Fitz—Do you really want a one-party system?

Cruising political message boards as I am want to do on occasion or reading various blogs written by extremes of the right or left, or just overhearing or participating in political discussions with friends and strangers…I have to ask this question:

Do you really want a one-party system?

I hope not, because a one-party system is not a democracy. In fact, it is most likely a totalitarian or authoritarian regime. I am constantly bombarded with comments like:

“Once we get all the libs out of office…” or “the left needs to shut up.”

Additionally, many on both sides make rather sweeping generalizations against one side or the other:

“All liberals are…(insert some derogatory comment here sometimes it is “commies”)”

OR

“All conservatives are…(again, make your own insertion but “fascist” comes up a lot).”

In fact, most of them are not even really conversations of dialogue at all; it is one side making a broad generalization about the other with no intention of holding a reasonable dialogue about the issue at hand.

Is this not antithetical to the democratic process? Does no one recognize this as dangerous? When both sides seem committed to following extreme rhetoric to the point that they won’t even entertain the thoughts or position of the other…how can democracy properly function?

The political right in particular seems hell bent on saying “we will not compromise!” Or with slogans such as “stay the course,” which seems a simplistic way of saying we will not entertain any other option. Masking democrats position as a “cut and run” option, rather puts us, the American people at two extremes, without any sort of middle option.

Is not compromise a central feature of the democratic process? Does not democratic theory tell us that public policy comes out of the bargaining and debate of differing opinions, that the common good will emerge out of pushing and pulling between many different ideas?

Compromise in and of itself requires open discourse between disputing parties, a willingness to listen to the viewpoints of the other side, to empathize, and in the end to reach some kind of mutually agreed upon position. Will one side get everything it wants? No, it will not…but they will both get a little bit of what they were looking for…and this is supposed to serve the public interest.
This country would not exist if it wasn’t for the willingness of the founders to compromise. Coming from more diverse backgrounds than ourselves and different philosophies regarding the role of government…if they had not been willing to compromise…then the United States would never have come into existence.

Even on the morally ambiguous and hotly contested subject of slavery, compromises had to be made in order to insure that our nation was created. Our constitution is a document of compromise. This is essential to the democratic process as we know it today.

So ask yourself, before you resort to extreme rhetoric, before you shut yourself off from the opinions of those you disagree with…is it really in service of the democratic process?

Fitz--The United States is not a theocracy, nor was it ever meant to be.

Reading this recent article I had to comment here. These are truly ignorant comments made by Representative Harris. Lets' take her statements one at a time.

Number 1: Rep. Harris statement that the church-separation clause is a lie and that the founders did not intend that the country to be a "nation of secular laws."

Representative Harris needs to study her history better and to re-read the constitution. While true that many of the founding fathers were Christian, not all of them were devoutly so. Many of our founding fathers were lawyers, so indeed, they were rooted in secular law. Franklin, Jefferson, James Madison, Robert Morris were all intellectuals schooled in philosophy and it was the philosophies of Enlightment writers that they based the constitution on.

Our founding fathers believed in natural rights as put forth by John Locke and they indeed wanted to codify their protection in secular law.

Amendment 1 of the Constitution reads as follows : "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

To be sure, this was to protect the many Protestant sects that were operating throughout the country and that had fled England to escape religious persecution. This was to ensure that no one sect was valued more than another. Overtime of course, this clause has been expanded to include those of other faiths as it should, because the founders intended that the constitution to be flexible enough to adjust for change.

Number 2: Rep. Harris statement that separation of church and state is "wrong because God is the one chooses leaders."

So, by this statement, I am to assume that we are going to slid back about 400 years to bring back the idea of divine right of kings. This is exactly the kind of philosophy the founding fathers were arguing against. In John Locke's Two Treatises of Government, Locke spends the first Treatise arguing against this idea of the divine right of kings in order to set up his arguments in the second treatise concerning natural rights.

Our founding fathers were heavily influenced by the writings of Locke and as rich land-owners wanted to ensure the protection of natural rights, including life, liberty, and property. This was there fundamental goal with the constitution, not to codify a Christian nation. They recognized that their nation was Christian, but wanted to ensure that it was separate and did not infringe on the protection of natural rights.

Finally, the founders were rebelling against King George, who very much believed that he ruled by divine right, the founders rejected this by stating clearly in the Declaration of Independence that "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Please note...governments instituted among Men, not God.

Number 3: The Representative's statement that "If you are not electing Christians, then you are going to legislate sin."

Ridiculous...a subtle, underhanded attack on the left which is completely false and inaccurate. Designed only to appeal again to the so-called "culture war" and drum up last minute support. To categorize the left, which be all accounts, it seems the nation is split 50/50 (maybe 30/30 with extremes and middle taking up the rest), is to characterize one side of the political spectrum as not Christian is simply untrue. It is a broad categorization with no basis in facts. Not to mention the disrespect this represents to people of other faiths in a nation designed to practice religious freedom (See First Amendment).

The article ends on a good note...sounds like our Representative in question is in trouble and this was no doubt a last desperate attempt to drum up support. Is it not dangerous to have elected officials willing to distort history and who have no respect for the Constitution?

Trent—The Hard Truth…

…God does not exist. It is a hard truth to accept, but we invented him out of our fear of the unknown. One of the greatest unknowns that mankind faces is death. What happens when we “shuffle off our mortal coil?” Being a self-aware and intelligent creature, the thought of death is incomprehensible and terrifying to us.


Is it really possible that the sum of my memories and knowledge will go into oblivion upon death? Is my fate the same as the other creatures that walk the Earth? Surely our fate will be different.

Our vanity, to believe we are somehow special, that we can escape the awful fate of death. “We don’t really die…we continue on…forever…a higher being takes care of us.”

Do you not see the fantasy? Because our brains could not comprehend the awfulness that is death, we invented the idea that we somehow continue on in another form. That some awesome being or group of beings will ensure that in some way our consciousness continues. An eternal father will welcome us home and take care of us forever in total bliss for the reward of living a good life…hey, what ever makes you feel better about oblivion.

Of course, me simply saying this does not make it so and there exists many arguments against the existence of god that I feel I must lay out here.

God is the Source of Morality But is Immoral Himself

Yep, our protective loving father is a hypocrite. If we go by the premise that god is morally perfect and that the events in the bible are accurate…than god condones actions that he at the same time forbids. God condones rape, murder, genocide, and slavery. How can god be the perfect when he condones such deprave acts? How can you look at god for moral leadership when he himself does not follow it?

A god that acts immorally is certainly not worthy of worship or emulation. Such a god is not the image of perfection and holiness.

Instead, god is an invention. An invention designed to instill fear in human beings, a means of control. It is much easier to get compliance to the laws and expectations of society if a wrathful and vengeful god exists that could destroy you at any moment with plague, flood, fire, or enslavement.

That Old Problem of Evil

Of course this one is the most common…if god is good, why does he allow evil? This is the most commonly noted logical inconsistency and is usually explained away with something like “it is impossible for us to understand god’s plan!”

But related to the above argument, would someone who refrains from eliminating evil be considered good? If I saw someone be assaulted, their life threatened, and I did nothing…I would appear as a very questionable individual, perhaps a coward?

This also calls into question whether god is omnipotent. If god is indeed all powerful, the very existence of evil negates this premise.

God and Free Will

Of course the counter-argument is that god wants us to have free will as a means to test our virtue. God is a perfect being and ultimately virtuous and wants to teach or guide humans to be various themselves.

First off, omniscience is not compatible with free will. As has been pointed out many times before, if god is omniscient, then god knows all that will happen. We are therefore trapped on a predetermined course. If this is the case, can it really be said that we have free will? This also calls into question god’s omnipotent quality…if god knows the future, then it is impossible for him to change it, thus he is not all-powerful either.

How can god perform a miracle? The very act implies intervention, that god wanted to change the course of events. That god has free will to do as he pleases. However, god is all-knowing, so the miracle is not a free act, and god can no more alter events than we can.

Can God Be Perfect and Virtuous?

If free will is indeed a test and god wants us to strive for his perfection and virtue, how is it that god himself is perfect and virtuous. I have already pointed that god is immoral, but it is also impossible for him to even have the attributes that theologians would describe of him.

First, if god is perfect, he lacks nothing. He would have no needs or wants because he is a whole and complete being. Then why create anything in the first place? This act supposes that god needed or wanted something.

For human beings to be virtuous, they need to go through suffering, fear, pain, or threat of death in order to develop admirable qualities such as courage and forgiveness. God does not experience these things. You can not hurt god, god cannot fear his own destruction, so how could such a being ever develop the attributes of virtue that he wants to test in humans?

So either god is not perfect, or not virtuous. You take your pick.

Conclusion

Of course the simple answer to these criticisms (I am aware that there is nothing new here) is “faith!” But to me, it is the answer of a child. If those of faith cannot give an intellectual defense of the existence of their god, explain the inconsistencies both in logic and what this supposed god teaches, put forward a convincing argument as to why one should worship such an illogical and inconsistent being than only one conclusion must be drawn. God does not exist and if he does, he certainly is not deserving of our worship.

But something had to create us! Right? Perhaps not, the purpose of life and the universe could be very simple. The purpose of life is life itself, its perpetuation. Like the nihilism in the movie The Matrix, life and especially human beings are a virus, there existence no more significant than a virus. And taking the backdrop of the cosmos into consideration, a very insignificant speck in general, our lives essentially meaningless and unimportant.

Is this a “bad” worldview? No, it should be liberating, free to do as you please, to enjoy your life and not take it for granted. Does it necessarily mean that society would fall into depravity without the fear of god to ensure good behavior? No, human beings have rationale, law, ethics, that do not require the existence of an omnipotent and omniscient god to strike the fear of hell into us. The human instincts of guilt and conscious would not simply disappear.

God was nothing more than invention, a comforting invention to ease our fears of death and oblivion.

Every moment counts. Drop the emotional crutch and face a hard truth, god does not exist and your existence amounts to nothing.

“…my hiatus between two nothings…”

Better make the best of it!

Stuart-- Potpourri

American Politics: Deeply Superficial?

We are still two years off from the next presidential election, but the midterm elections are just around the corner and the impending electoral episodes have me thinking about the nature of politics here in the US. Gay marriage, Iraq war, 9-11, stem-cell research, immigration, etc, these are all very deep, complex issues, and yet their involvement in the electoral process seems nothing more than a superficial shorthand for people that already are committed to a party to justify their ignorance of any candidate's true platform. Have the masses always been asses? Or is this commitment to political heuristics a product of a time where everyone feels that sound bits and summaries are all that are necessary to understand something?

Everything I need to know I learned from the Cosby Show

"I brought you into this world, and I can take you out of it." Ol' Combustible Huxtable once taught Theo the value of money by forcing him to rent an apartment, get a job and secure furniture. Of course, he did this by using the rest of the Cosby clan to play the roles of a banker, apartment manager, restaurant, furniture store clerk, etc. Besides being funny, it also showed Theo that he had a lot of maturing to do before he finished high school and gave him a heads up on how not street-smart he was. Throughout the course of the show Cosby was always trying to get his children to grow up, but he never denied them their own stupid mistakes on that journey. I have to think that this is preferable to a world in which kids are kept infantile until they are ushered off to college with no knowledge of how to do their own laundry, pay rent or even make sure they properly feed themselves.

Western Man IS Ice-9?

In Cat's Cradle, Vonnegut's characters discuss the concept of a karess, a group of individuals that unknowingly are working together to do God's will. These people are brought together by fate, or through a string of events to carry out an ultimate plan. The main character in Cradle was of course part of the karess that would introduce Ice-9 to the world, thus putting into action the complete termination of life. Ice-9 is an allotrope of ice that re-configures all water molecules that it comes into contact with, so that ice remains frozen until 114 degrees, effectively freezing anything it comes into contact with.

In a way, Western man has taken on the role of Ice-9, everything we come into contact with we change to be like us. We are introduced into the system, we bring commercial products, new ways of production, new ideas, and we completely transform the culture to which we were introduced. Moreover, we freeze the development of that culture, and in some cases that culture is completely shattered, leaving only shards of 9 in the wake.

The western karess has been working non-stop for the last three centuries to ensure that we are introduced into every pond, stream and lake in the world. But now that every body of water is being transformed, who will be left to march forward when the collective lot of us are frozen in culture?

Stuart-- Fear Not DMG

Following up on Jim's last post on the institution of a mating season, and Dark Media Guy's suggestion that I be denied all breeding rights, I figured I would provide a mini-post showing the lack of a need for further regulation on my personal behalf. I believe the reason that I will already be denied procreation status is three-fold.

First, I am still in school and am 26. Really, who is still in school at the age of 26? Me, Van Wilder and that dude that raises his hand and sits in the first row. This reason alone is enough to relegate me to the realm of untouchable. They have done studies correlating education and frequency of intimacy. Since I have more degrees than a thermometer it is clear that any proposed license has already been revoked through my life choices.

Second, I have been informed that I am obsessed with the 90's, specifically 1996. This was an age when cell phones were big, Zack Morris dominated the schoolyard, and the Spice girls ruled the airwaves. It is clear that anyone that couldn't get over this era is forever lost to modern times and will never be grown up enough for any adult life situations.

Third, I grew up 40 miles from three nuclear power plants. Not to mention the Fast Flux Test Facility and the LIGO, which functions as an interferometer searching for gravitational waves. Between the radiation and high intensity magnetic fields, it seems geography and fate will probably enforce DMG's policy suggestion, even in the absence of a program similar to that described by Jim.

So fear not DMG.