if the suggestion is that that is what we are really always doing anyway, so why not be honest about it?
You certainly got the gist of it:I didn't know it was a movie.
When reminiscing about the Vietnam War the other day,I recalled the Vietnam Lottery(Did you know that a Lottery System was used to determine who got Drafted,in the 1970s),and that reminded me of Ms Jackson's famous story.
"through all of us letting be the thing we all want'
I'm more comfortable with a conflicted existence with Fate pitted against letting us be what we want,or appearance,(the hybris and denial that we find so much of in "everyday" life) vs reality,Being what's underneath the thin veener.
Check out "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson,that says just what I mean to say.
CK,
I think Adam is saying that not only without God,Everything is Allowed,but that everything is equal in its meaninglessness,without God,we have pure,equal opportunity,Nihilism.
If one is outraged that an injustice was done at Ruby Ridge, or in Chile, or by Israel offering nukes to S. Africa, why, exactly? Why the outrage–what makes it something other than as esthetic judgment, or the joining of a mob of those similarly outraged.
It isn't something other,it's part opinion,part emotion. There's only three options,take Ruby Ridge,you're either Pro-Government,anti-Government,or indifferent. With Israel,you're pro-Israel having Nukes,anti,or indifferent.
Israel's Nuclear Disclosure
Here's an interesting story from The Guardian:
Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state's possession of nuclear weapons.
The "top secret" minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa's defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel's defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them "in three sizes". The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that "the very existence of this agreement" was to remain secret.
Israel's nuclear arsenal isn't exactly the world's best kept secret, so these revelations aren't going to have much of an impact in that regard. It will, however, complicate efforts to discredit Judge Goldstone (of the infamous "Goldstone Report" on the Gaza war).
"Grounding rights in God is a way of emphasizing the first, “absolutist” approach–otherwise, if we want to support that first approach, we would end up using words like “sacred” and “inviolable” anyway–we would just say we are using those terms metaphorically, even though I don’t think that would be the case."
I was reading this piece just now that connected the above to Economic Theory. I'd be very interested in your analysis.
"By “free market,” the Chicago Boys mean giving free reign to the financial sector – as opposed to the classical economists’ idea of freeing markets from rent and interest. Whereas traditional religion sought to lay down precepts for regulation, the Friedman Institute will promote deregulation. Physically replacing the theology school with a “temple of neoliberal economics” is ironic inasmuch as one tenet that all the major religions held in common at one point or other was opposition to the charging of interest. Judaism called for Clean Slates (Leviticus 25), and Christianity banned interest outright, citing the laws of Exodus and Deuteronomy.
The Chicago Boys thus have inverted traditional theology. Yet the teaching of economics as an academic discipline began as moral philosophy courses in the 18th and 19th centuries. The leading universities of most countries were founded to train students for the ministry. The moral philosophy course evolved into political economy, dealing largely with economic reform and taxation of the unearned income accruing to vested interests as a result of legal privilege. The discipline was stripped down into “economics” largely to exclude political analysis, and the distinctions between productive and unproductive investment, earned and unearned income, value and price.
The classical economists saw rent and interest as a carry-over from Europe’s feudal conquest of the land and the privatization of money and finance into an institutionally based debt and monopoly overhead. The classical economists sought to tax away such “unearned income,” to regulate natural monopolies or shift them into the public domain.
Needless to say, this history of economic thought will not be taught at the Friedman Center. The first thing that the Chicago Boys did in Chile when they were given power after the 1973 military coup was to close down every economics department in the country – and indeed, every social science department outside of the Catholic University where they held sway. They realized that “free markets” for capital required total control of the educational curriculum, and of cultural media generally.
What free marketers realize is that without an Inquisition authority, you cannot have a “stable” free market – that is, a market free for the financial predators who presumably are targeted as the major potential donors to the U/C’s Friedman Center. Chicago School monetarists have achieved censorial power on the editorial boards of the major refereed economics journals, publication in which has become a precondition for career advancement for academic economists. The result has been to limit the scope of economics to “free market” celebration of rational choice theory and a narrow-minded “law and economics” ideology opposed to the ideas of moral justice and economic regulation that formed the basis of so much Western religion."
http://www.counterpunch.org/hudson05242010.html
Real quick (and more later): either the rights are absolute and prior to all discussion (including, of course, discussion on how to interpret and ensure those rights); of the granting of rights is a result of a process of reasoning, in which case reason can determine that other things may be more important than rights (social unity, efficiency, economic growth, etc.) I think the first approach is the only viable one
The first approach is no more viable than #2. Both are opinions that yield to endless amending.
Fourcheese casady wrote:
read Edmund’s big speech ( the one that ends “now, gods ,stand up for bastards!”) in Lear to hear Shakespeare mocking the case for rights without god.
Shakespeare mocks every opinion. What he doesn't mock is "Absolute" goodness as dramatized by Cordelia,Desdemonia, and Juliet. What fate do these three have in common?
"(1)We hold these truths to be self-evident, (2)that all men are created equal, (3)that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, (4)that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Wonderful Post,CK,we have a lot of work to do to boil the above out of our mass unconsciousness.
(1)Opinion/I disagree being an Agnostic
(2)Error in Fact
(3)Opinion/I disagree being an Agnostic
(4)Opinion/I disagree being an Agnostic
I would say,"that we hold these truths to be consistent with a Civilized Society,that all men must be treated as if they were equal by our Government,and under our laws and jurisdiction,that Civilized People have determined that our citizens have inalienable rights,such as,but not limited to,life,liberty,and pursuit of happiness".
if the suggestion is that that is what we are really always doing anyway, so why not be honest about it?
You certainly got the gist of it:I didn't know it was a movie.
When reminiscing about the Vietnam War the other day,I recalled the Vietnam Lottery(Did you know that a Lottery System was used to determine who got Drafted,in the 1970s),and that reminded me of Ms Jackson's famous story.
"through all of us letting be the thing we all want'
I'm more comfortable with a conflicted existence with Fate pitted against letting us be what we want,or appearance,(the hybris and denial that we find so much of in "everyday" life) vs reality,Being what's underneath the thin veener.
Check out "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson,that says just what I mean to say.
CK,
I think Adam is saying that not only without God,Everything is Allowed,but that everything is equal in its meaninglessness,without God,we have pure,equal opportunity,Nihilism.
If one is outraged that an injustice was done at Ruby Ridge, or in Chile, or by Israel offering nukes to S. Africa, why, exactly? Why the outrage–what makes it something other than as esthetic judgment, or the joining of a mob of those similarly outraged.
It isn't something other,it's part opinion,part emotion. There's only three options,take Ruby Ridge,you're either Pro-Government,anti-Government,or indifferent. With Israel,you're pro-Israel having Nukes,anti,or indifferent.
fuster wrote:
@ Rex Caruthers:
I read the story. The links don’t supply any proof of an Israeli offer to supply nukes
I said it was a story,I didn't send it to the World Court.
Interesting Story:
Israel's Nuclear Disclosure
Here's an interesting story from The Guardian:
Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state's possession of nuclear weapons.
The "top secret" minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa's defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel's defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them "in three sizes". The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that "the very existence of this agreement" was to remain secret.
Israel's nuclear arsenal isn't exactly the world's best kept secret, so these revelations aren't going to have much of an impact in that regard. It will, however, complicate efforts to discredit Judge Goldstone (of the infamous "Goldstone Report" on the Gaza war).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/23/israel-south-africa-nuclear-weapons
US citizens taking up arms against the US seem fair game.
Ruby Ridge? If there's a crime,what's wrong with the state having to prove there was a crime.
strangelet wrote:
@ Rex Caruthers:you forgot Lavinia
Yes, The Tree Girl from Titus Andronicus,Thanks
"--will be horrified by an extra-juridical killing based on disagreement.
National Security type extra-judicial killing of US citizens is OK?
"Grounding rights in God is a way of emphasizing the first, “absolutist” approach–otherwise, if we want to support that first approach, we would end up using words like “sacred” and “inviolable” anyway–we would just say we are using those terms metaphorically, even though I don’t think that would be the case."
I was reading this piece just now that connected the above to Economic Theory. I'd be very interested in your analysis.
"By “free market,” the Chicago Boys mean giving free reign to the financial sector – as opposed to the classical economists’ idea of freeing markets from rent and interest. Whereas traditional religion sought to lay down precepts for regulation, the Friedman Institute will promote deregulation. Physically replacing the theology school with a “temple of neoliberal economics” is ironic inasmuch as one tenet that all the major religions held in common at one point or other was opposition to the charging of interest. Judaism called for Clean Slates (Leviticus 25), and Christianity banned interest outright, citing the laws of Exodus and Deuteronomy.
The Chicago Boys thus have inverted traditional theology. Yet the teaching of economics as an academic discipline began as moral philosophy courses in the 18th and 19th centuries. The leading universities of most countries were founded to train students for the ministry. The moral philosophy course evolved into political economy, dealing largely with economic reform and taxation of the unearned income accruing to vested interests as a result of legal privilege. The discipline was stripped down into “economics” largely to exclude political analysis, and the distinctions between productive and unproductive investment, earned and unearned income, value and price.
The classical economists saw rent and interest as a carry-over from Europe’s feudal conquest of the land and the privatization of money and finance into an institutionally based debt and monopoly overhead. The classical economists sought to tax away such “unearned income,” to regulate natural monopolies or shift them into the public domain.
Needless to say, this history of economic thought will not be taught at the Friedman Center. The first thing that the Chicago Boys did in Chile when they were given power after the 1973 military coup was to close down every economics department in the country – and indeed, every social science department outside of the Catholic University where they held sway. They realized that “free markets” for capital required total control of the educational curriculum, and of cultural media generally.
What free marketers realize is that without an Inquisition authority, you cannot have a “stable” free market – that is, a market free for the financial predators who presumably are targeted as the major potential donors to the U/C’s Friedman Center. Chicago School monetarists have achieved censorial power on the editorial boards of the major refereed economics journals, publication in which has become a precondition for career advancement for academic economists. The result has been to limit the scope of economics to “free market” celebration of rational choice theory and a narrow-minded “law and economics” ideology opposed to the ideas of moral justice and economic regulation that formed the basis of so much Western religion."
http://www.counterpunch.org/hudson05242010.html
Real quick (and more later): either the rights are absolute and prior to all discussion (including, of course, discussion on how to interpret and ensure those rights); of the granting of rights is a result of a process of reasoning, in which case reason can determine that other things may be more important than rights (social unity, efficiency, economic growth, etc.) I think the first approach is the only viable one
The first approach is no more viable than #2. Both are opinions that yield to endless amending.
Fourcheese casady wrote:
read Edmund’s big speech ( the one that ends “now, gods ,stand up for bastards!”) in Lear to hear Shakespeare mocking the case for rights without god.
Shakespeare mocks every opinion. What he doesn't mock is "Absolute" goodness as dramatized by Cordelia,Desdemonia, and Juliet. What fate do these three have in common?
"(1)We hold these truths to be self-evident, (2)that all men are created equal, (3)that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, (4)that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Wonderful Post,CK,we have a lot of work to do to boil the above out of our mass unconsciousness.
(1)Opinion/I disagree being an Agnostic
(2)Error in Fact
(3)Opinion/I disagree being an Agnostic
(4)Opinion/I disagree being an Agnostic
I would say,"that we hold these truths to be consistent with a Civilized Society,that all men must be treated as if they were equal by our Government,and under our laws and jurisdiction,that Civilized People have determined that our citizens have inalienable rights,such as,but not limited to,life,liberty,and pursuit of happiness".