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Journal smittyoneeach's Journal: A statement to ponder 56

Journal by smittyoneeach

Emphasis mine:

A hundred years ago, the first group of progressives concluded that this country needed to change in a big way. They argued explicitly for a refounding of the United States on the grounds that the only absolute in political life is that absolutes are material and economic rather than moral in nature.

That's one of those statements that leaves one rubbing the chin. It seems plausible on the face of matters. However, having taken one's eyes off the Almighty, much is possible. As someone wicked once said:

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A statement to ponder More

A statement to ponder

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  • Everyone in DC, and everyone in your party (whether they realize it or not) are worshiping the same god. You're not any better or any different.

    That god is of course the almighty dollar. Don't pretend that you don't already drop down to worship him, and don't pretend that your party isn't driven by the principle of worshiping him at every opportunity and praising him above all others.
    • I would have said "power", but, if you've been paying any attention, I haven't seriously argued otherwise. One bit of reclama: it ain't "my" party. I should hope to think it might suck less if I "owned" it, but then I'm all about liberty.

      • One bit of reclama: it ain't "my" party

        I thought you were claiming to be part of the Tea Party. They openly worship the almighty dollar even more so than their parent GOP. Granted the democrats are also focused on paying back their debt to their owners now - as seen with the Health Insurance Industry Bailout Act of 2010 (amongst other bills) - and hardly any different.

        • They openly worship the almighty dollar even more so than their parent GOP.

          Troll Tuesday, indeed.

          • They openly worship the almighty dollar even more so than their parent GOP.

            Troll Tuesday, indeed.

            Oh, come on. You can't tell me that the late-hitting backronym "taxed enough already" is not a direct result of worshiping the dollar. Add to that the fact that most of your party's ambitions relate to accelerating the distribution of shiny stones...

            • You can't tell me that the late-hitting backronym "taxed enough already" is not a direct result of worshiping the dollar.

              The late-hitting backronym "taxed enough already" is not a direct result of worshiping the dollar.
              Apparently, I can. Only in your inverted world could desiring fiscal accountability be some sort of an idolatrous act. Or do you mean something else? The plain meaning of your words is just stupid.

              • You can't tell me that the late-hitting backronym "taxed enough already" is not a direct result of worshiping the dollar.

                The late-hitting backronym "taxed enough already" is not a direct result of worshiping the dollar.

                How is it not?

                Apparently, I can.

                No, you cannot.

                could desiring fiscal accountability

                Amping up the regressive nature of the most regressive taxation system in the world is not even close to the same as "fiscal accountability". I would suggest you try again but you haven't really tried once.

                • Apparently, I can.

                  No, you cannot.

                  I mean, I did. Right on this very page. Stay special, you.

                  • I mean, I did. Right on this very page. Stay special, you.

                    And clearly, you discarded my response because yours was in some magical way vastly superior.

                    In other words thank you for no rebuttal whatsoever.

                    I will go ahead and repeat what I said earlier [slashdot.org]:

                    Amping up the regressive nature of the most regressive taxation system in the world is not even close to the same as "fiscal accountability". I would suggest you try again but you haven't really tried once.

                    In other words, your malarkey about the tea party being somehow in pursuit of "fiscal accountability" is malarkey at best. Your party wants only to bring more wealth to their favored class, which is frankly astonishing as it is only a further acceleration of where the vast overwhelming majority of this country

                    • Heh, if I ever wanted to encourage somebody to vote republican, I would point them to you. After I've seen what your party has put up on the table, the only choice becomes total avoidance.

                    • In other words, your malarkey about the tea party being somehow in pursuit of "fiscal accountability" is malarkey at best. Your party wants only to bring more wealth to their favored class

                      You make it sound like the Tea Part wrote the Communist Manifesto, or something.

                    • I'm thinking of cranking up the percentage of Libertarians I vote for from "low" to "mostly".

                    • In other words, your malarkey about the tea party being somehow in pursuit of "fiscal accountability" is malarkey at best. Your party wants only to bring more wealth to their favored class

                      You make it sound like the Tea Part wrote the Communist Manifesto, or something.

                      And with that you make it quite clear that if you did attempt to read The Communist Manifesto, you completely missed the key point.

                      Equally so the point remains that the tea party doesn't actually represent fiscal accountability. They use that catch phrase as a pleasant veneer for their main goal of providing maximum benefits to the smallest fraction of "earners" at the top of the economic ladder, at the cost of everyone else.

                    • . . .if you did attempt to read The Communist Manifesto, you completely missed the key point.

                      I thought that the key point of TCM was: "damn_registrars sports him a fine set of gills; see how trivially he's roped in by a straight up 10th Commandment violation"
                      State, please, for the record, what YOU thought the key point of that scatalogical extravaganza was.

                    • . . .if you did attempt to read The Communist Manifesto, you completely missed the key point.

                      I thought that the key point of TCM was: "damn_registrars sports him a fine set of gills; see how trivially he's roped in by a straight up 10th Commandment violation"

                      Are you referring to Thou shalt not covet? [wikipedia.org] To say that doesn't fit here is an understatement. Too bad Thou shalt not commit logical fallacies [yourlogicalfallacyis.com] isn't one, as you could learn a lot from it.

                      State, please, for the record, what YOU thought the key point of that scatalogical extravaganza was.

                      I am not going to read it for you. If you want the Cliff's notes, this is the closest to them I have found [sparknotes.com]. Clearly I cannot motivate you to pursue knowledge, but perhaps they can.

                    • Nonsense. The entire building up of the borgeois as an object of envy and hatred is a refined, elaborate play to human coveting. You claim to be so wise, and you fail to grasp this? Or are you irate that the lid is so easily blown off your game?

      • I would have said "power"

        You should say "sex". (It's all biological, remember?) Power is the aphrodisiac, the lure, the colorful feathers, the medallions, the nest. The cortex serves its master well.

        And yeah, it is your party. You've beating their drum in every election so far, trying to "pump.. them up". Watching you pimp Romney was quite a sight. I expect the same for the foreseeable future. Your version of "liberty" is not. It's just Zombie Reagan.

  • well.. (Score:3)

    by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Tuesday August 19, 2014 @08:33AM (#47702345) Journal

    A little problem with the thesis are people like Jane Adams, Fr. John Ryan and Dorothy Day. Economists like Henry George. What was it, like 1907 when Walter Rauschenbusch published "Christianity and the Social Crisis". Organizations like the YMCA and the Salvation Army came out of the Christian progressive movement.

    It was called the "social gospel" and was very much moral in nature. Even going back to Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical, Rerum Novarum, you had a groundwork on purely moral grounds for a progressive movement. Leo talked about how capital and labor must to find a humane path for capitalism that respected workers and avoided the extremes of both socialism and laissez-faire conservatism. Just the fact that the Pontiff mentioned "labor" must have sent a chill through the blood of the robber barons in the gilded age.

    But go ahead and hang on to your "godless progressives" meme if it helps you sleep at night. It's pretty easy to keep your nose in "The Federalist" and never know any of those things.

    • As we covered over in the "No True Scotsman" thread, I'm not going to deny that the über-Progressive himself, Woodrow Effing Wilson, was both a Progressive and a Presbyterian. However, Christianity is no proof against being utterly wrong (1 John).
      Unless you're mandating some fairly bloody-minded guilt by association.

      • At Wired, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has posted his take on net neutrality. He lays the problem at the feet of the large ISPs.

        The argument was that the early progressives were not acting out of moral beliefs. I showed that's not true.

        The Scotsman can't protect you from The Federalist's misrepresentation. It's funny that you would cite a logical fallacy in order to defend an ad hominem attack ("Progressives were never moral!")

        • It's funny that you would cite a logical fallacy in order to defend an ad hominem attack ("Progressives were never moral!")

          I do not understand what you're talking about. At what point do you think I was accusing Progressives of continuous immorality, PR?

          • The ad hominem was not yours, it was in the article you approvingly cited from The Federalist.

            A hundred years ago, the first group of progressives concluded that this country needed to change in a big way. They argued explicitly for a refounding of the United States on the grounds that the only absolute in political life is that absolutes are material and economic rather than moral in nature.

            The people from that "first group of progressives" that I cited were starting purely from moral grounds, and demandin

            • Ah. Well, noting that the singular is not the plural, this is where I think that the Progressives snorted the Matt4:9 cocaine proffered by the devil. That is, a distorted, ersatz morality, not morality proper. I'd bolster my case by the subsequent century of development after Wilson.

              • I'd bolster my case by the subsequent century of development after Wilson.

                As a matter of fact you lost your case in thinking that Wilson is any different from anybody else who owed their position to their financiers. In all our years of written history nothing has changed expect we have more rhythm in our music. I mean, when a white man can dance, you know we've come a long way baby.

                • Human nature is constant, but technology varies. I reject your "nothing has changed" as perhaps oversimplified.

                  • ...oversimplified.

                    Again with the cop out. You just like to overcomplicate things, so you can tell people "you don't understand". Well, we do. If human nature is so constant, then we are slaves to our biology. Biology is the constant.

                    • No, the point is that the we need to argue the point at the proper level of abstraction, a la Goldilocks: not too simple, not too complex.

                      Biology is the constant.

                      True enough: 23 chromosome pairs.
                      Question: have you changed since conceived?

                    • have you changed since conceived?

                      Nope, have you? I doubt it very much. But again you just proved everybody's point about bigotry. Let us know when you're willing to stand up for civil rights the same way you do for economic property rights.

                    • But again you just proved everybody's point about bigotry. Let us know when you're willing to stand up for civil rights the same way you do for economic property rights.

                      Can you please be less coherent? Perhaps you could consider typing in Etruscan, for greater obscurity.

                    • To you, nothing is more "obscure" than what is painfully obvious. I suppose it helps in avoiding the hard questions. I have nothing but compliments for the kitchen staff.

                    • Had you something beside Cheshire Cat-ism on offer, I might take you seriously.

                    • Why would I want that? I'm not being any more serious than you are...

                    • Cheshire Cat-ism

                      Is that like your Cheshire Catechism?

                    • Nah, Baptist.

                    • Same difference.

                    • Well, it's true that, like 'Christian', the symbol 'Baptist' has such a broad spectrum of meaning as to be kinda meaningless. For reference, I generally clock in around "Southern Baptist Convention" on most points. In conversation, the military time has me veering in a more ecumenical direction, though.

                    • I generally clock in around "Southern Baptist Convention" on most points.

                      Yes, your idealism in that regard has made that extremely obvious from the get-go, but they are radical jihadists, so expect more of that "guilt by association" thing that you all so freely apply to other religious sects.

                    • . . .so expect more of that "guilt by association" thing that you all so freely apply to other religious sects.

                      Thanks for the reminder to send an email to my Muslim colleague to take him to lunch, since your "you all" quantifier is false.

                    • *Some of my best friends are black*

                    • Indeed, they are. Comes from not being as hung up on these peripheral details as some are.

      • Unless you're mandating some fairly bloody-minded guilt by association.

        What do you have against that? Collective punishment is all the rage. Aren't you on that bandwagon too?

        • Collective punishment is all the rage. Aren't you on that bandwagon too?

          Collective punishment unites with entitlements in their mutual effect of retarding individual growth and maturation into proper individual adulthood.

          • That says nothing about how you feel about it. Either you're for it or against it, just like that thing about torture, what's it gonna be?

            • After that statement, you think that I could be FOR collective punishment? Delightfully subtle insult on your part, sir.

  • ...Pelosi meant that he doesn't get it, I think she meant that he doesn't get that it's over. That the sun has set on American republicanism, and it only serves as an irritant, as that of a buzzing fly, to prattle on as if there were any going back.

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