Christian Democrats in the United States
Domestic Issues - Equal RightsWe support equal protection under law for all people in America. The individual right to human dignity cannot be surrendered by groups. While we leave the definition of the word "marriage" up to the states, we recognize civil unions and the right to a civil life for all people. We applaud the military for its progress on racial integration in America and support affirmative action to enable Americans of every culture and color to advance themselves and society.
As our substantive due process is the only thing that separates the U.S. from tyrannical states, we insist on due process for all suspects accused by the U.S. of any crime. We are opposed to secret renditions, secret courts and torture of any kind, even of enemy combatants. We believe in our community values, and our leaders should allow those values to do their work in the world.
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Monday, July 27, 2009
3:12 PM
We may not always be sure of the specifics, which is why law is difficult, and cannot be easily answered by a dictator or king, or by some select few who can continue perpetrating unjust laws without the approval of the people governed. Laws may drift from time to time out of sync with morality because the social mechanism of law tends to create greater division in the people. That is why the founders established a system which allows us to change the law, and which protects us from bullying by those who stand behind an official stamp or rule and use it to oppress the people and split those divisions further, as if a law were a shield from a greater universal judgment.
Most non-suicidal, emotionally integrated people naturally seek that greater universal fairness, which could be God's, or could merely be said to be our imagined collective ideal, something we cannot quite grasp but nonetheless strive for, looking ahead through moral darkness toward a light, a thought, that we can never quite put into words. One could say that is God's, and we are a unique creature in that we look toward it, even if we never reach the end of the way. Along the way we are offered the chance to turn back, to shut our eyes, to forget our sorrow and let go to blind rage, but it turns out most healthy people do not want that, even those who have many good reasons to be angry. We still naturally try to "do the right thing" in our lives, as best as we can.
In law as in theoretical ethics, one attempt to condense the "right thing" into a rule set involves the abstraction of principles from the body of decisions that constitute law. Then these principles are applied to create rules of behavior which we say are justifiably enforced on those who break them. Politically, other rules can sneak in, which are unfair and give some an unfair advantage over others, but that is the reason why law should be periodically refashioned to conform with how we understand our principles. But ultimately, we can only justify the ones that do not conflict with the principles that we can abstract from the body of law as a whole, the evolved mental construction of decisions that we and our ancestors have made for the common welfare of human society.
As an example of this let's look at a petty matter, I got a ticket for having dogs off leash in a public park. People let their dogs off leash there frequently, though the sign is clear and I have no problem with getting the ticket and paying the fine. The officer said they'd gotten a lot of complaints about dog poop. I always pick up poop, I often pick up other dogs' poop too because I enjoy having a clean public park. But several months later, chance gave me the opportunity to find out who complained: the owner of the condo complex next to the park. I told him, "the leash doesn't pick up the poop." He said, "you're right, the owner picks it up." That's an example of how a well-intended law is mis-used for another purpose. The owner wanted retribution against a class associated by a visual feature, dog owners who let dogs off leashes, instead of justice for a specific offensive act, dog owners who do not pick up their poop. That fits the textbook definition of fascism and is, unfortunately, how most wealthy people like this man think about law. That's how it sneaks up on us. Increased fines and enforcement of poop littering would solve the residents' legitimate complaints, but instead the park rangers were using their resources to enforce the wrong law on the wrong people.
Or, let's take a recent example in the media, the arrest of Henry Louis Gates for being angry that an officer accused him of breaking into his own home and then would not show his badge, because the officer respected Gates less than he would have respected a white man his age in the same neighborhood. The police consider the officer justified no matter what happened, expressing their full support regardless of the facts. You or I or anyone else would be angry in the same circumstances, yet the police feel they are beyond the reach of the principles behind the laws they purport to enforce fairly. The real tragedy is that the neighbor who called 911 does not know her neighbor well enough to recognize him by sight, did not know him well enough to call his home to check first, and is so frightened by our cultural associations of minorities and criminals that she felt she could not investigate personally before escalating with the police. But the cop vindictively punished Gates for being personally offensive. Of course cops should second-guess themselves and cops are obligated to show a badge when asked. Any reasonable person would be steamed in that situation and it was vindictive to arrest Gates for disorderly conduct. The cop has more power - power comes with responsibility. Cops can't arbitrarily punish people they don't like, or people will realize their power of numbers, revolt, and a much worse chaos will destroy everything that we've worked so hard to achieve. If Gates had struck the officer, arrest him - but he was just speaking his mind from his own front door. The officer arrested him because the officer didn't like Gates' words.
Another example is the "Myspace Suicide" of Megan Meier, an unstable teenage girl who was driven to kill herself by the mother of a rumor-spreading teenage rival, and the mother's assistant in her business. The assistant was the last one to chat to girl, fraudulently pretending to be a boy, and read the girl's message that she was considering suicide, but pressed on with the emotional abuse. Megan Meier was not in control of her actions and an adult pulled the "trigger" of the chatroom, driving her to death with malice aforethought. But the spotlight-seeking prosecutor gave the assistant immunity and tried the mother of the rival for computer fraud, and that guilty verdict was thrown out. It makes no sense. Prosecute the actual crime? It's not in the interests of the people for the state to grant immunity to someone a jury might judge to be a murderer, and instead go after a lesser crime seen to have a greater media value. We have lost track of what our words mean, and of what meaning itself is and how important it is to our well-being as a species to keep our sights set on the truth that our hearts know is out there.
Principles often conflict, and those who involve themselves in the production and enforcement of rules find themselves mired in difficult decisions. But these abstractions of thought that jurists call principles are themselves not the universal judgment that all men seek to appeal to, in whatever form that manifests itself in their minds. For all we know, that elusive ideal may be only a structural property of geometry, or it may be the Lord's rule set down for unintelligible reasons, or it may be the conclusion the Lord reached after an eternity of patient reflection, and thus we would too, if we lived that long. It is the endpoint of the graph, the limit at the reach of infinity, but we can nonetheless say that it is there, and its existence affects our lives.
No one can fully articulate those princples, ever, because they are mental abstractions from a large body of decisions and experiences, both legal and personal. Anyone who thinks the process has finished, that law is an inflexible, ultimate authority, has lost sight of the reality of how our minds work. Whether you think those minds are a cosmic accident or not doesn't matter, the facts of human nature are similar in all of us.
In the patterns of thought that jurists and ethical theorists go through when formulating these general principles, in terms of which laws are or ought to be written, we find the thinkers considered fair by history apply only one simple rule: consider everyone equally deserving of love, of happiness, of the abstract ideal that we cannot fully define but see as a real thing nonetheless. It's from the basic golden rule that all the other principles progress, on which the rules we accept for our lives ought to be based. Further attempts to regress the logic only arrive at a dimensional shift, to art, to music, to spirit: the connection to all in the universe that we sense but cannot explain. We may never find love, happiness, or the ideal justice, but if we do not pursue them, then we are as good as dead anyway. There may be no objective, codified, universal morality, but there is something real in the reason why we invent those things.
So there's no way to say objectively that every human being deserves to participate in democratic law because of an objective principle, other than mechanical advantages dealing with social problems effectively with large populations. However, we have abundant reason to say that every human being deserves to participate in democratic law because then democratic law would be better, and we would be one step further down the infinite road to happiness. It seems obvious to me, I don't know about you.
does morality reflect an objective truth?
American pragmatism says that because morality is necessary, to ensure the continued survival of the people and human communities in general, therefore morality exists objectively. Nihilist, post-modern interpretations of consciousness would have one believe that because we all see a different perspective of a thing, and some are blind or shut their eyes, therefore the thing does not exist. This is as clearly rubbish as if we were to stand in a room looking at a sculpture and we say that because we see different sides, or because some are looking at the wall or out the window, therefore the sculpture and the room and each other do not exist. Or, that when we break different pieces of the bread of life, because each piece is different and we cannot reassemble the loaf, therefore existence never was, and we are dead. Get over it! We've got too many real and immediate problems facing us to dwell on metaphysical paradoxes of knowledge, too many mouths to feed to listen to that kind of whispering that urges us to abandon Eden and swallow destruction.We may not always be sure of the specifics, which is why law is difficult, and cannot be easily answered by a dictator or king, or by some select few who can continue perpetrating unjust laws without the approval of the people governed. Laws may drift from time to time out of sync with morality because the social mechanism of law tends to create greater division in the people. That is why the founders established a system which allows us to change the law, and which protects us from bullying by those who stand behind an official stamp or rule and use it to oppress the people and split those divisions further, as if a law were a shield from a greater universal judgment.
Most non-suicidal, emotionally integrated people naturally seek that greater universal fairness, which could be God's, or could merely be said to be our imagined collective ideal, something we cannot quite grasp but nonetheless strive for, looking ahead through moral darkness toward a light, a thought, that we can never quite put into words. One could say that is God's, and we are a unique creature in that we look toward it, even if we never reach the end of the way. Along the way we are offered the chance to turn back, to shut our eyes, to forget our sorrow and let go to blind rage, but it turns out most healthy people do not want that, even those who have many good reasons to be angry. We still naturally try to "do the right thing" in our lives, as best as we can.
In law as in theoretical ethics, one attempt to condense the "right thing" into a rule set involves the abstraction of principles from the body of decisions that constitute law. Then these principles are applied to create rules of behavior which we say are justifiably enforced on those who break them. Politically, other rules can sneak in, which are unfair and give some an unfair advantage over others, but that is the reason why law should be periodically refashioned to conform with how we understand our principles. But ultimately, we can only justify the ones that do not conflict with the principles that we can abstract from the body of law as a whole, the evolved mental construction of decisions that we and our ancestors have made for the common welfare of human society.
As an example of this let's look at a petty matter, I got a ticket for having dogs off leash in a public park. People let their dogs off leash there frequently, though the sign is clear and I have no problem with getting the ticket and paying the fine. The officer said they'd gotten a lot of complaints about dog poop. I always pick up poop, I often pick up other dogs' poop too because I enjoy having a clean public park. But several months later, chance gave me the opportunity to find out who complained: the owner of the condo complex next to the park. I told him, "the leash doesn't pick up the poop." He said, "you're right, the owner picks it up." That's an example of how a well-intended law is mis-used for another purpose. The owner wanted retribution against a class associated by a visual feature, dog owners who let dogs off leashes, instead of justice for a specific offensive act, dog owners who do not pick up their poop. That fits the textbook definition of fascism and is, unfortunately, how most wealthy people like this man think about law. That's how it sneaks up on us. Increased fines and enforcement of poop littering would solve the residents' legitimate complaints, but instead the park rangers were using their resources to enforce the wrong law on the wrong people.
Or, let's take a recent example in the media, the arrest of Henry Louis Gates for being angry that an officer accused him of breaking into his own home and then would not show his badge, because the officer respected Gates less than he would have respected a white man his age in the same neighborhood. The police consider the officer justified no matter what happened, expressing their full support regardless of the facts. You or I or anyone else would be angry in the same circumstances, yet the police feel they are beyond the reach of the principles behind the laws they purport to enforce fairly. The real tragedy is that the neighbor who called 911 does not know her neighbor well enough to recognize him by sight, did not know him well enough to call his home to check first, and is so frightened by our cultural associations of minorities and criminals that she felt she could not investigate personally before escalating with the police. But the cop vindictively punished Gates for being personally offensive. Of course cops should second-guess themselves and cops are obligated to show a badge when asked. Any reasonable person would be steamed in that situation and it was vindictive to arrest Gates for disorderly conduct. The cop has more power - power comes with responsibility. Cops can't arbitrarily punish people they don't like, or people will realize their power of numbers, revolt, and a much worse chaos will destroy everything that we've worked so hard to achieve. If Gates had struck the officer, arrest him - but he was just speaking his mind from his own front door. The officer arrested him because the officer didn't like Gates' words.
Another example is the "Myspace Suicide" of Megan Meier, an unstable teenage girl who was driven to kill herself by the mother of a rumor-spreading teenage rival, and the mother's assistant in her business. The assistant was the last one to chat to girl, fraudulently pretending to be a boy, and read the girl's message that she was considering suicide, but pressed on with the emotional abuse. Megan Meier was not in control of her actions and an adult pulled the "trigger" of the chatroom, driving her to death with malice aforethought. But the spotlight-seeking prosecutor gave the assistant immunity and tried the mother of the rival for computer fraud, and that guilty verdict was thrown out. It makes no sense. Prosecute the actual crime? It's not in the interests of the people for the state to grant immunity to someone a jury might judge to be a murderer, and instead go after a lesser crime seen to have a greater media value. We have lost track of what our words mean, and of what meaning itself is and how important it is to our well-being as a species to keep our sights set on the truth that our hearts know is out there.
Principles often conflict, and those who involve themselves in the production and enforcement of rules find themselves mired in difficult decisions. But these abstractions of thought that jurists call principles are themselves not the universal judgment that all men seek to appeal to, in whatever form that manifests itself in their minds. For all we know, that elusive ideal may be only a structural property of geometry, or it may be the Lord's rule set down for unintelligible reasons, or it may be the conclusion the Lord reached after an eternity of patient reflection, and thus we would too, if we lived that long. It is the endpoint of the graph, the limit at the reach of infinity, but we can nonetheless say that it is there, and its existence affects our lives.
No one can fully articulate those princples, ever, because they are mental abstractions from a large body of decisions and experiences, both legal and personal. Anyone who thinks the process has finished, that law is an inflexible, ultimate authority, has lost sight of the reality of how our minds work. Whether you think those minds are a cosmic accident or not doesn't matter, the facts of human nature are similar in all of us.
In the patterns of thought that jurists and ethical theorists go through when formulating these general principles, in terms of which laws are or ought to be written, we find the thinkers considered fair by history apply only one simple rule: consider everyone equally deserving of love, of happiness, of the abstract ideal that we cannot fully define but see as a real thing nonetheless. It's from the basic golden rule that all the other principles progress, on which the rules we accept for our lives ought to be based. Further attempts to regress the logic only arrive at a dimensional shift, to art, to music, to spirit: the connection to all in the universe that we sense but cannot explain. We may never find love, happiness, or the ideal justice, but if we do not pursue them, then we are as good as dead anyway. There may be no objective, codified, universal morality, but there is something real in the reason why we invent those things.
So there's no way to say objectively that every human being deserves to participate in democratic law because of an objective principle, other than mechanical advantages dealing with social problems effectively with large populations. However, we have abundant reason to say that every human being deserves to participate in democratic law because then democratic law would be better, and we would be one step further down the infinite road to happiness. It seems obvious to me, I don't know about you.
> detail, links and comments >>
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
1:14 PM
His comments come during a time when we have regular incidents like this:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/21/BAV714SBA1.DTL
...a gang rape of a lesbian woman by four heterosexual men. Were they reinforcing gender roles to the satisfaction of the Pope?
case in point
The Pope's recent comments about needing to reinforce gender roles to ensure the survival of the human race are very naïve. Whether gay people are out or not, it's not going to stop me from wanting to have a baby with a woman, the good old fashioned way.His comments come during a time when we have regular incidents like this:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/21/BAV714SBA1.DTL
...a gang rape of a lesbian woman by four heterosexual men. Were they reinforcing gender roles to the satisfaction of the Pope?
> detail, links and comments >>
Thursday, November 20, 2008
7:19 AM
The state's definition of marriage cannot affect the relationship of Christians with each other and with God. This is why we have separation of church and state — so that Christians, and others, can be free to see things the way that they choose to. But keeping those freedoms requires that the government treat everyone equally.
"Separate but equal" is not equal. That's been tried before, and it doesn't work. I think maybe it is not a states issue of defining words, but a universal issue of equal rights and just government.
People also fear that their church ministers will be required to marry gay people, which is sheer rubbish and contrary to our principle of separating church and state. While government officials would be required to treat everyone equally, churches would still be free to set their own policies. (I seem to recall, incidentally, that Jesus came to preach to the sinners, not to the religiously empowered, and preached that every one of us was corrupted by sin, but welcomed everyone with equal love and forgiveness.)
Gays and lesbians exist and they always have and they always will. The question is, do they behave like civilized people, or do they go nuts like the rape gangs of Sodom? Besides the moral dispute, there are practical reasons why gay marriage is in the interests of public health and safety. By de-legitimizing gay relationships, gay people are made to feel ashamed and their relationships are more likely to be unstable or unsubstantial, leading to promiscuity and risky sexual behavior - leading to them to break the association between their sexuality and their humanity, which is a type of psychosis. I am not saying that sexually transmitted diseases are exclusive to gay people, but the statistical reality is that gay men especially tend to have higher rates of unprotected sex and diseases like AIDS. I am sure that part of their disregard for their own health and that of their partners is because of "moral and upright" people telling them that they should hate themselves. If gay people were encouraged to marry and to form lasting emotional relationships with each other and to practice fidelity in those relationships, there would be less risk of transmitting these diseases.
There would also be less risk of the looming specter of those gangs in Sodom, who saw themselves entitled to rape anyone they chose, like nasty biker gangs of the "Night Rider" in the movie Mad Max. Incidentally, it seems to me that gangs of heterosexual rapists are much more prevalent in our society than gangs of homosexual ones. That problem with our society and our animal nature runs a lot deeper than sexual orientation - it's really a separate issue from whether two nice people who love each other can call themselves "married" and live faithfully in that bond.
gay marriage - does not affect you and good for public health
Many people object to the state allowing gay marriage because they feel it would be an endorsement or promotion of homosexuality.The state's definition of marriage cannot affect the relationship of Christians with each other and with God. This is why we have separation of church and state — so that Christians, and others, can be free to see things the way that they choose to. But keeping those freedoms requires that the government treat everyone equally.
"Separate but equal" is not equal. That's been tried before, and it doesn't work. I think maybe it is not a states issue of defining words, but a universal issue of equal rights and just government.
People also fear that their church ministers will be required to marry gay people, which is sheer rubbish and contrary to our principle of separating church and state. While government officials would be required to treat everyone equally, churches would still be free to set their own policies. (I seem to recall, incidentally, that Jesus came to preach to the sinners, not to the religiously empowered, and preached that every one of us was corrupted by sin, but welcomed everyone with equal love and forgiveness.)
Gays and lesbians exist and they always have and they always will. The question is, do they behave like civilized people, or do they go nuts like the rape gangs of Sodom? Besides the moral dispute, there are practical reasons why gay marriage is in the interests of public health and safety. By de-legitimizing gay relationships, gay people are made to feel ashamed and their relationships are more likely to be unstable or unsubstantial, leading to promiscuity and risky sexual behavior - leading to them to break the association between their sexuality and their humanity, which is a type of psychosis. I am not saying that sexually transmitted diseases are exclusive to gay people, but the statistical reality is that gay men especially tend to have higher rates of unprotected sex and diseases like AIDS. I am sure that part of their disregard for their own health and that of their partners is because of "moral and upright" people telling them that they should hate themselves. If gay people were encouraged to marry and to form lasting emotional relationships with each other and to practice fidelity in those relationships, there would be less risk of transmitting these diseases.
There would also be less risk of the looming specter of those gangs in Sodom, who saw themselves entitled to rape anyone they chose, like nasty biker gangs of the "Night Rider" in the movie Mad Max. Incidentally, it seems to me that gangs of heterosexual rapists are much more prevalent in our society than gangs of homosexual ones. That problem with our society and our animal nature runs a lot deeper than sexual orientation - it's really a separate issue from whether two nice people who love each other can call themselves "married" and live faithfully in that bond.
> detail, links and comments >>
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
6:40 PM
I can see how you could -- I cannot imagine that Mrs. Obama never felt pride in America's values at any point previously in her life. She needs to take some of the advice about truth floating around in her vicinity and recognize how delicately any public figure must speak. That is exactly the point -- a "lynching party" cannot ever be put delicately. That is not funny unless you were Mel Brooks, because that brother is a laughing soul. As a public figure with influence similar to a politician, Bill O'Reilly should face serious consequences for his inciting remarks.
Bill O'Reilly and his "lynching party"
Fire Bill O'Reilly and support his prosecution. Michele Obama cannot in any sense of the word deserve lynching for her unpopular speech, even if there were "evidence" that her speech met a clearly definable standard of anti-american sentiment, which cannot be defined rationally. Bill O'Reilly speaks to his audience as a serious journalist, not as an entertainer, and speaking such a motivation for hanging potentially the future first lady from a tree, in such a way that can be so easily mis-construed, does constitute a serious crime, whether or not you find her expression of pride in America to be offensive.I can see how you could -- I cannot imagine that Mrs. Obama never felt pride in America's values at any point previously in her life. She needs to take some of the advice about truth floating around in her vicinity and recognize how delicately any public figure must speak. That is exactly the point -- a "lynching party" cannot ever be put delicately. That is not funny unless you were Mel Brooks, because that brother is a laughing soul. As a public figure with influence similar to a politician, Bill O'Reilly should face serious consequences for his inciting remarks.
> detail, links and comments >>
Saturday, November 24, 2007
9:55 PM
I do, however, feel that the psychological sickness at the root of racism is a lot deeper than other people being different. It is deeper, even, than the human need to form smaller social groups with relationships that can be more easily understood and harmonized. The need to control others springs from an inability to control one's self, from an awareness that thoughts are not thought alone, that out there in the shadows of one's mind is either an Otherness, or a Nothingness that disintegrates one's self as well. This frightens us more than any violence or physical terror in the world outside.
Some people invent entitlements to power over others because they are afraid of the shadows in their own heads, the empty parts of their own identities beckoning to be filled. This fear is so great they construct whole industries, cultural dependencies, self-fulfilling economic pressures, and schools of thought to justify their insanity with a great mechanical edifice that they can claim is rational. It attempts to occupy this empty place within ourselves, feeding us artificial reasons to explain why we think and act, gradually eroding our notion of independent free will until we all view ourselves as exchangeable and disposable components. Wheels turn within this giant machine, and it gathers so much inertia that it is easy to feel that its demands for blood to oil its gears must be answered, or else "all of society will fall apart," and we will fall back into the unknown, where we have no guidance, where God has left us to figure out things on our own.
The cross provides one view to understand this, or the spectral lynching tree that this country has not faced. It is the same thing. The cross, from the Roman view, was only another tool, a cultural tool to make human power seem to occupy that fearful place of the unknown within our minds. From the Christian view, it is a symbol of everything wrong with us, of our basic human confusion, our delusion that our human "power" means anything when compared with the broader scope of the universe, and at the same time, a symbol of the unknown powers of the universe that we cannot fathom or conceive, and of the infinitude of possibility.
The Romans, the Klan, whoever they are now, or whatever groups or colors of people who play into the machine around the world, they intend to strike fear in their victims, to "shock and awe" them into submission to their human power. But their motivations are obvious now, because the word has taken root, whether we deny it or not. It is obvious that they are the ones with the greater fear, the fear of the shadow in their mind, the fear that in submitting to their machines of thought, they have sold out the last bit of humanity they had, and they descend into a viscous spiral of terrorism. The victims of the cross, the tree, the gun, the bomb, they may have been afraid, but they can never be made to feel the fear that the aggressors exhibit so plainly.
That is why the aggressors lose. The real fear, that place within our own minds where we are in danger of becoming lost, that place can never be fully occupied by human power, because there is always something else there, occupying that space. What is it? Only when we understand and overcome that fear will we be free of the terrifying outer manifestations of our futile attempts to shackle our own spirits.
racism in america
Somewhere else here I said something like "get over race, race is just a pretext for slavery." While this is true, the statement sounds trite and I think a lot of people, African American, European American and of subsequent waves of immigration from all over the world cannot just "get over race," it is obviously not that simple. Nothing can change the astonishing and ironic history of America, and we have to talk about it to get over it, we cannot just wave our hands and declare ourselves whole again.I do, however, feel that the psychological sickness at the root of racism is a lot deeper than other people being different. It is deeper, even, than the human need to form smaller social groups with relationships that can be more easily understood and harmonized. The need to control others springs from an inability to control one's self, from an awareness that thoughts are not thought alone, that out there in the shadows of one's mind is either an Otherness, or a Nothingness that disintegrates one's self as well. This frightens us more than any violence or physical terror in the world outside.
Some people invent entitlements to power over others because they are afraid of the shadows in their own heads, the empty parts of their own identities beckoning to be filled. This fear is so great they construct whole industries, cultural dependencies, self-fulfilling economic pressures, and schools of thought to justify their insanity with a great mechanical edifice that they can claim is rational. It attempts to occupy this empty place within ourselves, feeding us artificial reasons to explain why we think and act, gradually eroding our notion of independent free will until we all view ourselves as exchangeable and disposable components. Wheels turn within this giant machine, and it gathers so much inertia that it is easy to feel that its demands for blood to oil its gears must be answered, or else "all of society will fall apart," and we will fall back into the unknown, where we have no guidance, where God has left us to figure out things on our own.
The cross provides one view to understand this, or the spectral lynching tree that this country has not faced. It is the same thing. The cross, from the Roman view, was only another tool, a cultural tool to make human power seem to occupy that fearful place of the unknown within our minds. From the Christian view, it is a symbol of everything wrong with us, of our basic human confusion, our delusion that our human "power" means anything when compared with the broader scope of the universe, and at the same time, a symbol of the unknown powers of the universe that we cannot fathom or conceive, and of the infinitude of possibility.
The Romans, the Klan, whoever they are now, or whatever groups or colors of people who play into the machine around the world, they intend to strike fear in their victims, to "shock and awe" them into submission to their human power. But their motivations are obvious now, because the word has taken root, whether we deny it or not. It is obvious that they are the ones with the greater fear, the fear of the shadow in their mind, the fear that in submitting to their machines of thought, they have sold out the last bit of humanity they had, and they descend into a viscous spiral of terrorism. The victims of the cross, the tree, the gun, the bomb, they may have been afraid, but they can never be made to feel the fear that the aggressors exhibit so plainly.
That is why the aggressors lose. The real fear, that place within our own minds where we are in danger of becoming lost, that place can never be fully occupied by human power, because there is always something else there, occupying that space. What is it? Only when we understand and overcome that fear will we be free of the terrifying outer manifestations of our futile attempts to shackle our own spirits.
> detail, links and comments >>
Monday, May 14, 2007
1:45 PM
women's wages and prostitution
In fact, you can draw a direct economic link between inequitable wages in the "man's world" of business and prostitution. If women were paid equally, men wouldn't have as many prostitutes available to take advantage of, because it would reduce the economic incentive and provide more mainstream career options.> detail, links and comments >>
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
3:03 PM
The Harlot Babylon (The City) and the False Prophet can be seen as metaphors for thinking the mind can approach God, when it is God who approaches the mind. (Whether we think that when our "god sense" neurons are stimulated or not does not bear on the question of whether there really is a god out there.)
Mary Magdelene was not said to be a prostitute, only to have been afflicted. So regardless of what she may have been to J, that's a bunch of crap, so shut up about the apostles, dufus. And even if she were, she was still worthy of redemption in J's eyes.
King Solomon wrote to his son urging him to not let prostitutes reduce him to a loaf of bread, because the spirit is something far more profound than the tool of economics... and to "make all his fountains his own" until he was married... does that mean King Solomon was telling his son to jerk off until he found the right girl?
But if Solomon was Israel's most regal king, and prostitutes were out there, he could have put a stop to them with force of law, but he did not.
The real question is, why is life so expensive that so many women are driven to prostitution? Seems like the only kind you can get anymore.
The point is, offer women a way out of economic and sexual slavery, but don't blame them for being human, and don't treat them like they are not human beings.
(please see comment for a scriptural analysis... gotta love the SWORD.)
Victorian America, nudge nudge wink wink say no more
Dare I say, that I only caught a few things in the Bible that dealt with prostitution, and none of them cast bad judgment on individual specific people who were prostitutes. (Except one, but that was un-done by J at the stoning of the adultress.)The Harlot Babylon (The City) and the False Prophet can be seen as metaphors for thinking the mind can approach God, when it is God who approaches the mind. (Whether we think that when our "god sense" neurons are stimulated or not does not bear on the question of whether there really is a god out there.)
Mary Magdelene was not said to be a prostitute, only to have been afflicted. So regardless of what she may have been to J, that's a bunch of crap, so shut up about the apostles, dufus. And even if she were, she was still worthy of redemption in J's eyes.
King Solomon wrote to his son urging him to not let prostitutes reduce him to a loaf of bread, because the spirit is something far more profound than the tool of economics... and to "make all his fountains his own" until he was married... does that mean King Solomon was telling his son to jerk off until he found the right girl?
But if Solomon was Israel's most regal king, and prostitutes were out there, he could have put a stop to them with force of law, but he did not.
The real question is, why is life so expensive that so many women are driven to prostitution? Seems like the only kind you can get anymore.
The point is, offer women a way out of economic and sexual slavery, but don't blame them for being human, and don't treat them like they are not human beings.
(please see comment for a scriptural analysis... gotta love the SWORD.)
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