Is there a book these guys get their modus operandi from? The man has been baptized by a Force of Division. He attended a Division Force church for twenty years. Questions about why he built his house in the Valley of Division are suddenly divisive? I thought this was just a Clinton family trick where you accuse your opponent of the very things you embody, but apparently it’s a progressive thing.
Seriously, is there a book where these strategies are laid out formally or is this just something these people have learned to do on their own?
The sneer is on Baracky’s lip, his teeth are clinched in hate;
He pounds with cruel violence his bat on Hillary’s pate.
For who he is they see him now and so he cannot cope,
And now it’s John McCain what has audacity of hope.
“If you cherry-pick from the sermons of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, former pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ, you can create quite the audio clip…”
The used the God Damn America clip… but nothing on 9/11 at all or AIDS or any of the actual substance of Wright’s sick beliefs … the reporter guy read just a short bit of the white supremacy stuff… “We believe in White Supremacy more than we believe in God”…
He ended by declaring Obama’s “honeymoon with the mainstream media” over. As if.
Folks, we have to accept that the press will never honestly report this. For one, it would mean tackling black racism — and that just ain’t gonna happen. Secondly, it means hurting the political chances of a Democrat, and that’s even more offensive to them.
I wonder, though, if they gloss over Wright’s positions because they’d rather not see them, or if they do it because they don’t see a problem with them.
– Well ABC and NPR, and all the usual suspects, just drive a few more nails into their own financial coffins because outlets like FOX, who have been running a group of 8 or more of the good Revs best of rants on an almost continueous loop for over 24 hours now, as well as coverage on every single segment and specialty news analysis show, has seens its viewersgip skyrocket to 8 times normal. This for a cable service that routinely beats the crap out of the “in the tank” MSM outlets like a rented mule anyway. 5 to 1.
– Apparently the left sings its screeds, but when it wants unabridged, non-partisan thruth, it tunes in to moderate/conservative sources.
He wants to change history… cause of the little pieces of America in him.
Obama, whose mother’s family was from Kansas and his father from Kenya, said he was speaking “as someone who has little pieces of America in me.”
He said schools should do a better job of teaching all students African-American history “because that’s part of American history,” as well as women’s struggle for equality, the history of unions, the role of Hispanics in U.S. and other matters that he suggested aren’t given enough attention.
“I want us to have a broad-based history” taught in schools, he said, even including more on “the Holocaust as well as other issues of oppression” around the world.
– Mr. Goldfarb is on chapter 63 of his TV adaptation of his stageplay, “Proggs in My swimming pool”, and is trying desperatly to juggle keeping his rain gutters free of masses of ice drain off, and meet his publishers galleys deadline.
He is probably right about that, like I heard the other day that Africans used to be slaves and stuff, have you guys heard anything about that?
True dat. I also heard that if they weren’t, their descendants would be living in Africa and not America, which, I’m just saying, ain’t much of a bargain.
Guys, guys, what we need to be doing is throwing this in their faces.
Here’s a tip: the word site: (the colon is part of it) restricts Google to searching a single blog or other web site. Try it yourself. Copy the following search string into Google’s request panel:
hagee mccain site:www.talkingpointsmemo.com
What you will get is, at last count, four hundred and twenty-one instances of Marshall bloviating about how horrid it is that any candidate could accept an endorsement of someone so hateful.
McCain’s statement on Hagee, his new endorser, who calls the Catholic Church the “great whore” and “anti-christ” …
“Yesterday, Pastor John Hagee endorsed my candidacy for president in San Antonio, Texas. However, in no way did I intend for his endorsement to suggest that I in turn agree with all of Pastor Hagee’s views, which I obviously do not.
“I am hopeful that Catholics, Protestants and all people of faith who share my vision for the future of America will respond to our message of defending innocent life, traditional marriage, and compassion for the most vulnerable in our society.”
So he welcomes Hagee’s endorsement for president, though that doesn’t mean he agree with all his views.
Here the sneer in the last sentence? I certainly do, and Marshall certainly meant to utter it.
The thing is — they set the rules. They defined the criteria. They established the procedures, and set the bar for responses. We need to hold their feet to the fire over it.
I don’t have the time or the bandwidth, but somebody who does needs to be collecting those posts and putting them in the stone bucket. You might then toss some of them back at the assholes — after using the magic of search&replace to substitute “Obama” for “McCain” and “Wright” for “Hagee” throughout.
They made the rules. Let’s hold the bastards to them.
Oh, and I promise nothing, but I do have an unused login at Huffington Post. It’s old, and I don’t know if it’s valid or not, but if you want it for this purpose, email me. For this one time only, my name lights up with my email address.
I don’t know what’s stopping people. When my mother, a teacher’s aide, thought we weren’t learning about black history she bought us a Classic Comic called The History of Black America, oh say back in 1973 or so. Got through more than one book report on those old Classic Comic books. But, in this one specifically: Crispus Attucks (died at the Boaton massacre), Harriot Tubman (Moses and news from ‘the grapevine’), Dr. Daniel Hale Williams (first open heart surgery), Garrett Morgan (invented the gas mask)…
I don’t think the government should be in the Classic Comic book publishing business, but that’s just me.
– Ric, I think everyone looks back over the years of having to suffer the sheer mind numbing boredom of arguing against the fecklessness of a bankrupt ideology, born in the minds of renegade escapees from the European brainfuck.
– But even your eloquent writing style can not drive sense into skulls devoid of independent thinking.
– For myself, I sincerely doubt it would be possible to invent a worse senario to visit on our political enemies that that which they have brought directly upon themselves, and I have no intention of engaging them through this mess, not even so much as to give them the opportunity to work through a new set of bullshit doubletalk talking points.
– They are doing and exemplar job of eating their own tails all by their own devices, why ruin a good thing. We are barely through 1/3 of this primary season, and look what a gift we have recieved, as they systematically go about proving day after day what a complete ship of fools they are, and what a totally empty wagon they have of any workable ideas.
This guy is fucking imploding. He’s lost all sense of perspective if he thinks anyone but the drooling libtards will buy that line of bullshit. The question is, does it mean the Hildabeast, or Algore? If it’s Hill, I have a great ad all lined up for McCain. The problem is, he doesn’t have the balls to run it. All he has to do is a montage of the lies she’s told during the campaign with the appropriate response.
Like how she was instrumental in the Northern Ireland agreements. Then run the quote from whoever that mucky-muck over there was who said, in effect, that she’s delusional, that was a cheerleader and nothing more. Or the bit about landing in Bosnia, and then run the quote from Sinbad saying, what was Clinton thinking? It’s too dangerous for me to go over, so I’ll send my wife and daughter? Oh, and a singer and a comedian?
You’re all missing the point, here, which is CHANGE! And if it ain’t CHANGE!, then it’s HOPE! So let’s all unite behind this apparently well-meaning cipher without digging too far into any of his ideas or influences, lest we’re all branded as RACIST MEANIES WHO WANT TO STYMIE THE CHANGINESS AND HOPEITUDE!!!one!1!
YES WE CAN (ignore everything controversial that guy–whatever his name is, but to be honest, I can’t even really remember it, even though he married Michelle and I and baptized our kids–ever said, since we only ever attended church, apparently, when he wasn’t saying anything particularly nutty. Yeah, that’s the ticket.)!!!
he loves McCain? (European brainfuck=contemporary literary criticism like ‘deconstructionism’? or the recent freedom from Francoism? or an ever-rising Euro?)
The primary “force of division” in this country is the morality of altruism, which holds that the essence of virtue is a willingness to sacrifice for the sake of others — on the implicit grounds that those unwilling to sacrifice for others are the sort of monsters who would sacrifice others for their own ends. Altruism inherently divides people into two groups: those who are expected to do the sacrificing and those who get to receive the sacrifice.
And how do we decide who goes into each group? It’s easy. For that we have the welfare state, which demands that those “in need” be helped by the forced sacrifice of those “in less need”.
Thus, the welfare state implements altruism by dividing people into two groups: those who’ve convinced us they are sufficiently “needy†to be entitled to receive various government-delivered economic benefits from the vast array of programs like Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, Social Security, so-called “earned income” tax subsidies, food stamps, public housing, public transportation, public education, farm subsidies, etc. — versus those who are sentenced to work to pay for those benefits.
Obama expresses his commitment to altruism when he declares — as he often does — “Man is his brother’s keeperâ€Â. That slogan can have only one meaning in reality: namely, that some are entitled to be kept, while others will be forced to pay for the keeping. It is Obama’s endorsement of an inherently divisive morality.
Obama’s claim to be promoting change is preposterous: he is in fact promising to continue the trend of the last 70+ years, the trend of ever-increasing government spending and economic controls along with ever-increasing taxation. He is promising to “stay the course†in an unending war against the taxpayers, a war to destroy the last remnants of American capitalism.
Change, REAL change, would be for Americans to reject the altruistic premise that someone must be sacrificed to someone else — and that our only moral issue is to decide who gets to receive the sacrifice and who has to BE sacrificed — reject that notion by returning to the moral principle on which this country was founded, as articulated in the Declaration of Independence: namely, that ALL men have the EQUAL inalienable right to the PURSUIT of their own happiness, with none entitled to expect others to sacrifice for them, and none being forced to sacrifice for others.
Man is not his brother’s keeper — for all men are created EQUAL, which means none can claim the right to be kept, and none can be stripped of their rights and forced to be the keepers. We cannot save America until we get people to grasp this point.
Nice comment, Michael, except that the phenomenon you correctly describe is not altruism, but forced charity. Altruism is borne of unselfishness and is freely expressed. This plan requires forcible taking to support the newly entitled. The new Rights to Free Stuff don’t really consider whether you want to finance these things for the less well heeled, only whether you have the money to do so and can therefore be required to do so.
Altruism is a good thing, and this redistribution of assets does not deserve that label.
Pablo, just for the record, the term “altruism” — which literally means “otherism” — was coined by Augustus Comte. Here is how he described its meaning:
“The social point of view cannot tolerate the notion of rights, for such notion rests on individualism. We are born under a load of obligations of every kind, to our predecessors, to our successors, to our contemporaries. After our birth these obligations increase or accumulate, for it is some time before we can return any service…. This “to live for others”, the definitive formula of human morality, gives a direct sanction exclusively to our instincts of benevolence, the common source of happiness and duty. Man must serve Humanity, who we are entirely.”
It is this notion — that we are BORN with an obligation to serve others — that serves as the moral justification for the welfare state. And it is this notion that must be fought.
It is this notion  that we are BORN with an obligation to serve others  that serves as the moral justification for the welfare state.
Agreed, but altruism does not arise from obligation. It is selflessness and its products are voluntary, not the fulfillment of obligation. Altruism is defined as unselfish concern for the welfare of others, Comte’s broader views notwithstanding. Creation of a welfare state is not altruistic, especially given that a great many proponents would be the recipients of the mandated largesse. Engaging in charity, a good thing, is altruistic.
Pablo, you seem to have accepted the central premise of altruism — namely, that virtue consists of “an unselfish concern for the welfare of others” — but you don’t want it sullied by any association with something you regard as bad, namely the “forced charity” of the welfare state. So you simply insist that your definition of altruism means it must be voluntary and hence cannot justify a welfare state.
But once you concede that “an unselfish concern for the welfare of others” is PROPER and VIRTUOUS — you have conceded the moral high ground to the leftists and liberals that created and continue to push the welfare state. You have essentially conceded that their intentions are good — and you only disagree on their methods. And THAT concession is the very concession that conservatives have made for the last 70+ years — and it is the central reason why they’ve been completely powerless to stop the growth of the welfare state.
You cannot fight the welfare state by agreeing with its moral premises but arguing that it should be voluntary.
I will leave you with one final question: If “an unselfish concern for the welfare of others” is the essence of the good, what is the moral status of those “others” who accept your concern and resulting charity? Aren’t they guilty of the evil of “selfishness” by accepting your help and charity? Is that the purpose of morality — to make the good serve the evil?
But once you concede that “an unselfish concern for the welfare of others†is PROPER and VIRTUOUS  you have conceded the moral high ground to the leftists and liberals that created and continue to push the welfare state.
No. Charity is altruism, and I didn’t say anything about it being proper, though it can be. If you are obligated to an action, you are not motivated by altruism, but by fear of penalty for failing in your obligation. If I donate to the Salvation Army, or if I volunteer my time in a soup kitchen, I am acting from altruism. If I take your money from you by force, or if I pay taxes I am forced to pay to benefit some “worthy effort”, I am not acting from altruism, I am acting from obligation.
Charity is a fine thing, and there is a long American tradition of it which has nothing to do with a welfare state. You’ll see it ignored in issues like the tsunami relief effort in which America was criticized for not giving a “sufficient” percentage of GDP in government aid, while billions raised by private relief agencies from American citizens were ignored. You see it in both private and corporate relief efforts in virtually every domestic disaster. It’s a good thing, and I’d rather we left it alone. That is not surrender to the nanny staters.
You have essentially conceded that their intentions are good  and you only disagree on their methods.
No, in fact I stated quite the opposite of that in my #34. See the part about the proponents being recipients of the largesse, and I’ll now add that those who might not be intended recipients will hope to be the keepers and distributors of the largesse and therefore seek the power that confers. None of these are altruists.
– Altruism is exactly NOT forced indenture, but giving of ones self, selflessly. Whatever unfortunate manner in which you arrived at the misplaced idea it has anything to do with legalized theft, or state sponsered redistribution of wealth is unclear, but in any event, you are mistaken.
People of every race and color were enslaved  and enslaved others. White people were still being bought and sold as slaves in the Ottoman Empire, decades after American blacks were freed.
“Perhaps the artists wanted to make sure their rich patrons didn’t come up…er…short by comparison? “Check it out, Lucrezia! I’m hung like Hercules!—
I suppose I can now understand where King Minos’ wife was coming from when she had that fake cow made. (“What about my needs?!”)
Though I would have thought that old Hercules would have invented the cup for exactly that mission. “Bad hydra! Ow! Really bad hydra, you’re gonna die now!”
Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil … If tempted by something that feels “altruistic”, examine your motives and root out that self-deception. Then, if you still want to do it, wallow in it! — Robert Heinlein
BBH – Mr. Smith’s misfortune is to have read the words of the person who coined the term “altruism” into the record, only to have everyone else claim that it can’t possibly be right.
Yeah, I know, words don’t actually have meanings, they change like the winds. Still, it’s irritating.
And whatever your view of altruism, consider the following;
Welfare is to Charity as Rape is to Sex.
So, using only slightly tortured logic, liberals are all a bunch of rapists.
Science damn you, forces of division!
God damn the United States of AmeriKKKa!
Is there a book these guys get their modus operandi from? The man has been baptized by a Force of Division. He attended a Division Force church for twenty years. Questions about why he built his house in the Valley of Division are suddenly divisive? I thought this was just a Clinton family trick where you accuse your opponent of the very things you embody, but apparently it’s a progressive thing.
Seriously, is there a book where these strategies are laid out formally or is this just something these people have learned to do on their own?
Hercules’ next task has got to be the cleaning of the Augean stables of Obama’s campaign.
The sneer is on Baracky’s lip, his teeth are clinched in hate;
He pounds with cruel violence his bat on Hillary’s pate.
For who he is they see him now and so he cannot cope,
And now it’s John McCain what has audacity of hope.
Herakles is hung like a toddler.
It’s the steroids, dude.
“Herakles is hung like a toddler”
Well Rob, some shrinkage is natural when you’re..erm..beating off the forces of division.
ABC News radio tonight was referring to Wright as Obama’s “one-time Pastor”.
No bias here, nope, move along.
NPR’s report began…
“If you cherry-pick from the sermons of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, former pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ, you can create quite the audio clip…”
The used the God Damn America clip… but nothing on 9/11 at all or AIDS or any of the actual substance of Wright’s sick beliefs … the reporter guy read just a short bit of the white supremacy stuff… “We believe in White Supremacy more than we believe in God”…
He ended by declaring Obama’s “honeymoon with the mainstream media” over. As if.
Folks, we have to accept that the press will never honestly report this. For one, it would mean tackling black racism — and that just ain’t gonna happen. Secondly, it means hurting the political chances of a Democrat, and that’s even more offensive to them.
I wonder, though, if they gloss over Wright’s positions because they’d rather not see them, or if they do it because they don’t see a problem with them.
Funny, NPR used the one quote that probably had their listeners nodding like Wright’s flock was when they heard it.
– Well ABC and NPR, and all the usual suspects, just drive a few more nails into their own financial coffins because outlets like FOX, who have been running a group of 8 or more of the good Revs best of rants on an almost continueous loop for over 24 hours now, as well as coverage on every single segment and specialty news analysis show, has seens its viewersgip skyrocket to 8 times normal. This for a cable service that routinely beats the crap out of the “in the tank” MSM outlets like a rented mule anyway. 5 to 1.
– Apparently the left sings its screeds, but when it wants unabridged, non-partisan thruth, it tunes in to moderate/conservative sources.
Obama’s “Ugly rearing heads” remark…that could be the next “Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy” expression.
As in, “I’m a proud Ugly rearing Head”. hmmmm…
He wants to change history… cause of the little pieces of America in him.
Would someone wake up Jeff please? This America thing is getting serious I think.
He said schools should do a better job of teaching all students African-American history “because that’s part of American history,â€Â
He is probably right about that, like I heard the other day that Africans used to be slaves and stuff, have you guys heard anything about that?
– Mr. Goldfarb is on chapter 63 of his TV adaptation of his stageplay, “Proggs in My swimming pool”, and is trying desperatly to juggle keeping his rain gutters free of masses of ice drain off, and meet his publishers galleys deadline.
– I feel his pain.
True dat. I also heard that if they weren’t, their descendants would be living in Africa and not America, which, I’m just saying, ain’t much of a bargain.
Guys, guys, what we need to be doing is throwing this in their faces.
Here’s a tip: the word site: (the colon is part of it) restricts Google to searching a single blog or other web site. Try it yourself. Copy the following search string into Google’s request panel:
hagee mccain site:www.talkingpointsmemo.com
What you will get is, at last count, four hundred and twenty-one instances of Marshall bloviating about how horrid it is that any candidate could accept an endorsement of someone so hateful.
For instance, here’s Marshall on 02.29.08 4:20PM:
McCain’s statement on Hagee, his new endorser, who calls the Catholic Church the “great whore” and “anti-christ” …
So he welcomes Hagee’s endorsement for president, though that doesn’t mean he agree with all his views.
Here the sneer in the last sentence? I certainly do, and Marshall certainly meant to utter it.
The thing is — they set the rules. They defined the criteria. They established the procedures, and set the bar for responses. We need to hold their feet to the fire over it.
I don’t have the time or the bandwidth, but somebody who does needs to be collecting those posts and putting them in the stone bucket. You might then toss some of them back at the assholes — after using the magic of search&replace to substitute “Obama” for “McCain” and “Wright” for “Hagee” throughout.
They made the rules. Let’s hold the bastards to them.
Oh, and I promise nothing, but I do have an unused login at Huffington Post. It’s old, and I don’t know if it’s valid or not, but if you want it for this purpose, email me. For this one time only, my name lights up with my email address.
Regards,
Ric
Bah.
warrick.locke@gmail.com
I don’t know what’s stopping people. When my mother, a teacher’s aide, thought we weren’t learning about black history she bought us a Classic Comic called The History of Black America, oh say back in 1973 or so. Got through more than one book report on those old Classic Comic books. But, in this one specifically: Crispus Attucks (died at the Boaton massacre), Harriot Tubman (Moses and news from ‘the grapevine’), Dr. Daniel Hale Williams (first open heart surgery), Garrett Morgan (invented the gas mask)…
I don’t think the government should be in the Classic Comic book publishing business, but that’s just me.
– Ric, I think everyone looks back over the years of having to suffer the sheer mind numbing boredom of arguing against the fecklessness of a bankrupt ideology, born in the minds of renegade escapees from the European brainfuck.
– But even your eloquent writing style can not drive sense into skulls devoid of independent thinking.
– For myself, I sincerely doubt it would be possible to invent a worse senario to visit on our political enemies that that which they have brought directly upon themselves, and I have no intention of engaging them through this mess, not even so much as to give them the opportunity to work through a new set of bullshit doubletalk talking points.
– They are doing and exemplar job of eating their own tails all by their own devices, why ruin a good thing. We are barely through 1/3 of this primary season, and look what a gift we have recieved, as they systematically go about proving day after day what a complete ship of fools they are, and what a totally empty wagon they have of any workable ideas.
– I’m loving it.
This guy is fucking imploding. He’s lost all sense of perspective if he thinks anyone but the drooling libtards will buy that line of bullshit. The question is, does it mean the Hildabeast, or Algore? If it’s Hill, I have a great ad all lined up for McCain. The problem is, he doesn’t have the balls to run it. All he has to do is a montage of the lies she’s told during the campaign with the appropriate response.
Like how she was instrumental in the Northern Ireland agreements. Then run the quote from whoever that mucky-muck over there was who said, in effect, that she’s delusional, that was a cheerleader and nothing more. Or the bit about landing in Bosnia, and then run the quote from Sinbad saying, what was Clinton thinking? It’s too dangerous for me to go over, so I’ll send my wife and daughter? Oh, and a singer and a comedian?
Piece of cake.
You’re all missing the point, here, which is CHANGE! And if it ain’t CHANGE!, then it’s HOPE! So let’s all unite behind this apparently well-meaning cipher without digging too far into any of his ideas or influences, lest we’re all branded as RACIST MEANIES WHO WANT TO STYMIE THE CHANGINESS AND HOPEITUDE!!!one!1!
YES WE CAN (ignore everything controversial that guy–whatever his name is, but to be honest, I can’t even really remember it, even though he married Michelle and I and baptized our kids–ever said, since we only ever attended church, apparently, when he wasn’t saying anything particularly nutty. Yeah, that’s the ticket.)!!!
he loves McCain? (European brainfuck=contemporary literary criticism like ‘deconstructionism’? or the recent freedom from Francoism? or an ever-rising Euro?)
Kids aren’t learning enough about slavery? I doubt that. How about asking a kid today for the dates of WW2? Or the Civil War.
The primary “force of division” in this country is the morality of altruism, which holds that the essence of virtue is a willingness to sacrifice for the sake of others — on the implicit grounds that those unwilling to sacrifice for others are the sort of monsters who would sacrifice others for their own ends. Altruism inherently divides people into two groups: those who are expected to do the sacrificing and those who get to receive the sacrifice.
And how do we decide who goes into each group? It’s easy. For that we have the welfare state, which demands that those “in need” be helped by the forced sacrifice of those “in less need”.
Thus, the welfare state implements altruism by dividing people into two groups: those who’ve convinced us they are sufficiently “needy†to be entitled to receive various government-delivered economic benefits from the vast array of programs like Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, Social Security, so-called “earned income” tax subsidies, food stamps, public housing, public transportation, public education, farm subsidies, etc. — versus those who are sentenced to work to pay for those benefits.
Obama expresses his commitment to altruism when he declares — as he often does — “Man is his brother’s keeperâ€Â. That slogan can have only one meaning in reality: namely, that some are entitled to be kept, while others will be forced to pay for the keeping. It is Obama’s endorsement of an inherently divisive morality.
Obama’s claim to be promoting change is preposterous: he is in fact promising to continue the trend of the last 70+ years, the trend of ever-increasing government spending and economic controls along with ever-increasing taxation. He is promising to “stay the course†in an unending war against the taxpayers, a war to destroy the last remnants of American capitalism.
Change, REAL change, would be for Americans to reject the altruistic premise that someone must be sacrificed to someone else — and that our only moral issue is to decide who gets to receive the sacrifice and who has to BE sacrificed — reject that notion by returning to the moral principle on which this country was founded, as articulated in the Declaration of Independence: namely, that ALL men have the EQUAL inalienable right to the PURSUIT of their own happiness, with none entitled to expect others to sacrifice for them, and none being forced to sacrifice for others.
Man is not his brother’s keeper — for all men are created EQUAL, which means none can claim the right to be kept, and none can be stripped of their rights and forced to be the keepers. We cannot save America until we get people to grasp this point.
Nice comment, Michael, except that the phenomenon you correctly describe is not altruism, but forced charity. Altruism is borne of unselfishness and is freely expressed. This plan requires forcible taking to support the newly entitled. The new Rights to Free Stuff don’t really consider whether you want to finance these things for the less well heeled, only whether you have the money to do so and can therefore be required to do so.
Altruism is a good thing, and this redistribution of assets does not deserve that label.
“Man is his brother’s keeperâ€Â
Especially when the Man is keeping a Brother down.
“Seriously, is there a book where these strategies are laid out formally or is this just something these people have learned to do on their own?
“
I think it is Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals
as filtered through the lens of psychological projection.
Happyfeet, nice verse.
Herakles is hung like a toddler.
Priapus aside, why is it that male characters in classical art almost always have tiny schlongs?
Perhaps the artists wanted to make sure their rich patrons didn’t come up…er…short by comparison? “Check it out, Lucrezia! I’m hung like Hercules!”
Pablo, just for the record, the term “altruism” — which literally means “otherism” — was coined by Augustus Comte. Here is how he described its meaning:
“The social point of view cannot tolerate the notion of rights, for such notion rests on individualism. We are born under a load of obligations of every kind, to our predecessors, to our successors, to our contemporaries. After our birth these obligations increase or accumulate, for it is some time before we can return any service…. This “to live for others”, the definitive formula of human morality, gives a direct sanction exclusively to our instincts of benevolence, the common source of happiness and duty. Man must serve Humanity, who we are entirely.”
It is this notion — that we are BORN with an obligation to serve others — that serves as the moral justification for the welfare state. And it is this notion that must be fought.
Agreed, but altruism does not arise from obligation. It is selflessness and its products are voluntary, not the fulfillment of obligation. Altruism is defined as unselfish concern for the welfare of others, Comte’s broader views notwithstanding. Creation of a welfare state is not altruistic, especially given that a great many proponents would be the recipients of the mandated largesse. Engaging in charity, a good thing, is altruistic.
If taxes were not collected at the point of a gun, I’d have no problem with the re-distributionists lofty ideals.
But, if they really were altruists, perhaps then they wouldn’t have the dough to buy those fancy mansions for themselves…
34#
It is selflessness and its products are voluntary,
Which would make it the same as charity.
,except for the anonymnity part.
Pablo, you seem to have accepted the central premise of altruism — namely, that virtue consists of “an unselfish concern for the welfare of others” — but you don’t want it sullied by any association with something you regard as bad, namely the “forced charity” of the welfare state. So you simply insist that your definition of altruism means it must be voluntary and hence cannot justify a welfare state.
But once you concede that “an unselfish concern for the welfare of others” is PROPER and VIRTUOUS — you have conceded the moral high ground to the leftists and liberals that created and continue to push the welfare state. You have essentially conceded that their intentions are good — and you only disagree on their methods. And THAT concession is the very concession that conservatives have made for the last 70+ years — and it is the central reason why they’ve been completely powerless to stop the growth of the welfare state.
You cannot fight the welfare state by agreeing with its moral premises but arguing that it should be voluntary.
I will leave you with one final question: If “an unselfish concern for the welfare of others” is the essence of the good, what is the moral status of those “others” who accept your concern and resulting charity? Aren’t they guilty of the evil of “selfishness” by accepting your help and charity? Is that the purpose of morality — to make the good serve the evil?
No. Charity is altruism, and I didn’t say anything about it being proper, though it can be. If you are obligated to an action, you are not motivated by altruism, but by fear of penalty for failing in your obligation. If I donate to the Salvation Army, or if I volunteer my time in a soup kitchen, I am acting from altruism. If I take your money from you by force, or if I pay taxes I am forced to pay to benefit some “worthy effort”, I am not acting from altruism, I am acting from obligation.
Charity is a fine thing, and there is a long American tradition of it which has nothing to do with a welfare state. You’ll see it ignored in issues like the tsunami relief effort in which America was criticized for not giving a “sufficient” percentage of GDP in government aid, while billions raised by private relief agencies from American citizens were ignored. You see it in both private and corporate relief efforts in virtually every domestic disaster. It’s a good thing, and I’d rather we left it alone. That is not surrender to the nanny staters.
No, in fact I stated quite the opposite of that in my #34. See the part about the proponents being recipients of the largesse, and I’ll now add that those who might not be intended recipients will hope to be the keepers and distributors of the largesse and therefore seek the power that confers. None of these are altruists.
– Mr. Smith goes to school –
– Altruism is exactly NOT forced indenture, but giving of ones self, selflessly. Whatever unfortunate manner in which you arrived at the misplaced idea it has anything to do with legalized theft, or state sponsered redistribution of wealth is unclear, but in any event, you are mistaken.
like I heard the other day that Africans used to be slaves and stuff
But did you hear that Africans sold slaves? Black, White, Asian, whatever.
I would like it if slavery was taught in context…
And then there’s this:
People of every race and color were enslaved  and enslaved others. White people were still being bought and sold as slaves in the Ottoman Empire, decades after American blacks were freed.
What you miss in your definition of charity,it is by definition, personal. Once subject to the will of the group it is no longer charity.
Lee is a racist.
Nah, I can’t get into Nascar.
Then git on down to Bristol today! We’d love to do whatever it is that we do when the curtain’s drawn/insde the camper. Beer and hash anyone?
And another thing people, your pecker’d be looking pretty tiny if you were in a battle to the death with all them monsters and such.
Ah, no thanks.
I’d rather watch Tiger Woods kick everyones ass at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
“Perhaps the artists wanted to make sure their rich patrons didn’t come up…er…short by comparison? “Check it out, Lucrezia! I’m hung like Hercules!—
I suppose I can now understand where King Minos’ wife was coming from when she had that fake cow made. (“What about my needs?!”)
Though I would have thought that old Hercules would have invented the cup for exactly that mission. “Bad hydra! Ow! Really bad hydra, you’re gonna die now!”
Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil … If tempted by something that feels “altruistic”, examine your motives and root out that self-deception. Then, if you still want to do it, wallow in it! — Robert Heinlein
“Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.”
-Robert Heinlein
BBH – Mr. Smith’s misfortune is to have read the words of the person who coined the term “altruism” into the record, only to have everyone else claim that it can’t possibly be right.
Yeah, I know, words don’t actually have meanings, they change like the winds. Still, it’s irritating.
And whatever your view of altruism, consider the following;
Welfare is to Charity as Rape is to Sex.
So, using only slightly tortured logic, liberals are all a bunch of rapists.
Herakles is hung like a toddler.
Well, to be fair there’s probably shrinkage involved when fighting a waist hight hydra…