brick wall #7

[mquinn]

i had responded to a particular post and then deleted my response. before i got it removed, however, someone on the forums, who doesn't post a lot, sent me a private message saying he had read it and thought i should continue to post responses because somehow some day something might get through the brick wall of a closed mind. i don't think so. but in the off chance that someone with a little crack in their closed mind - or one that hasn't gotten shut all the way, and in honor of the person who took the time to send me that message, i offer this.....

As for the religious arguements, that will open another can of worms here that none of us will agree on.

i have no problem discussing religion - after all, it's no more an emotionally-charged topic than politics. and politics is very little more factual (if at all). it's all beliefs and preferences. reality is what you can convince other people it is. perhaps that's why i discuss religion and politics - because i don't like the reality that religious fanatics and politicians are creating.

i was raised in the most fundamental of churches - church of christ (not latter day saints) - and read the bible front to back more than once. in fact, every service we read and discussed the bible - that's pretty much what our services consisted of. and we had services three times a week. mostly i don't discuss religion with people who put on blinders and make circular arguments, referencing their book or dogma as proof of its own pronouncements. they're locked in a box, and apparently it's too scary on the outside where no father is dictating the rules for them to follow. (i know this is not true of all religious people - but it is true of many, and it seems to be more inclusive the more fundamental the religion.)

but people get locked in political boxes as well. and simply repeat political verbage without looking at the data that belies much of it. as long as i can remember having researched any economic data, the data and the public perception of the situation have been at odds. why is that? human psychology. and what oft-repeated (and true) phrase do we use when we see data that doesn't agree with our belief? "you can make any point you want to make with statistics."

but, let's look at a couple charts anyway:


i ought to be thinking about getting a union job at least. but this chart is only saying what study after study after study has said for as long as i can remember: white men are disproportionately paid more money than anyone else in this country. you can say, well that's because they're more qualified for the jobs. and after you say that, i will expect you to start doing some research.

This is when it hits a librals breaking point. It is way to hard so they give up and go on welfare.

look into the term "matched pair" studies. that's where they send two absolutely equally qualified applicants on job interviews (rental interviews, bank loan interviews, etc.) and find that the overwhelming majority of the time, the white (and male if gender is involved) will receive the offer. it's even so subtle as to the point that an interview will be granted on the basis of the ethnicity sound of a person's name on an application.

a few years ago someone trying to open people's eyes to the lie that anybody in this country who didn't work or wasn't "successful" was lazy published the employment data from new york city alone. it was shown that by sheer numbers of people and available jobs, if you put every unemployed person in an available job - never mind whether they were qualified for the job or not - just fill all the jobs available in new york city - there would still be 60,000 employable people left unemployed. "why don't they just move?" i hear you justify your belief. think about it. if you can't figure that one out, let me know. my mother's response was, "why can't their families take care of them - where are their families?" or...how about those churches you say can take up the slack for needy people? check into it.

and how about these for recent republican v. democrat (bush v. clinton) economic stats:




but we're going to believe whatever we want. or need to. or are able to.

I really respected the way Singapore opporated. Due to the harshness of the rules, they really didn't have crime problems.

that may be what's scariest to me in your post. i cringe every time i hear people talking about how this country has fallen down because we can't beat our kids any more without fear of prosecution. only they never say "beat". they say "spank". hitting your kid is hitting your kid. there are degrees, of course. but striking a child teaches him one thing: striking another human being is okay (especially if you're bigger). the correlation between decent, socially well-adjusted people and corporal punishment ("discipline") DOES exist when you research it - but in a negative way. perhaps you never saw the studies that show that among violent criminals in prisons, the more violent and heinous the crime, the more repressive and controlling the person's upbringing was. and this one may not surprise you: those most violent were also the criminals who were raised in the fundamental religions. (some time if you ever seriously want to make a reality check on your beliefs, an interesting book to read about "discipline" is alice miller's for your own good.)

In politics, one man's reassurance is another's threat; this guarantees that threat will always be present for all men.
.....
Not only does systematic research suggest that the most cherished forms of popular participation in government [voting] are largely symbolic, but also that many of the public programs universally taught and believed to benefit a mass public in fact benefit relatively small groups. We can show that many business regulations and other law enforcement policies actually confer tangible benefits on the regulated businesses while conveying only symbolic reassurance to their ostensible beneficiaries, the consumers.

Political scientists even more commonly recognize that the common and commonsense notions about the basically mechanical role of administrative agencies and courts in "carrying out" legislative or constitutional policy are gross distortions of the process that actually takes place. It is accordingly useful to look searchingly at every unquestioned or widely taught assumption about how government works, for it is a key characteristic of myth that it is generally unquestioned, widely taught and believed, and that the myth itself has consequences, though not the ones it literally proclaims.

from: Symbolic Uses of Politics
http://www.nmu.edu/politicalscience/...politics1.html

[oakwilt]

Good post. Well done.

Personally, I admire the great equalizer - neoplastic disease. Cancer.

Sure, it's disproportionate insofar as clusters representing responses to environmental/geographical factors (ghettos, superfund sites, chemical manufacturing locations, blue-collar job descriptions), but it strikes people large and small, red, white, black, or gender with no aristocratic descriminations.

Waiting in line for blood chemistry .... a Saudi prince, a black shrimper, an English ballister all share the fear - monied resources making no destinction between the group because it's pinnacled at the end-stage treatment game....research and failures at all other attempts to eradicate the beast.

Beliefs that U.S. medical standards surpass other nation's, no one in that waiting line willing to gamble on that falsehood. Instead it's seeking the stand-outs, the few excellent physician researchers who claim no alliance to any flag, having curiosity and resolve in place of fiscal rewards or nationalist cowpiss or institutional hype and retirement 501K's. My docs were Iraqi/Belgian/Chinese. The cure for cancer more important than a nation's quest for the highest GNP and strongest military or the most rewarding religion. These physicians opted for real work instead of co-opting a trademark or proprietary knowledge.

Like the astronaut/geographer who looked down from the Shuttle and noticed NO colorful border/boundaries between political nation/states in place of watersheds or erosion marks or barrier island groups - I'm sick of the drumbeats and anthems and wars and mostly - who's more important and valuable than the next. Queen Elizabeth still takes a crap as does the bushman in the Transvaal or the Inuit in the NWT.

The Shah of Iran had what it takes to beat his cancer but wouldn't exercise it because of his dignity and standards and religious confines. Good thing really, considering his character and habits. The old black shrimper survived, as did I, willing to take what we knew and trash it along with the other wisdoms that spelled absolutes and certainties like fiscal projections or assumptions that the word of experts be taken at their worth - especially those from which a Bible gives the knowledge of forever.

Willing to gamble on the word of others? It's your life, you do have a choice.

[eyolf]

Imagine there's no heaven.
It's easy if you try.
No hell below us; above us only sky.

I didn't like Lennon much, I thought he was something of a weakling and dishonorable as regards his abandoned first family. The song has a lot of merit in my mind, however, even though I consider myself a Christian.

Perhaps it would be good to remember the idea the Jesus, and the 12 followers, never had it in their mind to found a new religion. I think the core of Jesus' message was to bring some form of inner peace to the common man, to offer something besides the hollow sham that the jewish tradition had become.

Even if the afterlife is a myth (as some believe) or is available to all ( as others believe), a groundswell of people believeing in a common goal...peace...is bound to eventually affect the human condition.

Then along comes Saul/Paul, with a bunch of rules, regulations, and threats. Nothing good ever lasts.

[Tom Dunlap]

Thanks for reposting Michelle.

To me, Imagine, is a song that talks about some alternate possibilities. Not necessarily the way things should be. Would we live differently if any of those things weren't in our psyche?

Bruce Cockburn writes some amazing things about alternatives too. I posted : Justice by Bruce Cockburn a few days ago. He's on tour this summer.

Tom

[ORclimber]

Mquinn, wow, you covered a lot of ground there. I'd like to add some more gray.

On the religious note. How can a true Christian support a war? Pretty tough to get around "Thou shalt not kill".

On the union thing. I was in a union, the pay and benefits were excellent. Just got my pension statement yesterday $24k after 3.5 years. My wife says "if you would have stayed there we would be set for retirement". I said "yeah, if I survived 30 brain dead, stifling years". The good thing about unions is that the workers band together to get better pay and benefits and all get paid the same. The bad thing is there is little incentive to kick it up a notch, I saw almost a dumbing down effect. They were still teaching the tautline hitch with the blake as an advanced alternative. Also still 90% climbing in hooks for "safety" reasons.

On the Clinton reducing the national debt. My understanding is that was a sham. He took "surpluss" money from social security and bought back bonds. A good example of number bending. http://www.senate.gov/~rpc/releases/1999/bd030499.htm

[Stumper]

eyolf, "I have not come to bring peace,but a sword." Jesus Christ

Check the context and you will see that the subject is really the way that Jesus polarizes people- not a call to violence. My point is only that there is a tendency to categorize and attempt to pigeon hole everything. Jesus and Saul of Tarsus/Paul are certainly different individuals with different styles and ministries., but I do not accept that Paul was in opposition to the message of Jesus nor that he was messing things up with rules and regulations. Paul's writings often get used for those things but his message (when a person quits verse picking for doctrines and starts reading his letters like letters) is that rules and regulations can't save/redeem anyone. The grace of God releases people from the constraints and frustrations of law keeping to live at a higher plane. Same message as Jesus had from my perspective! Paul was of course dealing with problems that kept cropping up in the Way so he gave a lot of instructions that people try to turn into rules and regulations. Of course I am doing some pigeonholing/categorizing myself trying to sum up half of the New Testament in one paragraph. I hope this comes across in the spirit it is offered.

[mquinn]

wow. all these follow-up posts have made me glad i did change my mind about posting. but, tom, the person to thank is the guy that wrote me.

nice stuff coming out.

very.

thanks to you all for posting.

eyolf: yes, i think it is good to remember that (as far as we know) there was no intention of starting yet another religion. of course it's also good to remember that the records of the teachings that we do have were written, according to biblical scholars, a minimum of 60 years after jesus died. no one was writing down what he was saying while he was saying it. at any rate, taking what we have left (and understanding that the vatican holds a great deal more that we aren't being allowed to see), i think that most of the doctrine attributed to jesus is sound...i have at least one problem with it, and that is simply that, as it comes across, he was telling other people how to live. do this. do that. don't do that. do as i do. perhaps the real man didn't actually do that - perhaps he just lived the way he believed and explained it to people, and the writers then wrote it as him giving directives.

OR: shades of gray - they are infinite. always glad to see additional ones. the union deal - yeah, i was actually not seriously considering it - it's just that the chart shows the increase in income to be gained from it. (even that doesn't explain it - i'll never have oodles of money because it isn't so important to me - if i had stayed in san francisco working for attorneys 15 years ago, i would be making three times what i'm making now. there are lots of things worse than being poor.) i am not a union fan as they exist, but i am a fan of the idea of unions as a tool for the working man. some of the most fascinating historical literature, in my opinion, comes from the stories of the beginnings of unions. there are probably some good ones still, but it seems that once there is any organization in existence from which a person can extract money or power, it will be corrupted.

Stumper: glad you brought up that quote and then clarified it, as well. the idea of polarization is very intriguing to me, as that is the basis of this world - and i find it interesting as well that people tend to want to eliminate the 'negative' pole - in which case, this world would cease to exist. i also see at this point in human history, that polarization is becoming more and more acute. interesting times.

and lastly, reed.....well, you know. and, yes, cancer is a pretty good representative of the universe - fair and unbiased.

isn't this a wild world?

thank you all for being in it.

[mquinn]

p.s. OR: the repub v dem thing - i have the feeling that there are lots of ways to tweak stuff and present things that make it almost impossible for the average person to make heads or tails of who's doing what and how in washington. i just ran across those charts and thought they were kind of interesting on their surface.

you've reminded me though of something i also came across a while back, and as soon as i can remember the guy's name with the website where i found it, i'll try to look it up again. he published some information that supposedly showed some serious problems with the way bush 41 handled the economy (serious and illegal), and what clinton and greenspan got together to do to turn things around, and why they couldn't just lay out in the open what had been done under bush 41. at the time i thought - well, how are you ever going to prove that? leaked information, unrevealed sources, etc. but now that i see bush 43 is getting some objections from greenspan, i wonder if maybe it wasn't true.

i doubt if the public will ever know what goes on in those offices.

if i can ever remember the name of the guy's website...i used to have a link to it on my own website, but when he started charging a subscription fee to access his site, i took the link off. (not that i'm opposed to a person making a living - it's just a condition i have for linking stuff to my own site - it's gotta be free.)

[eyolf]

Stumper sez:

My point is only that there is a tendency to categorize and attempt to pigeon hole everything.

Agreed 100%. Alas, I think its part of the human condition; I do it often enough myself. It sure makes it easy to deal with others when you can just hang a label on them...almost like a handle.

Trouble is, the label doesn't usually match the contents and the handle falls off.

Speaking about Jesus and Paul: Jesus spoke in riddles an awful lot, if his biographers have it right, and likely left lots of frustrated people in his wake. But I think at the core was the message : "don't worry, be happy" " The Romans will besiege you, just like the all the others have...what good does it do you to fight with each other and make a lousy situation worse?"

In a real sense, the Roman occupation didn't have to be all that bad. The Romans were interested in the region as a crossroads...they could exact a little tax and control their own political fortunes if they could control the region. Aside from that they were mostly unconcerned with local religious and even political habits. Jesus and his little band posed no threat to them, but did pose a real threat to the Jewish heirarchy.

Paul recognized the fact that he was about as big as he would ever get, historically, with the traditional Jewish authority. Fractioned and divided, the Jews would cease to make many "headlines" for the next 1900 years. The new religion, if handled right, could assure him a place in history. Some of the later letters, with their shrill, paranoid content seem to show us a man who is clearly worried.

Please be advised that the above is only an opinion, worth about as much as was paid for it.

[John Paul Sanborn]

I think both parties are just self perpetuating machines and give little but lipservices to anyone not of the moneid constituancies.

The surpluses of the Reagan years stem from the Dem congress giving all the tax cuts and budget increases in Regans budget, then guting all the cuts made to offset them.

But then I got to live in some much better ships then Carter left.

The EITC came from the right of the isle, this is the best economic stimulus there can ever be from the government (aside from maybe not witholding from the first 30k of income maybe) getting money to those people who spend it as soon as they can get it.

McCain in '04

[Stumper]

JPS, I'd prefer Allan Keys.-or Harry Browne but I guess I have to be realistic.

[mquinn]

so we'll just bounce this one back and forth between politics and religion - the world's two most favorite subjects.


eyolf: my view of paul is of someone coming along at a later date, and doing an about face from persecutor to convert - an interesting character study to be sure. obviously the man was intense, and went from being absolutely certain he was right about one thing and then absolutely certain he was right when he made the 180. seems like a serious fanatic to me - someone with an insatiable need to press his own convictions on others. (but then, i wasn't there.) your assessment makes him seem like a much more calculating person and cleverer than i see him - that he could sense the subtleties of the political climate. i don't have much knowledge of the history of the movement, however, and you may well be right. or are you saying that he was simply an opportunist? probably he was clever enough for that.

you have more thoughts on this?

[mquinn]

just a little interesting tidbit....not only do we have the world's biggest guns....

http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/politics_pop/index.html

[eyolf]

MQ:
Interesting statistics, those. Like many statistics, there's little to them without a few more details.

But I think you already knew that .

I know no more about Paul than you do; his epistles and a scant few other historical references are about all any of us have. I think he was clever and manipulative, but also a bit delusional. I believe Paul had a yen to "change the world" and eventually came to completely believe his own story.

In recent times Paul would have been big in the Communist party somewhere. Paul felt little need for luxury and wealth, but a real need for power. He may have even had somewhat of a saviour complex. Unlike many of his type, however, I think the church was fortunate in that he was imprisoned several times and eventually executed before he achieved enough power to actually cause harm.

So, he becomes a Type, and an icon.
While I have trouble with dogmatic understandings of God, I defend the church and its usefulness. While I bad-mouth Paul, I respect him as an ideal, as an icon or a type.

[mquinn]

eyolf...if you can defend the church's usefulness, more power to you. i see its usefulness - mostly hiding its motives of control behind a front of benevolence - all paid for by the beneficiary in one way or another.

it's best if we don't actually dig too deep for those details....


it's all just as it needs to be.

but we don't have to like it.

type from archetype - we all fit in there somewhere.

thanks for your thoughts.