Definition of Marriage gets Debated in California
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In the sense that he is the creator and ultimate source of everything, yes. Who do you attribute everything to I wonder?
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
Who do you attribute everything to I wonder?
It's not necessary to attribute everything to something. That's why a supreme god is not necessary for me. You, however, need a god, because your reasoning necessitates that everything be tracable to a single-point origin.
So the creationist says: Everything must have a designer. God designed everything. I say: Why is God the only exception? Why not make the "designs" (like man) exceptions and make God a creation of man?
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Ri Qen-Sin wrote:
You're not arguing from a common point of view.
No, why should I if I believe the 'common' point of view to be wrong.
Ri Qen-Sin wrote:
You're arguing with the assumption that everyone already agrees with the statements you establish.
No, I'm arguing with the assumption that God exists and that he is as he reveals himself to be. I have stated this many times. It is no more or less provable than the assumption of the athiest that God does not exist but it is a great deal more useful as the consequences of the positive assumption fit all the evidence without distortion or double meaning or contradiction. In order to make your arguments you have to believe that your reality and my reality can be completely contrary and yet co-existant, this is insane by definition as it mandates an irrational universe. No argument on this basis can be valid in logic as it denies itself.
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
I'm just asking that we argue from a common point, not for you to shed your beliefs. In case you were too busy to notice, the common point of view encompass both our shared views. You can draw yourself a venn diagram if that helps… I doubt our circles will not overlap.
So the creationist says: Everything must have a designer. God designed everything. I say: Why is God the only exception? Why not make the "designs" (like man) exceptions and make God a creation of man?
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Matthew Faithfull wrote:
as it then contains no limiting factors whatsoever.
garbage. it has built in limitations based on equality which their actual words, not any fabricated extrapolation but their exact words ( so facts ), clearly states.
led mike wrote:
We all have the same rights, therefore very simply put one individuals freedoms or rights end anytime their implementation of what they believe is a freedom infringes upon someone else's, period.
"end" that word describes a limit does it not? So your statement "contains no limiting factors whatsoever" is false, period.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
Could such a man put his signature to a declaration of universal license?
As we have cleared up, it is no universal license, so your question is invalid. But yes he did put his signature on what it actually says. Not what you claim to know, and can't prove, what he thought, period. Maybe he thought it should say "life liberty and the pursuit of happiness except for butt fucking" but you can't prove that's what he thought so you're just talking trash, period. One things for sure based on our countries history and the actual statements we have from the founding fathers. In 1776 they were unanimous in their passionate quest for freedom. But it didn't take long for the power to start corrupting. The revolution ended in 1783 and in 1784 Henry was trying to establish a governmental religion. We have been in a battle ever since.
led mike
led mike wrote:
As we have cleared up, it is no universal license
On that I'm glad we agree.
led mike wrote:
limitations based on equality
A = B. Exactly how does that limit the possible values of either A or B, it does not. I have clearly established a straight forward logical argument based on what we have both agreed and you have said nothing to refute it. You fail most importantly to tackle the issue of whether the authors considered butt f***ing as right or wrong. No doubt this is because you don't see the importance of right and wrong to freedom and liberty whereas they did.
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
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Oakman wrote:
Yep and at tens of thousands of which were gay. You think they weren't hoping that that they could become first class citizens?
They already were first class citizens.
Oakman wrote:
lets see, you don't like Indians, Blacks, homosexuals, people to the left of Richard Nixon - how do you feel about Asians?
How about an actual original argument? What have I ever said to imply that I don't like those people? I'm only saying that social problems should be dealt with in a Jeffersonian way, not a fascist way. Are there racist in Jeffersonian society? Of course. But there are also racist facists, Adolph Hitler for example. Neither philosophy has an exclusive appeal to racist sentiments. My problem with your ilk, is that you essentially want to employ the same basic political principles of Hitler to do good things. And no, I'm not calling you a Nazi. Fascism was created so that good people could do good things in a controlled centralized way because the common man simply could not be trusted to do such things in a decentralized way. Jeffersonian principles makes exactly the opposite claim, that good men can best assert themselves if they are not controlled by a centralized authority. That concept is classical, pre-Marxist, liberalism, and I believe in it and that does not make me a racist or a homophobe or anything else.
Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization
Stan Shannon wrote:
My problem with your ilk, is that you essentially want to employ the same basic political principles of Hitler to do good things.
You really are crazy. Hitler's political principles demanded world war, death camps and liebenstraum, but you're not calling anyone a Nazi. Right.
Stan Shannon wrote:
Fascism was created so that good people could do good things in a controlled centralized way
That's so silly you either invented it yourself, or got it from Goldberg. Hitler was a good man who wanted to do good things? Mussolini? The Klan and the Aryan Nation? I don't think so.
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Spoken like a very nice guy. But it does not address the key issue. Were we not then a Jeffersonian society historically, but we are now? Clearly, somethng changed in our understanding of our own founding principles in a way that was not readily evident to the very people who actually wrote them. Is questioning the intellectual history behind those changes something that is not supposed to be done?
Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization
Stan Shannon wrote:
Clearly, somethng changed in our understanding of our own founding principles in a way that was not readily evident to the very people who actually wrote them. Is questioning the intellectual history behind those changes something that is not supposed to be done?
I have no problem with that. But questioning it absent consideration for other things that have changed is a problem. Your view point is that our understanding of the principles is the only thing that has changed and therefore the only thing that should be considered. That's just not representative of reality.
led mike
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led mike wrote:
As we have cleared up, it is no universal license
On that I'm glad we agree.
led mike wrote:
limitations based on equality
A = B. Exactly how does that limit the possible values of either A or B, it does not. I have clearly established a straight forward logical argument based on what we have both agreed and you have said nothing to refute it. You fail most importantly to tackle the issue of whether the authors considered butt f***ing as right or wrong. No doubt this is because you don't see the importance of right and wrong to freedom and liberty whereas they did.
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
A = B. Exactly how does that limit the possible values of either A or B, it does not.
"values"? Please show me where the founders referred to values in that statement. "unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." You are introducing a concept into the discussion that is completely absent from the original statement. Why do you think that is a valid debate tactic?
led mike
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Stan Shannon wrote:
My problem with your ilk, is that you essentially want to employ the same basic political principles of Hitler to do good things.
You really are crazy. Hitler's political principles demanded world war, death camps and liebenstraum, but you're not calling anyone a Nazi. Right.
Stan Shannon wrote:
Fascism was created so that good people could do good things in a controlled centralized way
That's so silly you either invented it yourself, or got it from Goldberg. Hitler was a good man who wanted to do good things? Mussolini? The Klan and the Aryan Nation? I don't think so.
You are totally confused about what fascism is. Fascism is simply 'National Socialism'. That is, socialism that rejects the 'internationalist' appeal of classical socialism and communism. Natoinal Socialist believe that all the institutions of a state should be dedicated to the improvement of the social conditions within that state. That are perfectly happy to work with capitalists, manufactureres etc as long as those institutions work in harmony with the stated goals of those who control the state.
oilFactotum wrote:
Hitler's political principles demanded world war, death camps and liebenstraum, but you're not calling anyone a Nazi. Right.
But that is not what made him a fascist. In fact, idealogically, Hitler was whatever was convieniet at the moment. He was really simply a lunatic madman without much in the way of political prniciples at all.
oilFactotum wrote:
Mussolini?
Mussolini was the classic fascist, but he was no racist. The Italian fascist movement was largly controlled by Jews early on. He was a great hero to western liberals from about the time of WWI until the beginning of WWII.
oilFactotum wrote:
The Klan
The klan obviouisly began as a species of Jeffersonian racism. But as our society has become increasingly facsist, they have done so also. That is the real problem lefties such as yourself refuse to acknowledge, that as you make the society more fascist, you drag groups such as the klan along with you.
oilFactotum wrote:
Aryan Nation
I really know nothing about what they believe in, but I suppose they are racist fascists. And, yes, I've largely gotten that from Goldberg. I've spent some time checking out his references, and they seem to hold up. Its a decent book even if not altogether well written. Its also a very important book. The left has gotten away for far too long with trying to hide its own intellectual genealogy. Its very attempt to control the historic debate is simply another example of its very fascist totalitarianism.
Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization
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Stan Shannon wrote:
Clearly, somethng changed in our understanding of our own founding principles in a way that was not readily evident to the very people who actually wrote them. Is questioning the intellectual history behind those changes something that is not supposed to be done?
I have no problem with that. But questioning it absent consideration for other things that have changed is a problem. Your view point is that our understanding of the principles is the only thing that has changed and therefore the only thing that should be considered. That's just not representative of reality.
led mike
led mike wrote:
I have no problem with that. But questioning it absent consideration for other things that have changed is a problem. Your view point is that our understanding of the principles is the only thing that has changed and therefore the only thing that should be considered. That's just not representative of reality.
But, mike, if it changed, than it changed. The question is, what were the intellectual influences that drove that change. Of course other things changed. But there were mechnisms designed into the process that were supposed to deal with such needed changes (amending the constitution to end slavery, for example). For example, if 30 years after fascist in Europe begin demanding 'strictly secular' schools, the US supreme court creates strictly secular schools in the US, is it really such a stretch to consider that their real rational was not some letter written by Thomas Jefferson, but to help institute a European style fascist state here in the US? When your society is clearly evolving in a direction far more similar to those with entirely different intellectual and social history, and changing from what it once was, it would at least seem prudent to be honest about where those intellectual influences are really comeing from and why they are being so energetically defended. I believe absolutely that all of the changes to our society over the 20th century were not some kind of attempt to modernize Jeffersonianism, which could have been modernized in ways purely consistent with its founding principles, but rather to displace it with the fascist principles that became so popular in Europe during the early decades of the last century.
Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization
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Matthew Faithfull wrote:
A = B. Exactly how does that limit the possible values of either A or B, it does not.
"values"? Please show me where the founders referred to values in that statement. "unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." You are introducing a concept into the discussion that is completely absent from the original statement. Why do you think that is a valid debate tactic?
led mike
You introduced equality, apparently as something limiting, as a relative measure it isn't. Why do you think that half a sentence taken out of context and repeated many times means anything at all. If you refuse to attempt to actually understand what was intended by what was written in the context of who wrote it, when and why and insist on every word used in a debate being derived by word games from one particular half sentence without reference to it context then you have no idea of a proper debate. You could equally well debate any random sequence of words from a dictionary and your conclusions would just as meaningless. It is one way of avoiding questions of course but not a very good one.
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
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You are totally confused about what fascism is. Fascism is simply 'National Socialism'. That is, socialism that rejects the 'internationalist' appeal of classical socialism and communism. Natoinal Socialist believe that all the institutions of a state should be dedicated to the improvement of the social conditions within that state. That are perfectly happy to work with capitalists, manufactureres etc as long as those institutions work in harmony with the stated goals of those who control the state.
oilFactotum wrote:
Hitler's political principles demanded world war, death camps and liebenstraum, but you're not calling anyone a Nazi. Right.
But that is not what made him a fascist. In fact, idealogically, Hitler was whatever was convieniet at the moment. He was really simply a lunatic madman without much in the way of political prniciples at all.
oilFactotum wrote:
Mussolini?
Mussolini was the classic fascist, but he was no racist. The Italian fascist movement was largly controlled by Jews early on. He was a great hero to western liberals from about the time of WWI until the beginning of WWII.
oilFactotum wrote:
The Klan
The klan obviouisly began as a species of Jeffersonian racism. But as our society has become increasingly facsist, they have done so also. That is the real problem lefties such as yourself refuse to acknowledge, that as you make the society more fascist, you drag groups such as the klan along with you.
oilFactotum wrote:
Aryan Nation
I really know nothing about what they believe in, but I suppose they are racist fascists. And, yes, I've largely gotten that from Goldberg. I've spent some time checking out his references, and they seem to hold up. Its a decent book even if not altogether well written. Its also a very important book. The left has gotten away for far too long with trying to hide its own intellectual genealogy. Its very attempt to control the historic debate is simply another example of its very fascist totalitarianism.
Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization
Stan Shannon wrote:
Fascism is simply 'National Socialism'
No, it's not. You have fallen into the trap of seeing the words and not the actions. Using the word 'socialist' does not make one socialist or leftist. Here's a definition that an actual historian uses: Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism, p. 218: Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal constraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion. and: Paxton's nine "mobilizing passions" of fascism: -- a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond the reach of any traditional solutions; -- the primacy of the group, toward which one has duties superior to every right, whether universal or individual, and the subordination of the individual to it; -- the belief that one's group is a victim, a sentiment which justifies any action, without legal or moral limits, against the group's enemies, both internal and external; -- dread of the group's decline under the corrosive effect of individualistic liberalism, class conflict, and alien influences; -- the need for closer integration of a purer community, by consent if possible, or by exclusionary violence if necessary; -- the need for authority by natural leaders (always male), culminating in a national chief who alone is capable of incarnating the group's destiny; -- the superiority of the leader's instincts over abstract and universal reason; -- the beauty of violence and the efficacy of will, when they are devoted to the group's success; -- the right of the chosen people to dominate others without restraint from any kind of human or divine law, right being decided by the sole criterion of the group's prowess in a Darwinian struggle. I find it interesting that your passions match very closely to these nine listed.
Stan Shannon wrote:
But that is not what made him a fascist.
No, that didn't make him a fascist, rather being a fascist led directly to these actions.
Stan Shannon wrote:
Mussolini ...was no racist.
So?
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led mike wrote:
I have no problem with that. But questioning it absent consideration for other things that have changed is a problem. Your view point is that our understanding of the principles is the only thing that has changed and therefore the only thing that should be considered. That's just not representative of reality.
But, mike, if it changed, than it changed. The question is, what were the intellectual influences that drove that change. Of course other things changed. But there were mechnisms designed into the process that were supposed to deal with such needed changes (amending the constitution to end slavery, for example). For example, if 30 years after fascist in Europe begin demanding 'strictly secular' schools, the US supreme court creates strictly secular schools in the US, is it really such a stretch to consider that their real rational was not some letter written by Thomas Jefferson, but to help institute a European style fascist state here in the US? When your society is clearly evolving in a direction far more similar to those with entirely different intellectual and social history, and changing from what it once was, it would at least seem prudent to be honest about where those intellectual influences are really comeing from and why they are being so energetically defended. I believe absolutely that all of the changes to our society over the 20th century were not some kind of attempt to modernize Jeffersonianism, which could have been modernized in ways purely consistent with its founding principles, but rather to displace it with the fascist principles that became so popular in Europe during the early decades of the last century.
Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization
Stan Shannon wrote:
The question is, what were the intellectual influences that drove that change.
I just don't believe it's anywhere near that simple. What were the intellectual influences that drove emancipation? For one person, such as yourself, they might have great reflection on cultures and politics and philosophy and history and economics. However for another they might just see and/or think about human suffering of enslaved and very simply go, "umm that's just wrong". For the second individual there is no ulterior motive or consideration of things like governmental structures, societal cultures, and economic principles written hundreds of years before, they just don't care because it's just wrong, period.
Stan Shannon wrote:
I believe absolutely that all of the changes to our society over the 20th century were not some kind of attempt to modernize Jeffersonianism, which could have been modernized in ways purely consistent with its founding principles, but rather to displace it with the fascist principles that became so popular in Europe during the early decades of the last century.
That may be the result and even some people, like yourself may think in those terms. However for many more such as myself I really don't care what Jefferson thought in 1790. I can assimilate temporal information like that fact that he was a slave owner and we (well most of us) now understand that was just wrong, therefore nothing he said is unchallengeable. I don't need to be told by the 300 year old writings of some guy that has never seen a JET Liner or an ATM machine if slavery is right or wrong. I don't need to know and consider the differences between fascism and jeffersonianism or federalsim vs republicanism to know that slavery is wrong. Many people don't reflect on the so called principles devised and written about hundreds of years ago. We prefer to search for a modern approach to problem solving that, yes, can take into account historical observations on economics, culture, government, and philosophy, but not the exclusion of the fact that we live in a very Very different world today than they did.
led mike
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You introduced equality, apparently as something limiting, as a relative measure it isn't. Why do you think that half a sentence taken out of context and repeated many times means anything at all. If you refuse to attempt to actually understand what was intended by what was written in the context of who wrote it, when and why and insist on every word used in a debate being derived by word games from one particular half sentence without reference to it context then you have no idea of a proper debate. You could equally well debate any random sequence of words from a dictionary and your conclusions would just as meaningless. It is one way of avoiding questions of course but not a very good one.
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
You introduced equality, apparently as something limiting
"As something limiting"? It just is, period, like gravity. If in principle you and I are equal in rights then I don't have the right to infringe upon your rights, period. Please explain how that is wrong. It seems very Very simple to me.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
as a relative measure it isn't.
There is nothing relative about it, it is black and white clear.
led mike
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Matthew Faithfull wrote:
You introduced equality, apparently as something limiting
"As something limiting"? It just is, period, like gravity. If in principle you and I are equal in rights then I don't have the right to infringe upon your rights, period. Please explain how that is wrong. It seems very Very simple to me.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
as a relative measure it isn't.
There is nothing relative about it, it is black and white clear.
led mike
It seems simple to you because you have a rights based thought process. I don't, your rights, my rights, somebody else's rights, it's broken thinking as I explained earlier in this thread. The rights based view of the world leads inevitably to inumerable contradictions. In other words it's nonsense. You infringe on my unalienable right to live in world not corrupted by bad philosophy every time you post. I infringe your right to be told you're correct in everything you say, regardless of the truth, every time I reply. :doh: :doh: :doh: It's drivel, get over it. By the way if you don't understand that equality is a relative rather than an absolute measure then I reckon you're on the wrong web site. (=A) No my parser says that isn't even an expression. :rolleyes:
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
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It seems simple to you because you have a rights based thought process. I don't, your rights, my rights, somebody else's rights, it's broken thinking as I explained earlier in this thread. The rights based view of the world leads inevitably to inumerable contradictions. In other words it's nonsense. You infringe on my unalienable right to live in world not corrupted by bad philosophy every time you post. I infringe your right to be told you're correct in everything you say, regardless of the truth, every time I reply. :doh: :doh: :doh: It's drivel, get over it. By the way if you don't understand that equality is a relative rather than an absolute measure then I reckon you're on the wrong web site. (=A) No my parser says that isn't even an expression. :rolleyes:
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
I don't, your rights, my rights, somebody else's rights, it's broken thinking
Oh ok so you just trashed the Declaration of Independence. You know the one that was written by all those Christians, who exactly felt it was of ENORMOUS importance to point out that we are all equally endowed with certain RIGHTS. Good get out the country then we don't need any more people like you here, so blinded by religion that you are incapable of basic logic. You interject faith based arguments into every claim to be providing a logic based argument.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
By the way if you don't understand
I definitely understand that I am done talking to you, you're useless.
led mike
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Matthew Faithfull wrote:
I don't, your rights, my rights, somebody else's rights, it's broken thinking
Oh ok so you just trashed the Declaration of Independence. You know the one that was written by all those Christians, who exactly felt it was of ENORMOUS importance to point out that we are all equally endowed with certain RIGHTS. Good get out the country then we don't need any more people like you here, so blinded by religion that you are incapable of basic logic. You interject faith based arguments into every claim to be providing a logic based argument.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
By the way if you don't understand
I definitely understand that I am done talking to you, you're useless.
led mike
led mike wrote:
Oh ok so you just trashed the Declaration of Independence.
No, I just trashed your misunderstanding of it.
led mike wrote:
You interject faith based arguments into every claim to be providing a logic based argument.
That's right I base by logical arguments on the stated assumptions of my faith, as opposed to assumptions I deny making or don't even understand.
led mike wrote:
I definitely understand that I am done talking to you, you're useless.
To someone who just wants to be told they right, when they're not, yes I'm thankfully completely useless. :laugh:
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
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led mike wrote:
Oh ok so you just trashed the Declaration of Independence.
No, I just trashed your misunderstanding of it.
led mike wrote:
You interject faith based arguments into every claim to be providing a logic based argument.
That's right I base by logical arguments on the stated assumptions of my faith, as opposed to assumptions I deny making or don't even understand.
led mike wrote:
I definitely understand that I am done talking to you, you're useless.
To someone who just wants to be told they right, when they're not, yes I'm thankfully completely useless. :laugh:
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
No, I just trashed your misunderstanding of it.
Ok so if you are going to completely ignore things like:
led mike wrote:
who exactly felt it was of ENORMOUS importance to point out that we are all equally endowed with certain RIGHTS.
Then there is absolutely no reason to talk to you. We're done
led mike
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Stan Shannon wrote:
Fascism is simply 'National Socialism'
No, it's not. You have fallen into the trap of seeing the words and not the actions. Using the word 'socialist' does not make one socialist or leftist. Here's a definition that an actual historian uses: Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism, p. 218: Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal constraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion. and: Paxton's nine "mobilizing passions" of fascism: -- a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond the reach of any traditional solutions; -- the primacy of the group, toward which one has duties superior to every right, whether universal or individual, and the subordination of the individual to it; -- the belief that one's group is a victim, a sentiment which justifies any action, without legal or moral limits, against the group's enemies, both internal and external; -- dread of the group's decline under the corrosive effect of individualistic liberalism, class conflict, and alien influences; -- the need for closer integration of a purer community, by consent if possible, or by exclusionary violence if necessary; -- the need for authority by natural leaders (always male), culminating in a national chief who alone is capable of incarnating the group's destiny; -- the superiority of the leader's instincts over abstract and universal reason; -- the beauty of violence and the efficacy of will, when they are devoted to the group's success; -- the right of the chosen people to dominate others without restraint from any kind of human or divine law, right being decided by the sole criterion of the group's prowess in a Darwinian struggle. I find it interesting that your passions match very closely to these nine listed.
Stan Shannon wrote:
But that is not what made him a fascist.
No, that didn't make him a fascist, rather being a fascist led directly to these actions.
Stan Shannon wrote:
Mussolini ...was no racist.
So?
Certainly, Paxton's appraisal of the klan gives away his true agenda which, as Goldberg states, is simply the attempt by the left to show that everything that is bad in society is right wing and everything good is leftwing. To describe the antics of backwoods southern rednecks as some kind of fascist movement is ridiculous beyond words. The racism of the klan cannot be seperated from the racism of the slavery which preceeded it and that cannot be seperated from the racism inherent in the original constitution. The only possible conclusion is that Jeffersonianism itself was a fascist movement because it was racist. I claim that the klan represents Jeffersonian racism because it derived from the Jeffersonian tradition of states rights and individualism. And all that really means is that racism is independent of political principles and can arise from any set of political beliefs or theories.
oilFactotum wrote:
I find it interesting that your passions match very closely to these nine listed.
And I find it interesting that the Jeffersonian notion which I support of local communities being empowered to work out the parameters of their society for themselves gets twisted into fascism. That is precisely the opposite of fascism. It might be imbued with its own uniquely troblesome tendencies, but it ain't fascist. Most of those nine "passions" are plainly visilble in modern day liberalism. One has to look no further than the movement swirling around BHO to appreciate that. No, fascism was part and parcel of the progressivst movement of the late 19th century. It was predicated on the anti-Jeffersonian belief that power needs to be concentrated in the hands of those who have the best interests of society in mind. That society needs to be united into a military like structure in order to marshall the resources of the state for the benefit of the whole. The fascist's only difference from socialism and communism was there rejection of the idea that the movement should be global. They were overtly nationalists but none of them, aside from the Nazis, expoused racism as a central theme of their beliefs. I can let Goldberg speak for himself [^] of course.
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Stan Shannon wrote:
The question is, what were the intellectual influences that drove that change.
I just don't believe it's anywhere near that simple. What were the intellectual influences that drove emancipation? For one person, such as yourself, they might have great reflection on cultures and politics and philosophy and history and economics. However for another they might just see and/or think about human suffering of enslaved and very simply go, "umm that's just wrong". For the second individual there is no ulterior motive or consideration of things like governmental structures, societal cultures, and economic principles written hundreds of years before, they just don't care because it's just wrong, period.
Stan Shannon wrote:
I believe absolutely that all of the changes to our society over the 20th century were not some kind of attempt to modernize Jeffersonianism, which could have been modernized in ways purely consistent with its founding principles, but rather to displace it with the fascist principles that became so popular in Europe during the early decades of the last century.
That may be the result and even some people, like yourself may think in those terms. However for many more such as myself I really don't care what Jefferson thought in 1790. I can assimilate temporal information like that fact that he was a slave owner and we (well most of us) now understand that was just wrong, therefore nothing he said is unchallengeable. I don't need to be told by the 300 year old writings of some guy that has never seen a JET Liner or an ATM machine if slavery is right or wrong. I don't need to know and consider the differences between fascism and jeffersonianism or federalsim vs republicanism to know that slavery is wrong. Many people don't reflect on the so called principles devised and written about hundreds of years ago. We prefer to search for a modern approach to problem solving that, yes, can take into account historical observations on economics, culture, government, and philosophy, but not the exclusion of the fact that we live in a very Very different world today than they did.
led mike
But mike, consider that it did not take fascism or socialism to end slavery. It merely took an amendment to the constitution as proscribed within our system of government. If such a monsterous injustice could be dealt with by that mechanism, what could possibly justify the abandonment of that process in favor of another? Especially when the other is predicated upon a set of political principles that directly contradict our own founding principles.
Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization
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But mike, consider that it did not take fascism or socialism to end slavery. It merely took an amendment to the constitution as proscribed within our system of government. If such a monsterous injustice could be dealt with by that mechanism, what could possibly justify the abandonment of that process in favor of another? Especially when the other is predicated upon a set of political principles that directly contradict our own founding principles.
Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization
Stan, I am really enjoying this discussion. I know we have exchanged ugly words in the past, and likely will again :-D, but even so you are the one person here of opposite opinion that I have learned much from.
Stan Shannon wrote:
what could possibly justify the abandonment of that process in favor of another?
None. Even though you characterize my perspective as that, I do not. I stick with what I have said in my preceding post. It's far more complex than that. You can't just argue a specific issue based on finding a way to compare it to fascism. Most of the top issues we face today are far to complex to be bandied about in such careless fashion. That type of dogmatic approach to solving problems has resulted in serious stagnation in the US. I would offer abortion as a prime example. I do not approve of abortion in general, period. However the issue is so complex that throwing around crass statements like "states rights" and "murder" are of no real value to solving the problem. All it accomplishes is entrenching people in dogma such that no real progress can be made. It's not reasonable that Jefferson's views on specific issues in todays world, if he were still alive, can be accurately predicted based on his words from 300 years ago. And even if he didn't slightly modify his position ( which again we can't possibly know ), since he was a slave owner we have no basis to blindly follow his position anyway.
led mike
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Certainly, Paxton's appraisal of the klan gives away his true agenda which, as Goldberg states, is simply the attempt by the left to show that everything that is bad in society is right wing and everything good is leftwing. To describe the antics of backwoods southern rednecks as some kind of fascist movement is ridiculous beyond words. The racism of the klan cannot be seperated from the racism of the slavery which preceeded it and that cannot be seperated from the racism inherent in the original constitution. The only possible conclusion is that Jeffersonianism itself was a fascist movement because it was racist. I claim that the klan represents Jeffersonian racism because it derived from the Jeffersonian tradition of states rights and individualism. And all that really means is that racism is independent of political principles and can arise from any set of political beliefs or theories.
oilFactotum wrote:
I find it interesting that your passions match very closely to these nine listed.
And I find it interesting that the Jeffersonian notion which I support of local communities being empowered to work out the parameters of their society for themselves gets twisted into fascism. That is precisely the opposite of fascism. It might be imbued with its own uniquely troblesome tendencies, but it ain't fascist. Most of those nine "passions" are plainly visilble in modern day liberalism. One has to look no further than the movement swirling around BHO to appreciate that. No, fascism was part and parcel of the progressivst movement of the late 19th century. It was predicated on the anti-Jeffersonian belief that power needs to be concentrated in the hands of those who have the best interests of society in mind. That society needs to be united into a military like structure in order to marshall the resources of the state for the benefit of the whole. The fascist's only difference from socialism and communism was there rejection of the idea that the movement should be global. They were overtly nationalists but none of them, aside from the Nazis, expoused racism as a central theme of their beliefs. I can let Goldberg speak for himself [^] of course.
Stan Shannon wrote:
gives away his true agenda
Such a cutting criticism! You don't like what he says, so you claim he has an agenda. :rolleyes: Let's see, on the one hand we have a respected historian who has been writing since 1966 and on the other hand we have a right-wing pundit whose defining moment came because his mother knew Linda Tripp. If anyone is going to have an agenda it's going to be Goldberg.
Stan Shannon wrote:
To describe the antics of backwoods southern rednecks
I guess you haven't gotten that far in the book, since Goldberg shows that the Klan was not just a rural fundamentalist phenomenon but was also fully urbanized and spread throughout all layers of American society.
Stan Shannon wrote:
as some kind of fascist movement is ridiculous beyond words
Not at all since it is and was one of the earliest manifestations of it.
Stan Shannon wrote:
The racism of the klan cannot be seperated from the racism of ...it was racist.
I don't know what you keep harping on racism. You seen to think that all racists must be fascist. That's obviously not true.
Stan Shannon wrote:
And I find it interesting that the Jeffersonian notion which I support of local communities being empowered to work out the parameters of their society for themselves gets twisted into fascism.
I find it interesting that you find it interesting. That's because you are the one who is twisting Jeffersonian Democracy till it becomes fascism and is no longer Democracy at all.
Stan Shannon wrote:
Most of those nine "passions" are plainly visilble in modern day liberalism.
I'd like to see where you get that. I can see them very clearly in you(being the extreme case that you are) and to a lesser extent in the current Republican party. But liberalism - I don't think so. Unfortunately I don't catch the BHO reference.
Stan Shannon wrote:
It was predicated on the anti-Jeffersonian belief that power needs to be concentrated in the hands of those who have the best interests of society in mind.
Which pretty much includes any authoritarian regime, either left or right. Not in the least unique to fascism.