I see this in a different way.

The government (wind) is the example of virtue and good manners. This enables the people (grass) to control temselves. Instead of interpreting it that the government is controlling the people, it can be interpreted that the the way the government acts, the people act. (The way the winds blows, that's the way the grass bends.)

In other words, your children are going to grow up acting like you. So, act in such a way that they can be independent, self-controlled, virtuous and well mannered adults.

__________________
InterfaithForums.com-Where your ideas and beliefs count.

I see your point, I really do and hope you believe me. That is what makes things like this contentious, and it is (you'll pardon me) one of the reasons for choosing the subject matter as a debate topic. We could have debated whether we prefer May to be cool or warm, but that wouldn't generate a whole lot of interest.

And I think you have to recognize that nobody debating this topic on this forum is going to have any power to do anything anyway, so freedom is probably safe for at least a few more days.

But I'd also like to point out to you that there are parallels, and they give me pause to consider. We self-censor all the time, primarily so as to keep civil discourse civil, and so that we don't have to haul out our swords and kill each other for every poorly chosen word.

For instance, nobody that I know would look at a woman with a particularly ugly birth-mark and point it out loudly for all to hear, with comments about how it must be hard for her to get a date!

Okay, pretty weak example. However, there are most definitely people out there who's "ideology" includes ethnic or religious hatred, and as a society we strongly discourage the expression of those feelings, no matter how powerfully they are felt. And somehow, we've all (or nearly all) managed to agree.

I find it pretty disappointing, by the way, that the Democratic race is so profoundly focused on whether they're going to nominate "a woman or a black man" as their candidate for President. My own view is, who cares? But with all that babble about those issues, I'm having a hard time really hearing (way up here in the frozen north) what these two candidates are really all about. And that's all that should concern people about them, if they are going to potentially give them the keys to the White House.

Sometimes a change in paradigm, a real sea-change in how we think, takes a little pressure. It was the same during the Enlightenment. Once conditioned to believe that we were all naturally subject to authority, with no need to think about why, the Enlightenment sought to show that all men were able to think for themselves. Not that religion was wrong, per se, but that it had its own proper place, and government was not that proper place. The result was greater rights for common people, and a decline in the influence of authoritarian institutions such as the nobility and Church.

Now, on the record, during the debate and after, I came to the conclusion that what I was advocating was probably unworkable. (Hey, even I can learn!) But, in my own very human way, I still like to try and salvage some of my thought, because while the solution I proposed may not necessarily be the correct one, the issues that led me to propose it remain, and I quite honestly think that those issues are very real. I think that Sam Harris was quite right when he said,
So, while my original proposal may not be the solution, perhaps one of the other things that debates such as this one can do is to get us thinking harder about the problem (or at least those of us who think that it is a problem, and I agree that does not include everyone.)

Now, as to the "tone" of the debate. Yes, Sticky and I were deliberately trying to keep the tone polite. I think where some of us felt, perhaps, that you had gone beyond that -- undoubtedly without meaning to -- was when you first referred to fascism. That stung a little, perhaps. And it reminds us a little of Godwin's Law. This states that:
Now, Fascism is neither Hitler nor Nazi, but the resemblence is more than superficial.

It was also a little hurtful when you questioned what my intentions towards someone lick Mike Huckabee might be, if I had the power. "I don’t think you should be sent to a Gulag for your views … although if you had legislative power I wonder if you would feel the same towards Huckabee and his ilk." Really, I think given the things that I said in all of my posts, that was a little bit uncalled for.

__________________
evangelicalhumanist: Greek "eu"=good and "angelos"=messenger. Spreading the good news of Humanism.

Light Keeper,

I didn’t interpret the Tricky's Confucian metaphor as “the government is controlling the people.” Neither did Tricky. Neither did any of the other metaphors speak to the government. In all three metaphors the government is assumed to be simply an extension of the people. The essence is simply that of the group Vs the individual.

OK. Here are two questions. These two questions are the essence of western liberal democracy. And if you apply them to all three metaphors you may then understand my point:

<>What/Who determines virtue and good manners?
<>What becomes of those who disagree?

BTW the three metaphors are: Historical Fascism, The Confucian quote as interpreted by Tricky, and the debated censorship of an ideology (which really isn’t a metaphor, I’m sorry)

These questions suggest that someone is being controlled. If a society is going to work together, someone has to set an example. In the case of the Confucius metaphor, the people have a choice to agree or disagree. No one is being controlled. Remember, there are no laws or punishements. This is about choice. He is looking for a sense of teamwork. His metaphor is similar to what goes around comes around.

__________________
InterfaithForums.com-Where your ideas and beliefs count.

Hey EH,

It’s not personal. Public debate is idea Vs idea. In this debate your idea is extremely vulnerable to criticism of it’s censorship aspect. And I dove on that. I admitted that under the different circumstance of pornography the roles might be reversed. I would be advocating censorship, leaving myself open to the same criticism. It would become a values issue in which one is more absurd and dangerous Mike Huckabee or Larry Flynt.

In this debate the parameters didn’t expand to include Fascism, Fascism was at the core. I have sought alternative words to Fascism but haven’t found any as yet. Communism and Socialism both emphasize the group but have common property and relationship between people respectively as their core meanings. Remember I made that comment about Aged Hippie’s signature quote. He never understood, I don’t know if you did or if anybody else did … but it was 100% accurate and precise. In the future I perhaps should substitute for the word Fascism “The belief in the primacy of the group over the individual.” I will edit my posts if I get time.


>>> It was also a little hurtful when you questioned what my intentions towards someone lick Mike Huckabee might be, if I had the power. "I don’t think you should be sent to a Gulag for your views … although if you had legislative power I wonder if you would feel the same towards Huckabee and his ilk." Really, I think given the things that I said in all of my posts, that was a little bit uncalled for.<<<

It wasn’t explicit but your argument led me to believe that you thought the resolution should be law. That is the intentions of your resolution. Should your resolution gain wide acceptance and become law you will not be given administration of that law as a prize. You will not be the benevolent judge granting pardons to Huckabee and his ilk. Most would imagine a law probably with some minor penalty and court orders to cease and desist. But what of the devoted born-again scofflaw who refuses to cease and desist and runs an overtly religious election campaign? The only option the court has for a scofflaw is jail. That someone may end up in jail because of your resolution may not have occurred to you but that is the reality.

Gulag is a hyperbolic way of saying jail, I’m sorry. I had also tried to refer to the inquisition but it didn’t fit smoothly into the context … But my point was to highlight the path that censorship of ideologies have taken in history. History shows us the fate of heretics and the reality of your resolution is that it creates an entirely new class of heretic; the overtly religious politician. Mike Huckabee is the example de jour and your resolution demands that he shut-up. And if he defiantly refuses … ?

These are all things that you may not have considered but are intrinsic to your resolution. From my perspective I wonder which is more hurtful.

Zerubbabel



You are definitely entitled to wear one of my official "Annoy the Great Beast" T shirts. The group having become the supreme idol in the politically correct world.is making true individuality even more rare. Indeed, selective morality has even now created the supreme lunacy of politically correct genocides. Yet, thankfully, there are still those having smelled the coffee that have not knelt down in honor of the Great Beast.(collective mind)

The idea of the separation of church referred to by Thomas Jefferson and state is misleading. It in no way refers to the separation of state and God. It is true individuality that grows to acquire the human perspective that places collective mentality into a higher perspective or closer to the source.

Without the healthy relationship between God and state, the Great Beast and the horrors of its hypocrisy prevail. The trouble is that the Great Beast has become so dominant on its turf that such a healthy God/state relationship is impossible and the good that can come from it is limited to a minority with the courage to defy the Beast as they strive for true individuality. Consider these two letters by Thomas Jefferson. He describes a healthy God/state relationship. A corrupted state he asserts is worse than atheism. Frankly I've come to believe that the only hope for mankind is if enough individuals exist to lessen the negative effects of the Beast. Without them I'm afraid at some point it will all go up in smoke.

>>> These questions suggest that someone is being controlled. <<<

Huh? I respectfully suggest that you are projecting. I gave you 4 applications for the questions. I will take one as an example; western liberal democracy:


<>What/Who determines virtue and good manners?

The people based on public debate; literary, intellectual and religious input and their own innate sense of morality establish their own standards. Then jointly they elect legislators with specific mandates to create and administer the standards that the majority wants as common to all, codified in the law.

<>What becomes of those who disagree?

That is encoded in the Law. One who disagrees with the law against murder and murders will be forcibly removed from society and his freedom taken from him. One who speaks out against the current standards of virtue and good manners is considered the opposition party and is given a soapbox to try and sway others. The marketplace of ideas is open to all.

And this is precisely the point to which I came. Remember, I said religion SHOULD neither be asked nor disclosed. One can incorporate such "shoulds" into law, or we can come to a general agreement, consistent with the notions of virtue and good manners. There are things that nobody asks candidates today -- although there's no law forbidding them -- for precisely that reason. "When did you last have sex with your wife?" "How often do you masturbate?" Maybe an elector is genuinely interested. Maybe an elector would really like to cast his vote based on the answers to one of those questions. But you won't hear the question, and if you do, you won't hear an answer.

And the reason is, we as a society have agreed that good manners require that we not ask such questions, and that if somebody is mannerless enough to ask it, we would not expect the candidate to dignify it with any sort of a response.

On the question of religion, right now, if the question is asked and not dignified with a response, the automatic assumption by the vast majority of voters is that the candidate does not believe, and that assumption would make the candidate unworthy of the vote of many, many people.
No, if we are talking about virtue and good manners, there is no law. What happens to the person who asks such a question? They may get laughed out of the room. Certainly if it hits the broadcasts, they will face public ridicule elsewhere, too.

Same thing as when I mentioned Stockwell Day and his religious claims during the 2000 general election in Canada. He talked about it, but his religious beliefs contributed greatly to his loss of the election, his loss of the leadership of the party, and in fact the demise of the Reform party. No laws were involved.

You may assume that I wanted laws passed to turn my "should" to a "must," but I never said so, and in fact the only working examples I gave are both countries where there are no such laws, and yet good manners generally preclude religious questions.

And we are neither of us fascist countries, and in fact both nations are quite concerned with the liberty of individuals. However, we do recognize that there are limits, as can be clearly seen in the first two articles of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms:
The emphasis is mine, but it shows that we would not permit absolutely untrammeled freedoms of any kind, and that they may be abridged in some cases. (This is usually an issue for the courts in interpreting charter cases, but even the courts can be overridden by Parliament using the so-called "notwithstanding" clause.)

__________________
evangelicalhumanist: Greek "eu"=good and "angelos"=messenger. Spreading the good news of Humanism.

The problem here is that you are trying to enhance the original metaphor. You are speculating rather than using the information that was given to us. We were debating what the actual metaphor meant. You are trying to read facism, democracy, etc into it. This is the problem when we are faced with something new, we have atendency to label it with something with which we are familiar. This wasn't a debate on how it would work, it was a debate on what it meant.

According to this statement there are no laws and punishments. Yet, you continue to insist there are.

__________________
InterfaithForums.com-Where your ideas and beliefs count.