Journal BlackHat's Journal: Lies jumped the queue to be first in line [H2O] 2
Well, '/I'm having so much fun with the poisonous people/' that I thought I'd '/Explain the experience/ Isn't it weird/ Looks too obscure to me/ Wasting away/ And that was their policy/ I'm ready to leave/ I push the facts in front of me/ Facts lost/ Facts are never what they seem to be/ Nothing there!/ No information left of any kind/ Lifting my head/ Looking for danger signs/'... act casual-- as if no one knew you were mad and point to the map of central Europe.
Mine!!!
Many historians have called the period 1799-1899 [or subportions there of] "The Age of Peace". It is true, if you leave out all the wars. There was peace, in some parts of Europe, if you closed your eyes, plugged your ears, and yelled lalalala really loudly over the French[ex. Jeune `Ecole] blasting your coastal home.
Meme'O'Day : I am... You are water. You're not really organic; you're neither acidic nor basic, yet you're an acid and a base at the same time. You're strong willed and opinionated, but relaxed and ready to flow. So while you often seem worthless, without you, everything would just not work. People should definitely drink more of you every day.
Quote:
The tendency of the last century was to individualism; that of the present is to socialism. The theory of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Jefferson, though not formally abandoned, and still held by many, has latterly been much modified, if not wholly transformed. Sovereignty, it is now maintained, is inherent in the people; not individually, indeed, but collectively, or the people as society. The constitution is held not to be simply a compact or agreement entered into by the people as individuals creating civil society and government, but a law ordained by the sovereign people, prescribing the constitution of the state and defining its rights and powers.
This transformation, which is rather going on than completed, is, under one aspect at least, a progress, or rather a return to the sounder principles of antiquity. Under it government ceases to be a mere agency, which must obtain the assassin's consent to be hung before it can rightfully hang him, and becomes authority, which is one and imperative.
The people taken collectively are society, and society is a living organism, not a mere aggregation of individuals. It does not, of course, exist without individuals, but it is something more than individuals, and has rights not derived from them, and which are paramount to theirs. There is more truth, and truth of a higher order, in this than in the theory of the social compact.
Individuals, to a certain extent, derive their life from God through society, and so far they depend on her, and they are hers; she owns them, and has the right to do as she will with them. On this theory the state emanates from society, and is supreme.
It coincides with the ancient Greek and Roman theory, as expressed by Cicero, already cited [I will put the 'whole' section he quotes in this Notion On Nations thread soon]. Man is born in society and remains there, and it may be regarded as the source of ancient Greek and Roman patriotism, which still commands the admiration of the civilized world.
The state with Greece and Rome was a living reality, and loyalty a religion. The Romans held Rome to be a divinity, gave her statues and altars, and offered her divine worship. This was superstition, no doubt, but it had in it an element of truth. To every true philosopher there is something divine in the state, and truth in all theories. Society stands nearer to God, and participates more immediately of the Divine essence, and the state is a more lively image of God than the individual. It was man, the generic and reproductive man, not the isolated individual, that was created in the image and likeness of his Maker. "And God created man in his own image; in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."
This theory is usually called the democratic theory, and it enlists in its support the instincts, the intelligence, the living forces, and active tendencies of the age. Kings, kaisers, and hierarchies are powerless before it, and war against it in vain. The most they can do is to restrain its excesses, or to guard against its abuses. Its advocates, in returning to it, sometimes revive in its name the old pagan superstition. Not a few of the European democrats recognize in the earth, in heaven, or in hell, no power superior to the people, and say not only people-king but people-God. They say absolutely, without any qualification, the voice of the people is the voice of God, and make their will the supreme law, not only in politics, but in religion, philosophy, morals, science, and the arts. The people not only found the state, but also the church. They inspire or reveal the truth, ordain or prohibit worships, judge of doctrines, and decide cases of conscience. Mazzini said , when at the bead of the Roman Republic in 1848, the question of religion must be remitted to the judgment of the people. Yet this theory is the dominant theory of the age, and is in all civilized nations advancing with apparently irresistible force.
But this theory has its difficulties. Who are the collective people that have the rights of society, or, who are the sovereign people? The word people is vague, and in itself determines nothing.
It may include a larger or a smaller number; it may mean the political people, or it may mean simply population; it may mean peasants, artisans, shopkeepers, traders, merchants, as distinguished from the nobility; hired laborers or workmen as distinguished from their employer, or slaves as distinguished from their master or owner. In which of these senses is the word to be taken when it is said, "The people are sovereign?"
The people are the population or inhabitants of one and the same country. That is something.
But who or what determines the country? Is the country the whole territory of the globe? That will not be said, especially since the dispersion of mankind and their division into separate nations. Is the territory indefinite or undefined? Then indefinite or undefined are its inhabitants, or the people invested with the rights of society. Is it defined and its boundaries fixed? Who has done it? The people. But who are the people? We are as wise as we were at starting. The logicians say that the definition of idem per idem, or the same by the same, is simply no definition at all.
The people are the nation, undoubtedly, if you mean by the people the sovereign people. But who are the people constituting the nation? The sovereign people? This is only to revolve in a vicious circle.
The nation is the tribe or the people living under the same regimen, and born of the same ancestor, or sprung from the same ancestor or progenitor. But where find a nation in this the primitive sense of the word? Migration, conquest, and intermarriage, have so broken up and intermingled the primitive races, that it is more than doubtful if a single nation, tribe, or family of unmixed blood now exists on the face of the earth.
A Frenchman, Italian, Spaniard, German, or Englishman, may have the blood of a hundred different races coursing in his veins. The nation is the people inhabiting the same country, and united under one and the same government, it is further answered. The nation, then, is not purely personal, but also territorial.
Then, again, the question comes up, who or what determines the territory? The government? But not before it is constituted, and it cannot be constituted till its territorial limits are determined. The tribe doubtless occupies territory, but is not fixed to it, and derives no jurisdiction from it, and therefore is not territorial. But a nation, in the modern or civilized sense, is fixed to the territory, and derives from it its jurisdiction, or sovereignty; and, therefore, till the territory is determined, the nation is not and cannot be determined.
The question is not an idle question. It is one of great practical importance; for, till it is settled, we can neither determine who are the sovereign people, nor who are united under one and the same government. Laws have no extra-territorial force, and the officer who should attempt to enforce the national laws beyond the national territory would be a trespasser.
If the limits are undetermined, the government is not territorial, and can claim as within its jurisdiction only those who choose to acknowledge its authority. The importance of the question has been recently brought home to the American people by the secession of eleven or more States from the Union. Were these States a part of the American nation, or were they not? Was the war which followed secession, and which cost so many lives and so much treasure, a civil war or a foreign war? Were the secessionists traitors and rebels to their sovereign, or were they patriots fighting for the liberty and independence of their country and the right of self-government?
All on both sides agreed that the nation is sovereign; the dispute was as to the existence of the nation itself, and the extent of its jurisdiction. Doubtless, when a nation has a generally recognized existence as an historical fact, most of the difficulties in determining who are the sovereign people can be got over; but the question here concerns the institution of government, and determining who constitute society and have the right to meet in person, or by their delegates in convention, to institute it. This question, so important, and at times so difficult, the theory of the origin of government in the people collectively, or the nation, does not solve, or furnish any means of solving.
But suppose this difficulty surmounted there is still another, and a very grave one, to overcome. The theory assumes that the people collectively, "in their own native right and might," are sovereign. According to it the people are ultimate, and free to do whatever they please. This sacrifices individual freedom. The origin of government in a compact entered into by individuals, each with all and all with each, sacrificed the rights of society, and assumed each individual to be in himself an independent sovereignty.
If logically carried out, there could be no such crime as treason, there could be no state, and no public authority.
This new theory transfers to society the sovereignty which that asserted for the individual, and asserts social despotism, or the absolutism of the state. It asserts with sufficient energy public authority, or the right of the people to govern; but it leaves no space for individual rights, which society must recognize, respect, and protect.
This was the grand defect of the ancient Graeco-Roman civilization. The historian explores in vain the records of the old Greek and Roman republics for any recognition of the rights of individuals not held as privileges or concessions from the state. Society recognized no limit to her authority, and the state claimed over individuals all the authority of the patriarch over his household, the chief over his tribe, or the absolute monarch over his subjects. The direct and indirect influence of the body of freemen admitted to a voice in public affairs, in determining the resolutions and action of the state, no doubt tempered in practice to some extent the authority of the state, and prevented acts of gross oppression; but in theory the state was absolute, and the people individually were placed at the mercy of the people collectively, or, rather, the majority of the collective people.
Under ancient republicanism, there were rights of the state and rights of the citizen, but no rights of man, held independently of society, and not derived from God through the state. The recognition of these rights by modern society is due to Christianity: some say to the barbarians, who overthrew the Roman empire; but this last opinion is not well founded. The barbarian chiefs and nobles had no doubt a lively sense of personal freedom and independence, but for themselves only. They had no conception of personal freedom as a general or universal right, and men never obtain universal principles by generalizing particulars. They may give a general truth a particular application, but not a particular truth--understood to be a particular truth--a general or universal application. They are too good logicians for that.
The barbarian individual freedom and personal independence was never generalized into the doctrine of the rights of man, any more than the freedom of the master has been generalized into the right of his slaves to be free. The doctrine of individual freedom before the state is due to the Christian religion, which asserts the dignity and worth of every human soul, the accountability to God of each man for himself, and lays it down as law for every one that God is to be obeyed rather than men. The church practically denied the absolutism of the state, and asserted for every man rights not held from the state, in converting the empire to Christianity, in defiance of the state authority, and the imperial edicts punishing with death the profession of the Christian faith. In this she practically, as well as theoretically, overthrew state absolutism, and infused into modern society the doctrine that every individual, even the lowest and meanest, has rights which the state neither confers nor can abrogate; and it will only be by extinguishing in modern society the Christian faith, and obliterating all traces of Christian civilization, that state absolutism can be revived with more than a partial and temporary success.
The doctrine of individual liberty may be abused, and so explained as to deny the rights of society, and to become pure individualism; but no political system that runs to the opposite extreme, and absorbs the individual in the state, stands the least chance of any general or permanent success till Christianity is extinguished. Yet the assertion of principles which logically imply state absolutism is not entirely harmless, even in Christian countries.
Error is never harmless, and only truth can give a solid foundation on which to build. Individualism and socialism are each opposed to the other, and each has only a partial truth. The state founded on either cannot stand, and society will only alternate between the two extremes.
To-day it is torn by a revolution in favor of socialism; to-morrow it will be torn by another in favor of individualism, and without effecting any real progress by either revolution. Real progress can be secured only by recognizing and building on the truth, not as it exists in our opinions or in our theories, but as it exists in the world of reality, and independent of our opinions. --Brownson
One should be careful here to note that his view of Christianity is very far from what is thought of today [and an interesting chain for your own adventures]. Putting aside the arguments as to the source(s) of this, his reduction of the options into a bi-polar 'individualism vs socialism' situation, it is an interesting point to highlight in the thinking of his day. These view points, here, will be blended, re-written and revised to fit the needs of many camps. [So] I will pick up this his gauntlet, and bring it to Marx to take up in the next JE. Until then.
News with a new lounge suite:
As mentioned by JC in the comments yesterday/today. Sir Mark Thatcher, the son of former British prime minister Lady Thatcher, tonight said he was "innocent of all charges" relating to his alleged involvement in a plot to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea. The 51-year-old businessman, arrested this morning during a 7am raid on his house in Cape Town, was charged under South Africa's anti-mercenary laws in connection with an alleged coup attempt in the oil-rich state. "I am innocent of all charges made against me. I have been and am cooperating fully with the authorities in order to resolve the matter," he said in a statement.
The peasants are revolting. It seemed like the perfect location for next week's Republican convention. But with widespread anti-war feeling, hordes of protesters descending on the city and alleged FBI intimidation fuelling the fear of violence, New York is preparing a noisy reception for President Bush. Gary Younge reports . Another view.
So they will jack the musician's fees again to curb it. A live music renaissance is under way across the country led by bands such as The Darkness, government figures show today. While fans are more likely to catch the glam rockers at a stadium, rising numbers of small venues are also putting on gigs. Almost half (47%) of pubs, clubs, student unions and restaurants featured at least one live act in the past year, and a fifth (19%) of small venues staged gigs at least twice a month, the Live Music Forum poll found. In all, an estimated 1.7m gigs were staged across England and Wales. "...embrace the new law." or else.
Strawdog hint. Here's one Jack. Go Cheney yourself.
Monkey cream alert.
Nope! Ours! Piss off and come back with tourist dollars.
Oil ways keep your eyes on the juice.
Nigeria's Senate is reportedly to ask a Shell unit to pay $1.5bn (£0.84bn) compensation to oilfield communities for environmental damage. Let's hope they don't buy 300 new APCs with it.
OYAITJ:
43752 : Old and busted realities-- The Iranian Government has rejected the findings of a judicial inquiry into the death in custody of journalist Zahra Kazemi, a Canadian national. It emerged on Monday that the judge investigating the case had charged two officials from the intelligence ministry with "complicity in semi-intentional murder". But a government spokesman on Tuesday cast doubt on the legitimacy of the inquiry, describing its findings as having nothing to do with reality., A dream of peace-- On 28 August 1963 he stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and delivered his speech to a crowd of 250,000 people. It was the high point of the struggle for black equality in America and the demonstrators had marched on the US capital to call for jobs and freedom. , Adam Werbach's rant-- Deputy Secretary of the Interior J. Steven Griles has an agenda every bit as radical as James Watt's was. He thinks no one's paying attention -- but he's wrong., and the usual fare.
Texttoon:
Fumetti : Stock photo of Wayne Newton on a stage singing. Added RNC logo and about 32 PhotoShop layers of flag clip art at <12%. Overlayed speech bubble has him singing; "Living in a world that I left behind/ Happy little children/ In the playground in my mind/ See the little children/ See how they play in the playground in my mind/ La la la..." Caption at the bottom; "A command performance for le Dauphin and his pet goat."
One liner... (Score:2)
Rimshot, please?
Re:One liner... (Score:2)