US Politics

Ilion

Ramesh Ponnuru (Time): Town Overboard![^]

Rob Manderson

Christian Graus wrote:

if I was a US citizen, I'd have voted for Obama

I now am. I did!

Rob Manderson My bloghttp://robmanderson.blogspot.com[^]

Christian Graus

I have that book. I'm not sure I'd quite summarise it like that, but I would summarise that the winners write history and the US is a society that needs it's heros and it's creation myth. Most societies are the same, mine was founded by criminals, so our flaw is that we just don't care, most of the time.

Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.

Christian Graus

Maxxx_ wrote:

erm - isn't part of letting them learn fr themselves allowing them to look at differing opinions and decide which is 'right'?

Sure, but like the home schooled group I saw at the museum in John 3:16 t-shirts, I would suspect that most kids who get bought such a book, are not subjected to alternative viewpoints.

Maxxx_ wrote:

Perhaps (I have no feelings either way) " Obama is the great hope of the nation". Perhaps not. Letting your kids read a book espousing either view should be part of their education, shouldn't it?

I agree on the first part, perhaps he is. But this seemed to me not like a setting out of facts, but the creation of a mythology.

Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.

Christian Graus

Good point - no, no book should be banned. But, I guess I'm just a foreigner from a country where no-one would buy books to indoctrinate kids to a particular political viewpoint, although I am sure there are books that are PC in other ways that we would have.

Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.

Christian Graus

*grin* my point was, I am not anti-Obama, I was just surprised in general, I would have responded the same if the book was for the old dude who ran against him ( what was his name again ? McCain ? )

Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.

Stan Shannon

Christian Graus wrote:

I'm just a foreigner from a country where no-one would buy books to indoctrinate kids to a particular political viewpoint

Thats because in your country the war is already over. The collectivist won. No indoctrination is necessary. It is still being fought here.

Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.

Oakman

The first amendment was not instituted to protect the rights of people you agreed with.

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface

Oakman

Christian Graus wrote:

I would suspect that most kids who get bought such a book, are not subjected to alternative viewpoints.

Yah think? However, one of the things my kids taught me was that parents don't have quite the final say so they it is sometimes assumed they have. And that kids may grow up to espouse very different beliefs than their parents. Nor do two kids, raised by the same parents in much the same environment, end up living the same way, or believing the same things as the other. In my personal experience, I think I taught my kids to respect truth and live their beliefs and that stuck - but neither is a libertarian of any sort. One of them is a librarian and a tree hugger and the other is what we used to call a yuppie and a financial analyst.

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface

Shepman

Christian Graus wrote:

But this seemed to me not like a setting out of facts, but the creation of a mythology.

So are Superman comics.

Christian Graus

Stan Shannon wrote:

Thats because in your country the war is already over. The collectivist won. No indoctrination is necessary. It is still being fought here.

What BS. I said why it is, we have a freedom you will never have.

Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.

Stan Shannon

You don't even know what freedom is.

Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.

Christian Graus

ROTFL !!! In what way am I lacking in freedom ?

Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.

Christian Graus

Oakman wrote:

And that kids may grow up to espouse very different beliefs than their parents.

This is always possible. but not statistically probable, or at least, so I am told.

Oakman wrote:

One of them is a librarian and a tree hugger and the other is what we used to call a yuppie and a financial analyst.

Wow - that's quite a mix.

Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.

Stan Shannon

Christian Graus wrote:

In what way am I lacking in freedom ?

You clearly endorse public dependency upon the state, no one can be simultaneously dependent and free.

Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.

Christian Graus

Oh, this idiocy ?" I thought you had a real opinion. I am free of drivel like this, it doesn't occur in the public arena at home.

Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.

Stan Shannon

Christian Graus wrote:

I am free of drivel like this, it doesn't occur in the public arena at home.

My original point precisely.

Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.

Christian Graus

*grin* well, touche, assuming that your paranoia has some basis in fact, then we are all indeed enslaved to the idea that society should not prey on it's weakest members.

Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.

Stan Shannon

Christian Graus wrote:

*grin* well, touche, assuming that your paranoia has some basis in fact, then we are all indeed enslaved to the idea that society should not prey on it's weakest members.

Which merely means those weakest members become little more than political chattel, rather than free, self reliant, productive individuals.

Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.

Christian Graus

we've discussed this before. The ignorance you display, the lack of ability to consider the lot of people unlike you, is quite breathtaking.

Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.