tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post7999038172819723830..comments2024-03-28T12:29:39.157-07:00Comments on Graphic Firing Table: Looking for fitzUrseFDChiefhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-5675388768814040392012-02-15T11:36:51.200-07:002012-02-15T11:36:51.200-07:00I agree that that there are differences between pr...I agree that that there are differences between princes of the church and the princes who rule the USA. The church is not a hereditary oligarchy (by design).<br /><br />I further agree that we have too little popular input into the decisions inflicted upon us.<br /><br />When you hear nonsense debates about dancing entitlements on a pin or the number of devils in a welfare reform, the important thing is to realize that the actual topic has no meaning whatsoever. Rather positions taken and arguments launched are simply a matter of moving poker chips/ chess pieces around the board, tracking alliances and defections.<br /><br />The *actual* policy gets written in a backroom by the winners a few minutes before the final (purely formal) vote (which isn't supposed to change anything (but it does) and is only slowly disclosed to the public (who isn't looking anyway except for perhaps a few wonks/historians who can put things together months (or more likely years) later.Aelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10788190394672505925noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-62323472317553842372012-02-14T13:37:21.772-07:002012-02-14T13:37:21.772-07:001. The U.S. has always been an oligarchy; that do...1. The U.S. has always been an oligarchy; that doesn't mean that it has "princes" in the sense that the term applies to the princes of teh church.<br /><br />2. Communism is a religion. A hell of a lot of the GOP as currently constituted is a religion. The Democratic Party is a political party.<br /><br />Here's my criteria. First, when you stop requiring even a modicum of factual evidence and logical linkage in developing your political views, you're a religion. And IMO you should be put in severe jeopardy of being barred from the political process in a genuine democracy.<br /><br />And, second, there has to be a willingness to play by the secular rules. One thing the neo-con Right seems to love to say whenever the need to arrest and imprison some poor mook without trial is "the Constitution is not a suicide pact". I believe this is true, but not in the sense they use it.<br /><br />Neither a Roman Catholic theocracy nor a Communist dictatorship of the proletariat would voluntarily yield power if defeated at the ballot box. They don't want to play by the rules. The modern GOP is nearly as bad; it's becoming obvious to me that they refuse to acknowledge an electoral defeat as the repudiation of their policies rather than some sort of political dirty trick.<br /><br />And that's where is disagree that "those in power seldom worry about right and wrong". Look at the mania for "austerity" in Britain and the EU in the face of the Lesser Depression, look at the constant demands for "reform" of entitlements or the mania for privitization here in the U.S. GOP despite pantsloads of data in all these cases that their "solutions" and ideas are not just bad but the worst possible course of action.<br /><br />That's because they're not really acting on the "demands of the current political (or economic) situation" but because Pain Is Right' because austerity is What We Need and suffering drives out inflation or deficits or some such shit when as Charlie Pierce loves to repeat, <i>"Fk the deficit; people got no jobs, people got no money."</i><br /><br />Like I said - our problem isn't that we have too much popular revolt but too little; we've already let the princes of commerce and the princes of religion have waaaay too much space in the public square. We - the little we, the common folk - would be a damn sight better off if we showed them the rope and the nearest lamppost.<br /><br />We won't, but we would be.FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-71894972233955010012012-02-14T12:31:51.301-07:002012-02-14T12:31:51.301-07:00While your constitution may be against princes, yo...While your constitution may be against princes, your country sure has a lot of em. (or what would call the Kennedy's, the Bush's, etc. etc.)<br /><br />I also note that you earlier expanded the concept of religion to include communism. This, of course, means that anyone who *believes* in something being right or wrong is under immediate suspicion once they start advocating for it.<br /><br />Luckily for us, those in power seldom worry about right and wrong and are driven by the demands of the current political situation.Aelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10788190394672505925noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-80152875026064084302012-02-13T11:58:27.390-07:002012-02-13T11:58:27.390-07:00"The moment that any of the above try to enac...<i>"The moment that any of the above try to enact their doctrine into public law they need to be whacked about the skull with something sharp and pointy."</i><br /><br />Let me revise that; the religious get to TRY...but the moment that any elected or appointed official LETS them, the official gets the axe.<br /><br />No exceptions. We've let WAY too many religious and social prejudices get enacted into law in this country. We need fewer, not more, and this issue wouldn't be a bad place to start.FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-5572379555839606682012-02-13T11:55:25.704-07:002012-02-13T11:55:25.704-07:00Ael: Agreed - which is why our Constitution is dea...Ael: Agreed - which is why our Constitution is dead set against princes and we should remember that princes of the Church are princes all the same.<br /><br />Like I said; hierarchical religion is not a discussion group. If you take your religion seriously you accept that God says it, I believe it, and that settles it. That's not an acceptable attitude for a democracy and never will be. I noted above that one of our most serious current problems is not just that rational argument is over-rated but that in a hell of a lot of cases we've abandoned rationality all together.<br /><br />I'd love for all religions to adopt the attitude towards individual liberty and conscience of the Society of Friends. But until then I restate; religion is the opiate of democracy and must, MUST be kept within the church doors. <br /><br />Individuals get to debate, act, and vote their religious principles. Prelates get to preach from the pulpits. The moment that any of the above try to enact their doctrine into public law they need to be whacked about the skull with something sharp and pointy.FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-64771912793042380642012-02-13T10:55:07.253-07:002012-02-13T10:55:07.253-07:00Chief,
You *way* overestimate the power of ration...Chief,<br /><br />You *way* overestimate the power of rational argument, especially where it collides with self interest.<br /><br />You deal with powerful bishops in the same way you deal with powerful princes - everything has to do with the constant jockeying for position in the greased pole contest that is human politics.<br /><br />Deeply held religious beliefs can morph as appropriate. Look at the Mormon church and black priests as an example. I further expect that the Catholic church will abandon celibacy for priests and ordain women sometime in the future.Aelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10788190394672505925noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-13519858411799541772012-02-13T07:22:48.297-07:002012-02-13T07:22:48.297-07:00I don't think it has anything to do really wit...I don't think it has anything to do really with who's bonking who; the pedophile priest thing is a nasty side-effect of a celibate clergy without a wholesome way to exercise an immensely powerful side of human nature. But that's not what I see as the problem with clerical politicking.<br /><br />I would argue that the problem with religion-as-politics is two fold.<br /><br />First, if you let it in if makes for terrible politics.<br /><br />When you make your Federal Reserve policy on what God says, how the hell do you argue that? If I had to pick the single hugest problem in U.S. politics as it already exists it would be that the Right had chosen to put its faith in a semi-religious sort of magical thinking. So we no longer have to explain, argue, or debate why tilting federal commerce, labor, and trade policy to favor the <i>rentier</i> portion of society rather than the workers is good; it's because the Magical Free Market says so!<br /><br />And the second is that religion CANNOT be democratic. It's the very essence and nature of religion. Do you get to debate with God? How well does that work?<br /><br />Religion HAS to be - from the clerical standpoint, not as an individual exercise in conscience but as a profession - a very strict top-down sort of business. The cleric stands closer to God than the layman.<br /><br />So...despotic politicians? Bad, very bad.<br /><br />But prelates - whether they are despotic by nature or not - are by the very nature of their calling despots. Benevolent despots, hopefully, but despots by trade. You cannot separate the two, no matter how lovely the man or woman who sits in the curile chair.<br /><br />Hence my fear of theocracy, and the point of this post.FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-26099158800569161192012-02-13T07:13:03.519-07:002012-02-13T07:13:03.519-07:00Leon: One thing Becket did as chancellor was came ...Leon: One thing Becket did as chancellor was came all hard on the bishops over the monies due the crown. Plantagenet thought he would continue this when he became a prelate, but like a good attorney he was able to switch immediately to his new client's side and was a hard a man fighting against the Crown as he had been for it.<br /><br />Ael: No question that quasi-religious political authoritarianism is a bad thing for people in general, whether it comes out of the Bible or "Capital". But for me the crucial element that makes it really pernicious is whether the source is debatable or not.<br /><br />When the jackboots come with a cross, or a crescent, or a star, or, hell, a Buddhist wheel on them it becomes damn deadly difficult to get them off your neck because you're arguing not with a Hitler but with God's Own Trademark.<br /><br />That was the real evil genius of Communism; it made a religion of its ideology, realizing that if you indoctrinated people with faith instead of politics you made not voters or adherents but converts and crusaders.<br /><br />So I will always be more fearful, more suspicious and therefore more violently antipathetic of any attempt to allow religious or quasi-religious elements into U.S. politicsFDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-89339159220259256392012-02-12T23:56:30.736-07:002012-02-12T23:56:30.736-07:00Sirrah, I will for once defend those damn politico...Sirrah, I will for once defend those damn politicos from your infernal slander! <br /><br />While they may be self-serving, conniving, malodorous, greedy, shallow, pig-headed, short-sighted, immoral, rapacious, greedy (did I already say that?), egotistical, self-absorbed and generally unpleasant. I will defend them in that they mostly sought relations with interns (of legal age), staffers, prostitutes (of both sexes) and strange men in airport restrooms. <br /><br />They usually avoided altar boys and other children.<br /><br />If I had an internet glove, I would consider flinging it, sirrah, at your face. As long as you were a parapalegic who can't pick up a pencil much less a sword.Leonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15715768191516712688noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-37480667598609967662012-02-12T23:14:31.224-07:002012-02-12T23:14:31.224-07:00I dunno Chief.
Yes, the Catholic Church is an ext...I dunno Chief.<br /><br />Yes, the Catholic Church is an extremely old, extremely successful human institution. And, as you mentioned, it behaves exactly like all other human institutions. <br /><br />I don't agree that there is a fundamental difference between politicians and bishops. They both can be dangerous and it doesn't matter whether their followers wear brown robes or brown shirts.Aelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10788190394672505925noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-13646479386735796432012-02-12T20:42:37.692-07:002012-02-12T20:42:37.692-07:00And land, the church owned a lot of real-estate. A...And land, the church owned a lot of real-estate. And in a society where land = wealth, it made them very rich. I suspect they also paid no taxes on it as well.<br /><br />So just speculating here (middle ages religion not my specialty) but you've a tiny elite (bishops and other high-ranking god-botherers)who probably are about as religious as Pope Alexander (aka Rodrigo Borgia, yes those people) on top of a bunch of average-paid yet still ferverent types (parish priests). And they own great tracts of land and want to pay no taxes. Wait, this is sounding very familiar...Leonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15715768191516712688noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-423777559129751242012-02-12T13:06:56.332-07:002012-02-12T13:06:56.332-07:00Always about power, for all our pretense and piosi...Always about power, for all our pretense and piosity. <br /><br />Very well-said.Lisahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08839236994990699117noreply@blogger.com