Reality Sets In

[eleanor]

Originally Posted by ichy_trigger

I wouldnt say Im hardline on the right but part of the problem with both sides is that we need to stop trying to place blame somewhere and just figure out a solution. Sometimes politicians start to relive their childhood with crying who is right and who is wrong. It would be nice for an independant to step in and say, "lets work together folks," and only have one agenda, fixing it. Lets hope that Bush and the dems will work together and come up with a sensible solution to getting Iraq back on its feet and on its own. No one likes war but stepping out right now is definately not the solution.

That's called pragmatism. It's actually a homegrown, American philosophy.

The current group of Republicans are NOT pragmatists. They are ideologues. I think they allow ideology to trump reality.

Every time we go down that path -- we run into trouble.

We are, and have been from the beginning, a very diverse nation. especially when compared to the nations of Europe. Just look at what was Yugoslavia -- ethnically very similar -- broke down on religious, tribal, and class differences.

In the USA we have had different ethnicities, religions, cultures co-exist and blend over our entire history. Whenever we tried to put one ideology, or one religion, in power in what has to be a secular nation -- we have run into trouble.

I think history proves America works best when we "live and let live" -- or just plain respect each others right to exist, live, and prosper.

The guys in power CANNOT just step back and see what works. That puts their entire ideology in jeopardy.

Remember, a couple of years ago one member of the administration said they "make their own reality" -- he was talking against the "reality based community". They actually talked that way.

That tells you the pride, hubris, unreality, you have to overcome to get these folks to "do what works".

That's one of the biggest problems.

It's like a post I read on another list where some guy was complaining about how bad things were for him. He then said he just "can't wait for 'the rapture' to happen".

He was so invested in his religious belief -- that instead of DOING something to help himself -- he was praying for the end.

There is a point where such total belief in almost anything can block you from positive action on your own behalf. It's not unlike crying "SOCIALISM" whenever almost anything that would help you is proposed -- because (I think) -- it might also help someone else. So, go against your own best interests just in case someone else might also get something.

Ideology vs. Pragmatism.

[eleanor]

Originally Posted by NewXD40fun

Try proving that Nancy, Murtha, Kerry, Rangel, et. al. want us to succeed.

Sorry, can't be done.


Tom

Good incisive thinking there!!

WOW -- do you actually have stuff to offer?

At least read TownHall, or NewsMax, and cut and paste something.

Maybe Malkin -- the attack dog -- has something you can adapt, or paste. Give your fans something to hold onto.

[NewXD40fun]

Originally Posted by eleanor

Good incisive thinking there!!

WOW -- do you actually have stuff to offer?

At least read TownHall, or NewsMax, and cut and paste something.

Maybe Malkin -- the attack dog -- has something you can adapt, or paste. Give your fans something to hold onto.

Oh Eleanor!

You should know by now that I don’t subscribe to your posting technique of pretentious circumlocution.

Ever hear of ‘executive summary’?



Tom

[eleanor]

Originally Posted by NewXD40fun

Oh Eleanor!

You should know by now that I don’t subscribe to your posting technique of pretentious circumlocution.

Ever hear of ‘executive summary’?



Tom

IE: Meaningless prattle.

Your post I commented on was little better than, "Oh Yeah!!"

I must say "pretentious circumlocution" does have a ring to it.

Totally inaccurate -- but it does sound like a critique.

Please notice -- I use no confusing jargon. Usually present rather clear declarative sentences.

Is this the way you intend to "discredit" me? Critique my writing style?

How typical.

Oh yeah -- by the way, "executive summary" is usually used when everyone is "on the same page" -- when clarification might be necessary, most folks actually write something that has meaning.

Then again, "executive summary" might just mean -- "I didn't take enough English.", or, "English is really my second language.".

[MikeA]

easy enough for the democrats now...just defund the war...they have the power.

mike

[eleanor]

Originally Posted by MikeA

easy enough for the democrats now...just defund the war...they have the power.

mike

Not that easy. if our Chief Executive wants to, he can "re-allocate" monies -- thus allowing for a "surge".

Defunding the war would require defense funding with very specific limitations on how money can be spent. Don't think that can be done in a week.

eventually, yes -- but for a while, I'm afraid our sons and daughters will have to pay the price for the President's overreaching, overweening pride and arrogance.

[bd]

Originally Posted by eleanor

Not that easy. if our Chief Executive wants to, he can "re-allocate" monies -- thus allowing for a "surge".

Defunding the war would require defense funding with very specific limitations on how money can be spent. Don't think that can be done in a week.

eventually, yes -- but for a while, I'm afraid our sons and daughters will have to pay the price for the President's overreaching, overweening pride and arrogance.

Expanding on what you said, this is an interesting article...

an excerpt...

... When Congress reconvenes, the Bush administration will submit a supplemental funding request to the defense budget of at least $100 billion to fund the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through the end of FY 2007. Although the new Congress should not refuse to provide the funds that the troops already in Iraq and Afghanistan need, it can place an amendment on the supplemental funding bill that states that if the administration wants to increase the number of troops in Iraq above 150,000, it must provide a plan for their purpose and require an up or down vote on exceeding that number. In addition, it can place limits on the mobilization of Guard and Reserve forces, and vote on key aspects of U.S. funding, including U.S. taxpayer money that is going to provide weapons and training to Iraqi security forces. At minimum, Congress should increase its oversight and demand a full-blown, detailed plan from the Bush administration on how it is preparing to stabilize Iraq and address the growing problems in the Middle East.

The entire article...

http://www.americanprogress.org/issu...iraq_memo.html

bd

[NewXD40fun]

Originally Posted by eleanor

That's called pragmatism. It's actually a homegrown, American philosophy.

The current group of Republicans are NOT pragmatists. They are ideologues. I think they allow ideology to trump reality.

Every time we go down that path -- we run into trouble.

We are, and have been from the beginning, a very diverse nation. especially when compared to the nations of Europe. Just look at what was Yugoslavia -- ethnically very similar -- broke down on religious, tribal, and class differences.

In the USA we have had different ethnicities, religions, cultures co-exist and blend over our entire history. Whenever we tried to put one ideology, or one religion, in power in what has to be a secular nation -- we have run into trouble.

I think history proves America works best when we "live and let live" -- or just plain respect each others right to exist, live, and prosper.

The guys in power CANNOT just step back and see what works. That puts their entire ideology in jeopardy.

Remember, a couple of years ago one member of the administration said they "make their own reality" -- he was talking against the "reality based community". They actually talked that way.

That tells you the pride, hubris, unreality, you have to overcome to get these folks to "do what works".

That's one of the biggest problems.

It's like a post I read on another list where some guy was complaining about how bad things were for him. He then said he just "can't wait for 'the rapture' to happen".

He was so invested in his religious belief -- that instead of DOING something to help himself -- he was praying for the end.

There is a point where such total belief in almost anything can block you from positive action on your own behalf. It's not unlike crying "SOCIALISM" whenever almost anything that would help you is proposed -- because (I think) -- it might also help someone else. So, go against your own best interests just in case someone else might also get something.

Ideology vs. Pragmatism.

I can read you liberals like a book. And my pal Mr. Goldberg says it a lot better than I.


Are you certain about that?

By Jonah Goldberg


Have you heard the news? Belief is bad

Pick up an eggheady book review, an essay in Time magazine or listen to a thumb-suck session on National Public Radio for very long and you'll soon hear someone explain that real conviction - dogmatism! - is dangerous. Andrew Sullivan, in his new book "The Conservative Soul," declares a jihad on certainty, by which he means the certainty of fundamentalist "Christianists" - the allusion to Islamists is deliberate. The New Republic's Jonathan Chait proclaims that liberalism is the anti-dogmatic ideology. Sam Harris, a leading proselytizer for atheism, has declared a one-man crusade on religious certainty. Intellectual historian J.P. Diggins writes in the latest issue of The American Interest that there's a war afoot for "the soul of the American Republic" between the forces of skepticism and infallibility. And so on.

Much of this stems from the popularity of Bush hatred these days. Bush's alleged "messianic certainty" - to use Sen. Barack Obama's words - is dangerous and evil in the eyes of supposedly meek and nuanced liberals.

The rot, not surprisingly, has reached Hollywood. For example, in "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith," George Lucas caved to the fashionable anti-absolutism that comes with Bush hatred by having a young Obi-Wan Kenobi proclaim, "Only a Sith lord deals in absolutes!" Translation: Only evil people see the world as black-and-white. This signaled that Lucas's descent into hackery was complete, since it was Lucas himself who originally explained that the entire universe is divided into light and dark sides.
Longtime New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis captured the thought nicely a few years ago when he said that a primary lesson of his entire career was that "certainty is the enemy of decency and humanity in people who are sure they are right, like Osama bin Laden and John Ashcroft."

Whenever I hear people say such things, I like to ask them, "Are you sure about that?" When they say yes, which they always do, I follow up by asking, "No, no: Are you really, really certain that certainty is bad?" At some point even the irony-deficient get the joke.

But they still don't understand that the joke is on them. Virtually every hero in human history has been driven by certainty, by the courage of their convictions. Sir Thomas More and Socrates chose certain death, pun intended, over uncertain life. Martin Luther King Jr. - to pick liberalism's most iconic hero - was hardly plagued with doubt about the rightness of his cause. A Rosa Parks charged with today's reigning moral imperative not to be too sure of herself might not have sat at the front of the bus. An FDR certain that certainty is the enemy of decency and humanity might have declined to declare total war on Nazism for fear of becoming as bad as his enemy.

The fact is that unless you know where you stand, it's unlikely you'll have the courage to understand where someone else is coming from.
Obviously, there's more than a grain of truth to the view that closed-mindedness is bad. Immunity to new facts and a smug confidence that you couldn't possibly be wrong are serious character flaws and the source of grave mistakes. Yes, of course, dogmatism can be very bad, if the dogma in question is bad. But, as Chesterton teaches, a dogmatic conviction can also be morally praiseworthy and socially valuable. If you doubt that, let us now commence the war on the certainty that murder is wrong, that racism is bad and that a parent's love should be unconditional.

This ultimately is my problem with the anti-certainty chorus; they aren't offended by conviction per se, but by convictions they do not hold. Jean-Paul Sartre famously wrote that "hell is other people." Well, for the new "liberal" champions of skepticism and philosophical humility, hell is the certainty of other people. "Closed-minded" has come to mean "people who disagree with me." (This is a corollary to the popular tendency of defining "diversity" as a bunch of people who look different but think alike). So, for example, pro-lifers have an unshakable "dogmatic" and "faith-based" certainty that abortion is wrong. But, we are told, pro-choicers are merely open-minded and realists. People who are certain gay marriage is good are "enlightened" people, while those whose convictions point elsewhere are zealots.

In other words, certainty has become code among the intellectual priesthood for people and ideas that can be dismissed out of hand. That's what is so offensive about this fashionable nonsense: It breeds the very closed-mindedness it pretends to fight.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I feel like a 'hero'.


See eleanor and Delija? I have you pegged, you are normal liberals and you cannot help but ridicule people with strong convictions and 'certainty'. Sorry, but your moral relativism is the EASY way.



Tom

[eleanor]

Originally Posted by NewXD40fun

I can read you liberals like a book. And my pal Mr. Goldberg says it a lot better than I.


Are you certain about that?

By Jonah Goldberg


Have you heard the news? Belief is bad

Pick up an eggheady book review, an essay in Time magazine or listen to a thumb-suck session on National Public Radio for very long and you'll soon hear someone explain that real conviction - dogmatism! - is dangerous. Andrew Sullivan, in his new book "The Conservative Soul," declares a jihad on certainty, by which he means the certainty of fundamentalist "Christianists" - the allusion to Islamists is deliberate. The New Republic's Jonathan Chait proclaims that liberalism is the anti-dogmatic ideology. Sam Harris, a leading proselytizer for atheism, has declared a one-man crusade on religious certainty. Intellectual historian J.P. Diggins writes in the latest issue of The American Interest that there's a war afoot for "the soul of the American Republic" between the forces of skepticism and infallibility. And so on.

Much of this stems from the popularity of Bush hatred these days. Bush's alleged "messianic certainty" - to use Sen. Barack Obama's words - is dangerous and evil in the eyes of supposedly meek and nuanced liberals.

The rot, not surprisingly, has reached Hollywood. For example, in "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith," George Lucas caved to the fashionable anti-absolutism that comes with Bush hatred by having a young Obi-Wan Kenobi proclaim, "Only a Sith lord deals in absolutes!" Translation: Only evil people see the world as black-and-white. This signaled that Lucas's descent into hackery was complete, since it was Lucas himself who originally explained that the entire universe is divided into light and dark sides.
Longtime New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis captured the thought nicely a few years ago when he said that a primary lesson of his entire career was that "certainty is the enemy of decency and humanity in people who are sure they are right, like Osama bin Laden and John Ashcroft."

Whenever I hear people say such things, I like to ask them, "Are you sure about that?" When they say yes, which they always do, I follow up by asking, "No, no: Are you really, really certain that certainty is bad?" At some point even the irony-deficient get the joke.

But they still don't understand that the joke is on them. Virtually every hero in human history has been driven by certainty, by the courage of their convictions. Sir Thomas More and Socrates chose certain death, pun intended, over uncertain life. Martin Luther King Jr. - to pick liberalism's most iconic hero - was hardly plagued with doubt about the rightness of his cause. A Rosa Parks charged with today's reigning moral imperative not to be too sure of herself might not have sat at the front of the bus. An FDR certain that certainty is the enemy of decency and humanity might have declined to declare total war on Nazism for fear of becoming as bad as his enemy.

The fact is that unless you know where you stand, it's unlikely you'll have the courage to understand where someone else is coming from.
Obviously, there's more than a grain of truth to the view that closed-mindedness is bad. Immunity to new facts and a smug confidence that you couldn't possibly be wrong are serious character flaws and the source of grave mistakes. Yes, of course, dogmatism can be very bad, if the dogma in question is bad. But, as Chesterton teaches, a dogmatic conviction can also be morally praiseworthy and socially valuable. If you doubt that, let us now commence the war on the certainty that murder is wrong, that racism is bad and that a parent's love should be unconditional.

This ultimately is my problem with the anti-certainty chorus; they aren't offended by conviction per se, but by convictions they do not hold. Jean-Paul Sartre famously wrote that "hell is other people." Well, for the new "liberal" champions of skepticism and philosophical humility, hell is the certainty of other people. "Closed-minded" has come to mean "people who disagree with me." (This is a corollary to the popular tendency of defining "diversity" as a bunch of people who look different but think alike). So, for example, pro-lifers have an unshakable "dogmatic" and "faith-based" certainty that abortion is wrong. But, we are told, pro-choicers are merely open-minded and realists. People who are certain gay marriage is good are "enlightened" people, while those whose convictions point elsewhere are zealots.

In other words, certainty has become code among the intellectual priesthood for people and ideas that can be dismissed out of hand. That's what is so offensive about this fashionable nonsense: It breeds the very closed-mindedness it pretends to fight.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I feel like a 'hero'.


See eleanor and Delija? I have you pegged, you are normal liberals and you cannot help but ridicule people with strong convictions and 'certainty'. Sorry, but your moral relativism is the EASY way.



Tom

"Moral Relativism"???

Before I even bother to read the entire neo-con screed -- which I will after dinner.

Please show me where I am guilty of "moral relativism"?

All you can do is cut, paste, and use canned phrases.

common, be that paragon of right wing virtue all your fans demand of you.

Sheesh!!!

[bd]

I'm sure Saddam Hussein thought he was a hero too. Along with Hitler, Idi Amin and Jim Jones they all thought if they didn't "stand for something, they'd fall for anything"..... to paraphrase one of the "heroes" of the entertainment industry.



bd