Hey, I thought I'd let you know I've been looking at this blog. In my opinion, you have some very good positions, but after reading some of your posts I want to say that every government is a theocracy. The question is, who will be the god and whose law will it be? In our case, it seems man and reason are the "gods" of our government.
Oh, almost forgot, you know me from humanevents.com, my name is Bryan. I debated you for a while.
Hello, Bryan. Pleased to meet you. Feel free to email me privately.
I disagree with you about the statement that "every government is a theocracy"; I'd modify it as follows: that every government is run, to one extent or another, by autotheocrats (those who think they are God).
OTOH, one recalls the brilliant Star Trek novel, "How Much for Just The Planet?" It is the only Star Trek musical ever written (the characters all break out in Gilbert and Sullivan pastiches for no reason).
Anyway, the schtick is that Kirk and Spock have found a planet colonized by malcontent humans, who, in order to keep government small, have based it on the patter of Abbott and Costello.
"You mean," Kirk says, "that you run your government based on....comedy routines?"
The local replies: "Doesn't everyone? Not by that name, of course."
This was not written for chiefs. (general consternation) Hear me! Hear this! Among my people, we carry many such words as this from many lands, many worlds. Many are equally good and are as well respected, but wherever we have gone, no words have said this thing of importance in quite this way. Look at these three words written larger than the rest, with a special pride never written before or since. Tall words proudly saying We the People. That which you call E Plebnista was not written for the chiefs or the kings or the warriors or the rich and powerful, but for all the people! Down the centuries, you have slurred the meaning of the words, 'We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution.' These words and the words that follow were not written only for the Yangs, but for the Kohms as well!
CLOUD WILLIAM: The Kohms?
KIRK: They must apply to everyone or they mean nothing! Do you understand?
--Classic Trek, The Omega Glory, 1967
Click the pic for the epic story behind this.
"The Blog Formerly Known as 'The Infinite Monkey (At The Keyboard)'"
I like bats much better than bureaucrats. I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of “Admin”. The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid “dens of crime” that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern.... -- C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
DEMOCRACY is the word with which you must lead them by the nose.... you can use the word democracy to sanction in his thought the most degrading (and also the least enjoyable) of all human feelings.... under the name of Envy it has been known to humans for thousands of years... you can sanction it -- make it respectable and even laudable -- by the incantatory use of the word democratic. - Screwtape Proposes a Toast
I honor and love you. But I shall obey God rather than you. And while I have life and strength, I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy. For know that this is the command of God; and I believe that no greater good has ever happened in the state than my service to the God. For I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but first and chiefly to take care about the greatest improvement of the soul. This is my teaching.
And if this is the doctrine that corrupts the youth, then I am a mischievous person.
But if anyone says that this is not my teaching, then he is speaking an untruth. . . . - Socrates, by way of Plato and Steven Schwartz
§ It's said that an infinite number of monkeys typing away at keyboards will eventually reproduce the complete works of Shakespeare. § What they don't say is that the total amount of matter in the universe, if turned into monkeys and typewriters, powered by all energy present in the universe, to feed the monkeys in question, working for a hundred billion years, can't possibly create as much as the first act of Hamlet. § One Infinite Monkey--i.e., a human being--can write all of Shakespeare's works in the course of a single lifetime... if that Infinite Monkey happens to be Shakespeare. § You are an Infinite Monkey. So am I. Amphibians are we, half spirit and half worm: monkeys in the sense that we are Steve Gerber's “hairless apes, trapped in a world we never made”; infinite in the sense that we are also immortal and we shall still live when the sun is a black dwarf. § If you recognize, like this old silverback, that we are a duality and not a mere mechanical emptiness--you may find my writings amusing. If so, welcome. Stay a while. And feel free to comment. (But keep it clean.)
TOXIC "CONSERVATIVE" WEB SITES TO BE ACTIVELY SHUNNED BY GROWNUPS
World Net Daily/Michael Savage Because Michael Wiener AKA "Michael Savage" defamed the parents of autistic children, of whom I have three.(It doesn’t help that they’re birther nuts, either.)
Ann Coulter Because she's far crueller than necessary and leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
Debbie Schlussel Ditto the above, plus she hates, and has actively slimed a lot of people I call friends.
VDare Because they're white supremacists who hate immigrants. (White doe? I beg your pardon?)
Hey, I thought I'd let you know I've been looking at this blog. In my opinion, you have some very good positions, but after reading some of your posts I want to say that every government is a theocracy. The question is, who will be the god and whose law will it be? In our case, it seems man and reason are the "gods" of our government.
ReplyDeleteOh, almost forgot, you know me from humanevents.com, my name is Bryan. I debated you for a while.
Hello, Bryan. Pleased to meet you. Feel free to email me privately.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with you about the statement that "every government is a theocracy"; I'd modify it as follows: that every government is run, to one extent or another, by autotheocrats (those who think they are God).
OTOH, one recalls the brilliant Star Trek novel, "How Much for Just The Planet?" It is the only Star Trek musical ever written (the characters all break out in Gilbert and Sullivan pastiches for no reason).
Anyway, the schtick is that Kirk and Spock have found a planet colonized by malcontent humans, who, in order to keep government small, have based it on the patter of Abbott and Costello.
"You mean," Kirk says, "that you run your government based on....comedy routines?"
The local replies: "Doesn't everyone? Not by that name, of course."