Hitchens was a consumer of alcohol and cigarettes... it cheered him up.
Other people get their cheer from a spiritual conditioning.
I'm using the word "cheer" because that is what Hitchens used in that clip as the ends of it all. At some point (facing death, told we are dying) we are going to need to be cheered up!
Even if we, or I, let me just speak for myself, were to say I just believe because it is convenient, not out of fear from the "real" believers, but the convenience that comes from the idea that there is order and purpose.
Well, guess what, I can't have a party w/o order and purpose.
It's a hell of a lot better... and I believe that most people feel that way otherwise there would be a need for a policeman for every man woman and child.
Most people choose to do the right thing and for that somebody should be thanked.
"A red-haired boy sits next to his mother in the psychiatrist's office. She is describing her son's problems and expressing her disappointment in him. Why is he always depressed? Why can't he be like other boys his age? The doctor turns to the boy and asks why he is depressed. In a hopeless daze the boy replies, The universe is expanding, and if the universe is everything…and if it's expanding…someday it will break apart and that's the end of everything…what's the point?"
"His mother leans over, slaps the kid and scolds: "What is that your business!"
I submit that in life, smart as he was, he knows sophistry when he saw it so knows it when he delivers it, I submit, he knows false dichotomy. Not so smart in suggesting "most people think..." how presumptuous, and then further two starkly cartoonish versions -- cartoons! -- of religious thought.
Here is a third for you, Hitch. Too bad you cannot hear it because you are dead.
I heard this from a reliable source. Or rather, read it ten times.
Your human soul is eternal.
Correction, your human soul has potential for eternal existence. But eternity is not guaranteed.
What is the hold up?
The spark of divinity that in dwelt you the moment you made your first proper moral decision. The spark that is the same as all other sparks. Identically perfect. The spark that attempts to guide your further moral decisions, is the only thing about you that is eternal.
Picture it.
In cartoon form if you must.
You; a unique personality. Utterly unique to the universe. Having successfully made a moral decision, for good or for bad, a moral decision nonetheless, caused a portion of perfection to indwell you.
That piece of perfection utterly the same as all others seeks unity with your personality.
Yes! You.
But it cannot do so until you wholeheartedly choose on your own to do the will of God. Only then can you fuse. In the moment you decide to do God's will. Always and ever do the will of God, only then, and in that moment will you and your life-long indwelling portion fuse.
Even if it takes a very long time.
In Hitch's case, thick as he is, stubborn as all hell and difficult of convincing, that will be a very long time. A near eternity itself.
You always do have the choice, even after your personality survives the death experience, to reject the plan. If at that late date eternity is all too much then you can still pass on the offer and become as if you never were. All trace of your existence vanishes upon that final fateful decision.
But you have near eternity to sort the whole thing. All the while your indwelling portion patiently suffering with you all the consequences of your sorry decisions, attempting to guide you when you can listen, for you to be one with God.
Is the war on atheism (or even agnosticism) really going all that well these days, at least in America? I keep getting the impression that people are becoming less traditionally fundamentalist or biblical inerrantists.
I once heard Tucker Carlson say that the mainstream Republican leadership can't stand their religious conservatives, but need them to make up the numbers for elections. And then you have self-loathing conservative atheists of a slightly more intelligent flavor, S.E. Cupp, saying that she could never vote for a (fellow) atheist because she assumes they would be dictators. Well, thanks for that strange confession.
But what I'd actually like to know is, what percentage of you, apart from a few somewhat adherent Catholics and Islamo-Catholics, really do believe that literal traditional religion is important to you personally? Is it really something important to your sense of your own soul, or do you just appreciate the votes it gets you to pretend that it does?
People skip over the fact that Hitch believes all kinds of crap and substitute religions. For example, he believed in Marxism when he was young. And when older, he believed in Israel, Socialism, and Humanism.
He was always a "believer" - just not in Christianity.
He was always a "believer" - just not in Christianity.
Well, a priest seducing your mother into a mutual suicide pact might do that to you. Judge the tree by the fruit it bears and all that jazz - which you would know if you took Christianity as seriously as you took the idea of Christianity.
What is up with all these connies not believing stuff that they want other people to believe? It's like they want to be anti-atheist by being pro-Christianity and then you find out that they really don't believe anything. They just want to tell other people what to believe.
Do you really think people don't see through your false beliefs after a while?
"All these conies" implies that you're aware of quite a few people who fit this description. Who, exactly, are they?
Well, for one, we just have to look at all the atheist and apatheistic/agnostic cons who admit that religion is important to them in the abstract (Cupp), or just strategically and with contempt (Tucker Carlson). You have to understand that that's a bit of (i.e. a huge) revelation to someone like me, a non-"party faithful" - (well, a non-Republican, of course). I assumed that when Republicans talked about respecting faith and faith-based this and that that they were actually talking about something that meant something to them, personally. But Carlson illustrated the point, as a pundit in the know, that fundies and just plain ole regular "believers" are simply one component of his constituency, and that the rest do so much lip service as to appeal to the rest of the electorate this idea that there's a widespread religiosity among the party that we should take seriously and respect. When in fact it's neither widespread nor common enough in their factions to perceive as some intrinsically respectable quality among conservatives.
Other than those two high-profile revelations, and the many instances of Republicans talking up Christianity while talking down any spirit of social concern and social welfare and wealth eschewing intrinsic to it, I haven't come across much personally. But that last bit counts for a lot. We non-conservatives notice a lot of Jesus talk and very anti-Jesuslike action on the other side. This strategic use of it, of an otherwise actually not-so-common affinity on their part, would explain it.
The "Jesus as a tool to suit our ends" politically is a real shocker, when claimed that nakedly. But we do see quite a bit of evidence of it, the cognitive dissonance it exemplifies causes a lot of anguish, and then we realize that people like Cupp and Carlson are right. Religion for thee but not for me, they say. And they either respect them or just accept that they need to use them.
Karl Rove, now that I think of it, is another connie who proclaims to lack "the gift of faith". Given how important a Republican strategist he was, one has to simply marvel at the amount of compartmentalization required of a mind that can so nakedly USE an evangelical vote to his advantage (i.e. the anti-gay talk in Ohio's 2004 elections), while having no personal connection to those motivations whatsoever.
When Romney came across as the ultimate phony, you have to look at actions like Rove's and ask yourself what kind of integrity Republicans intend to offer the country.
I realize that Clinton (and his wife) are huge liars, too - but I'm not defending them, either. (And neither did Hitchens, incidentally. He never had any respect for those liars).
I think it was Bob Kerry who said that Clinton was "an unusually good liar." That's a great quote.
Your side has liars, too. Just some of them are more white lies but lies covering up huge social disconnects nevertheless.
I don't know what, exactly, Tucker Carlson says about religion. Don't really care much about anything Tucker Carlson has to say. But I will speak for myself.
The way I see it, most people find individualism unfulfilling. They find meaning in being part of a larger community. That leads some to religion, and others to collectivism in its secular manifestations.
A tiny minority--the regularly maligned libertarians--find individual liberty a high enough moral value. There aren't nearly enough libertarians to constitute a democratic majority, so which of the two large groups should they align themselves with politically? It seems obvious that they've got more in common w/ Christians than w/ socialists. (There is no such commonality w/ religion per se, as in the case of Islam.) This is, in broad outline, the Republican coalition.
A religion that respects the boundaries b/w the realm of individual conscience and the demands of the state poses no threat to me. It's presumptuous in the extreme to suppose that there are obvious answers to the profound questions addressed by religion. I respect both the believer and the disbeliever, and I'm happy to make common political cause w/members of either camp who believe in an expansive role for private action and a limited role for collective action.
I think, Ritmo, that the hypocrisy you think you see on the right is simply a manifestation of the ecological fallacy.
Well, that's fine to have an urge to affiliate. I would just think that when it comes to religion, it should be something that you personally have some identification with.
It doesn't have to be total, and in that regard I think Sullivan's emphasis on the role of doubt is helpful.
I suppose the ecological fallacy I committed shows you the success of the fusion achieved by post-1980s Reaganites in their coalition.
I do see a fallacy of your own, however, in distinguishing between privatism and collectivism. That sounds like a false dichotomy. The reprimand of the Clippers owner aroused intense animosity here, and yet it's an entirely non-governmental action that's about as private and corporate (and without significant popular backlash or disapproval) as they come. The nation's nowhere near as sympathetic to racism as a certain someone around here surely hopes.
That last reason is the reason I would never be an ideologically inflexible libertarian. The private sector's plenty capable of coercion, collusion and just plain old arm-twisting. I realize you think the govt has done worse, (and you're right that the potential's there, insofar as we accept a monopoly of force as the best practical definition of government), but I think undervaluing the role played by our history, our democracy and our bill of rights in that regard, in the regard of limiting those abuses, is to belittle America as a nation.
Coalitions are as useful for as long as they're capable of existing. The fraying trends of the GOP portend that there is a tension in fusing Christianity and ideologically unpolluted libertarianism that might not be as politically practical at the present moment as it once was.
undervaluing the role played by our history, our democracy and our bill of rights in that regard, in the regard of limiting those abuses, is to belittle America as a nation.
If this passage is meant as a parody of internet debate, then all I can say is, "Well played, sir."
It's not a parody to acknowledge that the system OF GOVERNMENT instituted by the founders did such a better job of containing anti-liberty abuses, especially when compared to nations of similar size and power, that we can trust that tyranny isn't lurking around every corner in America. It contains the argument for libertarianism as a necessary political faction. It accepts that you have a country with more economic freedom than you could have hoped for (esp. given our circumstances as an empire), and concludes that might well be a good reason for "spoiler" representation, but not representation large enough to challenge either liberals or conservatives.
Most of what you got in the form of libertarianism historically came to you by way of a political philosophy known as "liberalism". We know it now as "classical liberalism" because mainstream liberals recognized that industrial corporate excesses came to pose almost as great a threat to individual freedoms as others. Libertarians sympathized instead with preponderantly more powerful owners, and the role of property in itself, and then found themselves in 2008 wondering how they could defend what they (while allied with their Republicans) allowed to happen to the financial sector and corporations in general. They try to blame it on Democrats but Democrats are not the natural ideological ally of wealth for its own sake.
Liberals see classical libertarians as liberals who petulantly rebelled against the obvious acknowledgement that industry amplified the potential for abuse by the owners, and the challenge they posed to liberty in general. We see libertarians now wrestling with and twisting themselves into pretzels to convince voters that collusion and corporatism would just go away if the government had no power to be bribed with, and that sounds naive beyond reason.
I'm just gonna sip some scotch and contemplate the argument that the restrictions on government power in the Bill of Rights demonstrate something or other about GOVERNMENT other than that the Founders thought it ought to be explicitly restricted in scope.)
My plan is to keep drinking until it starts to make sense. Or until I pass out, whichever comes first.
This, OTOH, can't be made sensible w/ anything short of hallucinogens:
[libertarians] found themselves in 2008 wondering how they could defend what they (while allied with their Republicans) allowed to happen to the financial sector and corporations in general.
You're apparently unaware of, or in denial about, the fact that all the significant financial deregulation in the decade before the financial crisis was supported by the Clinton Administration.
It's funny how you insist on writing your own version of history so as to free it from all inconvenient facts.
You're apparently unaware of, or in denial about, the fact that all the significant financial deregulation in the decade before the financial crisis was supported by the Clinton Administration.
I also acknowledged the Hitchensian truth earlier that Clinton was a consummate opportunist. Signing the legislation was likely a matter of political opportunism and a misjudgment that was in no way in line with longstanding Democratic priorities.
It's funny how you insist on writing your own version of history so as to free it from all inconvenient facts.
You were ignorant of the facts I'd known and apparently had to remind you of above.
I'm just gonna sip some scotch and contemplate the argument that the restrictions on government power in the Bill of Rights demonstrate something or other about GOVERNMENT other than that the Founders thought it ought to be explicitly restricted in scope.
For someone who likes to talk about how important history is, you sure seem to believe that creating a legal and social culture over two hundred years that accommodated to those restrictions have not shaped us as a nation - which might take as much scotch to believe as it would to prevent oneself from hearing the obvious opposite conclusion.
Your "facts" are a handful of gross simplifications or outright misrepresentations that are familiar to anyone who's been thru any public school in this country. The fact that you think you've got some rare knowledge of the Progressive Era is either funny or pathetic, depending on one's degree of drunkenness.
One of the landmark cases on the line b/w the gov. and the right of contract during the "Progressive Era" was Lochner. Ever heard of it? It involved a fucking bakery, not US Steel. Liberals today read it only for the dissent by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., but in that case the SCOTUS upheld the right of contract over the right of the state to regulate, and that stood until FDR threatened to pack the Court in order to get it to stop overturning his attempts at stupid economic regulation that served only to prolong the Depression.
The idea that modern liberals are on the side of free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, or pretty much any other aspect of freedom is laughable.
We uphold all those things and more. You only uphold the "right" for someone with more money to outbid someone else's right to those things.
You care more about the rights of money than about the rights of people.
In so doing, you chase power for its own sake - just a different form of it and one that goes happily barreling after the government.
You hate government more than you love freedom, and that's a fact, jack.
Now make sure to get progressively drunker and drunker, and then lecture to me about why anyone without $10,000 to throw away should pretend to believe that you've got a viable political platform that's in any way relevant to his freedom.
If this sounds strident, it's because I'm being vilified by a once sober man, who might have one time been cognizant of how more successful partisans at least understood the concept of courteous reciprocal treatment, even if only for the purpose of saving their own political skin.
FDR threatened to pack the Court in order to get it to stop overturning his attempts at stupid economic regulation that served only to prolong the Depression.
Lol. Talk about a "gross oversimplification!" Anyone else buy this theory yet, or is it still in the realm of popular pulp in the Amazon "politics" section for shoppers browsing their latest editions of O'Reilly, Hannity and Beck?
Shlaes hasn't even attained the mantle of false equivalence that you grant to AGW science deniers, let alone a rational consensus. But I'm sure she does excite you! All of a sudden, after 75 years, someone comes along to vindicate the Great Republican 2008 Recession Way of Doing Things! Nevermind the gaping lacunae in her pretend pop thesis, she makes us feel vindicated! What joy!
I think you either need more to drink Chip or a different drug. ;-)
Reality's calling…
Have a good one and don't forget to turn out the light!
The idea that modern liberals are on the side of free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, or pretty much any other aspect of freedom is laughable.
Chip sure does like the idea of someone either in government or with enough corporate power to have those things. It's just not certain whether he thinks they're important to defend on behalf of others. You know, everyone else.
Let us know when you think you have the answer to that one, Chip.
32 comments:
"Do you really think that this would cheer up anyone of sentience or humanity or capable of feeling about any - I submit is out of the question."
And yet it does... which sounds like it frustrates atheists the world over.
Most people have faith in a power grater than themselves and that in itself cannot be denied.
Hitchens was a consumer of alcohol and cigarettes... it cheered him up.
Other people get their cheer from a spiritual conditioning.
I'm using the word "cheer" because that is what Hitchens used in that clip as the ends of it all. At some point (facing death, told we are dying) we are going to need to be cheered up!
Even if we, or I, let me just speak for myself, were to say I just believe because it is convenient, not out of fear from the "real" believers, but the convenience that comes from the idea that there is order and purpose.
Well, guess what, I can't have a party w/o order and purpose.
It's a hell of a lot better... and I believe that most people feel that way otherwise there would be a need for a policeman for every man woman and child.
Most people choose to do the right thing and for that somebody should be thanked.
Do I hear an amen ;)
The way to go through life is superficial and glib, no doubt about it.
"A red-haired boy sits next to his mother in the psychiatrist's office. She is describing her son's problems and expressing her disappointment in him. Why is he always depressed? Why can't he be like other boys his age? The doctor turns to the boy and asks why he is depressed. In a hopeless daze the boy replies, The universe is expanding, and if the universe is everything…and if it's expanding…someday it will break apart and that's the end of everything…what's the point?"
"His mother leans over, slaps the kid and scolds: "What is that your business!"
Wow, how Hollywood Atheist of him. "Take that, Dad!" Kind of beneath him, really.
I submit that in life, smart as he was, he knows sophistry when he saw it so knows it when he delivers it, I submit, he knows false dichotomy. Not so smart in suggesting "most people think..." how presumptuous, and then further two starkly cartoonish versions -- cartoons! -- of religious thought.
Here is a third for you, Hitch. Too bad you cannot hear it because you are dead.
I heard this from a reliable source. Or rather, read it ten times.
Your human soul is eternal.
Correction, your human soul has potential for eternal existence. But eternity is not guaranteed.
What is the hold up?
The spark of divinity that in dwelt you the moment you made your first proper moral decision. The spark that is the same as all other sparks. Identically perfect. The spark that attempts to guide your further moral decisions, is the only thing about you that is eternal.
Picture it.
In cartoon form if you must.
You; a unique personality. Utterly unique to the universe. Having successfully made a moral decision, for good or for bad, a moral decision nonetheless, caused a portion of perfection to indwell you.
That piece of perfection utterly the same as all others seeks unity with your personality.
Yes! You.
But it cannot do so until you wholeheartedly choose on your own to do the will of God. Only then can you fuse. In the moment you decide to do God's will. Always and ever do the will of God, only then, and in that moment will you and your life-long indwelling portion fuse.
Even if it takes a very long time.
In Hitch's case, thick as he is, stubborn as all hell and difficult of convincing, that will be a very long time. A near eternity itself.
You always do have the choice, even after your personality survives the death experience, to reject the plan. If at that late date eternity is all too much then you can still pass on the offer and become as if you never were. All trace of your existence vanishes upon that final fateful decision.
But you have near eternity to sort the whole thing. All the while your indwelling portion patiently suffering with you all the consequences of your sorry decisions, attempting to guide you when you can listen, for you to be one with God.
Dude named Crisco, who apparently lost to Clay Aiken in an election, died as the result of a fall today.
Where's Hillary!?
There are many, many downsides to having an open mind.
I recommend it to no one.
Still, some of us, like me, are pretty much stuck with the infernal condition, as if it were a horrible disease.
Is there an afterlife?
This is food for thought.
I doubt it will change anybody's mind, though.
There's an evolutionary explanation, probably.
...it frustrates atheists the world over.
Is the war on atheism (or even agnosticism) really going all that well these days, at least in America? I keep getting the impression that people are becoming less traditionally fundamentalist or biblical inerrantists.
I once heard Tucker Carlson say that the mainstream Republican leadership can't stand their religious conservatives, but need them to make up the numbers for elections. And then you have self-loathing conservative atheists of a slightly more intelligent flavor, S.E. Cupp, saying that she could never vote for a (fellow) atheist because she assumes they would be dictators. Well, thanks for that strange confession.
But what I'd actually like to know is, what percentage of you, apart from a few somewhat adherent Catholics and Islamo-Catholics, really do believe that literal traditional religion is important to you personally? Is it really something important to your sense of your own soul, or do you just appreciate the votes it gets you to pretend that it does?
Hitch proved that you fool Americans all the time - as long as you had a Veddy British Accent.
Seriously, nothing more than dumbed down Bertrand Russell. And I always love the "God isn't moral enough for me" argument.
But as been said, Hitch is dead. "Ding, Dong, the Hitch is dead, which old Hitch? The wicked Hitch".
People skip over the fact that Hitch believes all kinds of crap and substitute religions. For example, he believed in Marxism when he was young. And when older, he believed in Israel, Socialism, and Humanism.
He was always a "believer" - just not in Christianity.
He was always a "believer" - just not in Christianity.
Well, a priest seducing your mother into a mutual suicide pact might do that to you. Judge the tree by the fruit it bears and all that jazz - which you would know if you took Christianity as seriously as you took the idea of Christianity.
What is up with all these connies not believing stuff that they want other people to believe? It's like they want to be anti-atheist by being pro-Christianity and then you find out that they really don't believe anything. They just want to tell other people what to believe.
Do you really think people don't see through your false beliefs after a while?
What is up with all these connies not believing stuff that they want other people to believe?
"All these conies" implies that you're aware of quite a few people who fit this description. Who, exactly, are they?
That old adage about defending to the death the right to say things that one doesn't even agree with needs to be modified:
A conservative will fight to the death for his right to make you think that he believes the things that he doesn't really believe.
"All these conies" implies that you're aware of quite a few people who fit this description. Who, exactly, are they?
Well, for one, we just have to look at all the atheist and apatheistic/agnostic cons who admit that religion is important to them in the abstract (Cupp), or just strategically and with contempt (Tucker Carlson). You have to understand that that's a bit of (i.e. a huge) revelation to someone like me, a non-"party faithful" - (well, a non-Republican, of course). I assumed that when Republicans talked about respecting faith and faith-based this and that that they were actually talking about something that meant something to them, personally. But Carlson illustrated the point, as a pundit in the know, that fundies and just plain ole regular "believers" are simply one component of his constituency, and that the rest do so much lip service as to appeal to the rest of the electorate this idea that there's a widespread religiosity among the party that we should take seriously and respect. When in fact it's neither widespread nor common enough in their factions to perceive as some intrinsically respectable quality among conservatives.
Other than those two high-profile revelations, and the many instances of Republicans talking up Christianity while talking down any spirit of social concern and social welfare and wealth eschewing intrinsic to it, I haven't come across much personally. But that last bit counts for a lot. We non-conservatives notice a lot of Jesus talk and very anti-Jesuslike action on the other side. This strategic use of it, of an otherwise actually not-so-common affinity on their part, would explain it.
The "Jesus as a tool to suit our ends" politically is a real shocker, when claimed that nakedly. But we do see quite a bit of evidence of it, the cognitive dissonance it exemplifies causes a lot of anguish, and then we realize that people like Cupp and Carlson are right. Religion for thee but not for me, they say. And they either respect them or just accept that they need to use them.
Karl Rove, now that I think of it, is another connie who proclaims to lack "the gift of faith". Given how important a Republican strategist he was, one has to simply marvel at the amount of compartmentalization required of a mind that can so nakedly USE an evangelical vote to his advantage (i.e. the anti-gay talk in Ohio's 2004 elections), while having no personal connection to those motivations whatsoever.
When Romney came across as the ultimate phony, you have to look at actions like Rove's and ask yourself what kind of integrity Republicans intend to offer the country.
I realize that Clinton (and his wife) are huge liars, too - but I'm not defending them, either. (And neither did Hitchens, incidentally. He never had any respect for those liars).
I think it was Bob Kerry who said that Clinton was "an unusually good liar." That's a great quote.
Your side has liars, too. Just some of them are more white lies but lies covering up huge social disconnects nevertheless.
I don't know what, exactly, Tucker Carlson says about religion. Don't really care much about anything Tucker Carlson has to say. But I will speak for myself.
The way I see it, most people find individualism unfulfilling. They find meaning in being part of a larger community. That leads some to religion, and others to collectivism in its secular manifestations.
A tiny minority--the regularly maligned libertarians--find individual liberty a high enough moral value. There aren't nearly enough libertarians to constitute a democratic majority, so which of the two large groups should they align themselves with politically? It seems obvious that they've got more in common w/ Christians than w/ socialists. (There is no such commonality w/ religion per se, as in the case of Islam.) This is, in broad outline, the Republican coalition.
A religion that respects the boundaries b/w the realm of individual conscience and the demands of the state poses no threat to me. It's presumptuous in the extreme to suppose that there are obvious answers to the profound questions addressed by religion. I respect both the believer and the disbeliever, and I'm happy to make common political cause w/members of either camp who believe in an expansive role for private action and a limited role for collective action.
I think, Ritmo, that the hypocrisy you think you see on the right is simply a manifestation of the ecological fallacy.
Well, that's fine to have an urge to affiliate. I would just think that when it comes to religion, it should be something that you personally have some identification with.
It doesn't have to be total, and in that regard I think Sullivan's emphasis on the role of doubt is helpful.
I suppose the ecological fallacy I committed shows you the success of the fusion achieved by post-1980s Reaganites in their coalition.
I do see a fallacy of your own, however, in distinguishing between privatism and collectivism. That sounds like a false dichotomy. The reprimand of the Clippers owner aroused intense animosity here, and yet it's an entirely non-governmental action that's about as private and corporate (and without significant popular backlash or disapproval) as they come. The nation's nowhere near as sympathetic to racism as a certain someone around here surely hopes.
That last reason is the reason I would never be an ideologically inflexible libertarian. The private sector's plenty capable of coercion, collusion and just plain old arm-twisting. I realize you think the govt has done worse, (and you're right that the potential's there, insofar as we accept a monopoly of force as the best practical definition of government), but I think undervaluing the role played by our history, our democracy and our bill of rights in that regard, in the regard of limiting those abuses, is to belittle America as a nation.
Coalitions are as useful for as long as they're capable of existing. The fraying trends of the GOP portend that there is a tension in fusing Christianity and ideologically unpolluted libertarianism that might not be as politically practical at the present moment as it once was.
undervaluing the role played by our history, our democracy and our bill of rights in that regard, in the regard of limiting those abuses, is to belittle America as a nation.
If this passage is meant as a parody of internet debate, then all I can say is, "Well played, sir."
O/w, WTF??
I refuse to comment on the topic in this thread until I get more than 4 listens to the chirbit.
Hitchens' tonality hard to capture. There are a couple few YouTubes of a guy doing him who doesn't even seem to try: link
It's not a parody to acknowledge that the system OF GOVERNMENT instituted by the founders did such a better job of containing anti-liberty abuses, especially when compared to nations of similar size and power, that we can trust that tyranny isn't lurking around every corner in America. It contains the argument for libertarianism as a necessary political faction. It accepts that you have a country with more economic freedom than you could have hoped for (esp. given our circumstances as an empire), and concludes that might well be a good reason for "spoiler" representation, but not representation large enough to challenge either liberals or conservatives.
Most of what you got in the form of libertarianism historically came to you by way of a political philosophy known as "liberalism". We know it now as "classical liberalism" because mainstream liberals recognized that industrial corporate excesses came to pose almost as great a threat to individual freedoms as others. Libertarians sympathized instead with preponderantly more powerful owners, and the role of property in itself, and then found themselves in 2008 wondering how they could defend what they (while allied with their Republicans) allowed to happen to the financial sector and corporations in general. They try to blame it on Democrats but Democrats are not the natural ideological ally of wealth for its own sake.
Liberals see classical libertarians as liberals who petulantly rebelled against the obvious acknowledgement that industry amplified the potential for abuse by the owners, and the challenge they posed to liberty in general. We see libertarians now wrestling with and twisting themselves into pretzels to convince voters that collusion and corporatism would just go away if the government had no power to be bribed with, and that sounds naive beyond reason.
I'm just gonna sip some scotch and contemplate the argument that the restrictions on government power in the Bill of Rights demonstrate something or other about GOVERNMENT other than that the Founders thought it ought to be explicitly restricted in scope.)
My plan is to keep drinking until it starts to make sense. Or until I pass out, whichever comes first.
This, OTOH, can't be made sensible w/ anything short of hallucinogens:
[libertarians] found themselves in 2008 wondering how they could defend what they (while allied with their Republicans) allowed to happen to the financial sector and corporations in general.
You're apparently unaware of, or in denial about, the fact that all the significant financial deregulation in the decade before the financial crisis was supported by the Clinton Administration.
It's funny how you insist on writing your own version of history so as to free it from all inconvenient facts.
You're apparently unaware of, or in denial about, the fact that all the significant financial deregulation in the decade before the financial crisis was supported by the Clinton Administration.
I also acknowledged the Hitchensian truth earlier that Clinton was a consummate opportunist. Signing the legislation was likely a matter of political opportunism and a misjudgment that was in no way in line with longstanding Democratic priorities.
It's funny how you insist on writing your own version of history so as to free it from all inconvenient facts.
You were ignorant of the facts I'd known and apparently had to remind you of above.
I'm just gonna sip some scotch and contemplate the argument that the restrictions on government power in the Bill of Rights demonstrate something or other about GOVERNMENT other than that the Founders thought it ought to be explicitly restricted in scope.
For someone who likes to talk about how important history is, you sure seem to believe that creating a legal and social culture over two hundred years that accommodated to those restrictions have not shaped us as a nation - which might take as much scotch to believe as it would to prevent oneself from hearing the obvious opposite conclusion.
You were ignorant of the facts I'd known…
You really are a preening ass.
Your "facts" are a handful of gross simplifications or outright misrepresentations that are familiar to anyone who's been thru any public school in this country. The fact that you think you've got some rare knowledge of the Progressive Era is either funny or pathetic, depending on one's degree of drunkenness.
One of the landmark cases on the line b/w the gov. and the right of contract during the "Progressive Era" was Lochner. Ever heard of it? It involved a fucking bakery, not US Steel. Liberals today read it only for the dissent by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., but in that case the SCOTUS upheld the right of contract over the right of the state to regulate, and that stood until FDR threatened to pack the Court in order to get it to stop overturning his attempts at stupid economic regulation that served only to prolong the Depression.
The idea that modern liberals are on the side of free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, or pretty much any other aspect of freedom is laughable.
We uphold all those things and more. You only uphold the "right" for someone with more money to outbid someone else's right to those things.
You care more about the rights of money than about the rights of people.
In so doing, you chase power for its own sake - just a different form of it and one that goes happily barreling after the government.
You hate government more than you love freedom, and that's a fact, jack.
Now make sure to get progressively drunker and drunker, and then lecture to me about why anyone without $10,000 to throw away should pretend to believe that you've got a viable political platform that's in any way relevant to his freedom.
If this sounds strident, it's because I'm being vilified by a once sober man, who might have one time been cognizant of how more successful partisans at least understood the concept of courteous reciprocal treatment, even if only for the purpose of saving their own political skin.
FDR threatened to pack the Court in order to get it to stop overturning his attempts at stupid economic regulation that served only to prolong the Depression.
Lol. Talk about a "gross oversimplification!" Anyone else buy this theory yet, or is it still in the realm of popular pulp in the Amazon "politics" section for shoppers browsing their latest editions of O'Reilly, Hannity and Beck?
Shlaes hasn't even attained the mantle of false equivalence that you grant to AGW science deniers, let alone a rational consensus. But I'm sure she does excite you! All of a sudden, after 75 years, someone comes along to vindicate the Great Republican 2008 Recession Way of Doing Things! Nevermind the gaping lacunae in her pretend pop thesis, she makes us feel vindicated! What joy!
I think you either need more to drink Chip or a different drug. ;-)
Reality's calling…
Have a good one and don't forget to turn out the light!
The idea that modern liberals are on the side of free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, or pretty much any other aspect of freedom is laughable.
Chip sure does like the idea of someone either in government or with enough corporate power to have those things. It's just not certain whether he thinks they're important to defend on behalf of others. You know, everyone else.
Let us know when you think you have the answer to that one, Chip.
I heard it Chick. I heard it last night. and yes I thought it was ok.
ChipS, You 11:24 comment is the best I have read anywhere this year. Superb.
Anybody who can slog through R&B's verbose crap and come up with a decent response should win a medal.
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