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Orlando used to have a military installation called McCoy Air Force Base, with long runways from which B-52s could take off and reach Cuba, or just about anywhere else, with loads of nukes. But now McCoy has been scrapped and repurposed. It has been absorbed into Orlando's civilian airport. The long runways are being used to land 747-loads of tourists from Brazil, Italy, Russia and Japan, so that they can come to Disney World and steep in our media for a while.
To traditional cultures, especially word-based ones such as Islam, this is infinitely more threatening than the B-52s ever were. It is obvious, to everyone outside of the United States, that our arch-buzzwords, multiculturalism and diversity, are false fronts that are being used (in many cases unwittingly) to conceal a global trend to eradicate cultural differences. The basic tenet of multiculturalism (or "honoring diversity" or whatever you want to call it) is that people need to stop judging each other-to stop asserting (and, eventually, to stop believing) that this is right and that is wrong, this true and that false, one thing ugly and another thing beautiful, that God exists and has this or that set of qualities.
The lesson most people are taking home from the Twentieth Century is that, in order for a large number of different cultures to coexist peacefully on the globe (or even in a neighborhood) it is necessary for people to suspend judgment in this way. Hence (I would argue) our suspicion of, and hostility towards, all authority figures in modern culture. As David Foster Wallace has explained in his essay "E Unibus Pluram," this is the fundamental message of television; it is the message that people take home, anyway, after they have steeped in our media long enough. It's not expressed in these highfalutin terms, of course. It comes through as the presumption that all authority figures--teachers, generals, cops, ministers, politicians--are hypocritical buffoons, and that hip jaded coolness is the only way to be.
The problem is that once you have done away with the ability to make judgments as to right and wrong, true and false, etc., there's no real culture left. All that remains is clog dancing and macrame. The ability to make judgments, to believe things, is the entire it point of having a culture. I think this is why guys with machine guns sometimes pop up in places like Luxor, and begin pumping bullets into Westerners. They perfectly understand the lesson of McCoy Air Force Base. When their sons come home wearing Chicago Bulls caps with the bills turned sideways, the dads go out of their minds.
The global anti-culture that has been conveyed into every cranny of the world by television is a culture unto itself, and by the standards of great and ancient cultures like Islam and France, it seems grossly inferior, at least at first. The only good thing you can say about it is that it makes world wars and Holocausts less likely--and that is actually a pretty good thing!
The only real problem is that anyone who has no culture, other than this global monoculture, is
completely screwed. Anyone who grows up watching TV, never sees any religion or philosophy, is raised in an atmosphere of moral relativism, learns about civics from watching bimbo eruptions on network TV news, and attends a university where postmodernists vie to outdo each other in demolishing traditional notions of truth and quality, is going to come out into the world as one pretty feckless human being. And--again--perhaps the goal of all this is to make us feckless so we won't nuke each other.On the other hand, if you are raised within some specific culture, you end up with a basic set of tools that you can use to think about and understand the world. You might use those tools to reject the culture you were raised in, but at least you've got some tools.
In this country, the people who run things--who populate major law firms and corporate boards--
understand all of this at some level. They pay lip service to multiculturalism and diversity and nonjudgmentalness, but they don't raise their own children that way. I have highly educated, technically sophisticated friends who have moved to small towns in Iowa to live and raise their children, and there are Hasidic Jewish enclaves in New York where large numbers of kids are being brought up according to traditional beliefs. Any suburban community might be thought of as a place where people who hold certain (mostly implicit) beliefs go to live among others who think the same way.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by DannyB on Monday November 21 2022, @03:59PM (20 children)
Anyone who supports Trump and still believes that the 2020 election was stolen should not be talking about what is right and wrong, or true and false.
There have been multiple recent school and other shootings in this country recently. It is interesting that other countries do not have this problem. For some odd reason? We should launch an investigation to determine the cause. Gee, I wonder if we can ever figure out (or merely admit) why this might be? Maybe nobody on this planet is smart enough to figure it out this mystery.
A party that runs candidates in the recent election who openly support Trump's Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen has no business telling ANYONE about right and wrong or true and false.
People who are supporters of that party or its candidates have no legitimate (non trolling) business here saying "who decides what is misinformation?"
People who push unproven quack remedies that kill people have no business talking about right and wrong, true and false. All it would take is to get those quack remedies proven. Strange how that never, ever seems to happen.
We live in a world where people believe in Q and Q drops as if it were real and not some half baked science fiction writing from a deranged individual. The storm is coming! Trump is still secretly in power and just letting Biden pretend to be running things to demonstrate to the liburals how bad things would be under Biden if Biden were really in power. (now that just doesn't make sense nor pass the laugh test)
Many of these "right and wrong, true and false" things are now the subject of lawsuits and are slowly but surely winding their way through the court system. It's not looking so good for Trump's two faced stories about the value of his properties. Nor for his Jan 6 insurrectionists. Nor for those who spouted the Big Lie defaming both Dominion and Smartmatic to the tune of billions of dollars. Not looking good for Mike Pillow. Nor for Alex Jones. All of their lies (and the damages) are simple provable facts. And were provable as lies on the day the lies were told.
Rev 22:15 tells me that they don't let liars in.
I am reminded of how it was when Isa 59:14 was written.
Or Isa 5:20.
Look at the Republican party platform of 1956 and compare to today.
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(Score: 0, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 21 2022, @04:08PM (3 children)
Wow. What a disjointed, off-topic reply. Tell ya what: If you can identify the source of the excerpt, I'll mod you up, despite your post being utter nonsense.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday November 21 2022, @06:41PM (2 children)
I did find the most salient bit as a quote by "anonymous" but now it's going to bug me all day because I couldn't find the rest, and the style is naggingly familiar.
I'm reminded of a stricture of writing good fiction: when everything is possible, nothing is meaningful. Frex, if magic can do anything you want, without bounds or costs, then it destroys the story because there is nothing to strive for or against.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 21 2022, @06:50PM
I shall, at some point, provide a link to the document from which I excerpted the above. HINT: the document wasn't intended to be about culture, truth, metaphysics, counterculture, or anything similar.
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday November 22 2022, @02:07AM
AC named the paper below - https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=52515&page=1&cid=1280885#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
PDF here: https://people.cs.georgetown.edu/~clay/classes/spring2010/os/inthebeginning.pdf [georgetown.edu]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2022, @05:04PM (6 children)
Although you're largely correct and I understand your position, and thank you for the scriptures, here's the the part that should keep us all humble: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+2%3A1-11&version=ESV [biblegateway.com]
One of the intricacies I've never fully understood is: where to draw the line between righteous action versus ego-driven overstepping. So, while I admire your effort, my measure (and it's up to God to someday tell me I'm wrong) is:
I try to live by that. "Try" is the thing. It's so difficult to predict all the possible outcomes from well-meant actions. "The road to Hades is paved with Good Intentions"...
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Monday November 21 2022, @06:26PM (4 children)
The modern Republican party is not one to be talking about what is true and false.
My choice to use bible quotes is because many in the Republican party, whose members spout the lies I cited, claim to follow the bible.
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(Score: -1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 21 2022, @06:44PM (3 children)
The modern "democrat" party certainly can't speak to truth or falsehoods. They can't even say what a woman is. Instead, they degrade, denigrate, and dump on women while in the process of promoting transsexuals, gays, and kiddy diddlers into women's places.
Untold millions of dollars have been spent on women's sports, in an attempt to elevate women to the same level of male athletes. And, now, we have men competing in women's sports, women's beauty pageants, taking women's scholarships, and so much more.
You should really do some hard thinking. Biblical scripture has no place in any argument that attacks the right, while defending the left. Just don't throw that hypocritical bullshit at us. No scripture supports what the D party is doing to the US today. None, whatsoever. Well - maybe - just possibly - if you start preaching about the Whore of Babylon.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by DannyB on Monday November 21 2022, @07:14PM (2 children)
Leaving scripture out of it, we could just talk about what is True an False. I mentioned multiple of those.
A party whose members mostly defend, downplay or tell outright lies about the seriousness of what happened on Jan 6 should not talk about True and False. Those who defend overthrowing the government to install someone who was not elected simply because the majority did not agree with you should not talk about Right and Wrong. That was just plain wrong. All those "normal tourists" are going through the court system, hundreds of them, and being sentenced. The proud boys leader is quite a piece of work.
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(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 21 2022, @10:53PM
I believe that I mentioned a glaring-assed falsehood that your left has embraced: any SOB who says he is female is a female. Work yourself out of that corner, first.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2022, @10:59PM
> ... we could just talk about what is True an False.
DannyB -- you are a decent writer, but Tom Friedman just commented on part of this topic, and, imo, he's a Really good writer,
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/opinion/trump-election-deniers.html [nytimes.com]
or, a de-paywalled version https://archive.ph/vFnfv [archive.ph]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2022, @07:47PM
Ah.. whataboutism!
Do or do not. There is no "try"..
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2022, @05:21PM
Okay, while I'm on my pulpit, long ago I realized that the Universe is far too complex for me to comprehend. I love science and the pursuit of knowledge, and people pursuing the biggest things of the Universe, and the smallest of the subatomic particles, we're approaching the original sin / fall of Satan when we think we're so smart that we know so much that we can pass judgement.
Look at human courts- it's one person who is sure the other person is wrong. But investigations and evidence may show, to a truly impartial observer, that maybe that first person's self-assuredness is quiet biased, and basically wrong on the balance of the facts. And then some cases are overturned on appeal!
You obviously hate Trump. I say he's just a man. We have TONS of MUCH WORSE people on the planet, and that's what we've inherited, right? Sin-filled world. The perfect creation / yearning for Garden of Eden creature in us wants to fight all that is unrighteous. I share that. But as the above Romans passage tells us, we have all sinned and fallen short of God's Glory.
We (USians) live under a government that was supposed to be self-balancing and self-correcting. Rather that focus your efforts, and spew so much negativity and judgement, try to help fix the problem.
Look how much JFK was loved and revered, but look at the true person under it (he was pretty immoral, and there's strong evidence of him being connected to crime syndicates, etc.)
My view: maybe, just maybe, Trump is a puppet of the Illuminati. And, maybe Illuminati is just a ruse to distract from a yet-unknown entity controlling that illusion.
It all gets back to what I keep saying: there's far too much for you or I to fully understand, and to think we do, is sin. So do your best, be productive and positive and uplifting and a Light unto the darkness. Blessings to you!!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2022, @05:27PM (5 children)
PS: politics causes me much unhappiness, but my general response to that is: sadly humans are (too) competitive, and the current Republican Party is just responding to the Democrats. It's been going on all along. It's a thing called "escalation".
People need to keep that in mind, much more, all the time.
When they say things and take actions- you can say and do whatever you want, but you're going to get reactions that you won't like, unless you're the Emperor (and even they get assassinated...)
(Score: 5, Interesting) by digitalaudiorock on Monday November 21 2022, @05:43PM
This couldn't possibly be more incorrect. Anyone actually paying attention knows that the current Dem party is WAY more centrist/right than anything that was going on in, for example, the 60s and 70s. Where are the presidential candidates as far left as George McGovern? Exactly...nowhere to be seen. On the other side, where are the Republican candidates anywhere in the same fucking universe as Eisenhower?...either retired or voted out, because they're not fascist/bat-shit-crazy enough. If anything, the Dems have been reacting to the Republican move to the far right.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday November 21 2022, @07:25PM (3 children)
Reactions.
It is interesting that there is an entire generation who grew up doing "school shooter drills". I grew up doing fire drills. But it makes sense because school shooters are more common than school fires. That entire generation, no matter their parents' politics, do not seem to take kindly to politicians who want to protect guns instead of kids.
And that generation will be voting for a long time to come. After the "fire drill" generation dies out.
The school shooting problem could have actually been fixed. If our generation had the will. Kids should not have access to firearms as easily as candy. Crazy and criminal people should possess firearms.
Reactions.
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(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday November 21 2022, @07:27PM (1 child)
Obviously, I meant: should not
:-)
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(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 21 2022, @11:58PM
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 21 2022, @10:57PM
No-bail, personal recognizance release for the most heinous of crimes is a major problem in the current-day justice system. Some butt-wipe who is losing it can amass 30 (or more) arrests in 30 days, for ever increasingly serious crimes, and walk every time, until he commits an especially heinous crime that the prosecuting attorney cannot ignore. If you really need examples, I can find some.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2022, @07:51PM
Anyone who supports the DNC/GOP should not be talking about what is right and wrong, or true and false.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday November 21 2022, @11:07PM
Interesting:
Yup: now the Republicans are more like "In all things which deal with people, lie and treat others not like ourselves as dirt and evil and lie to make others believe it. Money is ours to gather in at the expense of others."
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2022, @08:29PM (1 child)
That wasn't too hard...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2022, @11:07PM
Exactly. No religion required.
Signed, your friendly local post-theological.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/our-humanity-naturally/201102/being-post-theological [psychologytoday.com]
ps. I was brought up in the suburbs without any formal religion (never been to a Sunday mass, etc). I was taught the golden rule. What more do you need to be civilized?