"...witness the Dutch government's ill-conceived television advertisements prior to the vote which threatened that a No vote was a vote for war..."

The question is not whether Europeans are going to exist (after all, Europe is not going to disappear and whoever occupies it is, by definition, European), but rather whether they will be totally incoherent. Who are the Dutch going to attack after a 'No' vote?

jd:

No they won't be. European nations are ethnicities.

OJ:

Is that as opposed to the US... which is what exactly?

An idea.

Consisting of ethnicities?

No.

Then an unrealised idea.

Yes, the key part of the idea is that it is unrealizable, because of Man's Fallen nature.

Are you equating the US with the Garden of Eden, or more ideallistically, God?

I think the ethnic Dutch and the ethnic French might be onto something. Let's apply their "idea" here in America.

We ethnic Californians and the ethnic New Yorkers can do things the way we want to, and keep our revenues for our own purposes and let the ethnic Kansans and the ethnic Texans do whateverthehell it is they want to do with their own resources instead of making us subsidize their "ideas."

Mr. Peaceful:

First, note how silly lonbud's idea sounds, precisely because americanism is universalist, not particularist?

Second, no, God threw us out of Eden because we're Fallen. We're obligated though to come as close to the ideal He set us as we can--which sadly isn't very close. America institutionalized this idea at its Founding:

" When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure 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 for the United States of America."

That the Europeans neither understand the basis of rights and just government nor have their realization as an end is why they are doomed.

OJ:

Humans never made it to Eden because we've never been able to agree on what exactly Eden should be.

The American ideal, although claiming to be inclusive, is - by virtue of its Christian ideology - extremely exclusive, and so fails to embrace the rights of all citizens. The French constitution, on the other hand, whilst similarly adressing liberty, equality and fraternity, also professes to respect all beliefs: The basis of rights and just government.

oj:

For precisely the same reason are the followers of GWB & Co. doomed. They have a very particular idea about who has rights and what is just and anyone who disagrees with them is subject to being executed, or bombed, or banned from their American eden.

How do you reconcile your championing of the Declaration of Independence and its assertion that "all men are created equal" with your previous claim that "few people have the capacity for critical thought"?

Mr. Peaceful:

Christianity and the civil religion that flows from it is open to anyone who chooses it. That's why our society attracts so many immigrants.

If you disagree with the American ideal you're obviously unwelcome though.

lonbud:

What does equality have to do with identicality? Are Men unequal because Wilt Chamberlain is tall and Dudley Moore short?

The capacity for critical thinking is not a useful ability and those who have it tend to be a cancer on society. All the worthwhile thoughts were thought a long time ago and the criticisms of them tend to vapidity.

OJ:

Your society attracts so many immigrants because there are good prospects of jobs and economic stability. They do not all wish to embrace Christianity or the 'civil religion that flows from it'.

The capacity for critical thinking is what makes us human.

oj:

Your confusion is at a critical stage; I'm afraid it may be so persistent that further efforts to treat your malady will go unrewarded.

There is nothing civil about the religion that flows from Christianity. I daresay more people have perished in the name of Jesus Christ than any single figure in the history of man.

...open to anyone who chooses it. Yes, and should one exercise one's god-given capacity for free will and choose an alternate form of religion, well, hellfire, damnation, and everlasting suffering -if not a black hood and hotwired testicles- shall be his just dessert.

And where did you get the idea immigrants come here for the Christianity? The come here for the bling bling, boss.

Critical thinking is not a useful ability? All the worthwhile thoughts were thought a long time ago? Why do you bother to get out of bed each morning my sad little friend?

OJ:

Your society attracts so many immigrants because there are good prospects for jobs and economic stability. They do not all wish to embrace Christianity or the 'civil religion that flows from it'.

The capacity for critical thinking is what makes us human.

Wilt and Dudley are equal now.

---

Ohh, they're leeches?

Our stability and economic success flows from our civil religion and Christianity.

Their civil religion can't provide what ours can.

Sandy P:

No, not leeches - humans. It's part of human nature - indeed any animal's nature - to desire better living conditions, and to go wherever that seems most likely.

And no, your stability and economic success flows from capitalism, which is the opposite of Christianity.

OJ:

Obviously your own critical thinking skills are valuable because without them you'd be unable to appreciate the virtues of the ideas you love in comparison to other ideas. If you didn't have those skills, you'd roll over for whatever supposedly new and improved ideas come down the pike. You'd be a sucker for appeals from authority. You'd believe something new every day. You'd be John Kerry. Or Europe.

rds:

i thought john kerry and france and the dutch were supposed to be aligned with "old" ideas, "old" europe.

lonbud:

My dig at Europe had in mind that the continent has changed dominant political ideologies every few decades for the last 200 years or so. And many of those ideologies were murderous and nasty. Meanwhile ideological fashions in the US since 1776 all start with the premises of the declaration of independence and don't tend to wander very far. Imported ideological fashions from Europe (marxism, fascism, hard communism) just don't find very fertile ground here. Remarkably, for example, the US has never had a Socialist party that met with any electoral success to speak of. The current European fashion, which I'll clumsily call transnational secular multicultural soft-socialist bureaucratism (not a great phrasing on my part, but you see how I view it), has some American adherents in the academy and the press, and its conflict with traditional American ideas is what makes European and American relations so poor at this moment.

I don't really know what Rumsfeld meant by his dig. Sure resonated, though.

Mr. Peaceful:

It's why there are jobs.

lonbud:

Yes, you're free to choose not to believe in America.

rds:

I don't have any. I accept whole hog everything my grandfathers believed.

Mr. Peaceful:

Capitalism is Christianity applied to economics, as democracy is Christianity applied to government. That's why we find the three together.

oj:

Your grandfathers had unusually prescient, well-developed thoughts on why, say, the expansion of international law is incompatible with American democracy.

My grandfather on one side came to the US from Czechoslovakia in the early 20th century. I shudder to think what his political ideas were. Good thing I have critical thinking skills.

rds:

They didn't hate Wilson and Roosenfelter for nothing.

My grandfather on one side came to the US from Czechoslovakia in the early 20th century. Good thing I have critical thinking skills.

Unfortunately I may have gotten my grandfather's internet posting skills.

OJ:

"Capital is Christianity applied to economics"

Then God bless MacDonalds, Bill Gates and Sweatshops.

rds:

You don't. You just accept what my grandfathers knew.

I had to reject other ideas to get there. I went to Yale for heaven's sake.

yes, Yale is a center of critical thinking.

people come here for the freedom, the rule of law, and the opportunity to be successful. oj didn't mean you have to be christian to fit in here, you have to be american in your heart and mind.

when you say " I daresay more people have perished in the name of Jesus Christ than any single figure in the history of man." please put a number to that. then compare that number to the 100M who have perished in the last century alone, to the false god of "equality".

But according to OJ, to be American in your heart and mind is to aspire to an unrealisable ideal. Isn't capitalism more realistic?

"anyone who disagrees with them [GWB and Co.] is subject to being executed, or bombed, or banned from their American eden."

I wonder how Lonbud escaped?

Capitalism doesn't exist.

cjm:
people come here for the freedom, the rule of law, and the opportunity to be successful. oj didn't mean you have to be christian to fit in here, you have to be american in your heart and mind.

except, the current regime and its allies in big gov't have little interest in the rule of law and no clue about the american heart and mind.

their interest lies in ignoring laws that impede their financial and cultural aspirations to hegemony, in changing laws that block their intention to establish here in america a fundamentalist theocracy rooted in what is actually a perverted interpretation of the thought and teaching of jesus christ.

oj meant exactly what he said. in his view, america is a puritan nation, open to anyone who'll bend over and accept the stern punishments of his brand of christian hypocricy.

lonbud:

Exactly. It's worked for 400 years.

this is a stern country and the better for it. that's why trouble makers don't come here, they go to europe where the dying is easy. lonbud, you have a child and work with children so you know that man in his uncivilized state is pretty damn nasty.

when you start using terms like "regime" you lose all credibility. present an argument and back it up with references, please.

When you put it like that I can see why you love America so much. The land of the free...?

tommo, name a freer place on earth and i will move there in a shot. instead of sounding like stalin's parrot, why don't you provide some references to all the oppression you perceive ?

Mr. Peaceful:

No, sweet land of liberty.

cjm:

A Stalinist I most certainly am not. You are quick to criticise the problems with other nations and slow to recognise those of your own.

Which part of 'freer' are you seeking? France has religious tolerance...

OJ:

Liberte, egalite et fraternite?

Mr. Peaceful:

No, egalite is the enemy.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal"

Yes, Created.

The French Revolution--and its children: socialism, communism, nazism, etc.--stands for the proposition that the State should intervene to make men equally wealthy.

Egalite is a great evil from which Europe has never recovered.

france, and any socialist country existant, has far less freedom than we have here. in fact, their religous tolerance causes them to ban wearing head scarves and yarmakas (sorry for the mispelling) and crucifexes on chains.

"Remarkably, for example, the US has never had a Socialist party that met with any electoral success to speak of."

Wait until Howard Dean is done.

OJ:

There are often unintented consequences of even the noblest of ideals (I do not class Nazism amongst these). The American pursuit of liberty also has these (McCarthyism, the Iran-Contra affair, electral fraud in the penultimate Presidential election amongst them).

Does your faith not advocate equality? (Matthew 22:38-39, Mark 12:31)

cjm:

That is just in state schools, and aims to promote equality - it only applies to visible ostentatious religious symbols, there are no witch hunts.

Mr. Peaceful:

What's unintended about pursuing communist subversives at home, toppling Communist regimes abroad, and electing the party of liberty?

You'll note that Christ quite specifically makes loving others a task for each of us, not an excuse for oppressive government?

i guess the religous tolerance in france is why the jewish people there are leaving in droves. people used to make excuses about stalin, too. funny how your sense of outrage is limited to the imaginary sins of america, while the real evil in the world gets your blessings.

OJ:

You might have an argument if these events had been in accordance with the law. They are against human rights, international law and your own constitutional law.

Quite.

cjm:

I find your comments ever more baffling. If I were less mild mannered I might even be offended. Why you continuously raise the ghost of an oppressive dictator is beyond me. And I am not sure to which 'imaginery' sins of America you refer. Nor do I give my blessings to real evil anywhere.

Mr. Peaceful:

Not according to any court that's ever looked at them and not by the lights of the American public.

OJ:

I am content to let you have the last word on this, because it is a topic on which we cannot agree, with ideologies so far apart. We do not have a better system here, but at least we can see the problems.

The Tao Te Ching says that the wise rule by emptying hearts and stuffing bellies. Maybe America does have a wise ruler.

Note that the Orient was never governed well until it adopted the Anglo-American system? Though with only the form and not the substance they won't make it.