As unbelievable as it seemed a few scant years ago, I feel like today's Republicans have left even Dubya behind in the dust in their party's all-out race to the lower limits of suitability for higher office.If these guys can so blithely rewrite history from 30 years ago, what do you think they're going to do if they actually get the reins of power?Cough ... Dubya ... cough.
Most Socialists are content to point out that once Socialism has been established we shall be happier in a material sense, and to assume that all problems lapse when one’s belly is full. The truth is the opposite: when one’s belly is empty, one’s only problem is an empty belly. It is when we have got away from drudgery and exploitation that we shall really start wondering about man’s destiny and the reason for his existence. One cannot have any worthwhile picture of the future unless one realises how much we have lost by the decay of Christianity.--"As I please" / George Orwell.posted by No Robots at 10:23 PM on June 19, 2011
“When facism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” - Sinclair LewisI'm sorry to be a nitpicker, but I see this quote attributed to Sinclair Lewis a lot, and it's not by him. Close, though: It (well, something very like it) was actually written as a description of a book written by Lewis, decades after Lewis had passed away.
The "Left," on the other hand, has abandoned Marx, embraced globalism and become anti-Christian.Name a politician on the American left who is anti-Christian, please.
The Catholic Church is my spiritual home. My heart is there, and my hope.the only republican you will be hearing speaking even remotely like this is the "lost cause" Ron Paul. sad that he would be considered too "far out" with Republican dogma because, among other things, he believes the government has no business meddling in people's private lives ESPECIALLY when it comes to matters of religion.
There is, of course, more to being a Catholic than a sense of spiritual and emotional resonance. Catholicism is a religion of the head as well as the heart, and to be a Catholic is to say, “I believe,” to the essential core of dogmas that distinguishes our faith.
The acceptance of this faith requires a lifelong struggle to understand it more fully and to live it more truly, to translate truth into experience, to practice as well as to believe.
That’s not easy: applying religious belief to everyday life often presents difficult challenges.
It’s always been that way. It certainly is today. The America of the late twentieth century is a consumer society, filled with endless distractions, where faith is more often dismissed than challenged, where the ethnic and other loyalties that once fastened us to our religion seemed to be weakening.
In addition to all the weaknesses, dilemmas, and temptations that impede every pilgrim’s progress, the Catholic who holds political office in a pluralistic democracy—who is elected to serve Jews and Muslims, atheists and Protestants, as well as Catholics—bears special responsibility. He or she undertakes to help create conditions under which all can live with a maximum of dignity and with a reasonable degree of freedom; where everyone who chooses may hold beliefs different from specifically Catholic ones, sometimes contradictory to them; where the laws protect people’s right to divorce, to use birth control, and even to choose abortion.
In fact, Catholic public officials take an oath to preserve the Constitution that guarantees his freedom. And they do so gladly. Not because they love what others do with their freedom, but because they realize that in guaranteeing freedom for all, they guarantee our right to be Catholics: our right to pray, to use the sacraments, to refuse birth control devices, to reject abortion, not to divorce and remarry if we believe it to be wrong.
The Catholic public official lives the political truth most Catholics through most of American history have accepted and insisted on: the truth that to assure our freedom we must allow others the same freedom, even if occasionally it produces conduct by them which we would hold to be sinful.
I protect my right to be a Catholic by preserving your right to believe as a Jew, a Protestant, or nonbeliever, or as anything else you choose.
We know that the price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that they might someday force theirs on us.
This freedom is the fundamental strength of our unique experience in government. In the complex interplay of forces and considerations that go into the making of our laws and policies, its preservation must be a persuasive and dominant concern.
the only republican you will be hearing speaking even remotely like this is the "lost cause" Ron Paul. sad that he would be considered too "far out" with Republican dogma because, among other things, he believes the government has no business meddling in people's private lives ESPECIALLY when it comes to matters of religion.This is not true. For example.
Anti-evolution ideas have returned with force due, in part, to the political and ideological aims of the Bush administration and the powerful US Christian fundamentalists.--"The ‘intelligent design’ controversy" / Socialism Today 96 (November, 2005).This in spite of the fact that Marx himself provided one of the first and sharpest critiques of the reactionary ideology underlying the Theory of Evolution:
I'm amused that Darwin, at whom I've been taking another look, should say that he also applies the ‘Malthusian’ theory to plants and animals, as though in Mr Malthus’s case the whole thing didn’t lie in its not being applied to plants and animals, but only — with its geometric progression — to humans as against plants and animals. It is remarkable how Darwin rediscovers, among the beasts and plants, the society of England with its division of labour, competition, opening up of new markets, ‘inventions’ and Malthusian ‘struggle for existence’. It is Hobbes’ bellum omnium contra omnes and is reminiscent of Hegel’s Phenomenology, in which civil society figures as an ‘intellectual animal kingdom’, whereas, in Darwin, the animal kingdom figures as civil society.--Marx to EngelsThe Left cannot succeed as long as it attempts to reconcile socialism with the Theory of Evolution. It must be Marx or Darwin—Marx contra Darwin.
Question: Atheism seems to sell in the United States. There are "New Atheist" best sellers. At the same time, "New Atheists" claim to be repressed by widespread American religious sensibilities. Why is atheism having such resonance?posted by No Robots at 11:10 AM on June 20, 2011
Mitchell Cohen: Best sellers have contexts. The context today is a reaction against politicized and intolerant religious fundamentalists who have acted aggressively to impose their views of the world on American politics and public life for several decades. A strong intellectual challenge to them has been long overdue.
--"The New Atheism: An Interview with Mitchell Cohen"
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posted by blue_beetle at 5:52 PM on June 19, 2011