Theocons vs Communists
Given the Choice between a Communist and a Culture Warrior I'll take the Communist.
Why? Because a Communist might admit that a policy doesn't work. A Culture Warrior will say: God Says. Making the Culture Warrior immune to reason. For the most part.
Cross Posted at Classical Values
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20 comments:
Unfortunately, you are incorrect.
I have had too many conversations with self-described communists that ended with a statement that if communism is incompatible with human nature, then it is human nature which must yield.
Given the choice between radical left and radical right, I see little to choose, except that our culture has built up better memetic "antibodies" to the far right than it has to the far left. So I guess I would have to say I see less danger from the right.
I see the evolution of Russia and China as counter examples.
Of course first the disaster had to be nearly complete.
And a lot of people had to die to make the extent of the disaster visible. So there is that.
BTW Theocrats want to bend human nature to their will as well, all the while claiming that their prescriptions are grounded in human nature.
I'll make one of my favorite points.
The pile of bodies on the communist side is 1,000 times higher than the body count on the religious side, that is, unless you are referring to the Muslims. I've read that their body count is higher than the communists.
Of course it is just the Religious Christians who are intolerable, even though it is under Christianity that Western Civilization advanced science and human rights into the modern age.
I can see where moralism is a bad thing. After all, if we didn't have religious moralists, we would never have had the civil war, and 600,000 people would not have died. We would also have free labor to boot !
I agree that nobody wants to live in a theocracy. But that's just the thing--nobody has any illusions about living in a theocracy.
Far too many people have illusions about living in the worker's paradise.
I guess i'll add another comment.
"Theocrats" (which is an intentionally inflammatory pejorative) aren't the only people whom you can't tell anything. It's the people like Ronald Reagan referred to, that believe in stuff so stupid that only an intellectual could believe it.
In England and Europe in general, they have solved the problem of having annoying Christians imposing their morality on everyone. They've decided instead that they would rather have Muslims doing it.
The idiocy is the belief that someone's morality isn't going to get imposed. Someone's morality is ALWAYS going to get imposed. I personally prefer the relatively benign annoyances of the Christians, than the violent and painful morality of the Communists or the Muslims.
Dave,
I'm concerned about winning National elections. Theocons do not do well in National elections. Thus giving us over to the communists.
So in a very real sense the theocons are delivering us to the socialists. A look at what the socons have done to the Republican party in California ought to be sobering the Republican Party. Unfortunately socons and the Republican establishment are dumber than a box of hammers.
All I'm doing is getting ahead of the curve.
Yeah, they hurt our chances. So let's remind everyone about how they hurt our chances as often as we can.
I was against Mike Huckabee because I thought he wouldn't have a prayer (Heh) in the blue states, so I understand the need of not getting a Pat Robertson type. What I don't understand is the need to constantly remind everyone how much we don't want a Pat Robertson when we can have a Larry Flynt.
Ronald Reagan was told that he was being supported by the John Birch Society. He said "Fine, but I don't support them. "
The Religious conservatives are allies. There's a very good chance that whomever is nominated for Congress or President isn't going to be overtly religious. You don't have to antagonize one group of his supporters. There's plenty enough enemy forces you can antagonize. (like the media.)
Just to put down my vote. I prefer the pope over Marx. Under a theocratic government the renaissence happened, science happened, the arts bloomed. Under an at-least quasi-theocratic regime human rights.
Under communism we've had lenin, stalin, and over 100 million dead bodies. The only art form that (barely) bloomed was so cynical the mere sight of it makes you think of suicide.
So, given that choice, I'll vote (christian) theocratic, thank you very much.
Hell, I think I'd need to think hard about the choice between the taliban and stalin.
The Pope over Stalin. Why yes.
And the anti-clerical sentiment in Europe put the Socialists in all over Europe.
Which got all of us into a really tasty world war.
Now read this to see the other side of my coin:
Palin Calls For Hoffman - GOP Folds
Neil,
I think you have made my point rather well.
The Culture War has put a Communist in office.
And R. Dave Friday, October 30, 2009 10:15:00 PM UTC
Why does some one's morality have to be imposed? I'm calling for a libertarian solution. Limited government.
Now when I talk about Morality I'm not referring to the Morality agreed on by 99+%
1. Don't murder
2. Don't rob
3. Don't steal
4. Don't commit fraud
I'm talking about thing where the agreement is not nearly universal.
1. Abortion
2. Drug War
3. etc.
When a Gay Marriage measure gets on the ballot in CA and nearly passes it is more than evident that you will lose significant support by being on either side re: government.
The solution: get the government out of marriage. Why did it get in? Well it was in the main to prevent racially mixed marriages.
A cultural imposition has turned into an electoral problem. Funny how that works.
Or consider the Protestant desire to have enforced public education to make Catholics and Jews into proper Americans. I think that one got away from the Protestants. And now? Well the schools are still indoctrination centers. For Marxists.
And all the rest of the culture war stuff.
Is the fear of Cultural impositions overblown? Of course. Is it real? Of course. Does it affect voting patterns? Of course.
There is the reality. Deal with it.
It looks to me like the desire for cultural impositions has backfired every time it has been tried in America. If not sooner then later.
And why shouldn't I remind my Republican friends of how they handicap their core desires:
1. Limited Government
2. Fiscal responsibility
The same as I tell my anti-prohibitionists friends (mostly on the left) how the big government they want is the same big government hammering them in the drug war.
After all. I blog to speak my mind. And you all (and I'm grateful) comment to speak your mind.
George Will once wrote a column mentioning the Witch trials. He commented on how witches were burned or drowned, and how modern America looks on this practice as barbaric.
He goes on to say that people of this time period believed there were such things as demons and evil spirits, and that these people communed with them for the purpose of bringing death and tragedy into the lives of everyone else.
He said that if people believe such things, then burning and drowning these people is the perfectly reasonable thing to do.
Today, there are millions of people that believe an innocent human life is taken every time someone gets an abortion. Some people believe that the forces of darkness feed off of human death, and the abortion factories are the means by which they strengthen.
They believe abortion is a great evil, both unnatural and disturbing, like a sow eating her piglets, or a male cat killing his kittens, or children being put into the fire during Baal worship.
Contrary to nature and against the best interest of society.
They may all be just as crazy as loons, like the people who persecuted the "witches", but their beliefs are strong and their fears are great.
All they want is for the law to be put back the way it was before the Leftest Supreme court tampered with it in 1973.
Funny thing. The Abolitionists of the Civil war, were likewise Anti-Abortionists. Susan B. Anthony, and other major figures in the Civil War abolitionist movement, led the campaign to criminalize the practice of abortion throughout the nation. The New York Times actually ran editorials in support of the outlawing of Abortion.
We live in a different Zeitgeist, but there are often eerie similarities between the then and the now.
Marxism is only about 150 years old. In that time it has killed far more people than religion. However religion has far more blood on it's hands. Christianity isn't immune either, in the 30 Year's war anywhere from 1/6th to 1/3rd of Germany's population was wiped out. Not over which god to worship, but how to worship the same deity. And that's just one of hundreds of conflicts with a religious justification. I'm not terribly interested in finding out how many people Marxism will kill when it has a few millenium to catch up to its fellow myths.
One lession history shows clear as day is that when religion gets involved in politics both are corrupted, hence Jefferson's "wall of seperation". So go to curch every week (or every day), say your prayers every night, and keep your bible the %(&^ off my levers of power.
R. Dave,
I'm not against an abortion ban per se. I think the Catholic Church has the right idea. If you are going to ban abortion you have to have a welfare policy for raising the kids. Them Catholics actually think things through.
Now haw many of the anti-abortion crowd would be willing to pay higher taxes to support some one else's kids?
Not many. It is unnatural.
In fact our Socialist brethren might be willing to trade an abortion ban for more welfare.
It should give the government a lot of power in watching women and stealing money.
I'm sure we could convince them of the benefits.
"Why does some one's morality have to be imposed? I'm calling for a libertarian solution. Limited government."
So you are for tolerating other "moralities" than your own. That sounds great ... until you think about it.
Would you "tolerate" Muslims/Jews stoning women in your street as both their moralities dictate to do ("in some cases") ?
Would you tolerate muslim judgement. Suppose you work for a food manufacturer, and some muslim kid dies after eating your food. Would you tolerate what sharia law (their morality) dictates ? That they now have the right to massacre your family in retribution (Jewish law dictates something similar, except the family of the poisoned Jew would not get to do it himself). In neither morality can anyone be accused except the PERSON preparing the food. That your company gave you poison (or that it was an accidental bacterial infection for example) does not matter at all.
Tolerating other morality just doesn't work. There has to be a singular morality governing interaction between people, and everyone has to agree about it. Without that, society cannot function. Without that, you have the situation of muslims : the most cruel, the one who's best at terrorizing others, wins.
The only reason you can write any of this is, as I'm sure you're reluctant to admit, Christian in origin. It's because your government, and police and military believes in protecting the weak from the strong. I do hope you realize that that is a moral attitude, originating with that guy from Bethlehem.
Well Tom I suppose being a Real Christian™ you are right in with burning heretics at the stake and the stoning of homosexuals.
======
You are about the nuttiest commenter I have. What is it you don't understand about general vs particular morality?
General:
1. No murder
2. No theft
3. No robbery
4. No fraud
Particular:
1. Crimes of heresy
2. Honor killing
3. Dhimi taxes
Now stop being a nut and perhaps we can learn something from each other.
The only reason I can write any of this is because of Jewish Morality. The Christians are Johnnies Come lately.
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So let me start in with the Noahide laws which were the laws for non-Jews who were part of the Jewish nation or interacted with it. A somewhat relaxed version of Jewish law at the time.
And then of course there is the Jewish Common law tradition going back 3,500 years or so.
Now are the Noahide laws practical today? No.
But the four I listed can form the basis of a set of laws we can all live under.
In any case I'm trying to see how we can gather enough votes to throw the Communist in Chief out. If we can settle on the minimums we "all" agree on and give up the rest I think it would be good.
In my Saturday, October 31, 2009 2:22:00 PM UTC I tried to show you how trying to impose your culture on the country (by your ancestors) put the Marxist in power in the school system at minimum.
Are you so thick that you can't accept that it is more than possible that some of your other bright ideas may in time follow the same course?
And I haven't even touched on drug prohibition which is costing $50 bn a year and is financing the terrorist abroad and criminals at home. You learn anything from alcohol prohibition?
Gallup says the libertarian faction of the nation is about 23%.
Palin Calls For Hoffman - GOP Folds
Wouldn't it be nice to have them as strong allies?
And let me remind you that the guy from Bethleham got his start with the Jews.
Let me also remind you that among Protestants the enterprise was generally considered to have gone wrong when the religion allied itself with the State. Which ultimately led to anti-clericism in Europe which then gave us European Socialism (more or less). Them Euros hated the Church more than they feared the State. Do you really want to go there?
Religion is stronger if it is separated from the State. It is weaker if allied with it. States have to do all sorts of wicked immoral things. Have to. Is it good to have the church the handmaiden of that? It pollutes the Church. Then the people turn against the Church and take up Godless Communism. Seems like a really rotten deal to me. I can't figure out why you hunger for it so.
Allying the Church with the State means the Church is unable to speak out against the excesses of the State. It opens the Church to the worst sin in the Christian religion. Hypocrisy.
What is your rush to make the church into a group of hypocrites?
Dave,
Abortion is not unnatural. It has been a feature of human society for at least 2,500 years. Which says that it has probably been going on much longer.
History - The Catholic Church and Abortion
The Catholic Church has mostly considered all abortion murder. However, for a number of centuries this was not so and the Jewish test of quickening was the law.
But it gets tricky. Is the morning after pill murder?
The Politics of Abortion
I really like the way Palin deals with the issue: by setting an example.
Damn! My response somehow got lost. And it was a really good one too.
Let me summarize if I can. Yes, the Jews were the original pioneers of civilized morality.
You offer a Hobson's choice concerning abortion or taking care of children that do not belong to you.
There is a broad spectrum of possible solutions beyond the only two alternatives you would force us to chose from. (at least rhetorically.)
That's all I can remember from what I wrote. Damn again!
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