COMensarations
Thursday, March 10, 2011
The Atheist-Islamofascist Union
They have a common ‘enemy’.
Over at Pajamas Media, there’s a ‘discussion’ about the way that atheism and militant Islam have a common enemy. It’s Christianity.
In the discussion someone proved the point. Here is their ‘contribution’....
What a pompous ass! You’ve bought into the entire xtian myth and have not likely ever really questioned the idiocy of your beliefs. Pathetic. The best you can come up with is some high school fantasy?? You show your own immaturity, and flaunt your ignorance. I am 66 years old with multiple degrees and you truly need to open your eyes as to whom the great civilization developments were attributed. Not some fools that believed all the fairy tales of the bible. Utter rubbish! Why is it then, that you can prove absolutely nothing that you choose to believe? The majority of your xtians are hypocrites and only say they believe because it’s the “right” thing to do. (You can see that in everything they do!)—Donald Domke
I’ve invited Donald to drop by and expand on his thoughts. The idea is to see into this person’s mind and why he is so adamantly opposed to the love offered to him.
Let’s see if he has the courage to face such a discussion.
Next entry: The Silent Mensan Previous entry: The Long Year Away-
TO: Donald Domke
RE: Speaking of ‘Proof’Why is it then, that you can prove absolutely nothing that you choose to believe?—Donald Domke
I’ve got ‘proofs’ for you. Not that you or many others, even self-professed ‘Christians’ will ‘appreciate’ them.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Hang on to your hats. The ‘fun’ is just beginning.....]on 03/10 at 01:57 PM -
I’m not going to step into the middle of this, but I will make a remark about the title. An atheist should have just as much trouble with Islam as with Christianity. Both are equal in their theism, though not in their interpretation of it.
Also, I really think its time that the Pajamas folks get it through their head that the people here who don’t share their views are “real Americans”, too, most of whom cheered the death of Osama bin Laden quite heartily. More heartily, in fact, than the Pajamas folks, whose reception of the news was rather strongly eroded by their dislike of the guy who ordered it done.
There is no particular reason why an American atheist should welcome anything in the least like militant Islam, particularly if they know anything about how anybody but Muslims are treated in Muslim dominated countries.
I strongly suspect that most Atheists do. Most I have encountered are above average in intelligence, as you might expect since Atheism is as definite and deliberate an intellectual choice as Christianity.
on 05/27 at 10:59 AM -
TO: Joseph Marshall
RE: IndeedAn atheist should have just as much trouble with Islam as with Christianity.—Joseph Marshall
One would think that, however, if you look at the actions of atheists and Islamists, you’ll see that both have a ‘common enemy’—in as much as their actions—in Christianity.
You don’t see the atheists in this country going after Muslims NEARLY as much as they go after Christians. And, as far as that goes, the Muslims of Dearborn, Michigan, have been doing a fine job of suppressing the freedom of expression of Christianity of late. Indeed, that silly pastor from Florida had an injunction put upon him that he could not preach in the vicinity of a Mosque there. And when he spoke on the steps of city hall, he was protested by hundreds of ‘non-jihadist’ Muslims. Not that I mind their counter-protest. But I wonder how many Christians would show up to counter-protest some Imam decrying christianity in a similar venue.
Hence their correlation of actions. It’s not tacit. It’s implicit.
From a background trained to recognize patterns of activity, e.g., the Army’s Command and General Staff Course (CGSC) Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (IPB), the indicators are too obvious to ignore.
The problem for atheists, as well as any other ‘People’ NOT of ‘the Book’, is that under Islam, they have two choices, (1) convert or (2) die. One would think that rational people would recognize the obvious threat. But then again, I’ve seen a LOT of people who lack the sort of enlightened self-interest that one would think should be so blatantly obvious.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Common Sense is not so common a virtue.]on 05/27 at 01:08 PM -
TO: Joseph Marshall
RE: ‘Intelligent’ FolkMost atheists, as well as the Buddhists I’ve known, are ‘intelligent’. So are many of the Christians and Hebrews I’ve known.
However, intelligence is not necessarily an indication of ‘good’. Hitler et al. were ‘intelligent’ people too. So was Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot.
So how do we recognize what is ‘good’?
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Whereas Good can tolerate the existence of Evil. Evil cannot tolerate the existence of Good, as Good will continually be pointing out Evil’s faults. Therefore Evil must always try to destroy Good.]on 05/27 at 02:54 PM -
You don’t see the atheists in this country going after Muslims NEARLY as much as they go after Christians.
If by “going after” you mean arguing with them, public protesting against them, or barratry [frivolous suing] of them without merit, this may be strictly accurate. But there are far more Christians and Christian institutions here, and they keep a far higher public profile, than there are Muslims here, so there is much more opportunity for conflict.
Further, having to endure these by some pressure group or other [no matter what the issue] is a legitimate [and legal] part of American public life. We have laws and court decisions which specify what is permissible in all of these [barratry is a crime, though it is hard to prove unless the same person or group is sued incessantly and unsuccessfully]. They are mostly of the form of the classic judicial statement, “Your free speech ends at his nose.”
By and large they work well; your property ownership and rights against trespass apply no matter what anyone is doing on your front lawn; both you and your opponents have equal rights in front of the public City Hall; and any trumpery injunction in all of this must, sooner or later, be resolved by due legal process.
And all this is so no matter whether the issue is the presence of an abortion clinic, a church, or a mosque. To some degree we all have to endure this as a potential nuisance, but if it breaks no other law, it is hardly a serious threat.
No one’s “freedom of speech” or “freedom of worship” is any more than temporarily interrupted by any of these. We all have protection of the law, but we can hardly expect the law to be as swift as the transformation of Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt.
So somebody wanting to start a Mosque a few blocks from Ground Zero [in an part of NYC where nothing is more than “a few blocks” away from anything else] has caused much the same commotion as whatever the Florida Minister was doing, which you don’t specify. Until we know if the minister was guilty of private trespass, or some other method of using his “free speech” to punch someone in the nose, the merits of the thing must stay unresolved.
And as to the virulence of the “counter-protest”, that depends on how easily you get steamed up about something. Any foolishness of any Imam, in, say, Denver, is not likely to threaten Christianity to the point where most Christians would get that steamed about it, or would need to, and protecting the general public order from the Imam can safely be left to the police.
Muslims constitute about 1/300 of the population here, and while there is reason for vigilance against conspiracies of terrorist violence, there is no reason whatever to expect an “Islamic revolution” any time soon. Nor an Atheist one for that matter.
So how do we recognize what is ‘good’?
You have the religious problem the wrong way around. We need to recognize the ‘evil’ in ourselves. I don’t know what your church’s stance is on the issue of predestination versus free will, but if we assume free will, then the possibility for evil even on the scale of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, or Mao abides in all of us. They simply had the opportunity to seize more power to manifest the common human evil.
You probably have heard Hannah Arendt’s notion of the “banality of evil”. What Arendt was talking about is that the usual concentration camp guard, or commandant, or architect designing the gassing chambers and crematoria, was a perfectly ordinary fellow, maybe even [at least nominally ] a “Christian”. His evil was the same in kind as Hitler or any other high Nazi party official. It was just more limited in scope.
The “intelligence” I’m speaking of is a matter of being more fully conscious of your moral choices. The majority of people just drift in and out of this consciousness haphazardly. A convinced Atheist, an active and believing Christian, or a “practicing” Buddhist, has this consciousness at their deliberate command, because they care enough about questions of religion to actively pursue answers. Even if they don’t reach the same answers.
on 05/27 at 06:17 PM -
The classic problem of evil [Why does God allow evil to exist? or Why do bad things happen to good people?] is one that doesn’t trouble a well-informed Buddhist very much. Assuming a belief in Karma, Cause, and Effect and past and future lives, virtually anything that happens to anyone in any given life is easily explained.
From the Buddhist standpoint, a “good” action is one that leads to an ultimately good result for the individual involved, an “evil” action is one that leads to an ultimately bad result for the individual involved. It is purely functional and pragmatic.
Now “ultimate” results don’t often occur in the same life as the action for most morally significant choices. So there is no reason to have doubts simply because someone who does great evil may live long, be wealthy, and have great power to the end of his days.
Nor is there reason to be disturbed in mind because some bad result happens to you or to someone else who doesn’t “deserve” it. Most of what just “happens” to us in this life [good or bad] is the ultimate result of actions taken in previous lives. These “roots” of karma are not normally accessible to us.
What is important, morally, is not what happens to us, but what use we make of it to have a better future. When a karmic action fully “ripens”, producing an “ultimate” result, the karmic process is complete and there are no future manifestations of it.
This means that even a bad thing that happens to us may release us from an even greater burden in our future lives.
As long as it does not prevent us from cultivating moral conduct in this life, a bad result has no effect beyond itself, and if it wakes us up to the need to act morally it has a good effect beyond itself.
It just depends on how we respond to it.
on 05/27 at 08:35 PM -
TO: Joseph Marshall
RE: ‘Going After’Yes. I’m talking about that. To include the government attempting to forbid a minister from mentioning Jesus Christ in a memorial service in a military cemetery.
Christians—I mean REAL ONES—wouldn’t mind an Imam mentioning Allah in such a ceremony held in such a venue. Why should the government, headed by—in my honestly held opinion—Muslim, oppose mention of Jesus Christ....except that Muslims don’t think Jesus is who He claims to be. [NOTE: That business is another ‘indicator’, as we call such in the Army. Indicating he IS the Muslim many of US suspect.]
But you seem to be evading the ‘point’ I’m making, that Atheists don’t care about Muslims, despite the fact that Islam, as practiced by it’s more ‘active’ proponents would kill them—as they do homosexuals—if they had the authority....which they do in certain localities.
After some time in the military, you learn to do what is called ‘Risk Analysis’. I process by which one looks at a situation with the intention of protecting the current state of affairs against attacks of various natural and human form. Case in point, how to protect a college campus from gang-bangers invading it with the purpose of conducting violent action against a resident....who may or may not be in competition or openly opposed to their activities. [NOTE: Had that come up in a Planning & Zoning Commission meeting where I sat as a commissioner. It was an interesting discussion.]
Atheists, in my honestly held opinion, when it comes to militant Islam, are like so many so-called ‘moderate’ Muslims.....silent. The reason for such conduct is up to conjecture. And an interesting discussion it could become. I’m reminded of the famous Arab axiom....
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
In my opinion, Atheists are exactly that. Despite the fact that under Islam, Christians are taxpayers....if they survive the take-over. While Atheists and pagans, are either converted to Islam or killed. And I have contemporary evidence supporting that claim.
As for ‘public life’.....
....I don’t see the Atheists trying to sh[o]ut down Islam. And you’ve even agreed about that. Your argument that the American Christian community is a much more ‘target rich’ environment that the American Muslim community.
I’d like to see the results of Atheists protesting Islam in Dearborn, Michigan. Might be a useful experiment....if done in an honest manner....no collusion with the local Imams.
More later...now back to making Sunday brunch.....
on 05/29 at 09:30 AM -
TO: Joseph Marshall
RE: Why Does Evil Exist?That’s a simple one. Because we have ‘free will’. And we, collectively, choose it.
How does that relate to the Atheist-Islam Alliance? Simple enough. Both reject God. And by the by....Allah is NOT God. Rather, based on my personal observation, he is the ‘other guy’.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The Truth will out....one way or another....]on 05/29 at 11:18 AM -
Well, I think you better take that up with the Atheist Society of Greater Detroit. But, even then, I think you would find that the Muslim residents there do not actively evangelize the rest of Detroit or do much of anything else besides keep to the rather simple commands of their own religion. Under those conditions, there is hardly anything for an Atheist to attack.
Columbus is a major university town. It is also a very friendly sort of place in a mostly absent minded kind of way. If you ever read James Thurber, he nailed it. We have welcomed many refugees from Bosnia, Somalia, and Sudan in recent years as we welcomed Vietnamese and Laotians years ago.
So the Muslim presence is very common here. You routinely see women in the various forms of Hajib, store fronts advertising Halal meats and, if you have a Muslim neighbor, which I do, you are likely to encounter the nightly get-togethers all through Ramadan of famished family and friends, who have been fasting until sundown.
My neighbor tells me that it will be especially difficult this year because Ramadan is in the middle of the summer in 2011.
Beyond that, they keep the lowest possible profile imaginable. They avoid any mention of their religion publically and only if you get to know one of them privately, will they express an opinion about any kind of politics whatever.
Since most of them hail from countries where an indiscreet expression of opinion might easily get you killed, I can see their point. From what I can tell, however, they do relish the freedom here, especially the freedom not to express an opinion if asked to do so by the secret police.
None of this precludes hidden conspiracies, which is why we have things like the Patriot Act and its expanded police powers.
I’m talking about that. To include the government attempting to forbid a minister from mentioning Jesus Christ in a memorial service in a military cemetery.
This is still a little short on detail, but if such a thing occurred at a military cemetery, it is far more likely to be the foolishness of some very low level bureaucrat who is being “regulated by raised eyebrow” and is actually quite ignorant of the limits of the law.
If you can pretend you are acting in the guise of a spy, you should check out the ACLU website sometime. They have excellent descriptions of the REAL limits that the courts have set based on the establishment clause. And while your at it, check out the work they do protecting the “free expression” clause, quite often from doofuses in authority who are “regulated by raised eyebrow” rather than informed about what is actually the state of the law.
There are far too many fantasies about all this, aided by ring-around-the-rosy linking on the Net that never manages to include a primary source who was actually at the purported “incident”.
These include absolutely absurd stories such as Salvation Army bell ringers being prevented by court injunction from operating on the completely private property of a big box store.
It is this sort of thing you should consider as well as your training in analysis. It is often a matter of GIGO. And can be corrected by insisting on reading or hearing genuine first hand testimony of someone who was actually involved.
on 05/29 at 02:33 PM -
Atheists, in my honestly held opinion, when it comes to militant Islam, are like so many so-called ‘moderate’ Muslims.....silent.
I think you are confusing two separate issues here, one of which is religious belief and the other of which is political action. Insofar as Atheism [the idea and not the people], it is a point of view about the existence of God, and whatever believers in God [and I’m not going to separate those who call him Allah] happen to be doing at the moment, Atheism per se doesn’t address.
Now particular Atheists can easily get them confused, too. Mr. Domke’s remarks which you quote above are a prime example of it. But there you have an Atheist frothing and not thinking.
I am definitely tame with enthusiasm [to understate it], with militant Muslim jihadis. But I am also observant of the fact that there is far more to both the world and to religion than militant Muslim jihadis. I don’t intend to let my distaste for them turn into an idee fixee that I have to use to measure opinions about everything else that has nothing to do with them.
I also am highly skeptical of Atheism [or at least what passes for it on the Net]. First of all, negative assertions cannot be proven and must be held with just as much “faith” as that which they deny. To prove a negative assertion you would have to have access to all possible cases. None of us do.
Second, Atheism is also another idee fixee to avoid clear and reasonable controversy about what an Atheist actually does believe. Christianity or Buddhism or Islam are not just religions, they are also broad explanations about the world and how it works. Denial of God explains nothing about anything else. It is a mere unsupported statement of faith and no more.
Unfortunately, it is also a rhetorical trap that most Christians fall into when arguing with an Atheist demanding the proof of the existence of God when he can’t provide the proof of the non-existence of God.
The real question to ask an Atheist is: Why is the world here and how does it work? I doubt many could show an answer that is nearly as intelligible as yours or mine. And if you ask what proof they have that their description is correct, you will find that it swiftly degenerates into complete hearsay and argument from authority.
The emnity of Atheists toward Christians has more to do with the incoherence of what else they believe, in comparison to any religious faith, than it has to do with what Christians believe. Mr. Domke’s overheated remarks are a prime example of this.
on 05/29 at 04:09 PM -
After some time in the military, you learn to do what is called ‘Risk Analysis’. I process by which one looks at a situation with the intention of protecting the current state of affairs against attacks of various natural and human form. Case in point, how to protect a college campus from gang-bangers invading it with the purpose of conducting violent action against a resident
Do you really have any gangbangers around to protect it from? If so, where are they and what have they done to be a potential threat to the college?
The problem with this sort of “risk analysis” is that presumes that there is risk there in the first place without bothering to examine the evidence for it.
You could equally do this sort of risk analysis about how you protect a college from Gray Aliens invading it with flying saucers and kidnapping students for invasive medical experiments. All you have to do is assume that they are there.
The problem with such things is that they proceed from hypothesis instead of fact. Unfortunately, both the military and the intelligence communities are prone to analysing themselves into believing the hypothesis, without reference to known facts, simply because they have put so much time and energy into the analysis.
This was the actual intelligence failure in the case of Saddam Hussein’s “WMD’s”. Their existence as hypothesis was not the same as their existence in fact. And the policy makers were unable to distinguish between the two.
We have heard innumerable analyses over the decade of what outrage Osama Bin Laden might attempt next and how should we defend ourselves from it.
What we needed was a fact: where is he? It was the fact that put him out of business, not the years of analysis.
Facts are some of the most powerful things in the world, and some of the hardest things to actually grasp. In the absence of the facts, you need to go get the facts rather than speculate on what the facts might be.
By and large, more spooks in seedy bars beats a new approach to analysis.
on 05/29 at 04:55 PM -
TO: Joseph Marshall
RE: Taking It ‘Up’Well, I think you better take that up with the Atheist Society of Greater Detroit.—Joseph Marshall
I’ll be happy to take it ‘up’ with anyone who will honestly discuss the matter. Indeed. I do that ALL THE TIME....up to the point that they decide to ‘kill’ me because they don’t have anything else they can do to refute my args.
RE: Thinking ‘Atheist’
It’s kind of difficult to think that way. Especially when I know so much better, as described in another thread on this blog. However, I DO appreciate the necessity of doing so. Something Sun Tzu mentions in his classic work The Art of War. It’s mandatory reading at Fort Benning School for Boys. And, as with many other visits to the ‘School House’ I experienced in twenty-seven years of service, the lessons carry well into a number of other venues.
In your second offering you mention how the “military and intelligence communities are prone to analyzing themselves into believing the hypothesis, without reference to known facts, simply because they have put so much time and energy into the analysis.”
I agree. It IS true. And, it is USUALLY because some idiot at upper-echelons has told them to believe it.
Ever watch A Bridge Too Far? Notice how the intell guy is ordered NOT to believe the photo-recon information about an SS Panzer force in the vicinity of Anaheim?
We studied, even PLAYED, that at School for Boys. If the 82d had been thrown into Anaheim, instead of the vain-glorious effort of the Brits, the campaign would have been stupendous success. Why? Because the Brits were predominantly glider-borne. And there was nowhere NEAR the vital bridge to land such troops. However, the 82d, being predominantly airborne, could have landed the majority of their combat forces within 200 meters of the primary objective....the bridge.
So....
...tell me more about how military intelligence is an ‘oxymoron’.
P.S. I’ve seen this sort of dumb-think in corporate as well as government America as well. Reality have nothing to do with someone’s hidden agenda.
on 05/30 at 09:59 AM -
TO: Joseph Marshall
RE: Gang-Bangers, Anyone?Do you really have any gangbangers around to protect it from?—Joseph Marshall
According to the police plotter reports in the local newspaper?
YES! Not a month goes by without some drive-by shooting into houses.
Indeed. Here in my relatively up-scale neighborhood, I’ve called in reports of multiple semi-automatic rounds being fired after mid-night TWICE in the last 30 days. [NOTE: Remember. I did twenty-seven years in the infantry. I know a bit about how weapons sound.]
And then there are the ‘strange’ unresolved murders where the alleged perp leaves their wallet at the scene of the crime. And the crime is STILL ‘unsolved’?
on 05/30 at 10:07 AM -
I’ve called in reports of multiple semi-automatic rounds being fired after mid-night TWICE in the last 30 days.
Good heavens! I hope you’re still armed and your family has worked out a protocol about it. Unlike some of my Liberal peers, I understand quite well that the price of our freedom is often personal danger and that calling 911 is not a panacea for it. And, frankly, I’m glad the courts have abandoned their tortured logic about militia. Bad case law benefits no one.
And while I’m inclined to laugh at those who think personal arms will seriously fend off a hostile government, I am in agreement that they at least give you a fighting chance against hostile fellow citizens.
tell me more about how military intelligence is an ‘oxymoron’
No, it isn’t, and I know that perfectly well. Both you and I watched the application of the most overwhelmingly successful piece of military thinking in history: the Powell Doctrine.
What is the case in this country is a poor understanding by the civilian government of the true purpose of a strong military in statescraft, the true purpose of intelligence, and the limits of even the largest military power.
The most important use of military power is the threat of war rather than the making of war. Beyond the controversies of the past decade, I cannot see how anyone can believe that our strategic and diplomatic position in the Middle East is better now than it was immediately after the rout of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2002. We had far more leverage then with our enemies in Iraq, Iran, and Syria, as well as with our fair-weather friends in Saudi and Pakistan, than we have ever had since.
We simply made too much war, weakened our resources, and frittered away the diplomatic advantage that comes from a large and ready military. And we have not yet recovered from this, whether the actual fighting has been a success or not.
If the civilian leadership is not willing to face the facts, and use information effectively, intelligence gathering is pointless.
If there is one thing I would fault our military for, it is the dynamic of weapons procurement that often avoids a realistic examination of when the money is well invested, and a levelheaded attitude toward what makes a weapon usable and effective.
We have many successes: Predator drones, stealth attack planes, true air superiority fighters at all ranges, the M1911, the Jeep, the M1, and the Browning .50 cal., among a lot of others
But these have come with a whole lot of widow-making and cost-overruning failures attached. As well as a lot of reliance on simply marginal performing weapons and weapons systems, such as making war with automatic weapons chambered for hunting coyotes and pistols with too little punch when you can’t shoot JHP’s.
And even our successes are generally not superior, simple, and frugal solutions like the T-34 tank or the Kalashnikov longarm family that keep functioning when the going gets down and dirty. At least they generally haven’t been since the days of the Jeep.
I guess we can always dream of the best of both, even if we can’t have it. But when you consider how much of our GDP goes for fancy rather than plain, when we also maintain such high numbers of men in uniform, including truly functional National Guards, the self evident drain on our peacetime prosperity that we pay as a price for it is disheartening.
Even on Memorial Day.
on 05/30 at 11:38 AM -
TO: Joseph Marshall
RE: Too FunnyGood heavens! I hope you’re still armed....—Joseph Marshall
Anyone courageous, e.g., ‘stupid’, enough to ‘invade’ this household had better have (1) good body-armor and (2) his/her will and insurance brought ‘up to date’.
That includes the rash of ‘law enforcement’ types who mistakenly use anti-drug laws to assault a peaceable household. [NOTE: Trained as a combat-engineer.....I developed a knack for making things that go ‘boom,’.]
RE: 1911
I can turn that weapon into a fully automatic weapon. Not that it is any good that way. But it DOES seem to scare certain people.
Had to do with my training as an armorer for a company of paratroopers.
on 05/30 at 02:04 PM -
TO: Joesph Marshall
RE: Civilian ‘Leadership’....If the civilian leadership is not willing to face the facts, and use information effectively, intelligence gathering is pointless.—Joesph Marshall
....has become a TRUE oxymoron. As opposed to ‘military intelligence’.
As I pointed out in another topical thread, the proper application of IPB can be very useful in understanding thinks that are difficult to understand because someone doesn’t want you to understand them in the first place.
So what if the civilian, e.g., government officials, don’t use facts in accordance with the designs of the Founding Fathers? But rather with their own designs, e.g., hidden agendas.
Does that mean the rest of US should be totally ignorant as well? Until the proverbial wolf is no longer ‘at the door’, but in the living room?
Hardly. Intelligent people will use whatever skills they have to do the best for themselves and, God willing, their communities. It’s called ‘enlightened self-interest’.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[When the government tells you everything is fine—despite all you witness for yourself—that is the time to RUN!—protagonist in 2012]on 06/01 at 09:04 AM -
So what if the civilian, e.g., government officials, don’t use facts in accordance with the designs of the Founding Fathers? But rather with their own designs, e.g., hidden agendas.
Just what agendas are you talking about? Since no one can possibly know everything that goes on where policy is made, the possibility for “hidden agendas” is infinite and eternal, therefore, you can never be sure that “hidden agendas” don’t exist.
Under those conditions, “he who asserts must prove”. I hear much inuendo but very little substance, about “hidden agendas” and I am inclined to think that it comes from people who don’t like any possible agenda of someone they oppose, so they either don’t bother to read the stated and open agendas, or don’t bother to read them very carefully.
Also, I have no idea what you mean by “using facts in accordance with the designs of the Founding Fathers”. There are innumerable ways to “use facts”, so which way are you talking about?
As far as any “designs of the Founding Fathers” goes, if you don’t mean, say, the private inventiveness and the architecture of Thomas Jefferson, and do mean the text of the United States Constitution, the reasoning given for ratifying it in the Federalist Papers, and the Bill Of Rights added to it, then we might make some progress.
Insofar as we can know the “designs of the Founding Fathers” for the United States Government it must come from a plain and sensible reading of those three texts.
Quite a number of the Founding Fathers were actually opposed to our current constitution and preferred the Articles of Confederation. It is only the Federalist half of them that shaped most of the government in the end.
And Amendments to the Constitution after the Bill of Rights have little or nothing to do directly with the opinions of any of the Founding Fathers, since they were all dead when most of these Amendments were ratified.
Does that mean the rest of US should be totally ignorant as well?
Totally ignorant of what? The actions of the U.S. Government [beyond legitimately “classified” national security information] are enormously accessible for anyone who bothers to research and read. The Government Printing Office does nothing else but publish information about it. Any site on the net with .gov as a part of it’s web address is full to the gills with the same sort of information.
Moreover, if you want to know the events and the gossip in Congress, you can read it in the same place that the Senators and Congressmen do--the publication Roll Call.
And if you want to keep tabs on the current actions of the Federal Civil Service, many of the non-classified actions of the Military, and the periginations of the Federal Courts, you can routinely read the Washington Post Federal Pages or search extensively on the McClatchy Washington Bureau website.
And even some of the confidential stuff about the Military, such as which units are posted where, is routinely pieced together at GlobalSecurity.org.
Try finding out the same amount of information about the government of Colorado sometime.
Anyone who lacks knowledge about what the US Government is saying and doing either doesn’t have the time or doesn’t have a genuine interest in finding out.
Now if “lack of leadership” merely means not doing anything you want done, or doing things that you don’t want done, then the expression is merely vague, unspecified space filler.
If you mean more by it than that, I certainly couldn’t describe to anyone else just what that might be.
on 06/01 at 04:29 PM -
TO: Joseph Marshall
RE: What ‘Agendas’?Just what agendas are you talking about?—Joseph Marshall
Oh. Come on. You’re a reasonably intelligent and articulate individual. Are you ‘sand-bagging’ about the politics of either political party?
But this is a digression that deserves it’s own thread.
The points remain about Rev 9. And no digression will remove them.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
on 06/08 at 08:59 AM -
Huh? I thought we had Revelation 9 going on the other thread and that this was about Islam and Atheism.
In the broader sense, however, these threads are both about perceiving “connections” for which you have inadequate evidence, and without adequate evidence there is no knowledge of such “connections” to be had. And all we are left with is merely rumor, speculation, and possibility.
It really doesn’t matter how good we are at perceiving possible “connections”. It really doesn’t matter what kind of training we may or may not have had to sharpen such perception.
What matters in the end is the evidence: whether any real evidence has been presented at all and whether the evidence presented is credible enough, and complete enough, to sustain that the “connections” are more than scenarios in the heads of the analysts.
Are Atheists and Muslims in cahoots? Maybe. Is there any real evidence of it? Not that I can see.
Is it possible that gangbangers will invade the dorms of your college to kill students? Maybe. There’s evidence that they are around and that they might do it. But is there any evidence presented here that they will do it? Or even that they are likely to do it? Not that I can see.
[By the way, what changes in zoning did you come up with to deter them?]
Is it possible that when St. John says “locusts” he means Apache helicopters and when says “wormwood” he means Chernobyl?
Maybe. But how much real evidence of it is there? Not a whole lot, really. A mere two cases of “looks like” or “sounds like” is not compelling evidence.
Is it possible that the Obama Administration is working out some hidden agenda to prorogue the Constitution.
Maybe. But where’s the evidence?
Here are the questions that evidence answers that analysis and speculation do not: Who? What? Where? When? How? How Large? How Much? How Many? What Next?
No argument, no matter how watertight; no analysis, however detailed; and no possibility, however enticing can answer these questions in a way that gives true knowledge, if there is no evidence to sustain them.
on 06/08 at 06:13 PM -
I have no belief in the god of The Bible or any other scripture. I am certainly an atheist, and believe life ends at death. Consiouness ends and the so called soul does not go to a place of happiness or torment, Death is death, But does any other atheist have a different view.
iPhone on 08/09 at 03:04 AM -
TO: iPhone
RE: BeliefsWell....
....as the saying goes....
Eternal nothingness is fine, if you’re dressed for it.
On the other hand, having had some experiences you probably lack, I think you’re—tongue firmly in cheek—dead wrong on this matter.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. So if there is no God and no Judgment, what’s keeping you from going out a wrecking mayhem for your hearts delight?on 08/09 at 03:18 PM -
civilization developments were attributed. Not some fools that believed all the fairy tales of the bible. Utter rubbish! Why is it then, that you can prove absolutely nothing that you travesti
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bursa travestilerion 09/17 at 11:18 AM -
I confirm. So happens. Let’s discuss this question. Here or in PM.
szybkie odchudzanieInvonse on 12/02 at 10:18 PM