Once again I am left virtually speechless but the sheer blind rage in this election. The moral leaders of the Church in the Valley in Leakey, Texas felt that it was appropriate to post this sign reading: “Vote for the Mormon, not the Muslim! The capitalist, not the communist!” Putting aside the violation of its tax-exempt status, church leaders thought nothing of the lesson given their children in making such false and prejudicial statements. It shows the dangerously thin line that separates the faithful from the hateful in our society.
Of course, in addition to repeating the false statement about President Obama’s religion, the sign adds the common and equally ridiculous mantra about his being a communist. A term that, when pressed, seems beyond definition for some of these protesters.
The Church in the Valley headed by Pastor Ray Miller (who came up with the idea of the sign) sees nothing wrong is defining people primarily by their alleged faith — whether it is falsely Obama as a Muslim or Romney as a Mormon.
Equally disgusting is the response of a least one local businessman who insist that the controversy will be good for business. Damon White is quoted as saying “I love it. Even if it’s bad attention, bring it on. Come to town, see what it’s about.” Well, Mr. White, we certainly now know what you are about. It does not matter if it is unfair, prejudicial, and disrespectful, it is good for business. Now there is a lesson for the children of Leakey, Texas.
Notably, on its website, the Church proclaims “We believe our faith should be visible in concrete forms and models of personal and social behavior.” That model appears to include insulting and prejudicial statements about people with whom you disagree as well as use of false claims to achieve your political ends. I don’t recall the passage where Jesus Christ led the smear campaign against Pontius Pilatus. Indeed, I seem to recall something out “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” Perhaps but it does not sum up Paster Miller or the good people of the Church of the Valley.
Source: KENS as first seen on Reddit.
gkb – “Gee, enoch, I can’t read your Aramic inscriptions, so I guess you’ll just have to assume your own stance.”
That would be because it isn’t Aramaic. A scholar would know that.
Someone wrote, “This is a specious response, enochwisner. One cannot ignore the fact that slavery was morally acceptable and legally permissible for much of human history and encompassed many times and cultures.”
2) “slave
Etymology:
From Middle English, from Old French sclave, from Mediaeval Latin sclavus (“‘slave’”) < Byzantine Greek σκλάβος < Old Slavonic словѣнинъ, словѣне (Slav). Slavs were often enslaved during the early Middle Ages, hence the semantic correspondence. }"
Source and further information:
===
Properly speaking, then, one is only a "slave" whose condition of those Slavs from which the word derives. The Romans had those called "servus". In the ancient Greek city-states, a number of different names and rules applied to those one might mistakenly call a "slave;" but, since, "slave," only dates to the Middle Ages, these cannot be discussed under the same term. Similarly, in ancient Juda, there were distinct classifications of those even now described as "slaves" in translation – each living under very different terms, and neither being remotely comparable to the Greek ἀνδράποδον.
Pending more specificity regarding the commenter means by, "slave," the proof of his comment cannot be discussed.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/22/1148253/-Poll-shows-vast-majority-back-Obama-The-Irish-Times Seventy nine percent surveyed in Ireland prefer O’Bama to Romney. No wonder I like it better there than in Texas with its weirdo red neck population.. The only thing that will save the place politically is the rapidly rising latino population. Obama is running 70% with them.
Oh snap!
enochwisner,
“You remind me of someone else on this board, which forces me to ask you to give the distinctions between עבד כנן and עבד ‘שראל
“I’m sorry, but the request is necessary, gkb. How you define these will determine your understanding of the use of the word, “slave,” particularly across cultures and i history.”
Gee, enoch, I can’t read your Aramic inscriptions, so I guess you’ll just have to assume your own stance.
My understanding of the word “slave” isn’t what’s being determined here, enoch, it’s the validity of your argument that’s being determined. So why don’t you look up slavery/slave in your Oxford circa 1955 and go for it.
Enoch,
I take the liberty of deriding you.
You remind me of the windvane that however the farmer tries to correct its cant, always returns to what some call the libertarianism wind that does not exist in reality.
You again leave reality in favor of principles:
“Life isn’t fair, and neither law nor philosophy may be any fairer, but at least there can be no claim of malice when we all run exactly the same risks.”
One percenter run very few risks compared with the 99 percent. Enough said?
As for you objecting to your taxes contributing to the oil depletion allowance, I had not noted you bringing up before any arguments which would effect the one percent if your principles were applied. Quick recovery, but honest—no!
The longer you spend here the weaker your arguments become.
Admit your prejudice and political home. That would be reality-connected.
I thought you would give GeneH a good match. You remind me of myself fighting the undertow in Bali. The sand that I stood on just ran away. How’s your footing?
Final words are yours. You amuse me no more.
So do they think they are getting around the law by not putting up any names and just referring to a religion or economic policy? Grey areas! Ha!
I’m sorry, but the request is necessary, gkb. How you define these will determine your understanding of the use of the word, “slave,” particularly across cultures and i history.
gkb – You remind me of someone else on this board, which forces me to ask you to give the distinctions between עבד כנן and עבד ‘שראל
oops.
enochwisner,
“Did slavery become wrong, or did law and society finally catch up with the notion that they had always been wrong? Were Jim Crow laws ever right?”
This is a specious response, enochwisner. One cannot ignore the fact that slavery was morally acceptable and legally permissible for much of human history and encompassed many times and cultures.
To pretend that this was not so and that the world’s cultures have finally caught up to an absolute “notion” that only libertarians such as yourself have recently uncovered is laughable.
You show your true colors in using your comment to slip in your anti-taxing rant suggesting that the issue of taxation is a wrong notion that only the brilliance of libertarian thought can expose, and that we less insightful persons must again catch up with.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/22/1147831/-Todd-Akin-calls-the-president-a-Commie This is not just about some funky church in Texas. Racism is at the core of the Romney Rove national strategy. Look at the polls. It is working very well with white men.
Mike – Did slavery become wrong, or did law and society finally catch up with the notion that they had always been wrong? Were Jim Crow laws ever right?
I admit, though, that my account is simplistic in a way. It is certainly very easy to offer real ethical conundrums that seem to refuse solution.
I have written to Bron that I believe our scheme of rights rests on a fiction – a very important fiction, but a fiction no less: that they descend to us from a Creator we can by no means be sure even exists. Rather than rely on that fiction for a comprehensive scheme of rights, we may be able to find a few fairly narrowly defined rights we can agree to as if they were God-given – such as the right to free speech, or to keep your dollar from government unless it gives you, from whom it was taken, “just” compensation in return. But it is your dollar pending that compensation, and that compensation must be as personally yours. I reject the proposition that someone else’s benefit satisfies my claim to compensation for a government taking.
Enoch,
“Whenever the meaning of a word is in doubt – MY doubt, Gene, not yours – I use the Oxford dictionaries – the Universal, 1955 ed. mostly, and occasionally the on-line Oxford. I use “etymologyonline.com” when the Oxford Universal doesn’t give a thorough enough history of a word. For legal terms, I use any one of several on-line legal dictionaries. For foreign words and expressions, I have several foreign language dictionaries.”
Then again, your choices in sources are insufficient when discussing technical matters.
“So, go take your pills. Enjoy the universe you inhabit alone, and simply accept the fact that I don’t consider a fundamentally dishonest person worthy of my debate.”
Fundamentally dishonest? I’m not the one who was arguing from faulty definitions and logical fallacy the other day. However, that was not my criticism of your statements on this thread. Try to maintain some kind of focus. I know! It’s hard, but try.
I wasn’t questioning your definitions, dufus. I was stating that your suppositions were based on factual inaccuracies which can result either from your ignorance (my vote) or from intentional deception (i.e. you know better and are deliberately lying). That you took a critical attack on the factual veracity of what you were saying as being legal bullshit (and it was by the plain language of the Constitution) and tried to make our disagreement on this thread about your semantic deficiencies is what is known as a straw man. So you compounded being factually wrong with logical fallacies. The take your pills thing is cute though. It really highlights that you have no substantive counterargument to being factually wrong earlier in this thread – which is indeed what is at issue here and not your being wrong in your semantics as you were on a previous thread.
“Oh. One more thing. Post what you like, I will not reply to you.”
As if you posting replies would make any difference to me shredding the gibberish you post. You really can’t argue worth a damn to start with. Both your assertions and responses are devoid of logical and evidentiary substantive content. Whether or not you decide to defend your assertions is entirely up to you. But argument from ignorance and straw men and other fallacious defenses? Are not tactics that are going to serve you well.
Unless you just like being made to look like a fool that is.
A distinct possibility in your case.
idealist707 – You write, “No, since I see that I must contribute via my taxes to the oil depletion allowance, even though I do NOT qualify for them either.”
Apply my rule to both sides of taxation, and you’ll see that I must consider the oil depletion contribution illegitimate as well.
I know that it is not followed so in law or public policy, but my construction of equal rights is absolute: neither law nor public policy should be allowed to take any cognizance of any quality severable from the simple humanity of the person – not race, wealth, health, gender, national origin, religion, age, etc., etc., etc.
one
one
one
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oneBron – There’s a nasty little problem with objective rights, though. Ayn Rand understood the problem…the solution, not so much. The problem is, there hasn’t been found yet an ethical proposition that does not, in some perfectly plausible circumstance, self-contradict. Kant got that part, too; but, like Rand, he couldn’t resolve the problem.
I’m convinced that this was the recognition that inspired that famous line in the Declaration, “…endowed by their Creator…”. The only unassailable scheme of ethics is the divine command theory. Every other approach on this topic has obstacles to it, in the form of objection from other writers. Aristotle answered Plato’s “Republic” in “Nicomachean Ethics;” Mill answered Bentham with, “On Liberty;” and, Nozick answered Rawls with, “Anarchy, State and Utopia”. The only device (and it is only a device – as philosophy, it stinks) around this trap of self-contradictions is, “God said it – no more debate”.
Compare Jefferson’s wording in the Declaration with Mason’s wording of the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights: “I. That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.” Many believe that Jefferson was only paraphrasing Mason with, “…all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable right; that, among these, are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”. The literature already made Mason’s account questionable. Calling on “their Creator” rendered Jefferson’s wording a bit harder to argue with…unless one were going to argue against the existence of a Creator in the first place. I believe that Jefferson meant precisely what Mason meant – but he wanted to take as much wiggle-room from the notion as possible.
Regardless, an unalterable scheme of rights, even if it does miscarry in some instance, has this going for it: it will play no favorites in the miscarriage. I demure to the lawyers here if I’m wrong, but I believe the same principle still applies in that field: yes, the law may sometimes lead to undesirable outcomes, but our protection lies in its even and equal application, to all citizens and in all circumstances. Life isn’t fair, and neither law nor philosophy may be any fairer, but at least there can be no claim of malice when we all run exactly the same risks.
This is hardly the case when law tries to make outcomes, “fair”. Even supposing it will achieve that end in every operation, it comes to seem malicious when, even without being unfair, there is a failure to apply the law in the first place: “My neighbor was helped, but I was ignored…”.
Mike Spindell:
the changes you note were not codified in laws, except for slavery. Which, as Condoleezza Rice so eloquently pointed out, was a birth defect of our founding.
That some people have a problem understanding individual rights is not a reason for changing the laws, it is a reason to enforce them to their full extent. The federal government was asleep during Jim Crow, states do not have the power to deny people their rights.
testing bold