Jack Kemp

[Stan Shannon]

No, really, I very carefully looked up all the terms in wikipedia. I'm actually pretty damned confident that being 'old style' and rejecting established dogma and conventions mean pretty much exactly the opposite things. Perhaps you could ask one of your mensa buddies to explain it all to you.

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]

Stan Shannon wrote: I'm actually pretty damned confident that being 'old style' and rejecting established dogma and conventions mean pretty much exactly the opposite things. The fact that you are confident really doesn't mean a whole lot, Stan. Indeed, when you say, "Being 'old style' and rejecting established dogma and conventions mean pretty much exactly the opposite things," you demonstrate how little it takes for you to be confident - and how badly you abuse the English language sometimes. Stan Shannon wrote: Perhaps you could ask one of your mensa buddies to explain it all to you. The fact that I belonged in my youth - and still could join if I thought it was at all important - seems to bother you a lot. Maybe you should try focusing less on me and worrying more about you.

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Both democrats and republicans are playing for the same team and it's not us. - Chris Austin

[Stan Shannon]

Oakman wrote:

The fact that you are confident really doesn't mean a whole lot, Stan. Indeed, when you say, "Being 'old style' and rejecting established dogma and conventions mean pretty much exactly the opposite things," you demonstrate how little it takes for you to be confident - and how badly you abuse the English language sometimes.

No, really. What exactly is an 'old style iconoclast'? Is that what libertarians call each other in their secret meetings?

Oakman wrote:

The fact that I belonged in my youth - and still could join if I thought it was at all important - seems to bother you a lot. Maybe you should try focusing less on me and worrying more about you.

Sure, Jon, sure.... whatever you say. :rolleyes:

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]

Stan Shannon wrote: Is that what libertarians call each other in their secret meetings I admit that you have been somewhat more creative than Troy is, but really, Stan, your insults are become as repetitive as his. If you can't think of something new and insulting, I could probably help you out. Stan Shannon wrote: Sure, Jon, sure.... whatever you say. Sorry, Stan, you're not my type.

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Both democrats and republicans are playing for the same team and it's not us. - Chris Austin

[Stan Shannon]

Ilíon wrote:

The herd of independent minds is an amazing thing to behold, isn't it? It's rather like watching the vast mass of individualists expressing their individuality ... by all thinking, acting, behaving, dressing, adorning and/or modifying their bodies identically.

As with so many things, one group gives itself some kind of cool sounding label like 'iconoclast' or 'free thinkers'. Its complete horseshit, of course. Kemp was no iconoclast. He may have been an old style republican, if that means the sort that TR helped turn the party into. But it is time now to finally free ourselves from the legacy of the progressive era, rip the reins of government out of the hands of libertarians, collectivists and humanists, salvage what we can of our Jeffersonican traditions, and move forward. And doing that will certainly mean having people who are true free thinkers and iconoclsts. And, ironically, the Obama era provides a perfect opportunity to achieve that if handled properly.

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.

[Stan Shannon]

Oakman wrote:

I admit that you have been somewhat more creative than Troy is, but really, Stan, your insults are become as repetitive as his. If you can't think of something new and insulting, I could probably help you out.

What insult? Where? I mean, hell, I can't even call you a traitor any more since I'm one myself. I was just having a little fun...

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.

[Brady Kelly]

Stan Shannon wrote:

Otherwise, what would be the point?

Free thinkers have a better chance of agreeing, the same as people that aren't colour-blind have more chance of agreeing on colour issues.

h

[Stan Shannon]

Brady Kelly wrote:

the same as people that aren't colour-blind have more chance of agreeing on colour issues.

I don't see how that analogy applies. 'Free thinking' implies a fundamental disregard for agreement. Free thinkers might occassionally agree, but that is not their goal. Free thought is essentially the ability to question the intellectual orthodoxy which pervades a society. At one time, that would certainly have meant questioning religious dogma. But today the intellectual orthodoxy doesn't come from any church, it comes from our educational institutions, the media, the press, from government. I consider myself to be the quintessential free thinker. When I lived in a small, rural community I was an athiest who questioned the tenats of that society. Now that I live in a much different world, I question the tenants of those who hold the power to promote their agenda over others. I see very little difference between the Christian moral authority that held sway in a small town, and that of secularism which holds sway now across much of western society. Except, of course, the former represented a Jeffersonian ideal, and the latter a Marxist one.

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.

[Lost User]

Stan Shannon wrote:

I see very little difference between the Christian moral authority that held sway in a small town, and that of secularism which holds sway now across much of western society.

I would say the biggest difference is that secularism is generally willing to accept harm reduction strategies (like sexual education), which makes it objectively more successful than any Christian moral authority that generally does not.

Stan Shannon wrote:

I consider myself to be the quintessential free thinker.

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that a willingness to question authority makes your views more likely to be right. You further conflate the issue by setting up a false equivalence where questioning religious dogma == questioning educational institutions/media/press/government which may be your opinion but the approach to acquiring knowledge used by educational institutions in particular differs um, shall we say significantly from maintaining religious dogma.

- F

[Oakman]

:thumbsup::thumbsup:

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Both democrats and republicans are playing for the same team and it's not us. - Chris Austin

[Tim Craig]

Fisticuffs wrote:

I would say the biggest difference is that secularism is generally willing to accept harm reduction strategies (like sexual education), which makes it objectively more successful than any Christian moral authority that generally does not.

Just because Stan believes his sisters weren't running around doing the nasty doesn't mean they weren't. :laugh:

"Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it." -- P.J. O'Rourke

I'm a proud denizen of the Real Soapbox[^]
ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES!!!

[Stan Shannon]

Fisticuffs wrote:

I would say the biggest difference is that secularism is generally willing to accept harm reduction strategies (like sexual education), which makes it objectively more successful than any Christian moral authority that generally does not.

And I would say that is no difference at all. Religion has a much longer and successful history of maintaining human civil order than does secularism, and that is an irrefutable scientific fact. If anything, our current experiement with secularism is not going well at all. Our civilization is collapsing on nearly every front as we become ever more secular and less religious.

Fisticuffs wrote:

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that a willingness to question authority makes your views more likely to be right.

No more so than you assume that it makes them more likely to be wrong.

Fisticuffs wrote:

the approach to acquiring knowledge used by educational institutions in particular differs um, shall we say significantly from maintaining religious dogma.

No, in fact it does not. The only time it did, ironically, was when our society was more religious than now. The current system proves that any system is vulnerable to being taken over by true believers who are told they are free thinkers because they agree with the status quo.

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.

[Stan Shannon]

More free thinking, I see. :laugh:

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.

[Lost User]

Stan Shannon wrote:

And I would say that is no difference at all. Religion has a much longer and successful history of maintaining human civil order than does secularism, and that is an irrefutable scientific fact.

This is profoundly offensive rhetoric coming from someone who claims to have a scientific background. You can't claim 'scientific' evidence unless it's actually scientific - empiric, testable, falsifiable (especially ironic considering you add the qualifier 'irrefutable' to your evidence which no scientific evidence should actually be). What is your "scientific" evidence for this, huh? Pathetic.

Stan Shannon wrote:

No, in fact it does not.

Um, yes, it does. But I'm sure, you, having been out of an educational institution for 20? 30? years are well qualified to comment on the matter :laugh:. I mean, this is so stupid it borders on insane. Do you have any idea what the turnover is on, say, best practice medical guidelines? It takes an enormous amount of work to keep up with something as trivial as blood sugar guidelines for T2DM, whereas if I read the New Testament, I'm pretty much set for life on Christian theology. Gee, seems kind of different to me.

- F

[Stan Shannon]

Fisticuffs wrote:

This is profoundly offensive rhetoric coming from someone who claims to have a scientific background. You can't claim 'scientific' evidence unless it's actually scientific - empiric, testable, falsifiable (especially ironic considering you add the qualifier 'irrefutable' to your evidence which no scientific evidence should actually be). What is your "scientific" evidence for this, huh?

The observation that every human civilization that has ever existed has arisen from a society that coalesced around a given set of religious principles and traditions and thrived while that religion was observed and descended back into anarchy as the religion became less associated with their daily lives. There is not a single example of a human civilization emerging from and thriving around a secular or athiestic philosophy. You have to be extrodinarily narrow minded to reject that religion is an organic and essential component of complex human social organization. I would say the evidence is altogether irrefutable. It is certainly at least as convincing as available evidence for human evolution itself.

Fisticuffs wrote:

Um, yes, it does. But I'm sure, you, having been out of an educational institution for 20? 30? years are well qualified to comment on the matter . I mean, this is so stupid it borders on insane. Do you have any idea what the turnover is on, say, best practice medical guidelines? It takes an enormous amount of work to keep up with something as trivial as blood sugar guidelines for T2DM, whereas if I read the New Testament, I'm pretty much set for life on Christian theology. Gee, seems kind of different to me.

But that isn't the point. The point is what the educational institutions are actually teaching. If it were merely factual information, that is perfectly fine and you are absolutely correct. Unfortunantly that is not the case. The modern educational system is a perfect example of what would have happened had our society ever, in fact, become ruled by a chrisitan theocracy. It promotes a narrowly defined, universally applied moral agenda. It does not promote free thought, it promotes secular humanism which it calls 'free thought'. It pumps out little mental zombies like you by the millions. You are nothing but a product of that particular industry. Actual free thought is as foreign to you as swahili. Our school systems were far more focused on a

[Lost User]

In fact, why don't you just cut the shit and demonstrate some actual scientific thinking that, y'know, actual scientific thinkers have to do by: a) Stating your formal hypothesis b) Stating what would falsify that formal hypothesis c) Stating an endpoint for your hypothetical investigation, i.e. how would we know when it is done Which would be a profound improvement.

Stan Shannon wrote:

The observation that every human civilization that has ever existed has arisen from a society that coalesced around a given set of religious principles and traditions and thrived while that religion was observed and descended back into anarchy as the religion became less associated with their daily lives. There is not a single example of a human civilization emerging from and thriving around a secular or athiestic philosophy. You have to be extrodinarily narrow minded to reject that religion is an organic and essential component of complex human social organization. I would say the evidence is altogether irrefutable. It is certainly at least as convincing as available evidence for human evolution itself.

You spend more time in this paragraph telling me how wrong I am for rejecting the premise and how strong your evidence is than you do actually presenting evidence. What civilizations are you talking about? How do we know the historical data on them is reliable? What have you done (other than think really hard about it) to assure yourself that you're not confusing correlation with causation - that organized religion, being a product of order, falls as a consequence of increasing anarchy and isn't actually a driving cause? Again, your primary mistake is conflating historical evidence with scientific evidence, and you do this ONLY to make your argument sound stronger, not because you actually have any empiric data (which you haven't presented.)

Stan Shannon wrote:

It promotes a narrowly defined, universally applied moral agenda. It does not promote free thought, it promotes secular humanism which it calls 'free thought'. It pumps out little mental zombies like you by the millions.

Again: so says you, having been out of the system for 20? 30? years. Your opinion is duly noted and given all the weight it deserves. :laugh:

- F

modified on Tuesday, May 5, 2009 6:27 PM