flavor Pound Cake
Cream Crisco, margarine and sugar; add rest of ingredients. Pour in un-greased tube pan and bake at 350° F. for one hour. Combine glaze ingredients; cook until it strings. 3 c. sugar
1/2 c. margarine
1 c. Crisco
6 eggs
1 c. milk
1 T. baking powder
3 c. flour
1 t. vanilla flavoring
1 t. lemon flavoring
1 t. orange flavoring
1 t. coconut flavoring
1 t. pineapple flavoring
Glaze:
1 c. sugar
1/2 c. margarine
1/2 c. water
1/2 t of each flavoring
So how many honorable muslims have stepped up to denounce the death threats against Terry Jones?
“We now have firmly established the principle that you can kick Bibles and other scriptures around all you want, but no one in the world can act disrespectfully toward a Koran. It is, perhaps, a watershed moment.”
Thank you, Dan.
You’re a gentleman and a scholar.
Cathy, you owe me!
Pie?
Pat Condell on Ground Zero mosque: “Is it possible to be astonished, but not surprised?”
So Cathy I assume you feel Walter Cronkite stepped over the line when he opined on the Vietnam war? I think Uncle Walter sorta ended the days of the “objective” news anchor.
“Goodnight David.”
“Goodnight Chet.”
I agree …. I miss those days too to some degree. Anchors had class that they don’t have today. Then again, we would be mistaken to confuse Brian Williams with Keith Olbermann.
Yea, Cronkite. I was still a kid then and probably didn’t pick up on the move over the line as much as adults did. Lots more has come out about him being a lib in recent years.
When Ted Kennedy’s actions caused a young girl to drown (my next door neighbor went to school with Mary Jo) it was Cronkite who befriended him. I guess they sailed together.
Cronkite was not a bad guy. I just wish we had kept clean non-editorial news programming. But people were changing too. The whole Ralph Nader consumer power stuff was just getting started. Who knows… maybe viewers were asking for more of that kinda news.
I liked Cronkite’s series “The Twentieth Century” a lot.
OMFG You did NOT just say that? Cathy are you attempting satire? I was able to hold onto the contents of my stomach as you lauded the spunk of Sharron Angle but then the Joe comment just ruined a couple thousand dollars of computer equipment. I’ll need a medivac crew to clean this up.
Shouting “YOU LIE” at the President of the United States at the most inappropriate time and place is your idea of “quiet mannered”?
These poor innocent patriotic conservatives have just been bullied and maligned by those vicious liberals. If this isn’t playing the victim, I don’t know what is. I thought things would be bad when we had Sue “chicken barter” Louden as a possible opponent of Reid but then we got Angle. It is a measure of the utter lunacy of this country that Sharron Angle actually has a good chance to beat Harry.
Before you ask what I have against Sharron .. no it’s not that she’s a conservative woman. Let’s start with she calls a press conference and then turns on her heels and takes no questions from the press. I guess you call that cleverly redefining the way the game of politics is played.
I’ll be back after I finish cleaning up my keyboard. 👿
I hear ya. Joe Wilson pushed your button. Hahahah! Sorry about the spew on your keyboard.
IN GENERAL everyone knew Joe Wilson as a quiet mannered guy. That he lost it was not a good thing. He apologized, but the liberals and the media decided to make more of it and use the circumstance to their benefit. THAT is the point I’m making. Remember? I started all that by saying that we all are imperfect people.
And btw — Joe did the wrong thing in saying it aloud, but he was exactly right. Obama did lie to the American people and Joe knew it because he had just studied in depth the details of the bill because of his committee position. He KNEW that the POTUS was lying. He should not have yelled. I agree.
It’s late so I’m not looking up links on this right now. The specific comment Obama made right before being called a liar was not a lie. Fact checkers after the event did acknowledge that Obama was mistaken in some of his assertions that night but not on the specific one that prompted Wilson’s outburst.
Be that as it may, there is a difference between getting one’s facts wrong and lying. Unless you are a horse’s ass, albeit a quiet mannered one, you don’t call the POTUS a liar to his face on national TV.
Drone is still whining about Joe Wilson telling the truth?
“Smearing someone from their radio show is not honorable.”
But its ok for your side to smear, right drone? And the guy is a marxist. No wonder you defend the dirtbag.
I’ve been very impressed with Rev Wallis. I’ve seen him a few times and he seems a man of moderation in an extremist world.
Mr. Wallis might be able to persuade me to become a Christian. Franklin Graham and Terry Jones could not.
I can see why loathsome drones would like Wallis
Jimmy needs to revisit 2 Corinithians 9:6-7.
Yet somehow, I can envision that this is one religous concept that the left would enthusiaistically incorporate into government, and vigorously defend. Especially if they got to use other people’s money to do it.
One might wonder if he has forgotten Jesus saying that the poor will always be among us…a truth borne out by the crashing failure that is “The War On Poverty”.
For all their conceptualizing that redistribution of wealth is what Jesus would want, I have yet to see where he commanded us to give generously to government, so that it may feed his sheep. In fact, every time I read the gospels, I see that his commands were to US, not Rome. Funny, that…
BIC,
Was Paul not exactly right who the real fight was with? The older I get, the more enlightened I become about what really drives man. These members from the Left that frequent this board are completely clueless, completely blind. Their thinking is clouded with corruption.
Consider men like Rutherford and Hippie’s defense of the mosque and their outrage over some goon burning a Koran. Have you ever seen a time they didn’t defend Islam? Truly, the veil is thick over their eyes. That’s one reason I don’t really have a personal grudge with them. In fact, I pity their ignorance.
Consider this article:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/285123/christians_in_gaza_fear_for_their_lives.html
Do you see clear standards, or better yet, lack of one in judgment? Do you sense or read their outrage about something like that, or do you ever once hear them mention that Christians, for all their flaws, don’t react like Islamists? That our way of worship, how we carry on our lives, superior in every form?
The lost condemn the Right in politics, but their real favorite target is Christians. Ironically, both I’ve listed as example will occasionally will walk into a parish or sanctuary. But they never miss a chance to condemn or criticize disciples of Christ. I will be the first to admit apostles of Christ, myself included, are deeply flawed. We all are. Yet look at who these men and women from the Left continually side with, never recognizing the only thing keeping them from submission is us, or people like us. A real paradox, hey?
Just like Christ said and Paul wrote it would be. 😉
Tex said: Consider men like Rutherford and Hippie’s defense of the mosque and their outrage over some goon burning a Koran.
Tex, I will say the same thing I said to Rabbit this morning over at Rutherford’s, in language just as salty.
Where the FUCK do you get the notion that I have said this? I have not written one word about the mosque. I have not defended not have I condemned it. You have no idea what I think about the mosque.
As for burning the Koran? I only talked about in response to a question you asked – and I displayed no outrage. You, on the other hand, had the following to say about the pastor – and it sounds like outrage to me:
Burning a Koran is stupid and makes me angry that somebody calling themselves “Christian” is leading the book burning – especially a pastor. He’s a fraud.. This poseur and clown having a Koran burning is a disgrace to Christianity, should be widely condemned by Evangelicals. And the only thing that will come of it is to make some people calling themselves Christian look like morons.
Could you and others please stop putting my name with ideas that are not mine? I am tired of being trashed and having my name dragged through the mud based on what you think I might think.
Look, there is plenty to trash based on things I have actually said, so why don’t you show me the courtesy of sticking to that? 😉
Rutherford, perhaps it would be easier if you simply listed for us the Conservative women you do admire? Everyone you’ve ever listed, you scorn and ridicule in the most vile of ways, sometimes with their own children included in the mix.
I guess you don’t ever realize your own flavor of shortcoming, huh? 🙂
Like I said before, Kay Bailey Hutchison impressed me as having some brains. She’s a conservative so no, I’m not likely to “admire” her but I don’t see her as easy pickin’s the way I do Palin and Bachmann.
I’d need to know more about Meg Whitman but she seems credible from the little I’ve seen. Carly Fiorina on the other hand is odious. Ruined HP (not Hippie Prof) and now wants to ruin California. 😉
Yeah, Kay Bailey’s so Conservative, she just got her butt kicked in a Conservative state by a Conservative. Kay Bailey is David Frum…
Try again hack…
Tex,
I even asked the drones why the left has a soft spot for islam. The cowards refused to answer.
Elric,
Makes absolutely no sense, does it? They don’t even ask for the requirement of reciprocity from a religion that, however it was perverted, murdered 3,000 U.S. citizens. They are already practicing submission and don’t even know it.
I used to think it was simply ignorance of Islam. But after not one Muslim was killed in the U.S. after that atrocity, who did they escalate the vitriol about? Christians. They demand social justice, yet dummy Rutherford will condemn Franklin Graham whose Samaritan’s Purse does more for Muslims than any organization in the world. If he were secular, they would sing his praises. I guarantee it.
Neville Chamberlain is one thing, but Tokyo Rose is quite another.
I’ll tell you who they remind me of – Judenrat.
Tex … you are too damn smart for this. Islam did NOT murder 3000 us citizens. Your own damn President George W. Bush said as much. Crazy people killed 3000. Take your fight to the crazies and leave peace loving Muslims the hell alone.
Now who is exactly that I have bothered that is Muslim again Rutherford.
Is that why they were screaming Allahu Akbar when the planes hit the building? Is that why we’ve had four, count them four, jihadist attacks this year alone on Domestic soil? Is that why hundreds of thousands of people walk the streets of Tehran screaming Allahu Akbar in conjunction with “Death to America?” Is that why Al-Qaeda is now in 60 countries? Is that why Palestians voted for a terrorist organization named Hamas as its ‘Democratic’ government?
Do you know you or Hippie have not addressed this about the religion of pieces, as I now have provided it five times?
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/index.html#Attacks
And is this the same lib that uses George the Baby Killer Tiller as an example of Christianity ad nauseum?
Go fuck yourself you duplicitous/sanctimonious/foolish little shit…
Tex,
My belief is that they have a soft spot for islam because its an oppressive ideology, its anti-Christian, anti-Western and antisemitic.
And yes I compare the drones to the judenrats. Funny that you mention that because you know how funds this leftist agenda? The judenrat George Soros.
As Scott noted this morning, Feisal Abdul Rauf has taken to the opinion pages of the New York Times to reiterate his intent to build the Ground Zero mosque. Rauf is no stranger to those pages. On February 27, 1979, the Times published Rauf’s letter to the editor in which he criticized American for failing to apologize to Iran for past misdeeds. Rauf added that “the revolution in Iran was inspired by the very principles of individual rights and freedom that Americans ardently believe in.”
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/09/027186.php
No wonder the left love this guy.
Oh Hippie – there’s not a bigger “coddler” on the net of the politically correct than you. You mean to tell me you’re not for the GMZ mosque being built in NYC and the guise of “rights” which nobody against it disagrees? Come now.
Yeah, we agree that the preacher man is an idiot – but for completely different reasons. I insinuated the preacher made Christianity look silly for stooping to the same level of those that march through the streets of Tehran screaming “Death to America.” This preacher, and I forget his name, is a self-promoter in the mold of Fred Phelps without the signs. He’s just as nutty. He’s obviously mentally deficient and a self-promoter. The man’s congregation is all of 50.
That’s not why you’re against the book burning. You’re against it because you buy off on the line of national security which is laughable. You, and Rutherford, Graychin and his toady actually are gullible enough to believe these are so-called “recruitment” tools. Let me give the psychologist a tip on psychology. That’s a ruse. 😉 Anybody that would declare jihad over a book burning was already a jihadist in the making just like the boys coming over the border of Iraq were just peace loving Muslims pushed over the brink because we were on Iraq soil in a Muslim country. Many of them were screaming “Help Me!” “Help Me!”. These choir boys turned jihadists were no where to be found during the Gulf War, so don’t lay the Leftist line of bullshit on me. I know better.
I don’t know why you cowards from the Left are going to learn that the only effective way to deal with evil, especially a cult like sharia compliant lifetyle, is to confront it. You don’t acquiesce, you don’t placate, you don’t negotiate like the ignorant Obama which has failed miserably and made us look weak, you don’t make some false peace pact, or win hearts with being sweet, because none of that works.
You meet it head on and you destroy it. Bullies understand one thing – power and you better wake up to that fact quickly.
Tex said: Oh Hippie – there’s not a bigger “coddler” on the net of the politically correct than you. You mean to tell me you’re not for the GMZ mosque being built in NYC and the guise of “rights” which nobody against it disagrees? Come now.
Tex, you made the clear claim that I had defended the mosque. I have never written one word about the mosque. You have no idea what I think about the mosque. Your only honorable response here would be to say “I am sorry, I incorrectly attributed an idea to you.” I am still waiting for you to do the honorable thing.
You also have misrepresented my views on burning the Koran. I will summarize my views: We are at war with the jihads. In a war you don’t want to provide the enemy with any advantage, no matter how small. This is particularly true when you gain nothing as a result. I don’t think we gain anything by burning Korans. I think we do surrender at least some advantage to the enemy by doing so. How big an advantage? Who knows – but in a war you don’t want to concede ANY advantage. Hence, burning Korans is a stupid thing to do. No moral outrage, just plain logic. I would go as far as to call the logic unassailable.
I await your apology.
I think we do surrender at least some advantage to the enemy by doing so. How big an advantage?
Why do you see it this way, HP?
I admit, I only read “The Art of War” once, but it seems to me that it angers an opponent of choleric temper.
BiW said: I admit, I only read “The Art of War” once, but it seems to me that it angers an opponent of choleric temper.
Admittedly, I wasn’t thinking of Sun Tzu when I wrote this. But, I believe the logic behind “anger an opponent of choleric temper” is that in doing so you will goad the opponent into an unwise action, thus giving you a net strategic advantage.
I am not clear what unwise action we might goad them into – unless it was sending more bombers – some of whom might get through and kill Americans. I don’t see that as a real strategic advantage.
Tex, I think HP is correct. There is plenty in what he does say that we can kick around, without attributing to him things he has not said.
Hippie makes a pitiful “victim.”
Tell you what BiC – I’ll apologize to Hippie on the condition I will hold you to the same lofty standards you have on occasion held me…
So for something Hippie didn’t say (and you’ll fucking note BIC that what he doesn’t say says as much as what he does), then Hippie is overdue in apologizing for the following:
(1) Making accusation that a mother would name her child, in this case Sarah Palin, after his disease. I didn’t note a FUCKING apology for that vileness when I corrected both him and Rutherford.
(2) Saying my neighbor should be charged for racketeering when Hippie’s FUCKING FASCIST LIB GOV cost my neighbor thousands of dollars for being forced to rent to black thugs under the Fair Housing Act, who then proceeding to trash his house without reimbursement for damages.
(3) Plagiarizing some stupid story he had stolen from one of his idiot sites about Kentucky rednecks and attributing this story as typical.
But If it will make you feel whole Hippie and BIC legally happy:
I so profusely apologize to you Hippie that your liberal and bankrupt leanings on every subject, replete with lies that you’ve picked up on from MSNBC, Paul Krugman, and Nate “Sliver” Silver that you carrying through with as WordPress minister of propaganda, being I find you so morally bankrupt that I find nothing redeeming about you what so ever besides you love your daughter, made me falsely assume that you had sided with the construction of the Cordoba Mosque which you side with anyway.
Feel all better now Hippie? Will that do BlackisWhite?
Wow, Tex – apologizing for misquoting someone and in the process misquoting/falsely accusing again… that is a great strategy. You are in fine form today.
So, in order:
(1) Making accusation that a mother would name her child, in this case Sarah Palin, after his disease.
I believe that was Rutherford, not me. I don’t believe I made that accusation. I remember the incident – you swore off his blog and left for a while afterward – but I was an observer and not a participant.
(2) Saying my neighbor should be charged for racketeering when Hippie’s FUCKING FASCIST LIB GOV cost my neighbor thousands of dollars for being forced to rent to black thugs under the Fair Housing Act, who then proceeding to trash his house without reimbursement for damages.
I believe I have already apologized. My RICO comment was meant as a joke, as I have told you several times. I apologize that it did not see it as a joke.
(3) Plagiarizing some stupid story he had stolen from one of his idiot sites about Kentucky rednecks and attributing this story as typical.
Tex, this one is no laughing matter. Plagiarism is a serious change in academics – one by which careers are ruined. I would be very careful how you proceed with making such charges. On top of it, I don’t know what story you are referring to. Perhaps it was my little bit of creative fiction about a conversation in a diner (linked below). Sorry, not plagiarized. Love it or hate it, those were my words.
http://hippieprofessor.com/2010/05/28/at-the-diner/
Notice how the drones care if we offend muslims but never talk about the atrocities inflicted on non muslims by muslims in the islamic world? Why do muslims always get a pass with the left?
Why drones? Why do you avoid that line of questioning?
Video: Black Panthers Tell Koran Burners “You Will Be A Target”
The “presidents” favorite goons
http://www.westernjournalism.com/video-black-panthers-tell-koran-burners-you-will-be-a-target/
Admittedly, I wasn’t thinking of Sun Tzu when I wrote this. But, I believe the logic behind “anger an opponent of choleric temper” is that in doing so you will goad the opponent into an unwise action, thus giving you a net strategic advantage.
I am not clear what unwise action we might goad them into – unless it was sending more bombers – some of whom might get through and kill Americans. I don’t see that as a real strategic advantage.
That would depend on your objective. As I said at R’s this morning, I don’t know what Pastor Montag’s objective is. But, if your objective was to demonstrate the hypocrisy of calling it the religion of peace when the reaction of its followers is to deliberately murder people because of the insult, you might have goaded them into a unwise action (not that it was a stretch for them). If you wanted to demonstrate a perceived bias in our own leadership, you might have obtained your objective.
I don’t know if that was his objective, and based on the fact that everyone has focused on the offense rather than the logic of the reaction, I’m not sure that it matters. I mean, Angelina Jolie is against it! Who cares what the President, a General, and the Secretary of State all think. Angelina Jolie has come out against it!
“I don’t see that as a real strategic advantage.”
Much better to surrender our 1st Amendments right? Bow to Sharia Law, right drone?
Tex,
Being a liberal means never having to say you are sorry.
Elric,
Being a liberal means you don’t have to worry about your own security either. Worse, unless threatened and running to the church to find “God” like they did nine years ago when they thought their own worthless asses were on the line (what a pitiful load as I laughed at them 🙄 ), they can bad mouth the military, or the church and anyone affiliated with defending the country or the church, under their own self-serving version of the 1st Amendment and their rights to be a mouthy worm and coward.
But before I take to the sword with Ali or Mohammad Jr., I am almost absolutely sure that if pushed with enough anti-American propaganda, or bad mouthing the military, or if I even get one bit of a sniff that these lib’s constant stupidity really endangers my wife, children or mother, these mofos are in for a huge surprise when they discover I can be every bit as crazed as their beloved and persecuted jihadist.
Rutherford, how much would you charge me so that I don’t have to peruse through six months worth of comments on your blog, so that I can refresh Hippie’s failing memory about the mocking of Sarah Palin’s son and his name?
Seems that was in February or March.
If you would simply direct me to the post where you got off on one of your ill conceived tangents about the derivation of Trig’s name, I would like to peruse that please.
Thank you in advance. 😉
Now see, its been what? Two days and I still haven’t gotten to HP’s thoughts on this because of the dance we’ve all been doing. I do recall the discussion that you’re talking about, but I don’t recall which of them had a brain donor moment and said it.
However, rather than making him go back and look for proof of who said it, I’d much rather prefer a reminder that he said it with a quote and a direct link up front,, like we would otherwise do if it was R, because as much as I suspect I won’t like the rebuttal he’s promised, I really would like to read it anyway.
BiW – you are correct – all of these side conversations are detracting from my writing “rebuttal. ” It really isn’t much of a rebuttal anyway….. I hope to post it within an hour.
Tex, I think your memory is failing you. Or, more accurately, you are guilty of reconstructive memory. I remember the incident really well. For a time afterward, you swore off Rutherford’s blog and came over to mine – that is, before you got mad at me about something different and sword off it too….
Here is a post you made to my blog back on February 13th. Note that you refer to remarks Rutherford made, and don’t include me in your attack. Odd that you wouldn’t do so – especially given you are posting on my blog… Well, not odd, because I wasn’t involved in that incident.
When Rutherford finally stooped to a recent level of including Palin’s disabled son in his wrath with another post more wicked than usual, I had enough and was forced to confront Rutherford’s pretentious nature with a virtual punch to the mouth.
Hippie,
You’re right. I should keep my word. These WordPress blogs make my mind go to mush because so much of them are empty space. Why I visit your piece of shit blog is personally stupid. My mistake. I freely admit that because it serves no purpose but to stroke your fragile ego and those mind numbing dumb losers that frequent it. It fills a void for me, and the minute mom hits home, you folks are the last thing on my mind. Trust me.
But I’m afraid Hippie your mind isn’t quite as great as you’d like to believe. So I took the time to stroll through Rutherford’s blog like I just told you this morning. Would you like to apologize now, or just grovel for a bit that Tex has once again beat you?
Here is my response. Please note the date and remember you are either a liar, or it is you that reconstructs “really well.”
#
hp
#
60. Tex Taylor | February 24, 2010 at 8:02 pm
Hippie,
Just about when I think you sincere in your attempt at some form of political reconciliation, the fact that you would even hint that you think Sarah Palin might dream of naming her child after medical nomenclature for a genetic defect truthfully disgusts me.
So you idiots, and yes you’re both idiots for suggesting much, don’t continue to flash your asses and provide further proof you’re twisted:
The grandfather says Trig is named after his great uncle, a Bristol Bay fisherman, while the name Paxson comes from the well-known snowmachining area.
http://www.ktuu.com/global/story.asp?s=8194634
** SPIT **
Read ‘um and weep asshole!
What you have demonstrated Tex, is that your consistent in your false accusations. You accused me falsely back in February. You are repeating the false accusation now.
But you know, this is getting tiring.
In the future, either be damned sure I said something before you represent it is my opinion, or don’t bother representing my opinion at all.
Obama Says He Ordered Defense Secretary Gates to Personally Call Koran Burning Pastor…
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/118073-obama-speaks-out-for-muslims
1. For a “real” Christian as some morons paint him as, he sure goes out of his way for islam.
2. Anyone else disturbed that a “president” uses his office to try to suppress 1st Amendment rights?
Will that do BlackisWhite?
I don’t recall asking you to apologize. I pointed out that we can have just as much fun discussing what he DID say as you seem to be having with what he didn’t say.
And if you felt an apology was necessary, I’m not sure that this was the occaision to float the “Sheridan Apology”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8vA0ANTUM0
“These are honorable actions, I’d say. Anyone care to disagree?”
Yes, I do. Based on the definiton of honor we have before for discussion, i.e.:
“Honor is…
Doing the right thing when everybody tells you not to do it.
Doing the right thing when it goes against your interests.
Doing the right thing when nobody will ever notice.”
How do any of those acts you mention qualify as honorable? She sounds like a loving, caring, wonderful woman. But none of what you described is honorable, at least not by the definition we are discussing.
“THAT is honorable. Do you doubt it?”
Yes. See my statement above. Again, nice actions – good people. Honorable? No.
Society says get a good job, make lots of money, set yourself up. These folk go in an opposite direction to what “everyone” says to do.
These folk could make a lot more money and probably lead a safer life by becoming a banker or whatever. They go against their financial self interests in order to do what they do.
No one much notices social workers, believe me.
Seems honorable to me.
If people who do good things for little money and no recognition aren’t honorable, then what IS honorable?
What of the couple who took in children not their own. How was that in their interests? Who would notice their every day beautiful life saving those children?
You seem to have an unreasonably narrow definition of honor.
Are you an honorable person, agiledog? If so, why? What makes your actions honorable in ways that these actions aren’t?
So someone told them directly not to do those things?
So going against your own financial self-interest is “honorable”? — Honey, put on that party dress! We’re going out for drinks and dancing AGAIN! It’s the honorable thing to do! — Horse-hooey. Alturisism is not the same as honor.
“No one much notices social workers, believe me.”
And on this note, you couldn’t be more wrong.
“If people who do good things for little money and no recognition aren’t honorable, then what IS honorable?” – Can you not fucking read? There was a definition of it right THERE. Are you so freaking dumb that those words don’t register? As I said altrueism is not honor – they are different.
I try to be honorable. I sometimes fail, but I try.
I have lost a job for speaking up for a mistreated fellow employee when told not to by my management.
I have lost “friends” because I stood by commitments I have made to friends.
And the things I do to keep my job, my marriage and my business are my business – I don’t feel a need to advertise them.
So, yes, I think I an an honorable person. Using the 3 point definition we have before us, are YOU honorable?
Or, if you aren’t honorable, who IS honorable, in your opinion?
The salient Webster definition of honor seems to me to be, “a keen sense of ethical conduct” and honorable…
a : attesting to creditable conduct
b : consistent with an untarnished reputation
c : characterized by integrity : guided by a high sense of honor and duty
By my understanding, these folk all seem quite honorable.
Hey dipstick: We’re talking about Beck’s definition – not yours. And by his definition – we can’t tell. Because you given cases of other behavior, but not honor.
Um, it’s not “my” definition. It’s the standard English definition. At least, that’s what I usually gauge English conversations upon.
So, what actions ARE honorable, to you and what you think Beck’s definition? Are you honorable? Do you know any honorable people? How about some specifics?
Or not. As I stated, it’s my opinion that these folk are clearly above and beyond honorable. Disagree if you wish.
😆 😆 😆
Careful AgileDog! I got called to task this morning at Rutherford’s blog for pointing out Dan’s style is a little nebulous.
Rutherford is getting all pissy about many of us pointing out that Dan apparently speaks in tongues. Rutherford finally found a friend. 🙂
Ahhhh there we go! I knew that was why you’re being such a schmuck over here today Tex.
Listen, you and Agile and anyone else can get all bollixed up over Dan’s style as much as you want on BiW’s blog. If BiW doesn’t care about long pedantic meta-discussions, that’s his business.
I politely asked that you not repeat the pattern over at my blog … and my suggested solution was for Dan to stop defending his style and thereby end the conflict. He, by the way, agreed to do this.
Nobody censored you or even threatened to censor you.
Now grow the f*ck up and pay a visit. You’re missing some good dialog from all the usual players.
P.S. Agile’s comment here by the way, does NOT qualify as meta-discussion in my book. He is addressing how Dan defines honor vs Beck. Completely on topic.
So speaking up for friends at some personal cost is honorable? Fair enough, I don’t disagree. And by that measure, all my friends have displayed a good bit of honor on a regular basis.
And, as you note, I don’t need to display my successes or failures as an honorable person, but I certainly strive for it. And without a doubt, so do my friends and they succeed most of the time by any reasonable measure, including Beck’s.
What honorable about putting children not yet born in debt against their will?
Whats so honorable about redistributing wealth like that POS “spiritual advisor” advocates?
OK, I finally have enough free time to write my detailed response to BiW. It will probably be as long as one of my normal blog articles – and perhaps I should follow his strategy of taking it back to my own blog, where the whole controversy started – but I won’t go there for now. This response will also re-iterate some of the shorter remarks I have made over the last 24 hours. I apologize for any repetition.
I: My motivation for asking the questions:
Immediately after Beck’s rally I saw observed two different things. First, a lot of people were talking about honor, and about restoring honor. This wasn’t particularly surprising because Beck’s theme was, in fact, restoring honor.
Second, a lot of people seemed to be suggesting, directly or indirectly, that liberals were incapable of understanding honor and were incapable of acting honorably. I am in fact pleased that several people have made exactly that claim on this very thread because it is easy for me to point at specific examples without having to venture very far from home.
I was probably not surprised when people suggested that liberals cannot be honorable. However, I was saddened and frankly offended. I make every effort to lead an honorable life. I know many other liberals who likewise lead what I consider to be honorable lives. On this thread Dan has provided examples of liberals leading honorable lives. I might also note that some conservatives lead dishonorable lives.
Claims like “liberals cannot understand or have honor” are the type of thing I have difficulty letting stand. To combat such a notion, though, I would first need to have an idea what people mean by honor. As we have seen in these discussions, people have very different ideas about what honor means.
So, I posted my three questions with the intent of getting a definition. My plan was to take that definition, once I had it, and apply it to the claim that “liberals cannot have honor.” Unfortunately, the ensuing discussion centered on my criticism of Beck. In retrospect, I understand why that happened. I did, after all, accuse him of raping the country. But, that was not actually the intent of the article. The intent was an honest attempt to get answers to those three questions.
I have been accused of changing the subject. I don’t think I have. The subject is what I describe above. I have tried to stick to that, though admittedly blog discussions have a life of their own and this one has gone off in various directions. Suggestions that I have changed the topic probably stem from a misunderstanding of my original intent. It could also be because I have made various off-topic responses to people commenting here.
II: Beck’s definition of honor.
I want to thank BiW for helping to clarify Beck’s definition of honor. I want to thank others for weighing on with their opinions as well. I think I have a fairly good idea of what Beck meant by honor, as well as what some of the rest of you mean. Beck’s own words are admittedly rather vague and open to interpretation – and in fact BiW’s words on the matter are clearer.
In Beck’s definition, and those definitions provided by others, I have yet to see anything to support the notion that “Liberals cannot understand honor or have honor.” If anything, I have seen the opposite – in examples given by Dan and others of liberals leading honorable lives.
Those few who continue to claim liberals lack honor seem to have very little to back up their claims. Oh, they might claim “I don’t like your political positions” – but I see virtually no correlation between that and the various definitions of honor that have been provided.
I would probably differ with BiW and Beck and others in suggesting that God (and in particular the Christian God) is the only source of a moral compass. I believe that other religions can lead us to honor, and in fact I believe that a wise and reasoned application of Atheism can do so as well. Please understand that I am not putting down Christianity. I will repeat something I have said earlier on this thread: The last seven commandments plus the golden rule would provide a very good moral compass for all of us to follow, regardless of our religious beliefs. I believe that Christianity can indeed be a good source of a moral compass – I just don’t believe that said moral compass is exclusive to Christianity.
I suspect we could be finished with this entire conversation right now if I could get everyone to agree with the statement: Liberals can understand honor and can lead honorable lives.
Is everyone now willing to do that?
III: How was honor lost and how might it be restored
I must admit I was pleasantly surprised by BiW’s discussion of Manifest Destiny. Frankly, I suspected he and Beck and others would claim that the loss of honor was a more recent thing – perhaps as recent as the election of President Obama. I am glad that he and others did not go there.
BiW’s objections to Manifest Destiny are of particular interest because I am largely in agreement with him – though perhaps we arrive at the same conclusion from different directions. I have often viewed “Manifest Destiny” as little more than an excuse to behave dishonorably (and if I am reading him correctly BiW agrees). The impact of Manifest Destiny on indigenous peoples comes immediately to mind. Manifest Destiny was used as an excuse to steal from and murder Native Americans. In fact, we committed the equivalent of genocide in the name of Manifest Destiny.
I had thought that rejection of Manifest Destiny was a liberal thing, and I was pleased to see BiW come out against it as well.
I am also in agreement with BiW that many of our politicians act dishonorably, in their own interests rather than in the interests of the people they serve. I think all of us should be able to acknowledge that. There is also a tendency to believe that the politicians on the other side are more dishonorable than the politicians on your own side. I think this is a fallacy. I think politicians on both sides are probably equally dishonorable. I have occupied positions on both sides of the political spectrum, and I always seem to find more dishonor on the other side, regardless of what side that is. Logic tells me I was wrong on both occasions.
Beck calls for leaders more like the founders and other great leaders of our history. I am sympathetic to this view – but I suspect that before we can get to that point we need to end some of the partisan rancor that so divides us. If Washington or Jefferson or Adams or Lincoln were to walk amongst us today, would we even recognize him? Would we see them for the leader that they are, or would we rip them apart as a wingnut or a moonbat – as a person of dishonor. Suggesting that one side of the political spectrum his a monopoly on honor is not a strategy by which we will find a new generation of honorable leaders.
That is a serious question – would we as a nation, right now, recognize an honorable politician if we met one – a leader who might be accepted by all of the people as an honorable man or woman? Would it even be possible, in this age of attack advertising and hyperpartisanship, to see integrity when it is in front of us? It would be ironic, would it not, if Diogenes found the honest man but didn’t realize he had done so?
(I am going to close here – I am running out of time again and I want to get this posted. It is already the length of one of my usual full blog posts. What remains is my defense of my dislike/distrust of Beck. But, that was actually not the point of my original post anyway. I will get back to it sometime later).
NYT editor: We won’t run photos of the Koran burning because they add nothing to the story
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/09/10/nyt-editor-we-wont-run-photos-of-the-koran-burning-because-they-add-nothing-to-the-story/
Is it honorable to show one religion favorable treatment because you fear being blown up? Big liberal newspaper, no honor.
“If Washington or Jefferson or Adams or Lincoln were to walk amongst us today, would we even recognize him? Would we see them for the leader that they are, or would we rip them apart as a wingnut or a moonbat – as a person of dishonor.”
Your side would. Hell they do it now in student text books. My side would honor them and apologize for allowing your side to destroy what they created.
HP asked…
If Washington or Jefferson or Adams or Lincoln were to walk amongst us today, would we even recognize him?
As I’ve suggested before, if Jefferson or some of the others said today some of the things they said back then, they’d be ripped to shreds for being commies.
Jefferson, at least, was quite clear in favoring a very progressive taxation scheme…
“Taxes should be proportioned to what may be annually spared by the individual.”
–Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1784.
“Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.”
–Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1785.
“The rich alone use imported articles, and on these alone the whole taxes of the General Government are levied… Our revenues liberated by the discharge of the public debt, and its surplus applied to canals, roads, schools, etc., the farmer [ie, the average worker] will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone, without his being called on to spend a cent from his earnings.”
–Thomas Jefferson to Thaddeus Kosciusko, 1811.
Being in favor of a progressive tax system (as opposed to a flat tax) alone would be enough to get Jefferson called commie and thief in many Right-ish circles, and language like calling for creating “a paradise” for the average worker paid for “by the contributions of the rich alone,” well, that is CERTAINLY Marxist.
At least in some circles.
As I’ve suggested before, if Jefferson or some of the others said today some of the things they said back then, they’d be ripped to shreds for being commies.
Jefferson, at least, was quite clear in favoring a very progressive taxation scheme…
Its a curious thing. I can find the quote scattered hither and yon on the intartubbies, and I can find the official citation, but I can’t find the full text of this correspendence anywhere. Hmmmm.
I think I’d be careful about drawing the conclusion you have without reading the entire letter, Dan. Jefferson was writing to Madsion about addressing what he perceived as a problem with how land was held in Pre-Revolutionary France, and not necessarily addressing how things should be in the US, where ownership of land was not concentrated in a nobility, to be granted, and taken away based on the fickle sensibilities of the crown.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Letter_to_James_Madison_-_October_28,_1785
And I think you misapprehend what Jefferson was talking about with this:
Because he isn’t talking about a progressive income tax, he is talking about an excise tax, which is very different.
I would be obliged, however, if you could provide me with a link to the actual letter, as it is not in the collection of correspondence that I have on my shelf, and my preliminary search on the internet has not revealed it either, although I found the ThirdDay entry which contains the three quotes you posted.
More later from Jefferson in his own words on taxation that undercut the proposition you make here.
Because he isn’t talking about a progressive income tax, he is talking about an excise tax, which is very different.
I know he wasn’t talking about an income tax. The point is, he was clearly coming out in favor of a progressive taxation scheme, one in which we “create a paradise” with income from taxes from primarily the wealthy.
More on this theme from Jefferson…
The “contributions of the rich alone” quote I’ve seen on the internets referencing a letter to Kosciusko in 1811 (referencing “ME 13:41”), for instance, here, at the University of Virginia library. That is the same source for all my quotes above this time.
On that same site, we see a reference to a letter to Comte de Moustier in 1790, 1790. (ME 8:110) in which Jefferson states…
“The collection of taxes… has been as yet only by duties on consumption. As these fall principally on the rich, it is a general desire to make them contribute the whole money we want, if possible. And we have a hope that they will furnish enough for the expenses of government and the interest of our whole public debt, foreign and domestic.”
[“MAKE THEM”??? “WHOLE MONEY”??!! That’d have today’s Right preparing a lynching, right?]
In his 6th annual address, Jefferson suggested about the wealthy that “their patriotism” would make them glad to pay these taxes…
“The great mass of the articles on which impost is paid is foreign luxuries, purchased by those only who are rich enough to afford themselves the use of them. Their patriotism would certainly prefer its continuance and application to the great purposes of the public education, roads, rivers, canals, and such other objects of public improvement as it may be thought proper to add to the constitutional enumeration of federal powers.”
[Thomas Jefferson: 6th Annual Message, 1806. ME 3:423]
…For instance. I have seen quote after quote referencing support for a progressive form of taxation coming from Jefferson. Now, I’m no expert, I just know what I read. Perhaps there’s more in context of those letters, but I don’t have them.
Of course, he does not talk of an income tax much. I would gather that is because, in the 1700s, people did not generally HAVE an income like we have today – moneys which could easily be taxed. So they taxed in other ways which made sense at the time. I don’t think one could conclude reasonably that Jefferson was opposed to the idea of an income tax, though (well, except insofar as he sounds like he would have opposed a tax on the poor and maybe even the working class?).
And speaking of the excise tax, it appears that Jefferson wasn’t especially fond of them…
“The excise law is an infernal one. The first error was to admit it by the Constitution; the second, to act on that admission; the third and last will be, to make it the instrument of dismembering the Union, and setting us all afloat to choose what part of it we will adhere to.”
Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1794. ME 9:295
Seems he favored (perhaps) a substantial inheritance tax…
“If the overgrown wealth of an individual is deemed dangerous to the State, the best corrective is the law of equal inheritance to all in equal degree; and the better, as this enforces a law of nature, while extra-taxation violates it.”
Thomas Jefferson: Note in Destutt de Tracy’s “Political Economy,” 1816. ME 14:466
Boy, what would Beck have to say about THAT quote (“Dangerous?? He thinks too much income could be dangerous! COMMIE!”)
As an aside, what of this Letter to Kosciusko, on reducing the army and navy to the “bare minimum” – (what would today’s Right have to say about someone who proposed “reducing our military establishment one third, and discharging one third of our officers..”?)
Being in favor of a progressive tax system (as opposed to a flat tax) alone would be enough to get Jefferson called commie and thief in many Right-ish circles, and language like calling for creating “a paradise” for the average worker paid for “by the contributions of the rich alone,” well, that is CERTAINLY Marxist.
At least in some circles.
I remain unconvinced of his favor of a progressive tax scheme, as when he was in office, he actually tried to make it a priority to shrink the government and eliminate “internal taxes”.
From his First Annual Address:
From his Third Annual Address:
From his First Innaugural Address:
and from his Second Innaugural Address:
It would be safe to say that out of the Founders, Jefferson is the most difficult to draw a bead on. I don’t think that the appellation “American Sphinx” is overly dramatic or in any way derrogatory. Not for a man who much of the left claim to have been an atheist, or when they are inclined to apply an iota of intellectual honesty, a deist, and the irony is not lost on me that the man credited with the current application of “a wall of separation between church and state” included the following in his First Innaugural Address:
closed his Second Innaugural Address with these words:
he actually tried to make it a priority to shrink the government and eliminate “internal taxes”.
Yes, he did try at least at times to get rid of “internal taxes,” and he was in favor of keeping gov’t to a bare bones (again, recall the cutting the military by 1/3, for instance). But then again, he lived in a time when the US population was only 5 million, not the roughly 300 million we are now.
He lived in a time before the complexities of modern life, with cars, planes, massive roadways and interstate systems, vast computer technologies, a huge medical industry. He lived in a time where nearly everyone raised their own food and where we didn’t have an “agribusiness” industry, a time before GMO and trips to the stars and satellites. He lived in a time where if people needed fuel, they cut down a tree and didn’t have to rely upon a fossil fuels industry or a nuclear industry. We have advanced vastly in terms of complexity in the last 200 years.
With a more complex society and a larger population, I think it reasonable to conclude that gov’t would have to increase in size, too.
“Jefferson, at least, was quite clear in favoring a very progressive taxation scheme…”
Yes he loved it so much he tried to force it on the American people. Oh wait, he didnt jackass.
Funny how these marxist drones embrace marxism but dont like to be called marxists.
Drones think its honorable for the rich to foot the bill for the worker’s “paradise”.
I wish you hadn’t caused me to look back at Rutherford’s comments about Palin and Trig. That’s plain fucked up. I’ll bet Rutherford’s momma would be ashamed.
“I’ll bet Rutherford’s momma would be ashamed.”
I bet she wished she was more of a “feminist” back then.
Sebelius: insurers who criticize ObamaCare may get locked out of system
posted at 11:36 am on September 10, 2010 by Ed Morrissey
Does ObamaCare trump the First Amendment? HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius must think so. Yesterday, after apparently tiring of criticism of the new law from the companies it will eventually put out of business, Sebelius offered to expedite that process for those who don’t take an opportunity to shut their mouths:
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/09/10/sebelius-insurers-who-criticize-obamacare-may-get-locked-out-of-system/
Tyranny. Something else for the drones to ignore.
Top ten reasons why sharia is bad for all societies
By James Arlandson
Traditional Muslims who understand the Quran and the hadith believe that sharia (Islamic law) expresses the highest and best goals for all societies. It is the will of Allah.
But is Islam just in its laws that Muhammad himself practiced and invented?
This article says no for ten verifiable reasons.
Here are four points you must read, before reading this article:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2005/08/top_ten_reasons_why_sharia_is.html
I would suggest the drones read it but drones arent honorable beings. Good read for anyone else interested in learning what Sharia Law really is. Which is already being implemented here, straight from the White House by our muslim “president”.
If the drones respond, they will smear me but will be too cowardly to debate it. Thats ok, whether they smear me or ignore it, they just show what dumbasses they really are.
Dan,
You vote for those who seek to destroy it. You have no honor.
Obama Today: “We Knew” Health Care Costs Would Rise. Obama Before: Health Care Costs Will Go Down if We Pass This Bill…
http://weaselzippers.us/2010/09/10/obama-today-we-knew-health-care-costs-would-rise-obama-before-health-care-costs-will-go-down-if-we-pass-this-bill/
Your lying sack of shit “president” has no honor either
Oh no he didn’t! Tex …. I don’t know how I missed that gem. Has nothing to do with being challenged and you know it.
Ahhhh crap!!! I just posted that last comment to Tex on not only the wrong thread …. but the wrong blog!!!!
I really do need to get more sleep. BiW … sorry for the clutter, my bad …. and Tex sorry to take our tiff to another blog, truly not what I intended.
Rutherford,
Please see my comment from above correcting both you and Hippie – my favorite cowards and dementia patients.
Got news for you and Hippie. You ain’t going to beat me at the memory games.
Yeah, I’m afraid Hippie was with you about Trig Rutherford. I don’t forget vile suggestions like that. Anybody with a shred of decency wouldn’t either. That’s why you both “FORGOT.”
Well …. yes and no.
There is a reason you went to Med school and not law school. A man who represents himself has a fool for a client. In your eagerness to prove HP wrong, you actually left out what HP said. You only pasted your response … which proves nothing.
I went back into the archives and the only “defense” he gave me was to back up my correct assertion that I had sincerely asked for your medical knowledge of the abbreviation “trig”.
He went on to say if Sarah had done this, it would indeed be f*cked up. Now if you put aside your outrage, you would agree that if Sarah did that, it would indeed be f*cked up. So HP said nothing you should disagree with.
I’m not a huge fan of falling on my own sword but your gripe is with me on this one, not HP. And I say, if I hadn’t said it before, that repeating the conjecture was immature on my part and completely unnecessary. Palin has way too many political weaknesses for anyone to have to resort to character assassination.
I’m not a huge fan of falling on my own sword but your gripe is with me on this one, not HP.
Rutherford, thanks for backing me on this one. I wasn’t trying to call you out or blame you – I am just tired of being blames for things I haven’y said or don’t believe.
I sometimes wonder if I created a fake persona and called him “Moderate Guy” or something similar, would people still think they knew everything I believed without my actually having to say it?
Rutherford,
You’re lying again, as is Hippie. I’m calling you both outright liars. You’re trying to cover your ass with you horrid insinuations as libs are fond of doing, and I’m not letting either one of the mofos out of it. Clearly by my response, the tone of the content was that Hippie was playing along because like you, he suffers from a chronic case of PDS.
If I’m wrong, why did I comment the way I did? That was six months ago. I’m not rewriting history like you are, and I welcome anyone who reads this blog to read the whole thread.
Frankly, the more I learn of you two, the more I think away from the blog, you’re both scum bags…and probably not terribly honest in any capacity of your lives. 😐
Tex said (regarding Rutherford and I): Frankly, the more I learn of you two, the more I think away from the blog, you’re both scum bags…and probably not terribly honest in any capacity of your lives.
Rutherford, did you hear that? Tex apparently does not like us and indeed thinks we are dishonest scumbags. I don’t know about you, but I am absolutely crushed. Indeed, the entire purpose of my life centers around nurturing Tex’s good will toward me – and to see that all of my efforts have been in vain….. Suicide is looking like a viable option.
Rutherford – brother – comrade – I suspect you are having similar self doubts. I just want you to know that I am there for you, as I know you will be for me.
I am going to log off now and give the crisis hotline a call. Perhaps they will be able to talk me back from the edge…..
Tex, I almost never lose a memory game – and I didn’t this time either. As Rutherford has pointed out, indeed it is you who has misremembered.
Wrong Hippie. Like I told Rutherford. Now I’m flat out calling you a liar and a despicable scum bag…
You just don’t like getting called on past transgressions where you f*cked up…
Hilarious and educational. You should appreciate it Tex.
Thanks Elric for sharing this vid. It resonates with what I studied years ago, but I had a good laugh — which I’ve needed bunchies today.
Elric, you should be ashamed! 😡
Don’t you realize that you’ll have Rutherford up all night trying to prove that a “sheep” ate the book of Jeremiah Wright Jr.’s ancestors, left out of the Bible purposely by the Nicene Council, which proved indeed Gawd Damn America! OH WAIT…Leviticus says death for eating shrimp….blah blah blah, yada, yada, yada…
Graychin would be apoplectic over that video and Hippie will call it a recruiting tool for jihadists. That, or somehow Hippie and Rutherford will spin it that this proves all religions are the same and therefore all can be discarded.
You think I’m exaggerating, you wait. They’ll post something as far fetched. They always do. 🙂
Great find. That ought to smoke a few asses…how many fatwas are on their heads?
I fully expect Obama to be attending an Al Dawah party this weekend. 🙂
HP, you do realize that the campaign between Adams and Jefferson, two men who had been freinds for decades, was one of the most vicious and scurolous ever to take place in this country, right? It didn’t just set the standard for scandalous remarks and accusations, it went to a level we have never seen since, and it left such bitterness between the two that it was years before they corresponded with one another again. The country didn’t fail, and at least in the short term, much of its leadership still contained men of capability and honor, albeit not quite to the degree that we had at the beginning.
I think its safe to say that we are not likely to find it in leaders who “forget” to report a host of assets and income on their taxes, who treat public money as if it were their own to do with as they please, who lobby for bailouts of financial institutions overseen by spouses, and who fly in air force jets stocked with gallons of only the best liquor, to meet with foreign leaders, and drink said liquor before coming home and giving other legislators mere hours to read fundamentally changing legislation before voting on it.
But we accepted this kakocracy, and if our priorities for ourselves change, we can elect better. As corny as it might sound, I believe that once we expect better of ourselves, people who meet this criteria will start to have an incentive to run again…heck, I think it is possible that we are seeing to a degree with the crop of brand new Congressional candidates around the country right now.
BiW said: HP, you do realize that the campaign between Adams and Jefferson, two men who had been freinds for decades, was one of the most vicious and scurolous ever to take place in this country, right? It didn’t just set the standard for scandalous remarks and accusations, it went to a level we have never seen since, and it left such bitterness between the two that it was years before they corresponded with one another again.
BiW – I have heard you say this (and similar things) before. You certainly know far more history than I do, but I am not sure I am convinced that it really was worse than what we see today. Certainly that campaign was nasty – but how many Americans were really tuned into the rhetoric the way we are now? Remember, 200 years ago the fastest a message could travel was equal to the speed of a good horse. So, even if Jefferson and Adams said exceptionally nasty things about each other, how readily was that message distributed to the populace?
Today, we are constantly bombarded with exceptionally negative message – even if you don’t follow politics closely you can’t avoid hearing the message. As a result, we have very little respect for our leaders – to the point I think it hinders the way they govern.
Certainly the politicians (the dishonorable ones) have contributed to the problem – but I really do wonder if we would even recognize an honorable politician because you know, with certainly, that such a person would be attacked viciously by political opponent until at least part of the public believed the message.
You seem to be implying that hyperpartisanship is a good thing. If you do indeed believe that, can you explain why?
Today, we are constantly bombarded with exceptionally negative message – even if you don’t follow politics closely you can’t avoid hearing the message. As a result, we have very little respect for our leaders – to the point I think it hinders the way they govern.
I would counter that by saying that today we have more access to view how they conduct the People’s Business. I’m just old enough to remember that when C-Span actually started to get an audience, the Representatives and Senators still dressed for work the way they did pre-cameras, but before long, many of them started to dramatically upgrade their appearance. We also had much more of the giving speeches to an otherwise empty house at odd hours…not because it was necessary to get those words into the congression record (entire speeches that NEVER get uttered are entered into it on a regular basis) but because of the appearance to the folks back home.
I might accept the premise that to some degree we have different expectation of our leaders than we did fifty years ago, but I’m not convinced that these expectations are unrealistic, improper, or untoward, especially when the government they steer increasingly expects a window into our private lives with the expectation that they can act to correct our actions and behaviors that they do not approve of.
Certainly the politicians (the dishonorable ones) have contributed to the problem – but I really do wonder if we would even recognize an honorable politician because you know, with certainly, that such a person would be attacked viciously by political opponent until at least part of the public believed the message.
Well, I suppose that issue you raise is due in part to a media that has become complicit in campaigns. 2008 was astonishing to those of us on the right because the legacy media, which had in the past looked in to the nooks and crannies of a candidate’s life (grades in college, theses, previous statements) and deconstructed the same without shame or reservation suddenly became so inexplicably uncurious about the life and times of a young Senator from Illinois with a paper-thin resume, and two memoirs of a very short life that seemed to be his crowning achievements, and yet they could devote HOURS of coverage to crawling around in his opponent’s running-mate’s womb, questioning her every decision, criticising her family, deningrating her political and executive experience and accomplishments, and savagely attacking her for the bad decision of one of her daughters, as if no one had every had a child do something against what the parent had taught.
Its one thing to have an editorial board for commentary, opinion, or endorsement, but it is another thing altogether when scrutiny is applied so unevenly and disproportionately. It makes it hard to set the story straight, and its even harder when the story that needs setting straight is the result of the media doing the things it did in the first place. As a result, we got the “Palin is the dumbest person ever to draw breath” meme (when everyone who is paying attention knows that honor belongs to Hank Johnson) from the legacy media, when it wasn’t Palin running for the office of the President, contrasted with their coverage of Obama, which was so superficial that any of the “real” journalists of the last 60 years would feel ashamed to be associated with the title. Chris Matthews deserves to be forever marked with the monkier of “Tingles” for the worst job of feigning objectivity ever done by a network talking head.
You seem to be implying that hyperpartisanship is a good thing. If you do indeed believe that, can you explain why?
No, but I accept hyperpartisanship as a byproduct of the very pronounced competing visions of who we will be that divide this country at the moment. I also think that it is a byproduct of the Left inculcating the masses with the mythology underlying the culture of dependency that they have created and seek to permanently institutionalize. As a result, the ultimate success of this aim requires them to hamper the growth of success among the general population, because the more people discover that they can do for themselves without government impeding them and limiting them to whatever they believe that We the People can handle, the more their myth evaporates like fog in the morning sunlight. That is why the Left is so strident in its attacks on various figures on the right…Palin is dumb (because she didn’t get to where she is our way, and doesn’t share our views) Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, and Condoleza Rice are Uncle Toms because they proved that that achievement and success are possible withour choosing to be a victim and taking what the left and the self-appointed black leadership allowed them to have, rich people (meaning not just Gates, Buffet and others, but in truth, also small business owners, and anyone whose efforts bring them more than the average wage slave) are successful because they prey upon the poor and don’t “Pay their fair share”… these are the epitome of kinds of attacks that characterize the hyperpartisanship that exists to try to convert and retain converts to the Left’s way of thinking.
I’ve been meaning to follow up on Dick’s culinary question for a couple of days now.
You know how memory plays weird ass games on you now and then (at least when you’re approaching 50 as I am). When I was a kid I absolutely LOVED Chips Ahoy cookies. Now, the chips are ok but the cookie is crap. Did my tastes change or did Nabisco change the f*cking formula? I swear it’s the latter.
If anyone can recommend a really good store-bought chocolate chip cookie, I’d be grateful.
On that same memory not working theme, every time I hear “Indian Reservation (The Lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian)” by Paul Revere and the Raiders I am struck by how short a song it is. I could have sworn it had four or five verses back in the 70’s when I loved it. Again, the mind plays tricks.
Dude ya gotta go with the Elves.
Tex,
I knew you would like it. The cowards wont say anything. Im sure they will watch it but be too scared to comment. After all, drones have a soft spot for islam so they wont try to defend its insanity.
Gotta love it though, a sheep ate a verse of the koran and was lost forever. LOL Only could happen in islam.
OH Elric,
No they’ll say something. Something about your intolerance, or my poor memory, or some slam on Christianity as they imply really its Christians are evil, and the jihadists are just misunderstood.
After all, let us forget Hamas and Hezbollah gave their support to Obama and openly rooted for El Bongo. And let’s give the jihadists their due. In that case, they had a hellavu lot more sense than Rutherford or Hippie. Obama has treated them well and acted in their best interests. They knew what they were doing. 🙂
Here’s my recipe for great pound cake:
Betty Crocker.
Tex,
muslims know a muslim when they see one. 🙂
We will see if the drones comment on it. My money is on that they wimp out.
President Obama First U.S. President to Hold Press Conference With No U.S. Flags
http://hubpages.com/slide/President-Obama-First-President-to-Hold-Press-Conference-With-No-US-Flags/3255455
“Honor”
And so the drone defends the left’s fav religion.
Tex,
Of course a drone would favor a RINO. A good reason to vote them out.
Here Rutherford,
Another one of those “peaceful” Muslims you keep telling me we ought to leave alone: 😈
http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local-beat/Co-Worker-Calls-Alleged-Shooter-Very-Spiritual-102624529.html
And you have to read a long ways to learn her “spirituality.”
But you keep putting your head in the sand fool.
Dick, as i suspect you intended, pound cake, like Dan’s arguments, doesn’t require a recipe. It’s called pound cake becuase it’s made with one pound each of butter, eggs, sugar, flour. The trigger should come with the pound of explosives you bake into it before delivering it to Dan.
I’m very sick and weak. Not been able to participate. Have lurked and read everything here today. I want to add some things that have been mulling around in my very ill state but also in my overactive brain while I am truly suffering. Sorry.
Honor is primarily a verb, rather than a noun. Honor starts with action or doing. Then the honor is ‘earned’ from that doing. This argument has been made in similar fashion with the word love, that love is first and foremost a verb. One must work at it — the loving — and loving unconditionally — for love to abound. In Christian counseling with married couples we use this principle to help get the couple back to looking at their own actions and how each may have contributed to the breakdown of the marriage — in an effort to help BOTH of them to see their own sin and then seek forgiveness from each other. Actually a very practical kind of work that takes a lot of listening and processing with people who are hurt and angry. But I’ve seen miracles when people can see hope beyond themselves — and imagine that when Jesus promises that he is making everything new, he also means their marriage, if they are willing to allow him to do just that.
Sorry for the tangents but this measurement of whether there is love and honor becomes much easier for us humans. We can look at the behaviors and compare them to a fundamental, or principle, or guide. And Christians are exhorted to “love the sinner and hate the sin” which fits this focus on the behavior or the verbs, to love or to honor.
One can not pursue honor (or love) without DOING. In the case of honor — as Beck said — doing the right thing, which is also one of the main dictionary definitions.
Problem for us morons-all is that we must be guided to know what is right, and do it. Sometimes I simply must move away from the computer and go do something because I begin to realize that it is much easier for me to sit here pounding on the keyboard than to actually get off my duff and go serve others.
So. How do we know what is right in order to do it? Can we discern right from wrong? (worthwhile starting point in the study done in any half-way decent ethics class).
As HippieProf said that the last seven commandments cover how we are to treat each other and he seemed willing to consider that these were possibly good measurements. Now please don’t jump on me. I just read over a hundred comments added to this post, so if I didn’t quite get it right then please be gentle. I’m sick, K?!
I’m good with the 4th through 10th, for now. No prob. Where did these come from before they were laid out in Exodus 20? Surely the many centuries of humanity were exercising some sort of laws before the children of Israel were leaving their slavery in Egypt and making their 40 year journey to the promised land.
Well, in the study of ethics, one can find very similar secular guidelines that match almost perfectly with some if not all of the commandments 4-10. Almost any professional organization has such guidelines. American Medical Association of days gone-by, American Bar Association, American Dental Association, nurses, psychiatrists, psychologists, educators, hospitals, businesses, social organizations, religious organizations… all of ’em have a set of guidelines that run parallel with commandments: 4-10. 4=Honor persons in authority. 5=Don’t harm others. 6=Honor & enjoy sexual relations inside the marriage contract. 7=Help protect & honor the possessions of others and don’t steal. 8=Honor the truth. 9=Respect the possessions of others to the point of being happy for them. Don’t envy or covet what they have. Enjoy your own possessions & gifts. 10=Respect the personal relationships that other have with others and help them to be maintained. Don’t put a wedge into these relationships with your own covetous nature. Be happy with and enjoy the relationships you have for yourself and nurture them as a way to honor others.
So where did these secular organizations get their guidelines? I’m comfy with the concept that we were born with them. We were given ‘the law’ from the very beginning of our lives and these basic laws, similar to what we get inculcated by our parents and kindergarten classroom, or even Sesame Street, help to nurture our consciences. We are born with consciences, unless something desperately goes wrong with us either in the womb or shortly after — we all have the ability to be obedient or to behave in line with our consciences.
So the law is written on our hearts so to speak, as St. Paul lays out in Romans 2 as he discusses that even non-believers have the law and make decisions about what is right and wrong, with their consciences bearing witness. We all do this whether we believe in God or not. That is great news for all of us who live in secular cultures.
What I think has happened now is that our leadership and popular personalities are bad examples who are leading many people away from what our consciences have directed us. We don’t see honor demonstrated. It’s sad to say, but we lack heroes. We don’t witness honorable acts in leadership and hold them up as such.
And anyone who comes into the light that might be a halfway decent hero gets bashed by those who simply cannot be trusted or are lousy judges of decency or honor to begin with. I simply can’t stand to watch most of what is on tv. The reality shows and stuff that is supposed to be sexy or funny simply makes me sad. And this is the stuff that is planted into our youth!?! It’s sick and pretty much void of real heroes.
When Nancy Pelosi started to preach to the American public about ‘The Word’ a few months back, I almost hurled. How she can tell us about ‘The Word’ this way and claim to be a Christian and a Catholic!?! Her own church leadership has tried to instruct her and confront her about her wrong statements, but she simply moves on and ignores them. She has shown herself to me to be a liar and a thief. She is off the deep end and I pray that someday she will see the light.
There are a few people in the public who know what honor is. They know because they do it. They are not perfect people. Maybe they aren’t even the smartest folk, but when they are willing to do the right thing over and over again without seeking applause or praise, or even being seen when they are doing it — then that is the measurement of honor and honorable I’m willing to buy into.
Those folks out there who do honorable things, demonstrating that they STILL know the difference between right and wrong and don’t need anyone to come up behind them and hold them up — those are our unknown heroes — they have content to their character — they are showing courage beyond what many of us could comprehend.
I pray that God will help these heroes of honor to be permitted to gently move into the limelight and begin to show us the way to restore honor in our nation and our world. And I dearly hope that all us folks are willing to see what is honorable in others and give them a chance.
Get better soon, Cathy.
The idea of Batman moping around the Batcave because his leading lady is in sickbay is a depressing one. Besides, no one wants to be sick on Saturday.
Thanks BiW. Feeling a tad better now that I’m able to eat regular food again. Taking it easy for the next few days.
Cathy said: Well, in the study of ethics, one can find very similar secular guidelines that match almost perfectly with some if not all of the commandments 4-10.
and….
So where did these secular organizations get their guidelines? I’m comfy with the concept that we were born with them. We were given ‘the law’ from the very beginning of our lives and these basic laws, similar to what we get inculcated by our parents and kindergarten classroom, or even Sesame Street, help to nurture our consciences.
Wow – you beat me to it. I was about to say almost identical things, right down to mentioning Sesame Street.
I was also thinking about classic Greek philosophy. Aristotle, Plato and (indirectly) Socrates had a lot to say about ethics that is very consistent with Abrahamic conceptions – yet of course has different origins. Plato/Socrates even agree with the “born with it” part.
Asking more questions is rarely the way to settle something but I’m going to ask some anyway.
Is honor in the context of politics a constant?i get how in an ideal utopian world it would be but I think in the real world honorable political acts/positions are one of events. This doesn’t necessarily translate to shaky character trait status for the ones that do it either. You take a stand,see it through and move on. In the real world things are dynamic,evolving so what you do today can be great but later on not really matter.
I also want to say that in my opinion the liberals here are getting waaaaaayyy too caught up in being hyphenated persons. An adjective is not a label and as presented here “liberal” is ones badge of honor. Well that doesn’t really fly.
Let’s put it to bed this way. YES! A person who over the course of time is decidedly a liberal as recognized in USA politics can…be honored,be honorable,have honor,win honors act with honor and get the honor roll.
Alfie said…. Asking more questions is rarely the way to settle something but I’m going to ask some anyway.
Oh, don’t worry – you are in good company. Think Socrates.
😉
To answer your question – I think honor is probably not a constant. In fact, I believe that it is possible to do an honorable thing that turns out, in the end, to be the wrong thing to have done.
Have you ever read Sartre’s The Wall? It presents exactly that scenario – a person does what he believes to be a very honorable thing but instead (because of circumstances beyond his awareness) ends up doing something that seems quite dishonorable. It makes you think…..
Hey Hippie. Can’t believe we agree on much of this stuff. But now is the time for my slight departure to the right — pun fully intended. Haha!
Earlier I said that I was okay with agreeing with you on commandments 4-7 for now. Yea, that ‘for now’ operative phrase. Well I’m throwing my chips in and calling.
You said: I think honor is probably not a constant. In fact, I believe that it is possible to do an honorable thing that turns out, in the end, to be the wrong thing to have done.
My response to this is that if this sort of thing happens then it is because that ‘compass’ that points people to do the honorable thing is not the absolute compass of the God which is spoken of in commandments 1 through 3. It’s great to attempt to do honorable stuff, but for the Judeo-Christian believer what we do we do primarily to honor God. All we do is and should be directly linked to give him honor rather than us. So if a human being who does not have God and God’s Word as his compass, then he may think he is doing an honorable thing when he is simply being misguided by other motivations or ‘spirits’ so to speak. No wonder it turns out that it was the wrong thing.
Sheesh! Even Christians, godly people, fall for this — some of us regularly. We get distracted and bent by our own personal issues of anger, fear, remorse, worry, bitterness, envy, etc. — you get my drift — and we find ourselves no longer following God’s directives, but some watered down version of our own misguided ideas. St. Paul shared himself in this sad situation in Romans Chapter 7, basically emoting through it that we are major wretched messes who sin when we don’t want to. It’s almost comical to read it, but so true for those of us willing to see our total sinful condition in a kind of slavery if we attempt to do what is right without God’s Spirit working in and with us at all times.
Hey. It’s not about us. It’s not about our so called ‘neighbor’ as spoken of in the commandments. It’s not about our society or rule book. It’s about God — those first three commandments. All we do is done to follow, honor and obey God. He is the ‘infallible guide’ that keeps what we do to attempt to honor him as honorable acts. What we do as we believe and trust in him are acts of faith and will always be the honorable thing. He and his word are our constants. He is The Immutable.
Hard words of reality to swallow for those of us with supposed ‘good intentions’ come from St. Paul in Romans 14:23:
“But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.”
Hi Cathy….
I am sympathetic to what you are saying. As I have said, I grew up with a strong religious background, and though I have strayed from that later in life, I am still quite sympathetic to the viewpoint. I have great admiration for people of faith.
Now – what I am about to say has gotten me slammed in the past, but you come across as pretty reasonable – so I will give it a try. My major issue with monotheistic religions is I can’t get around the question “Why would God choose to reveal himself to such a small percentage of the world’s population?” It just doesn’t make sense to me. For example, it has only been in the last few centuries that the majority of the world’s population could even hope to hear a Christian message. It seems odd that a God would do that – and the “chosen people” argument rings hollow for me.
Instead, I like to think that all of the world’s great religions represent different, yet imperfect, attempts to capture the same thing – a thing far greater than we as mere humans can comprehend. All religions have some of it right, but none of them have all of it right – which is perhaps unsurprising because everything we see is interpreted through the imperfect veil of human perception.
Such a view explains rather nicely why different religions all seem to gravitate toward a similar set of ethical constructs.
My position is much more complicated than this – but I think it does capture the gist. It allows for me to respect Christian ethical principles, while simultaneously believing that Christianity is only one of the ways to get there.
http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2010/09/porkulus-823000-to-teach-men-in-africa.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+YidWithLid+%28YID+With+LID%29
Hippie,
Your biblical foundations for somebody that walks into a mass often is embarrassing. Go back to teaching psychobabble, because in this particular capacity, you are woefully elementary.
I’ve met kindergartners that refute that screed you posted yesterday on the how and why God reveals His Ways. My Lord, the Bible goes to great depth explaining why, including the most basic – the great commission.
For crying out loud, ready Romans 1:19-20 for starters… 🙄
Tex said: I’ve met kindergartners that refute that screed you posted yesterday on the how and why God reveals His Ways. My Lord, the Bible goes to great depth explaining why, including the most basic – the great commission.
Tex, you are butting in on a civil conversation I am trying to have with Cathy. Not that I expect anything else from you, but it is refreshing to see that someone is capable of discussing these issues without being insulting. I am pleased, though, that you provide such a ready example of my claim that I have been slammed for my views.
As far as “kindergarten level” arguments, I would remind you that using the sacred texts of a monotheistic religion as justification for its monotheism is circular logic.
I would remind you that using the sacred texts of a monotheistic religion as justification for its monotheism is circular logic.
Hippie, I know you are steeped in psychology, and you know what a magnificent opinion I have of its utility, and it a pretty well established fact that clinical psychologists as a rule have many of their own personal issues, and the fact I don’t know how you learn psychology but from a book about psychology, but I’ll be damned if I can understand that gist of what that statement meant. You want to elaborate on that one further for my benefit?
I’m not here to be your enemy as I like you as a general rule and find you personally interesting like I do Rutherford. But some of your conclusions bewilder me. I know that your educated to the highest level, so I don’t consider you weak or lame, except for possibly one subject – but it’s a biggie.
Consider this advice from a friend. You talking about the Bible is synonymous with Nancy Pelosi talking about “The Word.” It’s painful to read.
And how does one “butt in” on a public blog? Send Cathy an email if you want a private conversation.
Tex asked: but I’ll be damned if I can understand that gist of what that statement meant. You want to elaborate on that one further for my benefit?
Tex – this response is a bit late – but I didn’t want to leave it hanging.
A simpler example would be: The Bible is the word of God because it says in the Bible that it is the word of God. You can’t logically us a text to self-justify its own divine status.
We have discussed this before – and you have said, in essence, that faith need not be logical – and I am fine with that. I just feel a need to point out instances where you use the Bible to justify its own relevance.
BTW – I am not a clinical psychologist – and though I do have many friends who are I would generally agree with your assessment.
Dick … what do you have against keeping one’s dick clean? 🙂
This and the entire comment that contains it, is one of the most eloquent defenses of broad based religious tolerance that I have ever read, and I’m not just saying that to flatter. The notion that every religion has a kernel of truth but none captures the full truth perhaps because the full truth is beyond the comprehension of man, is profound indeed. Maybe it’s why I refuse to call myself an atheist. I don’t think I’m smart enough to say there is no God.
Well done Hippie. Purists will call you out on it but I find your perspective incredibly refreshing.
I hate to quibble but The Simpsons and Jersey Shore are not in the same league. The Simpsons, at its best, is cleverly written and politically astute. Jersey Shore is kids being celebrities just for being. No redeeming value whatsoever.
Not sure I’ve given Keebler a try in a while. Maybe I will. Thanks, Alfie.
Still I’d give my right arm to get the Chips Ahoy of old. Man they tasted good! At least Nabisco hasn’t f*cked up Oreos.
I think you are on to something, Rutherford. I’ll bet they changed their chocolate chip recipe to something “new and improved” and probably added more multisylabic unpronounceable additives that increased shelf-life, but did nothing for taste. I stopped buying most store-bought cookies years ago. Sometimes I’ll pick up a package of one of the fancy Pepperidge Farms ones, but they leave me unsatisfied now also.
Home baked. Know ALL ingredients that go into it — and if at all possible — try to use organic eggs, butter, etc.
That crap is killing us. Our poor cleansing organs — livers, kidneys, gall bladders — are dying from all the inedible crap they are trying to filter out of our so-called food.
True Cathy. I’m far from a health nut but I am becoming increasingly aware of how much crap we are unknowingly putting into our systems. And I think your Chips Ahoy theory is right on target. The chips haven’t changed so much but the cookie is unrecognizable from the old days. It’s not much tastier than cardboard. Lately I’ve been eating Pepperidge Farm choc chip cookies as a best of the worst replacement. 😦
Do you make chocolate chip cookies as well as you make pie? 😉
I’m more a pie makin’ gal. My daughter is the cookie baker. She has the patience to make them so they are crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside.
If I make cookies, I prefer to make oatmeal raisin pecan or oatmeal crasin with white chocolate chips. Or there are the great butter cookie recipes that I make around Christmas holidays. As much as I enjoy chocolate, the chocolate chip cookie is not how I roll.
Now – what I am about to say has gotten me slammed in the past, but you come across as pretty reasonable – so I will give it a try. My major issue with monotheistic religions is I can’t get around the question “Why would God choose to reveal himself to such a small percentage of the world’s population?” It just doesn’t make sense to me. For example, it has only been in the last few centuries that the majority of the world’s population could even hope to hear a Christian message. It seems odd that a God would do that – and the “chosen people” argument rings hollow for me.
I wish I weren’t so busy with my 50-day countdown to the upcoming election. I could address each and every issue you made here. I won’t slam ya. And I’m not going to do a half-ass sloppy job of trying to respond a little bit either by throwing a few things at ya. So for now I’m putting this on the shelf. Maybe we can pick it up later, iffin ya want.
I’ll only leave you with a question, Hippie. Have you ever read any of the works of the Christian Apologist C.S. Lewis — specifically on this subject?
A great short read is “A Case For Christianity” but make sure you grab the original work that was actually a series of radio programs. It’s been re-printed and is available via B&N or whatever. That’s the best, I think. He rewrote some of this in another work, “Mere Christianity” but I much preferred the original radio program version. This is not to be confused with other works with similar titles by different authors.
Cathy – thanks the recommendations. I have read Mere Christianity and have a copy of it on my shelf somewhere – but it has been quite a few years – I will need to dust it off and take a look again – and track down the original version you mention.
I would enjoy discussing it at some time in the future. Despite those who might claim otherwise, I have a strong interest in theology even if I might not be entirely convinced by some of the arguments. I appreciate it when I find someone willing to have a civil conversation about it.
As for the upcoming election, all of the polls say that you guys have it in the bag. Relax, don’t let it worry you. Really – there is no need to do anything down the home stretch. In fact, don’t stress yourself by going to the polls that day. It is all going to work out for you anyway….
😉
RELAX!!! *snigger*giggle* Are you KIDDING!!!!?????
You funny man.
I have a real deep resentment for RINOs, just sayin’ that will not go away until we beat that notion (not people) bloody dead with a big stick.
Not too worried about the elections, but still have my obligations. I’m in thick now with Tea Party and Repubs, and I have become a somewhat influential & respected voice here in the greater Dallas area.
Sorry — can’t take a lot of time to explain, but believe me — we need a lot of good solid edumication on basic ‘tea party’ principles until they truly sink in and help voters differentiate and measure appropriately qualified candidates from the go-alongs-for-the WashingtonDC-cocktail-party-crowd. Also, we need to fix our judicial system here in Dallas county. It’s a major mess. Goals difficult to achieve when we don’t/can’t endorse candidates in the Tea Party.
Cathy – I was of course joking – but hey – if I can instill any sense of overconfidence in the opposition I will.
Now, about your statement:
I have a real deep resentment for RINOs, just sayin’ that will not go away until we beat that notion (not people) bloody dead with a big stick.
To be honest, I think this plays into my hands – so I encourage you to go with this strategy. Seriously – if you keep moving farther to the right I don’t think the “soft middle” is going to follow.
I knew you were kiddin’ Puddin.
You might be right about all this, but I’m not concerned about the Republican party and the ends. “That’s not my area,” as said by John Travolta in his role as the angel ‘Michael’ in the movie of the same name.
Some are fighters. Some are diplomats. I know my area.
WH to Congress: Let’s repeal a part of ObamaCare, mm-kay?
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/09/14/wh-to-congress-lets-repeal-a-part-of-obamacare-mm-kay/
Jesus Christ, it amazes me that people can elect such morons.
“Seriously – if you keep moving farther to the right I don’t think the “soft middle” is going to follow.”
No shit Sherlock, thats why we will purge them out of the party like we will purge Washington of the progressive 5th columnists.
Elric said: No shit Sherlock, thats why we will purge them out of the party like we will purge Washington of the progressive 5th columnists.
OK – suppose you are indeed successful in retaking the government. Out of curiosity, what are you planning to do with us then – because we aren’t going to just go away.
It is interesting that you use the word “purge” to describe your plans – because to be honest it sometimes feels like you would like to see all of us hauled off and shot.
Well…I’ve got a few guns and I’m a reasonably good shot. 🙂
Ah, you know better than that Hippie. I don’t want to shoot you or Rutherford. Kick you in the butt maybe. Sad part is, you both could be such assets as you’re both pretty talented.
And as I’ve often noted, once some of you libs get a personal epiphany about the bankruptcy of what you choose to support, you become some of the very best spokespeople for the party you currently root against.
David Horowitz is one that comes to mind.
And look what moving to the left got you dumbasses.
HippeProf. Just want to add that C.S.Lewis had a very patient and persistent friend named John.
John never gave up on C.S.Lewis during the many years that Lewis resisted faith claiming atheism/agnosticism. John was J.R.R. Tolkien.
“It is interesting that you use the word “purge” to describe your plans – because to be honest it sometimes feels like you would like to see all of us hauled off and shot.”
No, thats a leftist mentality. Guess thats why it crossed your little mind.
“Out of curiosity, what are you planning to do with us then – because we aren’t going to just go away.”
Do with you? Ummm nothing. Unlike leftists, we want government out of our lives. Just want a government limited by the Constitution. Again, interesting you expect Conservatives wanting to control you or something worse. You see, we just want to be left the fvck alone, unlike you leftist control freaks.
Also interesting you had no response for your marxist leader moving even farther to the left.
Also interesting you had no response for your marxist leader moving even farther to the left.
Maybe that is because many of us think he hasn’t been far enough left for the majority of his term.
“Maybe that is because many of us think he hasn’t been far enough left for the majority of his term.”
Spoken like a true marxist drone. Well I hope he keeps pushing to the left. Its worked out well so far for his party. Well except for him and his agenda in ripping this country apart. But assholes like you could care less. Just more marxism, more tyranny, less liberty. Thats all you want. But given his poll numbers, your “many” seems not to reflect the majority of the nation. But who cares about what the people want, who care about the Constitution, just more thuggery. Right douchebag?
It is interesting that you use the word “purge” to describe your plans – because to be honest it sometimes feels like you would like to see all of us hauled off and shot.
Maybe you’re guilty conscience is prompting you with an unconscious recognition of the punishment normally prescribed for other looters. 😉
If leftism is the answer, the question must be “How do you take a functioning country and turn it FUBAR?”
“Maybe you’re guilty conscience is prompting you with an unconscious recognition of the punishment normally prescribed for other looters. ;-)”
Leftist regimes do have a good track record of hauling people off to be shot.
Surprise: Harry Reid to add DREAM Act amendment to defense appropriations bill
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/09/14/surprise-harry-reid-to-add-dream-act-amendment-to-defense-appropriations-bill/
Is this left enough for you drones? Amnesty in a defense bill? God you people make me sick. Vile human beings, all of you for support these thugs. Its laughable when you guys whine that you have honor. This honorable?
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