I like this Ed Kilgore post
by Robert Waldmann
I like this Ed Kilgore post
Ed Kilgore wrote (among other things) “accept the validity of other religions”, ” Erick Erickson’s denials that I’m a Christian at all”, “the confusion of belief with fundamentally secular efforts to advance laissez-faire capitalism, American nationalism (and sometimes militarism), partriarchal family structures, and what God-hater Ayn Rand called “the virtue of selfishness.” ” and “the very old but much-forgotten historical fact that secularism has been very good for religion in America.” I meant to write an approving comment to make up for yesterday but the interested reader (if any) can read what I actually wrote. There is something about Kilgore that sets me off. In other words, I find him extremely intellectually stimulating. I don’t know what it is. My comment
I think this is a brilliant essay. It is very beautiful. I also think you are fundamentally right.
Some thoughts
1)Your belief that Christianity implies social solidarity and help for the least among us is different from their belief that Ayn Rand was a Christian.
Your interpretation is based on the text. But if their goals are secular, so are yours. Its none of my business (I’m an atheist) but it seems to me that Erick Erickson isn’t a Christian at all. So it seems to me that his view that you aren’t one is dead wrong, but not at all in the way you think he is dead wrong. Now as a practical matter, I think that one should never tell someone who thinks he is a Christian that he doesn’t know what the word means. It is rude and leads only to bad consequences. That typed, there is no doubt in my mind that Erick Erickson doesn’t know what the word “Christian” means (note I trust he won’t read this comment [blog] thread).
2) What does “validity” as in “validity of other religions” mean ? To me a set of claims are valid if they are true *and* we have good reason to believe they are true.. Believing in the validity of two different religions seems to me to be logically impossible. I think the limit of sane toleration is to believe that believers in different religions haven’t made a mistake — an intellectual error. I suppose I would accept “equal validity.” I don’t think any religious beliefs are valid (I’m an atheist). But I don’t think atheism is valid — I have no proof that there is no God and no doubt that there is no God. I think I can manage to be tolerant (and even at times polite) without accepting the validity of your faith. I think that the issue of religion causes liberals to abandon language and logic. In any case, I ask for your definition of “validity” in that context.
3) Is the key role of religious freedom in promoting religion really forgotten ? The argument was made (also eloquently) by Mill in “On Liberty” . Also by Walter Mondale — OK you may have a point there — “aid by Mondale” and “ignored” are closely related concepts. But surely people have noticed the fact that the US separation of church and state was extraordinary and almost incredible at the time (and for almost a century, somewhere Marx, for example, noted the astounding fact that in some states Jews could be elected and didn’t grasp the incredible fact that this was true in all states) and the other fact that the US is much more religious than other rich countries. But yes you are right — it is almost impossible to believe that people could be so blind that they fail to notice the two facts, but people manage.
Waldmann
I can’t say that I have any idea what you are talking about, but two thoughts come to mind:
Ayn Rand was a Christian in the same sense that Satan is a Christian: he believes that God exists, but he doesn’t like it.
As for your faith that God does not exist, as you point out you have no evidence to support your faith. I’d say you haven’t asked enough hard questions about your faith in “science” to even know what science is. But then I’m prejudiced that way.
Not to be misunderstood to mean that I agree with all people who call themselves religious. Their religion often seems to me to be exactly what Jesus was trying to teach them NOT to be.
Also not to be misunderstood to suggest that I think anyone will agree with me or even have the remotest idea what I am talking about.
“Your belief that Christianity implies social solidarity and help for the least among us is different from their belief that Ayn Rand was a Christian.”
Like Mr. Coberly, I often have a bit of trouble parsing Dr. Waldman’s sentences, especially at first glance. Here’s my exegesis:
I think Dr. Waldman is attempting to summarize the main thesis of Mr. Kilgore’s post as follows: liberals who are Christians (and many who aren’t) feel that the policies they support are ones which Jesus would also support; conservatives who are Christians support policies of selfishness which Any Rand would support. So in effect they act as though they believe Any Rand was a Christian, which of course she wasn’t.
“Any Rand” should be “Ayn Rand”. I won’t blame it on auto-correct, I think it was my dyslexia.
Jim V
it wasn’t your dyslexia. it was God’s sense of humor.
i am going to make a suggestion that will, i am sure, alienate me from my political friends:
It appears to be true that Jesus would be in favor of helping the least among us. I am not sure he would advocate taxing the rich to do it.
I am not against taxing the rich to do it, but I feel a need to be careful how I think about it (am I fooling myself?)
I think it is “fair” to tax the rich for the common good, including preventing or alleviating poverty, but that is a bit different from taxing “them” to pay for your “kindness.” If I hadn’t seen folks on this very blog advocate taxing “the rich” but “not me,” I wouldn’t think this needed to be said.
I am, I hope, not agreeing with “formerly anonymous” when i point this out.
CHRISTIANS? Why there’s one behind every tree in this country. One can find MORE of the “milk of human kindness” in a herd of hogs than one finds in typical American Christianity.
Coberly: TAX THE RICH because they need to PAY for the national services and goods that have made them rich and DEFENDED that wealth both in law and on the battlefield.
@ Mike,
Tax all who benefit from the goods and services of society, and progressive taxation because the benefits are greater for those with the most to lose. But in doing so, don’t hide behind your deity and some text that claims to know her will and desires.
We are not a Christian nation. Let’s not hide behind theology, be it Christian or Libertarian, to decide how to organize our country. The US Constitution isn’t perfect, but one of its strengths is that it mentions neither God nor Jesus Christ.
The article states: “…religious freedom…the fact that the US separation of church and state was extraordinary and almost incredible at the time…and the other fact that the US is much more religious than other rich countries.”
I think, many people discount the morality in religion that contributes to success.
For example, “The “Success Sequence:” Graduate from high school, get a job, get married, and then have babies.
“Children who are raised in broken families are far more likely to drop out of high school, use drugs, commit violent crimes, have children outside of marriage, develop mental health problems, become homeless, drop out of the labor force, go on welfare, and experience poverty.
Indeed, the poverty rate for single-parent families is almost six-times the rate for married-couple families.
“The best anti-poverty program for children is a stable, intact family,” according to former Clinton administration officials William Galston and Elaine Kamarck.
More than 40 percent of all births today are out-of-wedlock. America has the highest divorce rate in the Western world. By the age of eighteen, over half of American children have lived apart from their fathers for a significant portion of their childhood.”
“The best anti-poverty program for children is a stable, intact family,”
What does this mean??
Religion Among Americans Hits Low Point, As More People Say They Have No Religious Affiliation: Report
03/14/2013
“40 percent of liberals claim they have no religion, compared to just 9 percent of conservatives.”
My comment: Maybe, that’s why liberals feel the need, more than conservatives, for more spending on poverty 🙂
“In 1965, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then an Assistant Secretary of Labor, warned that the rising rate of fatherless families among black Americans might soon create a new obstacle to racial progress.
…(in 1991) blunt conclusion came from the Council on Families in America, a group of 17 scholars and family experts — sociologists, economists, lawyers, psychologists, journalists, historians and religious leaders — who span the ideological spectrum.
“The evidence is strong and growing,” they wrote, “that the current generation of children and youth is the first in our nation’s history to be less well-off — psychologically, socially, economically and morally — than their parents were at the same age.”
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/12/27/weekinreview/formative-years-seen-heard-even-worried-about.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
Dan, the Clinton Administration proposed tax credits for couples with children, and other programs, to provide incentives to keep marriages intact, at least longer.
For example, should taxpayers, or the government, pick-up the tab for broken families, and support women and children, when it’s the father’s responsibility?
The article states: ” I don’t think any religious beliefs are valid (I’m an atheist). But I don’t think atheism is valid — I have no proof that there is no God and no doubt that there is no God.”
Economics, which evolved as a branch of moral philosophy, at least in the U.K. and the U.S., can be viewed as a religion.
Everything in economics fits together perfectly, in a giant multidimensional puzzle, with no contradictions.
Of course, no economist has the capacity to fully understand economics, through a sound general equilibrium model, because humans don’t have the capacity to think in hundreds of major dimensions, simultaneously.
However, they can put together partial equilibrium models, input-output models, optimization models, contemporaneous models, etc. for a crude understanding, how forces interrelate (in mathematical models) and interact (in empirical models).
Economics, for the most part, is an invisible science, like mathematics, and unlike physical sciences, although both invisible and physical sciences are valid.
And, we don’t have the capacity to understand what is God. However, we know there’s structure within, and perhaps outside, the universe, although we know little about it, and its extent.
Moreover, I may add, a moral structure is included.
Mike Meyer
if you had understood what i said you would have seen that i have nothing against taxing the rich. what i am against is fooling yourself.
Joel
I am pretty simple minded so I “believe in” progressive taxation because the rich can afford to pay more than the poor. I don’t think you get very far by arguing that the rich benefit more than the poor. They would find it hard to understand how they benefit from welfare. On the other hand I get pretty tired of listening to the rich fool themselves as well.
Joel
I agree that it is best the Constitution does not mention “God” or Jesus. But the Declaration of Independence does mention “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” I think a society that believes in that is safer than one that does not.
In any case I wish certain “liberals” could understand by failing to understand that when they attack “religion” religious people think they are attacking everything that makes life worth living. This results in delivering your natural allies… the poor… into the hands of the Republicans who pretend to be religious.
I also wish that those who “hate religion” could understand that they are just expressing another “religion.” but that’s another topic.
for example
the Constitution does not mention God for the same reason a plumbing diagram of your house does not mention God. On the other hand, the Founders soon found it necessary to mention religion in the first amendment.: “Congress shall make no law…”
It would have been better if they had left it at that. But in the new days it has been taken to mean that if people who hate religion see a creche in front of a public building and get the vapors because “their money” is being spent to “promote religion” the courts will ban “religious” displays. The people who hate religion save about sixteen cents… actually they don’t save anything: the religious display is replaced by a secular display… but they have the satisfaction of having done religious people in the eye… making them hate “liberals”… while championing their own religion: worship of Mammon.
it’s all very confusing.
Religion, or the lack of it, is concerns a persons relationship to reality. No amount of divine inspiration can determine the empirical nature of the universe, and data contains no intrinsic meaning beyond a belief in intelligibility itself.
If a person finds meaning in the vision, idea or image of God, then God exists. The significance of that existence is debatable, but the fact is not.
“Indeed, the poverty rate for single-parent families is almost six-times the rate for married-couple families.” Peak Trader
Fool, you’ve got the cart before the horse, once again. Single parent families are that way as a result of poverty in the vast majority of cases. Once poor there is a tendency to stay that way, from one generation to the next. Married couples manage to stay that way because there is less strain on the marriage amongst the middle and wealthier classes. Hence their children have the advantage of growing up out of the cycle of poverty.
“The best anti-poverty program for children is a stable, intact family,” Peak Trader. Yes, of course, because the intact family tends to be the family that has better financial resources. Again, start life in a home setting free from poverty and you are likely to enjoy the fruits of that circumstance; better housing, better diet, better schooling, etc. This ain’t rocket science.
“What does this mean??”, Dan. I suggest that it means that P.T. has an ideological ax to grind and he/she has found a convenient site to have alit to. Waste of time I’d say in short and a need for less space provided to ideologues.
” But the Declaration of Independence does mention “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.”
Indeed it does. I’m sure I can find other contemporary writings that more explicitly mention God and/or Jesus than the DoI. But so what? Neither they nor the DoI are the governing document of the US. The Constitution is.
Since I don’t personally know anyone who “hates” religion, and since I don’t pretend to be a psychic, I’ll leave the speculation concerning such people and their motives to PT and Coberly. What they lack in expertise, they seem to make up in enthusiasm.
The authors of the Constitution knew first-hand what it was like to live in a society where the government favored, financially, certain religions over others. Those of us who bother to read and understand history are understandably wary of the government-supported creche, the government supported 10 commandment monuments and the government sanctioned Christian prayers. History and experience teach that both religion and the non-religious are best served when the government stays out of the religion business.
@Coberly Ayn Rand didn’t believe in god. She was an outspoken atheist. Furthmore (and unlike me) she thought that religious belief was a bad thing. Also those of her ancestors who were religious were Jewish. I don’t think anyone has ever been less Christian than Ayn Rand.
I take offense at your suggestion that I haven’t thought enough about science to know what it is. I don’t see any basis for your guess. It isn’t a polite thing to write. I don’t recall writing on philosophy of science here. I don’t see how you can have an informed opinion about the extent to which I know what science is.
What made you think I don’t know what science is. I ask for information and expect a response.
@JimV Correct. That’s what I meant to write.
I don’t have aynthing much to add, except that I don’t think all conservatives advocate selfishness. There are many different ways to be conservative. Many conservatives totally reject Rand. One can be libertarian and hate selfishness (so long as one hates a non-minimal state even more). It is easy to be conservative without being a libertarian (non libertarian conservatives vastly outnumber libertarians even pooling the libertarians who call themselves conservative and those who don’t).
My reference to those who think Rand was a Christian was mostly (trying to be) humorous. I am sure such people exist (the strangest things are believed by more than 2 out of 7 billion) but I don’t think the belief is common among those who’s interpretation of Christian doctrine is completely different from Kilgore’s. It was an unsuccessful attempt at humorous hyperbole like “those who think that Mohandes Gandhi was a terrorist,” even though I’m pretty sure some people do. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if there were someone somewhere who thinks both that Ayn Rand was a Christian and that Gandhi was a terrorist (hell I wouldn’t even be all that surprised to learn that person is named Erick Erickson).
Robert
what i said (i think) was that if you think “science” provides evidence against “religion” you haven’t asked hard enough questions of science. that is not quite what you think i said (and because i have the devil’s own time reading AB as it cuts me off every thirty seconds, i am not even sure what I think I said).
but as to why I believe what I believe about the relation between science and religion, I have been an observer of the argument “between” them for some years, and have concluded that the “science-ists” don’t know much about science, and the “religionists” don’t know much about religion. It’s a general proposition and not meant to be taken personally.
Which leads to the only important question arising from all of this: does God have a sense of humor?
Joel
some day when you are feeling scientific you should undertake a careful comparison between what i said and what you think i said. i sometimes think that the reason people can’t think is that they are clutching too hard what they believe, lest they forget what it is.
@Coberly on
“February 16, 2014 1:22 pm
Joel
I agree that it is best the Constitution does not mention “God””
I agree that a country in which people believe in a God which endowes people with rights is somewhat safer than one in which people don’t believe in God. I don’t believe that widespread disbelief in God is all that dangerous (I don’t worry about Sweden say). So I think such a belief is a good thing, but I don’t think it is necessary. I’m pretty sure we agree, since you wrote “safer” and not that such belief is the only way to be safe at all.
I am also quite sure that a belief in that or any other God is false. Note I therefore believe it can be better to believe a falsehood than believe the truth. I note that Jesus Christ said “the truth will set you free”. I disagree with him on that among many other things.
I have no clue how the people who hate religion came to be discussed in this thread. I don’t see any connection between such people and my post.
@Joel I know people who are hostile to religion. Not strong enough to be called “hate” but definitely strong dislike.
Jack, the U.S. is the land of opportunity. Poverty is a matter of choices, not destiny. So, don’t be a “fool.”
For example, many poor Asians, who could barely speak english when they immigrated to the U.S., not only lifted themselves out of poverty, quickly, they became successful.
Robert
I began my comment by saying i had no idea what you were saying.
I then offered a couple of thoughts of my own, and concluded that I didn’t expect anyone would have any idea what I was saying.
Now, if I hadn’t been through all this before many times I would say I can’t see why everyone takes their own misunderstanding so seriously they want to fight about it. But I guess that was my point in the first place.
As for JC, it seems to me entirely possible that “the truth” as he saw it would set you free. That doesn’t say that the truth as you see it will set you free.
I did reread my original comment and feel sure that I said exactly what I meant to say. “Exactly” is the key word here, that is, the little words count, and so do whole sentences and not just the first two words. So if I say that “Ayn Rand believed in god…. in the same way the devil believes in god,” i am a little mystified that you should feel a need to instruct me that Rand was an atheist.
Monads. monads. Singing each to each, and sometimes telling the same time, but not telling each other.
“you should undertake a careful comparison between what i said and what you think i said.”
These were your words, Dale:
“The people who hate religion save about sixteen cents… but they have the satisfaction of having done religious people in the eye…”
What I think you said is that you believe people who hate religion are motivated by the satisfaction from having done religious people in the eye. If you intended a different meaning, you’ll have to use different words. Because that’s what you posted.
To which I commented:
“. . . I’ll leave the speculation concerning such people and their motives to PT and Coberly. ”
It appears to me that the reason you made this mistake is that you are clutching too hard what you believe, and not paying attention to what you actually post.
“Poverty is a matter of choices, not destiny. ”
In the sense that if you choose your parents wisely, you have a better chance of staying out of poverty, yes.
For example, many poor Asians, who could barely speak english when they immigrated to the U.S., not only lifted themselves out of poverty, quickly, they became successful.”
And many more poor Asians who immigrated to the US died poor.
Poverty (and wealth) is as much or more a matter of circumstance and chance as it is choice. The US is far from a meritocratic utopia.
Joel, like always, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
An individual in the U.S. earning $10 an hour at a full-time job isn’t defined as living in poverty by the government.
In five years, and with no additional education, he could be earning $15 an hour, just based on seniority, if he keeps his job (and also gains valuable experience).
Joel
There is no dealing with fundamentalists of any stripe. I’ll leave you to have meant whatever you intended to mean. But I take no responsibility for failing to understand what that was. What I find humorous (me and god) is that you insist that my failure to mean exactly what you think i mean, or my failure to understand what you think you mean, is my fault.
as for me and PT, if you can’t tell the difference between me and PT, it seems to me unlikely that as a scientist your are ever going to discover the significance of subtle differences in observed phenomena, as, say, that between your frog and your stethoscope.
which is all too bad, because i think i agree with you about some of the more important stuff, but you insist upon harboring bad feelings because you disagree with me about stuff neither of us can possibly understand.
YOu wrote “Ayn Rand was a Christian in the same sense that Satan is a Christian: he believes that God exists, but he doesn’t like it.” this implies “she believed that god exists, but she didn’t like it”
Later you wrote ” i am a little mystified that you should feel a need to instruct me that Rand was an atheist.”
I don’t see how you could possibly write that. She was an atheist who believed that god existed ? Did you read your comment before saying you were mystified by my reading of it ? To criticize my reading of a text without checking it is irresponsible.
Coberly you wrote “I’d say you haven’t asked enough hard questions about your faith in “science” to even know what science is. ”
The word science appears on the first page in your comment. I wrote nothing about science or my views on science in my post.
I have a suggestion. If you don’t know what you are talking about and you know you don’t know what you are talking about don’t say anything harsh.
Later you wrote “what i said (i think) was that if you think “science” provides evidence against “religion” you haven’t asked hard enough questions of science. ” well you think incorrectly. You did NOT write that. The sentence which you think you wrote is a conditional sentence which makes no assertion about me Robert Waldmann but only about the hypothetical person who thinks science provides evidence against religion. Now my angry reply to your comment makes no sense as a response to a hypothetical which is not what you wrote.
Again you challenge my interpretation of your comment without re-reading your comment. I think this is unacceptable conduct in a comment thread. I understand that you are having trouble reading AngryBear. That is not an acceptable excuse. If you can’t read, then don’t write. Nothing forces you to write about things you can’t read.
I suppose you might count on remembering what you yourself wrote. If so, I don’t understand how you can have remained so ignorant of the limits of your memory so long (and you have remained ignorant in that way for amazingly long as is demonstrated by the fact that you can type and are presumably over 6 years old).
If you are unqualified to discuss a topic (in this case the comment which for technical reasons you can’t read and which you can’t remember because your brain doesn’t work that way (like most human brains even of people with well above average intelligence).
I think you are a monad because you are so arrogant that you assume others are confused without checking the relevant text.
You wrote that I don’t understand what science is. This based on a post which you didn’t understand at all (no problem) recognizing that you didn’t understand it at all (good) and then deciding, based on your lack of understanding, to write that I don’t know what science is.
I think you owe me an apology. That is not something you should write without some good reason to write it. A total failure to understand what the hell I was trying to say is not a good reason to write it.
OK I demand an apology. I mean an apology which begins and ends with you saying you are sorry you wrote what you wrote and which does not include any attempt to explain or justify it and which does not include any complaint that I am demanding an apology.
If this apology is not forthcoming, then you will join Corev in my ignore bin and I won’t read your comments in the future.
I hope I have been clear.
Coberly: I say TAX THE RICH because they need to PAY. They are rich because AMERICA exists as it is. I care NOTHING about their religious beliefs, whether they deceive themselves or not. I don’t give a tinkers damn what they think or feel. They got rich on the backs of many others, the LABOR of others and mostly through CORRUPTION&CRONYISM.
PT: Man, the way YOU shovel horseshit, from volume alone, makes me wish I had a guy like YOU working in the corrals with me.
Robert
as noted, i only get 30 seconds before AB cuts me off. but as a matter of fact i did read what i wrote. and it seems to me that you have trouble imagining i meant what i said, even if you can’t understand what i meant.
but yes, i think i understand that you see a contradiction where i saw a kind of playing with words. jesus, what have you got to be so serious about that you can’t understand the normal human uses of language?
now i’ll try to finish reading what you said.. i think i saw coming up at the end of your comment a demand for an apology and a threat to regard me as “the same as CoRev.”
as i said, “Jesus!”
mike
as they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. since you can’t seem to even see what i wrote because of what is in the way in your own mind, i will only add that i have put my time in shoveling stalls.
Robert
I am fairly sure I won’t notice your not reading my comments.
OOops I read that one. Sorry. But never again. Do look at my blog. I have a long post up which elaborates on my replies here.
OOops I read the last comment. Sorry. But never again. Do look at my blog. I have a long post up which elaborates on my replies here.
I see there is another comment above it. I see it does not begin witn an apology but begins with an excuse about AB cutting you off. I made myself clear, those are the last words written by you which I intend to read.
They demonstrate your egocentricity. If you can’t read what you wrote, then you can refrain from objecting to my interpretation. your position is AB problems prevent you from reading so you just have to write that I am wrong without reading the relevant text.
Nothing obliged you to write. you chose to write in ignorance, because it was difficult for you to inform yourself. This shows grotesque vanity and a completely distorted sense of the value of your writing to others and the costs of including plainly false statements (which you claim AB won’t let you check) in the comment thread.
I will now discuss the issue with others (not with you I am through communicating with you). I think there is something deeply wrong with your approach to communication and I want to understand exactly what it is. I also want to convince myself that I have been fair to you. I will bore many people writing (and if they reply) reading about you.
But I am not reading anything you write in the future.
Mike, you seem to have no concept of ability. No wonder you’re shoveling in stalls.
The country would be better off with more Americans creating more wealth. A million billionaires is better than a thousand billionaires.
Creating wealth is not a zero sum game. It creates growth, to improve a country’s standard of living.
“Creating wealth is not a zero sum game. It creates growth, to improve a country’s standard of living.” Peak Trader
And it’s of little value to the vast majority of workers if the wealth is sequestered within the top One Percent of the income group. No one is arguing for a cessation of growth of the economy. The argument is how to distribute that wealth in the midst of a robber baron era of growth.
Peak Trader (at his most simplistic), “For example, many poor Asians, who could barely speak english (sic) when they immigrated to the U.S., not only lifted themselves out of poverty, quickly, they became successful.”
And many poor immigrants, including Asians, continue to work for sub-standard wages along with the vast majority of native borne Americans.
The employees of both the retail big box stores and fast food restaurants make up a large portion of Americans on food stamps and other forms of government support programs. That’s indirect government supplements to those employers. Their employees are paid poverty level wages and require the financial assistance of the government for food, lodging and medical care.
Some make it out of poverty, but too many are locked in that cycle of impoverishment that is self perpetuating. Then of course there are those Americans who were born on third base and think they’ve hit a home run when they score. There are recently countless books and articles that have documented the reduction in upward mobility for the working class over the past several decades.
And BTW, religion has nothing to do with one’s success unless you’re a successful televangelist. Nor is religiosity a sign of morality. Some religious people exhibit a high degree of personal morality. Many do not. Many moral people have religious convictions. Many do not. One attribute seems to have little to do with the other.
Well, Dr Waldmann won’t read this
I don’t feel that his characterization of my comments is accurate or even sane. But I do understand that there is no point in trying to convince Dr W. of that.
I had no intention of “being rude” to anyone. And I assert that my “not remembering” my exact words would suggest to any honest or sane person that perhaps the “exact words” are not what is important.
No doubt there is something “deeply wrong” with my approach to communication: I get the same reaction from college professors as I get from drunks in logger’s bars and junk yard dogs. They all know “one thing,” and if you don’t agree with them they want to fight. Professors are probably the worst, because they can “fight” by dismissing you from class (with a failing grade) at no risk to themselves.. no risk of having to change their minds.
I did learn … from religious people… about the dangers of insisting upon feeling affronted. That is one of the “truths” that “religion” offers that I don’t think you can learn from “science.” It is true (that word again) you can learn this kind of truth without ever thinking of the word “god,” but in historical fact it is “religious” people who have thought about and talked about such truths. I don’t think “science” can be relied upon to help people understand this kind of truth and ultimately act “sanely” and courageously, but I don’t insist that people join a church, or “believe in” any particular idea about “their creator.” I just try to point out that those who hate religion… however they represent that to themselves… are probably missing the point. And certainly their “reason” does not commend itself to me.
Which just proves to them that I am rude and unreasonable.
well, since i am the only one here
when i said “ayn rand believes in god the same way the devil believes in god…”
Waldmann had a choice: he could instruct me that ayn rand is an atheist
or he could instruct me that there is no such thing as the devil.
he chose the former, because he was sure (this is a figure of speech: i have no way to know what Waldmann is sure of) that this was the point about which i needed to be instructed, and probably the point he was surest about…
or maybe he is just an uncommonly clever debater and he was setting a trap i would fall into by pretending to be mystified why he should feel the need to instruct me on that point…
i dunno.
PT: I shovel horseshit because I own horses and feed them well. Nothing to do with my ability to grasp a concept. I ENJOY my day riding and getting kicked.
Coberly: I do, INDEED, understand that YOU aren’t against TAXING THE RICH, and, also, I perceive and understand that YOU want it done for reasons other than “keeping one’s brother”, reasons such as “for the good of the nation”. BUT I know many rich people, some in MY family and also on occasions, I Mike Meyer have been accused of having money. Some rich people I like, YET, most I’ve run across, I don’t. Maybe its just me, I don’t know. STILL I MUST INSIST THEY PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE, which they don’t at this time. They did under IKE—91% and the nation was a CREDITOR NOT A DEBTOR nation back then.
mike meyer
i don’t think i disagree with anything you say here. I like horses myself, and don’t mind cleaning stalls.
i do think the rich need to pay their fair share and that they are not doing so now, but i don’t think that is an argument that is likely to be very effective with them. And they have more to do with what gets done than you and I do.
I don’t know many rich people. I suspect they are in some ways just like poor people: likely to believe anything however foolish if it supports their idea of their own well being.
but i make a distinction between the honest rich and the criminal rich. i believe america is currently in the hands of, or almost in the hands of, the criminal rich. i believe you can be more effective politically… and that’s where it counts… talking about crimes than talking about “the rich” as if they were all evil and knew it and yet would somehow agree to give you their money.
the 91% marginal tax might have a good effect in some ways, but it is not the kind of thing you can call for without frightening the honest rich.. and making sure the criminal rich fight you tooth and nail.
i’d be happy with a 3 to 10% surtax on income above 100k until “the deficit” is no longer a political “crisis.” but i also think those people making less than 100k should be willing to pay the extra one tenth of one percent per year that it will take to pay for their own social security. i am fairly sure they could get the money back in wages, once they understand the reality of their situation and are not stampeded by the kind of scare-slogans that proceed out of the mouths of those who are routinely fooled by the politicians of one stripe or the other.