12 posts tagged “politics”
Awesome tragic truths:
From Politics and the English Language by George Orwell (yes, that guy):
...one ought to recognise that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end. If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase — some jackboot, Achilles’ heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse — into the dustbin where it belongs.
Economic Left/Right: 3.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.56
Take the test at PoliticalCompass.org
Hat tip: Stephen
If you don't have time to answer six pages of questions, try the quiz at the Advocates for Self-Government. It only has eight questions. This is my result from the World's Smallest Political Quiz.
I've accumulated several articles I wanted to post on over the past few days and never got around to doing so. Rather than posting each one, I'm just going to group them as Good Reads--which they are.
- Trampled And Twisted By Conservatives, 'L-Word' Should Be Revived: Clarence Page bemoans that the 'greatest triumph that conservatives ever achieved is to make liberals embarrassed to call themselves "liberal."'
- In Freedom Isn't Free, Frank asks some frank questions such as "In relation to the
community we occupy - how do we negotiate our individual freedoms?"
- 7 Clever Google Tricks Worth Knowing: Self explanatory. Check them out.
- Oh those devilish Normans! Were the Normans responsible for the upsurge in demon possessions that swept England after the 1066 AD invation? One study suggests so.
It's not my usual practice to post entire articles. However, C.T. Rossi's article "on the ancient philosophical battle against the neocons" makes so many excellent points that it defies my ability to summarize or choose an excerpt that characterizes the whole.
Lord Polonius: What do you read, my lord?
Hamlet: Words, words, words.
Lord Polonius: What is the matter, my lord?
Hamlet: Between who?
Lord Polonius: I mean, the matter that you read, my lord.– Hamlet, II, ii, 191–195
Perhaps the greatest crime against Americans has been the debasement of our currency – though I am not talking about fiat money. What I am talking about is the debasement of our words and ideas.
There is something about words. Essentially they are the vessels of our ideas. It was Cicero who observed that only two things separate man from the beast, ratio et oratio – reason and the ability to speak. If we are robbed of our ideas or the means to pass our ideas along to others, our intellectual economy is destroyed and with it the underpinnings of society itself.
There is something sacred about words. Christ Himself is worshipped as the logos – a Greek word infinitely richer than our word for "word." Is there any greater joy than that of a parent watching their infant progress in the development of the ability to recognize, react and speak? Is their any greater sadness than a child watching a parent descend into the foggy mists of dementia, the second childhood?
But awe-inspiring as meaningful words are, words without meaning are vampiric monsters of the mind. Nature abhors a vacuum, and these empty words tend to suck the life out of all that they encounter. The wastelands which such words naturally inhabit are the wilds of political speech. The words of politicos are crafted to be empty, like an intellectual dribble cup. They are designed to fill the belly and pacify, if not stultify, the listener. Meanwhile, the political ideas of our leaders remain shrouded behind the shield of blather.
While politicians have most certainly always been men whose stock and trade was the empty phrase, a critical eye turned to today’s political establishment shows that we have done history a turn worse. Our politicians have ceased to believe in ideas themselves, as noted by the White House aide who presciently remarked that, as the vanguard of the American Empire, the neo-cons are free to "create our own reality."
Notable intellectuals have commented on such folly. Richard Weaver charged us to remember that ideas have consequences. Fyodor Dostoevsky, in his Brothers Karamazov, explored the theme that if God does not exist, everything is permissible.
As fantastical as it may seem, the rise of the neo-con empire of self-creating reality is the latest chapter in a battle between two medieval scholastics – St. Thomas Aquinas and William of Ockham.
Without descending too deeply into the world of metaphysics (and vastly simplifying it as well), Thomas held the moderate realist position, that the idea, or form, of something is really found in the things themselves (hence the term metaphysical "realist"). William’s position was that we just give things names for the sake of convenience. William, therefore, was a nominalist.
Thomas would say that there is a quality of "treeness" found in certain objects in the world and so we call them trees. William counters that every tree is different from every other tree and so we just label them as "trees" to make things easier. Botany aside, this is not the silly little argument it may seem.
Instead of trees, let’s use the word "freedom." The followers of Thomas would look at human interactions and relationships and see if there was any common "freedomness" that could be detected, i.e. individuals being allowed control over their own minds, bodies, associations, and speech. Meanwhile, Ockhamites would say that "freedom," like every other word, is a mere linguistic convenience. If our Ockhamite was also a "patriotic" American, he might say that since America is a "free" country, "freedom" is shorthand for whatever it is that Americans do. And since it is too difficult to say what every American does, it’s even a better, more efficient shorthand to link freedom to what the American government does.
How many times have you heard the argument that Americans are free because we have elected leaders or because of "checks and balances" or because we have a Constitution? Do you ever hear that Americans are free because they may have liberty to do as they please, keep all the property that they have acquired by their own labor, and speak boldly and candidly their thoughts? The reason you never hear the second descriptors used to describe American freedom is the result of nominalists (most of our current political, intellectual, media and judicial elites) reading documents written ostensibly by realists (the Founders) – they just don’t get it.
In the current race for president, Ron Paul is the only man who speaks like a metaphysical realist. His unassuming personality takes a backseat to what he calls the "message of freedom." In his speeches he addresses those particularities of "freedomness" that are the essential elements of real freedom. What is most striking about Dr. Paul, and what makes him most dangerous to the establishment, is that he actually believes that freedom is real and that people can obtain it.
By contrast, the dominant nominalist metaphysics of the other candidates, Democrat or Republican, is apparent in their words. They talk as if reality is optional, as if it were a cake which they can prepare in their own signature style. They promise a reality where there is complete "security," a reality where property is "reallocated" from rich to poor, a reality where "money" is printed at will to "keep the economy strong." These alternative realities (impossible to really create) may sound attractive to some people but one thing is for sure – none of them bear the indicia of "freedomness." These political visions also make it clear that none of the "mainstream" candidates seem to have ever considered that freedom is anything more than an empty word – a paltry slogan.
Regardless of whether Ron Paul is successful in his bid for the White House, he has shown that most Americans are instinctually Thomistic in their belief that freedom is a real thing. He has also shown that our would-be emperors not only have no clothes, but have no idea what freedom even is.
One of my pet peeves in the American electoral process is voters who choose candidates based on one issue. Peter, at On Philosophy, has an interesting article in which he describes single issue voters as "a privileged group of people whose opinion counts for more." He explains how a vocal minority maneuvers to impose its will on the majority. So all you who choose your candidates solely because s/he is pro-choice or pro-life, for or against gay marriage, pro-war or anti-war, some of us are on to you. The rest of you, wise up! Read this article!
WASHINGTON (AP) — Liberal Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold said Sunday he wants Congress to censure President Bush for his management of the Iraq war and his "assault" against the Constitution.
But Feingold's own party leader in the Senate showed little interest in the idea. An attempt in 2006 by Feingold to censure Bush over the warrantless spying program attracted only three co-sponsors.
Feingold, a prominent war critic, said he soon plans to offer two censure resolutions — measures that would amount to a formal condemnation of the Republican president.
The first would seek to reprimand Bush for, as Feingold described it, getting the nation into war without adequate military preparation and for issuing misleading public statements. The resolution also would cite Vice President Dick Cheney and perhaps other administration officials.
The second measure would seek to censure Bush for what the Democrat called a continuous assault against the rule of law through such efforts as the warrantless surveillance program against suspected terrorists, Feingold said. It would also ask for a reprimand of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and maybe others.
From USA Today
I totally agree with Sen. Feingold. However the issue of censure brings to light another reason why I will not support the Democratic Party. It is a party of status quo.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Feingold's proposals showed the nation's frustration. But Reid said he would not go along with them and said the Senate needs to focus on finishing spending bills on defense and homeland security.
There's a lot I could say about this article but most of it goes without saying, so why bother? I just hate finding myself in agreement with Cal Thomas.
"Sen. Clinton is entitled to whatever faith she wants to practice, but when she uses it as an election tactic, she should not be allowed to alter classic Christian theology," Thomas concluded.
That goes for Bush, Romney, Obama, and all the rest.
Republicans -- right-wing conservative Republicans, who have blazed a trail of hatred and bigotry against gay people for 20+ years -- are positioning themselves as the alternative for gay people tired of Democratic duplicity.
The mind boggles. The jaw drops. The eyes cross.
How desperate can the Republicans get, as their party continues to crumble into dust?
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