Bong Hits 4 Jesus

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5686493,00.html

http://www.denverpost.com/dining/ci_6760212


Here are the key sentences.

"Corder had not included those remarks during rehearsals.

"The lawsuit said Brewer would not give Corder her diploma until she included a sentence saying, "I realize that, had I asked ahead of time, I would not have been allowed to say what I did." Corder received her diploma after complying.

"Then, deviating from the 30-second speech that had been approved by the principal, she began speaking about "someone who loves you more than you could ever imagine."

"The district has a written policy titled "Student Expression Rights," according to the lawsuit. It prohibits expression that, among other things, is disruptive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous or threatens violence. It does not specifically prohibit religious speech, the lawsuit states. "

This has nothing to do with "honesty" unless Corder made an explicit promise not to state those words. The articles aren't clear on that point. Regardless, Corder felt that she was being honest to her beliefs and her obligation to perform according to a script seems contrary both to her own sense of integrity and to what education is-- where the articulation of independent thought needs the benediction of authority. Even her acknowledgent that she should not have said such things is irrelevant in the light of more important issues, such as censorship, the First Amendment, and the free speach rights of the students versus the right of the administration to control thsoe students.

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/06pdf/06-278.pdf

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court restricted student expression in the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case, but that was because it was assumed that the 14 foot banner referenced drug use-- a permissible restriction in the court's view. However, in the case above, Corder's speech didn't violate written policy. She only pricked the sensibilities of the principle and some of her listeners, which is what any good speech should do.

On First Amendment grounds, I think Corder is going to win. Also, as a matter of contract law, I think she will win, a contract consisting of offer ("you are entitled to give a speech under these conditions"), accceptance ("I will speak under these conditions"), and consideration ("I spoke under these conditions"), the absence of any leg of the triad voiding the contract. From Corder's view point, the pre-conditions were the written policy, with which she was in compliance, not the philosophical views of her listeners or even the approval of the principle of the speech. The school breached her contract to speak by imposing requirements extraneous to stated school policy. Given the breach of contract by the administration, I would say Corder was entitled to present her religious opinion.

As a First Amendment absolutist, I hope she does win, and this would also be true if a valedictorian someday intoned that "atheism was the hope of the world."

IMO, the school was wrong and Corder was right.

Are you an absolutist about all of the First Amendment, or just the free speech part of it?

"The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is a part of the United States Bill of Rights. It prohibits the federal legislature from making laws that establish religion (the "Establishment Clause") or prohibit free exercise of religion (the "Free Exercise Clause"), laws that infringe the freedom of speech, infringe the freedom of the press, limit the right to assemble peaceably, or limit the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment

The entire First Amendment without exception.

Then you should have no problems with the school principal curtailing the rights of the speaker, given that the "federal legislature" was not involved.

I have long wondered what a "free speech absolutist" might be. Certainly the founders did not intend that the Congress could never curtail speech. Madison, who wrote the Amendments, didn't. Never in our history has such an argument seriously been made, or recognized.

I was giving a summary statement of my view, which, more accurately is that the presumption must be given on the unfettered expression of speech in the absence of stronger countervailing presumptions. However, we are all aware that there is no absolute to free speach or anything else for that matter when weighed against issues of public safety, common sense and ethics, general decorum, and other concerns. We cannot yell "fire" in a theatre, for example, or slander with impunity.

Okay. So you don't recognize the First Amendment as imposing literal limits on government, nor "granting" literally the right to individual free speech. You are not a First Amendment "absolutist."

I concede the point. However, it seems like you were invoking an orginalist understanding of that clause. I'm not sure that what Madison had to say about the topic is especially relevant, although I think he did view the press and public sentiment as a chck on the other three branches-- a quasi branch of government. Nor do I think the state grants any such rights as such, although they can establish bounds, for example, in not inciting riots or spilling state secrets. The law is dynamic and fluid, subject to interpretation and application. However, as a matter of principle, the presumption as I've said before is to the absence of restrictions unless there is a compelling state interest. Stating a religous or a political opinion doesn't rise to that level, as the courts have ruled in the past.

The question I posed (and not just academic trivia, given the new composition of the SCOTUS, IMO) was whether the "rights" found in the First Amendment limit the states in their exercise of sovereignty? That is, where the fed legislature can't prohibit speech because of the First Amendment, can the state or local government? Can the local school principle? Or, for that matter, can the Executive Branch in the exercise of its powers, both enumerated or implied? These are serious questions, about to become even more on the "front burner", IMO. You've stated some magic words, as they apply to the Congress. Again, I ask: Why does the local school authority need show "compelling state interest" before it restricts speech?

I agree that this is going to become an increasingly significant issue. The answer lies in Amendment Ten, the so-called States' Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." The Constitution grants power and also prevents certain powers as well. It makes no claim to enumerate all powers delegrated or prohibited, as in Amendment Nine: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." Thus, Congress may be silent on what kinds of speach are permissible and may also delegate to the states other kinds of restrictions on, say, libel law. However, it doesn't follow that the Misssissippi, for example, can invoke posse comitatus to close down all the broadcast stations and newspapers and require that everyone attends their Southern Baptist church of choice, as that would fall under a violation of the First Amendment. At the end of the day, the compelling state interest is the legitimacy of the constitution itself. This becomes especially true in today where the temptation to make the First Amendment a dead letter law may become compelling given our so-called war on terror where security trumps freedom.

Freedom is a fragile flower indeed.

Part of the role of the SCOTUS, IMOHO, is to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. The government should not be in the game of endorsing religion and for many of us, people proselytizing in government sponsored events is exactly that.

We need to achieve both goals-- protect minority rights while expanding the freedoms expressed in the First Amendment. John Stevens, in his dissent in the Morse v. Frederick case, states that "Even in high school, a rule that permits only one point of view to be expressed is less likely to produce correct answers than the open discussion of counterveiling views." The problem here is a matter of interpretation. What you may see as proselytizing, I may see as a benign expression of an ideosyncratic point of view-- something that happens every day both inside the school and outside. If instead of a speech, a student had stated the same thing in a letter to the school newspaper, should it be censored on the same grounds? What if that student wore an armband protesting the war in Iraq or a button that said "Bush Rocks", could that student be suspended? I do agree that the government should not endorse religion, but I disagree that perceived efforts to proselytize in a government setting is a manifestation of the government's endorsement of religion. And I fear the imposition of a rule that prohibits such religious expression would lead to the government's supression of literary and political expressions.

But, if people being ushered (quite literally) unto adulthood cannot handle hearing a peer speak of her religious delusions, then they are in serious trouble.

I agree. The school recognizes those who are the first in their class and gives them a forum to mouth their platitudes or delusions. However, the school administrators must think the audience is hopelessly mentally weak to succumb to those few minutes of platitudes or delusions. If the teachers are doing their jobs, these are all battles that should have been fought well before graduation day. I hope we never reach that point of political correctness where we cannot have these intellectual battles in secular classrooms. I think it goes back to pedagogical assumptions. If you believe the best way to educate is to indoctrinate, then by all means teach them what to think -- only that which is good and true-- and quarantine them from folly, perhaps through home schooling. Alternatively, if you want to teach your children how to think, how to develop tough minds and confidence in reasoning and rationality, then give them opportunities to reason and to think for themselves.

(Channelling Professor Charles W. Kingsfield.)

Speak louder, Hart. Fill the room with your intelligence. What? Nothing? OK, here's a dime to call your mommy. Tell her you'll never make it as a 1L. Who makes these determinations? Who establishes these societal rules? The answer, class, is simply: the courts. Class dismissed.

Jesus is the Christ

Some say that Jesus the Christ(blessings be upon him) isThe God and some say that God consist of 3 co-equalpersons, they say he is 3 in 1. Some say that the wordGod is a family name and some say that Mohammadwas a false prophet.Say, “Who is The God of Jesus the Christ?”Say, “Why did Mohammad call Jesus the Christ?”Believe that Jesus was The Christ that the Jews rejectedbut God saved from death. This is the right way to believe. Believe that Mohammad was like Moses anddelivered his people from paganism and disbelief. Most importantly realize that God is the only one that is thePossessor of The Highest Rank and that means the first and foremost.

"As for certain people he being 3 years old of 1 when it has consisted of three co-equal people, Christ (yes Christ where blessings is he) certain people who are God, them calls God, saying that you say. As for certain people that Mohammad was the predicator of the fake, saying that certain people where God of word is surname say. As for yes Christ's God Christ? "Is or, everyone's speech," Mohammad call yes Christ Christ? "Why it did, speech," yes Christ Christ who is the God which is rescued from the death which the Judean person refuses believe. This is method the right which is believed. You gave birth to that people from the believing, paganism and the infidelity Mohammad like Moses. It means first it is the owner of ranking whose God is high, being the only 1 year old it is heavy."

I used babelfish to translate the English to Japanese and then back to English. Now it makes sense.

Senator Craig Taps His Foot

The legal angle is intriguing. Here is the document Senator Larry Craig signed indicating that he was guilty.

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/070828_Craig_Plea_Petition.pdf

Now he claims that his plea was a mistake. However, wouldn't that claim that his guilty plea was a mistake make his guilty plea perjury since he was asserting? The man has put himself into a box from which I doubt he can slither out.

The expression on the face of Craig's wife as she stood by his side was telling-- a wrinkled nose, as if she was smelling something especially vile, and sunglasses that no doubt covered red-rimmed eyes. My heart goes out to her but not to her despicable husband.

Karl Rove has claimed that the reason the Republicans lost in 2006 was over ethical issues rather than the war. I think Rove is mistaken. But nevertheless the Republicans' claim to moral supremacy in family issues is tattered, and they are eager to put this sordid affair behind them as fast as they can-- not that it will do much good in 2008. My guess is that Craig will offer his resignation for health reasons by Labor Day.

A Rose Is A Rose

My boy created this design from a picture of a rose. I thought it was pretty.

The Cup of Christ

"The cup" of Christ, was not a physical cup. As I have since learned, it was used in typical to mean "experience". So when Christ was asking God to "take this cup from me", he was in fact saying, "take this experience from me".

That's a nice insight.

In terms of what the Bible does say on any given topic, I think it is safe to say that we read the Bible through each of our own glasses. I'm a bit amused at how some folks insist on a literalist interpretation, say, of Genesis, but by the time they reach Ezekial, Daniel, and Revelations, they are quite sure that they find the USA, the Arab-Israel conflict, China, and Russia in the metaphors they read. A literal interpetation would mean that Gog and Magog would be literally Gog and Magog, and nothing else. And, of course, a literal reading of the Bible must endorse pologamy and concubines, the faith handling of poisonous snakes, and a flat earth.

Flat earth? Where do you get "flat earth" in the Bible?

It just so happens that I wrote an essay on this point.

The Bible doesn’t interpret itself. We interpret the Bible, and we all read the same words in different ways. A person who claims that the Bible must be read literally hasn’t read enough of the Bible to justify that statement. Some books such as the Song of Solomon make no sense at all unless read allegorically. We can read Biblical justifications for slavery (such as The Epistle to Philemon), polygamy (the biographies of the kings and patriarchs of the Old Testament), the holocaust (from the Gospel of John and the writings of Martin Luther and others), and the flatness of the earth. The Bible’s doctrine of the flat earth, believed by all the writers of the Bible and Jesus as well as Calvin and Luther, is an example of why we must be cautious in applying broad brush principles of interpretations to such a complex book with so many different styles of writing, authors, and messages.

In the New York Times obituaries in 2001, I read of the death of Charles Johnson. He promoted the view that the earth was a flat disk floating on primordial waters instead of a ball spinning and orbiting in space. The basis for his belief was the many references in the Old Testament referring to a flat earth and the New Testament’s claim that Jesus ascended into heaven. On eclipses, he said that “The Bible tells us that the heavens are a mystery.” That the earth is flat doesn’t derive from the classics. Many ancient writers speculated that the earth was a ball or a point in space well before Copernicus and Galileo. Nor does can it derive from common sense. If the earth is flat, a person on the top of the on a clear day should be able to see the . It is a doctrine that comes exclusively from the Bible, or, more precisely, an interpretation of the Bible.
There are many scriptures that support that the earth is unmovable:

1 Chronicles 16:30: “He has fixed the earth firm, immovable.”
Psalm 93:1: “Thou hast fixed the earth immovable and firm ...”
Psalm 96:10: “He has fixed the earth firm, immovable ...”
Psalm 104:5: “Thou didst fix the earth on its foundation so that it never can be shaken.”
Isaiah 45:18: “...who made the earth and fashioned it, and himself fixed it fast...”

Genesis describes creation as three tiers, with the firmament being the visible vault of the sky—a physical dome:

Job 9:8, “...who by himself spread out the heavens [shamayim]...”
Psalm 19:1, “The heavens [shamayim] tell out the glory of God, the vault of heaven [raqiya] reveals his handiwork.”
Psalm 102:25, “...the heavens [shamayim] were thy handiwork.”
Isaiah 45:12, “I, with my own hands, stretched out the heavens [shamayim] and caused all their host to shine...”
Isaiah 48:13, “...with my right hand I formed the expanse of the sky [shamayim]...”

Some apologists try to re-interpret a flat-earth verse to give ancient writers modern voices. An example is Isaiah 40:22, where “he sitteth upon the circle of the earth”, where circle should really mean sphere. “In my view, all arguments to prove the Bible teaches a spherical earth are weak if not wrong-headed,” Robert Schadewald writes. “On the other hand, the flat-earth cosmology previously described is historically consistent and requires none of the special pleading apparently necessary to harmonize the Bible with sphericity. From their geographical and historical context, one would expect the ancient Hebrews to have a flat-earth cosmology. Indeed, from the very beginning, ultra-orthodox Christians have been flat-earthers, arguing that to believe otherwise is to deny the literal truth of the Bible.” There are few creationists who believe that the earth is flat, but I don’t understand why they don’t. If a day in Genesis 5:1 is 24 hours, why shouldn’t we assume that there are four literal corners of the earth as stated in Genesis 7:1? Fundamentalists use the phrase “cafeteria Christians” in picking and choosing which doctrines to believe or reject. But I would suggest that such people use a cafeteria approach in choosing how they will interpret the Bible in ways that support a pre-defined dogma. And where does that dogma come from? The answer can only be: their reason and their traditions.

I think it's easy to differentiate between literal, figurative, a revelation knowledge as one grows in God.

Can you explain your statement, please, and perhaps give some examples of what you mean?

There are three basic kinds of knowledge mentioned in the bible I believe. There is the most fundamental kind called knowledge - the knowing about things, facts, and information whether they be spiritual, academic, secular, etc. Example: I know that one of the commandments in the bible says we should not commit adultery.

Then there is level called wisdom or understanding. It goes beyond knowledge in that it deals with the applicability of knowledge in certain situations and instances. It's something that is a bit more experiential than knowledge and usually is practical.Example: I am a married man and I choose not to let my female friends get too close, so, I set boundaries to safe guard my relationship between my wife and myself.

And then the bible introduces something called revelation knowledge. This pertains to an intimate knowledge and wisdom revealed by God's Spirit confirmed in one's own spirit. The way we can obtain it is when we fellowship, read, and study God's word.Example: Pornography is a spirit (demonic/Satanic) driven activity in , which degrades women (and men), destroys families and marriages, and introduces an unrealistic expectation and warped mindset about sex that handicaps millions of American men. It breeds infidelity between spouses by excluding the perfect will God where one man and one wife are to be joined and enjoy each other.

I don't have a problem to what you call fundamental knowledge and wisdom, and you give good examples for each. But I'm not sure that I completely understand what you mean be revelation knowledge. The example you gave mentions your conviction that pornography is "a spirit (demonic/Satanic) driven activity." I agree with you about the harms that porn can induce. However, I would ask you what evidence do you have that it is demonic? This sounds a bit like the "Satan made me do it" defense. May I suggest an alternative interpertation for your consideration? Porn is nothing more or less than media-- film, photographs, the internet. If you chose to expose yourself to that media, if you allow it to do all the bad things you mention, it is not because of some demon but because of choices you freely make. This freedom comes from God, who gives us the freedom to be be either porn-obsessed or not-- depending on the decisions we make and the emotions we feel. The devil has nothing to do with porn at all, IMO.

You suggest that "as we grow in God", we become more discerning and astute in intepreting God's revelation. May I suggest that the opposite is true. Could it be that as we become more spirtually mature, we become less certain and more aware of the shades of gray that is morality and that makes up life and indeed the Bible itself, and that doubt is a kind of faith whereas faith-- at least the dogmatic kind-- is a kind of apostasy? As the Apostle Paul notes: "For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. When I was a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass darkly; but then, face to face; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as I am known."

"The unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. For who has known the mind of Christ so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ." (I Cor. 2:14-16)

There are other verses... that suggest that we can train up our spiritual discernment through the study of God's Word and as we grow by faith.

I think you are mixing apples and oranges as it were. I certainly agree that "we can train up our spiritual discernment through the study of God's Word and as we grow by faith." But that proposition hasn't much to do with the verses you quoted. In fact, it seems to suggest that the spiritual man since he has the mind of Christ is exempt from accountability. But, the implication is, that cannot be so, as no one completely has the mind of Christ, which mean we must be accountabile to others. I read those verse somewhat more ironically than you do.

Multi-tiered is not inaccurate. Heaven above (space/ atmosphere) and earth (ground/water) below. How is that wrong? Or did you not know that when the Bible refers to "the heavens" they aren't referring simply to the sky, but to a more grander picture - everything above - including space, planets and stars.

You'd have a better chance of convincing me of alien abduction in the Bible than a flat earth theory. And as I said, the original audience may have understood it as meaning 'flat earth', but that isn't what the text actually says.

I think you are being a tad disingenuous in allowing your scientific knowledge to warp what the Bible states and what has been believed for thousands of years. Where do you suppose the pre-Colombus belief come from that you could sail off the edge of the earth? It came from the theology of the time.

It is false when the reader of the Bible identifies the material world with the spiritual world-- the clouds and planets and stars with the celestial heaven. And yet that was the Biblical belief for milleniums. We see that in the writings of Dante, for example, and in the persecution of Galilio.

I'm curious about your motivation. A fair literal reading of the Bible-- and the verses I gave you merely scratch the surface-- supports a flat earth doctrine. Do you think that doctrine never existed? Or that the admission that the doctrine exists opens the door to eroding some other doctrine?

What I don't agree on, is that the Bible is explicit or implicit in describing the world as such. And you haven't demonstrated that with any of the verses you've cited.

I've already cited references to an unmovable earth, such as this: Psalm 93:1: “Thou hast fixed the earth immovable and firm ...” As far as the shape of the earth is concerned, consider Daniel 4:10-11, where the king “saw a tree of great height at the centre of the earth...reaching with its top to the sky and visible to the earth's farthest bounds,” something that would only be possible if the earth was flat. Also, in Matthew 4:8, Satan tempted Jesus by showing him the whole world from a single geographic point : “Once again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their glory.” And, in Revelations 1:7, “Behold, he is coming with the clouds! Every eye shall see him,” presupposing an audience on a plane.

For more information on flat-earth apologetics:

http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/febible.htm

I have repeatedly agreed with you that the original audience (more than likely) would have understood the earth to be flat. I agree on that point.

Your premise is what is <*)))-{ (fishy) and in fact confounds me. If I understand your argument, the Bible never states that the earth is flat. Rather, the Bible has verses that people over the years have misconstrued. But why would they misconstrue them when the evidence from sola scriptura (Latin ablative, "by scripture alone") is overhelming? Further, if that is so, on what basis can you be sure that you are not misconstruing the Bible today? The Bible sometimes speaks at length on subjects that are irrelevant or of tangential relevancy, such as the campaigns of genocide in the Old Testament (1 Samuel 15:3, 2 Samuel 24:15, 2 Samuel 6:6, and 1 Chronicles 21:14.) and the speaking of tongues in the New Testament (Acts 2:3, 10:46, etc.). The Bible mentions explicitly doctrines that express something quite different from how other Christians understand them, such as predestination and creation whereas other doctrines exist only by implication, such as the doctrine of the trinity, God's omniscience, and the rapture-- all words that don't exist in the Bible. There are also factual contradictions in the Bible, and only a few out of the hundreds that exist will suffice for me to make my point. According to Ezra 2:15, 454 of Adin’s offspring returned from ; according to Nehemiah 7:20, 655 of Adin’s children returned from . Ahaziah began to reign in the 12th year of Joram, according to 2 Kings and in the 11th year of Joram, according to 2 Kings . Simon the Cyrenian carried Jesus’ cross in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but John 19:17 shows Jesus carrying his cross and Jesus getting crucified at two different times in the synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John. I hope by now you appreciate that exegeting the Bible is more than just reading and reflecting on the Bible, and that Biblical truth is sometimes far from self-evident.

Mother Teresa's Doubts

A new, innocuously titled book, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (Doubleday), consisting primarily of correspondence between Teresa and her confessors and superiors over a period of 66 years, provides the spiritual counterpoint to a life known mostly through its works. The letters, many of them preserved against her wishes (she had requested that they be destroyed but was overruled by her church), reveal that for the last nearly half-century of her life she felt no presence of God whatsoever — or, as the book's compiler and editor, the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, writes, "neither in her heart or in the eucharist.

"http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1655415,00.html?xid=feed-yahoo-full-world

Mother Teresa's writings are not contradictory nor hypocritical. Rather, they reflect the essence of what Eric Hoffer called "The True Believer." Her self-abnegation-- her willingness to walk through dung while ministering to lepers-- has less to do with spiritual purity than it does with psychological sickness. As Hoffer notes: "The fanatic is perpetually incomplete and insecure. He cannot generate self-assurance out of his individual resources-- out of his rejected self-- but finds it only by clinging passionately to whatever support he happens to embrace. Though his single-minded dedication is a holding on for dear life, he easily sees himself as the supporter and defender of the holy cause to which he clings." It is exactly these people who are more Catholic than the pope and more marxist than Marx that promote and perpetuate mass movements that change the world for good or for ill. Hoffer ends his book by noting that fanaticism is among the only four really important invetions made between 3,000 BC and 1,400 AD-- a Judaic-Christian invention. "And it is strange to think that in receiving this malady of the soul, the world also received a miracuous instrument for raising societies and nations from the dead-- an instrument of resurrection."

God's Warriors

What did you think about CNN's documentary God's Warriors?

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/gods.warriors/

CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour traveled to six countries on four continents to examine religious fundamentalism in the three Abrahamic faiths Judiaism, Christianity, and Islam.

I thought the issues were fairly and exhaustively presented in the segments that I saw on Islam and Christianity. What I inferred from the documentary was that the fanaticism of Islam at present was the more virulent and potentially deadly than that of Christianity as it is inseparable with the militerism and nuclear ambitions of Middle Eastern nations that lack the philosophical secularism of western countries. Secondly, I think the emotions that are felt are real, deep-seated and metasizing and there are no clear or easy solution on how to neutralize them. Finally, it also seemed clear that the fanaticism of the faithful was more often than not a political rather than a religious expression, which may seem like a paradox if religion and politics are one and the same.

I would take a stronger postion that that. I would say that there is no way for the US Government to deal with this militant fundamentalism. But the fundamentalism exists within a broad world culture and it needs certain things to be able to flourish. It needs to be able to depict itself as oppressed by an outside enemy. We do not need to contribute to the fundametalist self image. We do not need to nurture that self image. And when we do choose to nurture and cultivate that self image, as we are doing in Iraq, we should not be surprised when the seeds we have planted and tended bear their bitter fruit.

I think you are right. Paticular tin-eared policies of the US has contributed to their myth of Moslem victimization. Surely, one step to reduce this would be to eliminate our dependence on Middle Eastern oil. However, I think it is also true that we are hated for values that we deem are essential, such as the separation of the clergy from state policy and law and the idea of democracy and independent thought generally. Perhaps part of the answer is to conduct a two-tier approach-- strong military deterrence-- not US boots on the ME ground, which actually has an anti-deterrence effect --combined with efforts for dialogue and co-existence, in which one finds the word existence.

And, to repeat your first statement, we need to eliminate on dependence on (I would say addiction to) middle eastern oil.

There's actually two ways to do that.

1. Add a tax of $x dollars per gallon or barrel to fund a national project to create a viable energy alternative.

2. Another solution may be just as effective. Start a war with Iran that would close the Straits of Hormuz increasing the cost of oil and decreasing supply so that other viable energy alternatives are created. Republican neo-cons call this the free market solution.

Rove's Obsession

Last week, Rove on the Sunday talk shows, attacked Clinton while declining to disparage any other Democratic candidate, noting:

"She enters the general election campaign with the highest negatives of any candidate in the history of the Gallup poll," Rove said.

"It just says people have made an opinion about her. It's hard to change opinions once you've been a high-profile person in the public eye, as she has for 16 or 17 years."

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=3505777

Tactically, I believe this is a mistake. Rove believes Hillary is the weakest Democratic candidate, and that his attacks will make her ascendency more likely. His main point appears that people won't vote for someone they don't like-- as if this was a race for the high school student council. However, with Bush's approval rating in the low 30s, all that the Democrats need to do is to run against Bush's phantom in the general election, making 2008 a referendum on the stewardship of the Bush administration. I think Hillary is almost devoid of charisma, but I think people will vote against the Republicans no matter who is the Democratic candidate. The strongest attack on Hillary is not on whether or not she has high negatives but whether or not she is what she says she really is. She has gone through so many mutations and has also played rather loose with the truth at imes while surrounding herself with a inner ring of toadies I may justly wonder if a Clinton II administration will be much different that a Bush II administration. But I think this kind of an attack would work best in the primaries rather than in the general election.

If Rudy is the candidate, I think Hillary has a strong shot at becoming president, as Rudy's liberalism cancels out Hillary's liberalism and his negatives (at least when they become more fully explored) outweigh Hillary's negatives. These include Rudy's draft dodging, his civil rights records as major, his non-spin actions on 9/11, his serial marriages and family strife, and his embrace of an interventionist military.

Perverted Justice

I must admit to mixed feelings about MSNBC's "To Catch a Predator." While entertaining and also successful in casting a spotlight on some dangerous and despicable people, I question whether this exercise is just. They work with an organization called "Perverted Justice", a forum that tries to lure predators by pretending to be 13 year olds. Their FAQ tries to answer two of my main objections, that first, a crime does exist that secondly it is not entrapment.

http://www.perverted-justice.com/index.php?pg=faq

How is this a crime? There was no actual minor!

Let's put it in terms we can all agree with. If I go to what I think is a hitman to order a murder of my wife, I've committed a crime. Even if that "hitman" is an undercover person posing as one for the purposes of catching people conspiring to murder. So why would anyone believe there needs to be an "actual minor" when it comes to solicitation? All that needs to exist is the record that the solicitor was informed that the person was a minor. After that, conspiring to have sexual relations with a minor is applicable. Just as the charge is the same for a person conspiring to murder with a "fake" or "real" hitman, the charge is philosophically the same for conspiring to have sex with a "fake" or "real" minor.

Is it entrapment?

Not on any level. First, entrapment is a term created and judiciated against law enforcement officials. We are not law enforcement officials. Secondly, these people IM our names first. We don't IM them. They choose to say the things they say, to agree to the things they agree to, and to give their phone number for the verification call. Entrapment is a situation where you go out of your way to entice a citizen as law enforcement to commit a crime they otherwise would not commit. For example, if a department sent around female police pretending to be prostitutes to knock on the doors of private citizens offering sex, that's entrapment. We don't do the figurative "knocking on doors." Rather we sit, wait, and allow them to knock upon our online "door." And when they do, they're in for a surprise. As the law states regarding entrapment, the defense fails when it can be shown that the person being charged had a predisposition to the crime in question. Dozens and dozens and dozens of convictions... zero successful entrapment defenses.

I'm still not persuaded. To combine both objections into one, it's a bit like scattering counterfeit dollars on the sidewalk and then arresting someone when he bends to pick them up-- surely a good way to rid the community of potential thieves. Proof, PJ/MNBC says, of the predisposition to commit the crime lies in the willingess of these people to travel sometimes hundreds of miles to have a relationship with this phony 13 year old. But it seems to me that much of the predisposition was fueled by the racy interaction of the pretend kid and the perp, which, in the case of PJ, is a middle-aged man, where as an aside the information that the kid is 13 is disclosed. Given that much of the banter that preceeds and follows that is sexually-charged blarney, why should the perp give credence to a single statement of claimed fact which is not fact? It all seems kind of perverted to me.

I have my reservations about the group as well.

My problem lies mainly with the fact that this is an untrained and unprofessional group of volunteers, answerable to no one, highly secretive about their own identities, and most with a very serious axe to grind. I think they rely on the fact that no one is going to defend someone chatting up an apparently underage person and use it as an excuse to engage in what is to them a very satisfying persecution of any such person.

Unfortunately, they don't know how to conduct a sting or how to gather useful evidence---they do not always seem to realize what is and isn't criminal activity, either---which means that from a practical standpoint, they do not preserve any evidence of a crime for law enforcement. Worse, they very well could be tipping off actual criminals and giving them ample time to destroy evidence before law enforcement can do anything.

I hate vigilantism for precisely the reasons above: average citizens substitute moral outrage for policework and wind up making it hard or impossible for real law enforcement to do their job.

I agree that the entire exercise strikes me as extra legal fantasizing-- Captain Underwear rescues the children of Ameica. There's also a dangerous civil liberties aspect, somewhat like as portrayed in Speilberg's Minority Report, where crimes of the future are prevented before they occur or in Orwell's 1984, where the thinkpol punish thoughtcrime. Of course, the ultimate example of this is Bush's preventive attack of Iraq under the Bush doctrine where presumed intentions are given as much weight as actual actions in determining war policy. Stalinist Russia thrived on this conflation between thoughts and deeds, where dissent was traitorous sabatage and two dissenters was a conspiratorial center of terrorism.

We could argue 'till we're blue in the face about whether attempted solicitation of a minor should be considered a criminal act or not, but, legally, most jurisdictions in the U.S. do. That's not a matter of opinion; it's simple fact.

That's not my argument at all. I think the attempted solicitation of a minor should be considered a criminal act. I just have my doubts that the attempted solicitation of someone who claims he is a minor but is not a minor should be considered a criminal act, especially when that person who claims he is a minor takes an aggressive effort in soliciting someone who will solicit him.

The particular actions in question, however, do not fit into the traditional definition of a "thought crime". A "thought crime" is usually taken to mean one in which no action at all has been undertaken.

But I don't think any criminal action has been taken. Let's break it down. At what point has the criminal act occurred? At the point where randy intranet postings are sent and received? No, as that would fall under the protection of the First Amendment. At the point when the perp gets into his car and drives to what he thinks is a tryst? No, since his driving is not illegal. At the point where he enters PJ's house? From what I can tell, in most times, he is waved in or invited. This isn't criminal trespass, so that cannot be the crime. The only reason that person has been arrested is because of his intentions-- his thoughts. But his twisted notions are directed against a phantom, a falsehood, a non-existent being. It's like something you would find in the Sharia or the Salem witch trials. Like the Nazis in Skokie and the pedophile web designers in California, these people are as far from my values as night is from day. But a line is crossed when you start arresting people-- not for criminal conduct-- but for criminal thought, for perhaps someday the arrests will be for political or religious thought.

Too Good To Be True

This 419 scam hit my e-mail today, causing my BS detector to buzz loudly. I have to admire it's construction-- a fine work of fiction with a plot and good character development. But, as with all scams, the question always to be asked is: why the cut?

Photograph of Mr. Michael Joseph Leyden, Esq.


Dear friend,

I am Mr. Michael Leyden, the principal accounting officer of Private Banking Services at the Bank of China (BOC). I am contacting you concerning our customer and, an investment placed under our banks management 3 years ago.I would respectfully request that you keep the contents of this mail confidential and respect the integrity of the information you come by as a result of this mail. I contacted you independently of our investigation and no one is informed of this communication. I would like to intimate you with certain facts that I believe would be of interest to you.In 2002, the subject matter; ref: bb/boc/bank/0012 came to our bank to engage in business discussions with our Private Banking Services Department. He informed us that he had a financial portfolio of 8.35 million United States Dollars, which he wished to have us turn over (invest) on his behalf.I was the officer assigned to his case; I made numerous suggestions in line with my duties as the de-facto chief operations officer of the Private Banking Services Department, especially given the volume of funds he wished to put into our bank. We met on numerous occasions prior to any investments being placed. I encouraged him to consider various growth funds with prime ratings. The favored route in my advice to customers is to start by assessing data on 6000 traditional stocks and bond managers and 2000 managers of alternative investments. Based on my advice, we spun the money around various opportunities and made attractive margins for our first months of operation, the accrued profit and interest stood at this point at over 10 million United States Dollars, this margin was not the full potential of the fund but he desired low risk guaranteed returns on investments.In mid 2004, he asked that the money be liquidated because he needed to make an urgent investment requiring cash payments in Europe. He directed that I liquidate the funds and had it deposited with a firm. I informed him that the bank would have to make special arrangements to have this done and in order not to circumvent due process, the bank would have to make a 9.5 % deduction from the funds to cater for banking and statutory charges. He complained about the charges but later came around when I explained to him the complexities of the task he was asking of us. Cash movement across borders has become especially strict since the incident of 9/11. I contacted my affiliate in and had the funds available.I undertook all the processes and made sure I followed his precise instructions to the letter and had the funds deposited in a security consultancy firm, the firm is a specialist private firm that accepts deposits from high net worth individuals and blue chip corporations that handle valuable products or undertake transactions that need immediate access to cash. This small and highly private organization is familiar especially to the highly placed and well-connected organizations. In line with instructions, the money was deposited. He told me he wanted the money there in anticipation of his arrival from Norway later that week. This was the last communication we had, this transpired around 9th October 2004.In January this year, we got a call from the security firm informing us that the inactivity of that particular portfolio. This was an astounding position as far as I was concerned, given the fact that I managed the private banking sector I was the only one who knew about the deposit , and I could not understand why he had not come forward to claim his deposit. I made futile efforts to locate him I immediately passed the task of locating him to the internal investigations department of the bank of china. Four days later, information started to trickle in, apparently he was dead. A person who suited his description was declared dead of a heart attack in Canne, South of France. We were soon enough able to identify the body and cause of death was confirmed.The bank immediately launched an investigation into possible surviving next of kin to alert about the situation and also to come forward to claim his estate. If you are familiar with private banking affairs, those who patronize our services usually prefer anonymity, but also some levels of detachment from conventional processes. In his bio-data form, he listed no next of kin. In the field of private banking, opening an account with us means no one will know of its existence, accounts are rarely held under a name; depositors use numbers and codes to make the accounts anonymous. This bank also gives the choice to depositors of having their mail sent to them or held at the bank itself, ensuring that there are no traces of the account and as I said, rarely do they nominate next of kin. Private banking clients apart from not nominating next of kin also usually in most cases leave wills in our care, in this case; he died intestate.In line with our internal processes for account holders who have passed away, we instituted our own investigations in good faith to determine who should have right to claim the estate. This investigation has for the past months been unfruitful. We have scanned every continent and used our private investigation affiliate companies to get to the root of the problem. The investigation did not ever yield any result My official capacity dictates that I am the only party to supervise the investigation and the only party to receive the results of the investigation.This leaves me as the only person with the full picture of what the prevailing situation is in relation to the deposit and the late beneficiary of the deposit. According to practice, the firm will by the end of this financial year broadcast a request for statements of claim to BOC, failing to receive viable claims they will most probably revert the deposit back to BOC. This will result in the money entering the BOC accounting system and the portfolio will be out of my hands and out of the Private Banking Services Department. This will not happen if I have my way.What I wish to relate to you will smack of unethical practice but I want you to understand something. It is only an outsider to the banking world who finds the internal politics of the banking world aberrational. The world of private banking especially is fraught with huge rewards for those who occupy certain offices and oversee certain portfolios. You should have begun by now to put together the general direction of what I propose. There is US$ 8,370,000.00 deposited, I alone have the deposit details and they will release the deposit to no one unless I instruct them to do so. I alone know of the existence of this deposit for as far as BOC is concerned, the transaction with our deceased customer concluded when I sent the funds to the firm, all outstanding interactions in relation to the file are just customer services and due process.They are simply awaiting instructions to release the deposit to any party that comes forward. This is the situation. This bank has spent great amounts of money trying to track this man's family; they have investigated for months and have found no family. The investigation has come to an end.My proposal; I request your assistance in transfering this estate deposited with my bank (BOC) out of china. You only stand in as the recepient/beneficiary of the estate. We share the proceeds 50/50.I would have gone ahead to ask the funds be released to me, but that would have drawn a straight line to me and my involvement in claiming the deposit. I assure you that I could have the deposit released to you within a few days. I will simply inform the bank of the final closing of the file relating to the customer I will then officially communicate with the firm and instruct them to release the deposit to you. With these two things: all is done. The alternative would be for us to have the firm direct the funds to another bank with you as account holder. This way there will be no need for you to think of receiving the money from the firm. We can fine-tune this based on our interactions.I am aware of the consequences of this proposal. I ask that if you find no interest in this project that you should discard this mail. I ask that you do not be vindictive and destructive. If my offer is of no appeal to you, delete this message and forget I ever contacted you. Do not destroy my career because you do not approve of my proposal. You may not know this but people like myself who have made tidy sums out of comparable situations run the whole private banking sector. I am not a criminal and what I do, I do not find against good conscience, this may be hard for you to understand, but the dynamics of my industry dictates that I make this move.Such opportunities only come ones' way once in a lifetime. I cannot let this chance pass me by, for once I find myself in total control of my destiny. These chances won't pass me by. I ask that you do not destroy my chance, if you will not work with me let me know and let me move on with my life but do not destroy me. I am a family man and this is an opportunity to provide them with new opportunities. There is a reward for this project and it is a task well worth undertaking. I have evaluated the risks and the only risk I have here is from you refusing to work with me and alerting my bank. I am the only one who knows of this situation, good fortune has blessed you with a name that has planted you into the center of relevance in my life. Let's share the blessing.If you find yourself able to work with me, contact me through this same email account. If you give me positive signals, I will initiate this process towards a conclusion. I wish to inform you that should you contact me via official channels; I will deny knowing you and about this project. I repeat, I do not want you contacting me through my official phone lines nor do I want you contacting me through my official email account. Contact me only through this email address. I do not want any direct link between you and me. My official lines are not secure lines as they are periodically monitored to assess our level of customer care in line with our Total Quality Management Policy.Please observe this instruction religiously. Please, again, note I am a family man; I have a wife and children. I send you this mail not without a measure of fear as to what the consequences, but I know within me that nothing ventured is nothing gained and that success and riches never come easy or on a platter of gold. This is the one truth I have learned from my private banking clients. Do not betray my confidence. If we can be of one accord, send me your response on this email michly1953@yahoo.com.cn to enable us commences this line of discussion.

Best regards,

M. Leyden.

Rove Quits A Sinking Ship

Après Rove le déluge.

It appears that Tony Snow and others will also be resigning soon.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/08/16/more-resignations-to-come/

The departure of Karl surely seals the end of the Bush administration and the end of GOP governance for what may well be the next generation. So, in that respect, he is the gift that keeps on giving to the Democrats. Bush's immigration and social security reforms and Katrina were all intended to starve the beast-- what the Republican saw as the illusion of a competent and caring government. The firing of the attorney generals, the outing of a CIA operative, and the use of a racist smear campaign against McCain in the 2000 election are but a few of his triumphs. But these truely pale next to the administration's use of the 9/11 attacks to strip America of its civil liberties and launch a wretched war of choice.

Lover of Horses in Decline

My name's eroding appeal.

Disputing my Dad

Just a week ago my dad spammed out an email to me and other relatives about his discoveries and studies about "Creation Science", I was appalled to see glaring straw men like Pascal's Wager and other things that no body uses as "evidence" anymore. I have always been proud and respectful of my Dad. I wrote a response to each one of his "evidences" but that email is still sitting in my outbox, I just cannot bring myself to send it. I think there is a point where confrontation would serve no purpose.

I think your approach was ethical and respectful of your dad. I've encountered the same situation with my father, who is a life-long Christian with strong convictions, especially on creationism, pre-milleanialism, the immorality of gays and the ACLU and the morality of the Bush family. I think disputation and defending one's point of view has its place. However, with my own father, I ask the question: to what end? as I know minds won't be changed although feelings could get hurt.

I remember the story of a great Hasidic rabbi whose mother went mad when he was a teenager. She would go out into the streets shouting and he would go out, find her and gently guide her back home. While she walked with him, she would insult him loudly and mock him to those he met along the way. He grew up exquisitely sensitive but he never, ever spoke badly of her. The more she acted horribly, the more protective of her he was. He may have been relieved when she died but he mourned her as if she were the greatest mother on earth.

This was one of his greatest merits. He honored his mother even though she did not honor him. In that, he was doing the mitzvah, "honor thy mother and thy father." He honored her in two ways. One, he covered her madness by removing her from a situation of shame. Had she ever become sane again, she might have been ashamed of her behavior so he stopped her behavior being a scandal to the neighbors. Then, he never complained that she was shaming him.

The balance is hard to reach. If your father is sending you input that erodes your respect for him, you find ways to replenish that respect from other sources. You don't respond to the messages that make you angry. If he insists on bringing them up, you shrug and change the subject to something about which you two can meet. Tell him you respect his opinion (not the contents but his right to hold it) but do not share it.

I had a father who loved to argue with me. Gawd, he had so much fun getting me riled up. But when he was sick at the end of his life and I knew I had to make sense of our time together, I realized that he had done me a favor by making me learn about the world just so I could argue with him. I became a ravenous reader and avid learner. I was able to thank him for the rancor of our earlier relationship. Maybe your father has made you a more aware skeptic along the way. Find ways to thank him for that.

Business 101 From the Godfather

Clemenza: "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli."

Sollozzo: "I don't like violence, Tom. I'm a businessman. Blood is a big expense."

Tom Hagan: "Mr. Corleone is a man who insists on hearing bad news immediately. "

Michael Corleone: "Never hate your enemies. It clouds your judgement."

Don Corleone: "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse."

The Epistomology of War

Neither war was an epistemological mistake. Both wars are/was more a botched attempt at imperialism.

I don't deny that the wars were a botched attempt at imperialism, with other motivations dovetailing as well. But wars that turn out badly by definition are epistomological failures, whether it is the delusions of the French field marshalls riding to Moscow in 1812, Hitler attacking Poland in 1939, Johnson's escalation in Viet Nam, or Bush's foray into in Iraq. I don't deny the economic or political factors that caused these failures, although frankly I put less weight on them than you do. There was also a failure of separate the real from the false, not just by our national leaders, but by the fourth estate and much of the public. As you state: "It’s as if every now and again we must relearn that direct military occupation never ends well."
Why must war teach us these slow and painful lessons? It is because vain-glorious wishes and hopes skew the perceptions of those who start and support wars rather than understanding things as they really are, i.e. epistomology.

In the case of the Viet Nam war, it is ironic that the most LSD-addled yipster in Grant Park was closer to the essential truth than the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune, the august Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the faculty lounge of the University of Chicago in his distrust for the truth that the press, military, and government spun out during that time. As it turned ut Viet Nam was a shining lie from start to finish, from the Tonkin Bay, through Me Lei massacre, and the Pentagon Papers. And the lies continue to this day when neocons assert that the Cambodian genoicide occurred because the US left Viet Nam, while conveniently leaving out the fact that it was the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam that crushed the Khmer Rouge in 1979. .

And now a generation later you see the same kind of epistomology-- forceful actions taken by brilliant people on false premises using stacked facts or no facts. What was the reality that prevailed in 2003 in Bush's head? It was the reality of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, a link between terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center and Iraq, that Iraqi oil would pay for this war, that war could be fought on the cheap, that the people of Iraqi would welcome our troops, and the probability that our domination of Iraq would bring peace to the Middle East.. Perhaps someday hsiotory will endorse the decision Bush made. But there is no question that there was a gap between what was believed and what was real in making that decision, a failure, as I said before, of epistomology that is costing us untold blood and treasure.

American political philosophy has always been Machiavellian.

I wish it were so but that I doubt that it is, as Machiavellian politics is by definition politics that is rooted in what is tangiable rather than what is fanciful. Nothing is more deadly to us as individuals or to our country we we take flight from reality into the never-never land of idealism.

What you failed to quote in the same paragraph, “I suppose its hard showing prudence when you have such a huge military complex itching to gorge itself on government funds”, is the key to understanding why we engage in these seemingly bad wars; it’s not a result of bad epistemology.

I understand your argument, but I remain skeptical of it.

I am skeptical when labels such as "militarism" or "imperialism" or any ism for that matter is applied to the United States. These type of labels have more to do with ideological dogma usually with a quasi-Marxist coloration than explaining the existing reality. I am skeptical of the claim that nations general and people individually are primarily driven by the "pocketbok nerve". The economic interpretation of history that sees men as voting or going to war based on the imperatives of capital is simplistic in the light of what we know of mass human psychology. Hitler may well have been an instrument of the Ruhr industralists, protecting their economic advantage against the workers, but this doesn't scratch the surface in explaining the rise of Nazism.

This-- that people are more than "economic man"-- is clearly true in the Middle East where the satisfication of material wants perversely seems to fuel terrorism and where many of the terrorisms came from backgrounds of comfort or wealth. I think you also discount the negative impact war has on capitalism, in terms of wasted resources and opportunity costs, including those of defense contractors. Furthermore, if our motive of being in Iraq is oil, it seems a nonsensical goal as we can get all the oil that we can consume on the open market at $80 per barrel. Finally, you invoke a shadowy "powerful interests" that somehow are responsible for dispatching our youth to Iraq. There are no such puppet masters. At the end of the day, the electorate will vote people into or out of office based on how our national leaders perform. The Republicans lost Congress in 2006, will probably lose the presidency in 2008 and the Supreme Court in 2010. I'm all for cynicism, but the kind of cyncism that implies that a change in political leaders has no effect on our war policies strikes as an intuition that isn't based on the evidence.

Militarism and imperialism are just words that describe the facts. I think you would have good cause to chide me had I said, “I am skeptical of a word like Darwinism.” if we had been discussing that ever so popular topic evolution.

I object to such words because they carry agitprop baggage that does more to obscure than illuminate and also allow the debate to be framed in such a way that disconnects conclusions from evidence. Darwinism, Hinduism, materialism, spirtualism-- all of these are glittering generalities that mean different things to different people and really have no value until they are intelligibly defined. Can we say the US is a militarist country? Yes. Can we say that the US is a pacifist country? Again, yes. The evidence is there to make the case in both instances. I think you lose sight of the diversity of this country when such superficial categorical descriptions are made. The US is both a racist nation and a tolerant nation, an expansionist nation and an insular nation, a secular nation and a sacred nation, and so on.

Self-interest / greed are what motivate our foreign policy.

And we are all in thrall to the multi-nationals and military-industrial complex. Really? Yes, there were economic motivations in founding this nation, in the civil war, the constitution was a set of compromises between economic interest groups, and so on. But to stop there is to lose sight of a deeper reality of the other motivations that drive you and me. I'm persuaded by Eric Hoffer's True Believer, who linked individual psychology to politics, especially to mass movements. I especially appreciated his insight into the interchangeability hetween mass movements-- that fanatics be they Fascists, Communists, Christians, or atheists--are all brothers under the skin in their frustration, insecurity, and need to sacrifice himself for a holy or historic cause. I don't who said it, but someone said that when someone fires a gun it is fired with his testicles, not his fingers. Ther's a lot of truth in that-- that Shakesperean emotions have much more of an impact on how we live our lives than what our Fidelity statement is. In the case of Bush, a ne're do black sheep well who tried to eclipse his father in statecraft and governance, it's quite possible that that there is more than an element of psychodrama-- much more so than the so-called need for access to oil.

I think you have no idea the extent of our involvement in the Middle East, the least of which is in the current Afghanistan and Iraq escapades.

As someone who grew up in a Muslim country and now works for a leading defense contractor, I can assure you that I do indeed know the extent of our involvement in the ME, perhaps more so than you. And nor do I gainsay the imperative to be involved in the ME to some degree. But it doesn't follow that our ME interests translate to boots on the ground. That we need Iraq for oil and that we need an army in Iraq to protect our oil interests are assumptions, not facts, and tendentious and fallacious assumptions at that.

Your continued insistence that everything politicians say should be taken at face value shows mental shortcoming on your end not theirs.

You sorely misread me if you infer from anything that I've written that the pronouncements of politicans should be taken at face value. When it comes to politicans, I'm an equal opportunity skeptic-- to both conservatives and to liberals, to democrats and to republicans.
The premise of my last post is that truth in politics is both desirable and attainable-- to answer your original question-- and that means having the epistomological discipline to separate truth from falsehood in what politicans and their intellectual handmaidens say or do. If your premise is that political truth is elusive, subjective, relativistic, or power-based, than your competing ideas must also be so based and as equally distrusted and transient. The question for me is not: is that policy liberal or conservative?; but is that policy true or false, right or wrong? To answer those questions, we must start with the premise that those questions can first be answered. And if those questions are answered with sufficient rigor, than, it seems to me, the public policy will take care of itself.

The administration today is largely the same people of the Bush 1 and Reagan administrations; and they are not stupid or deluded but have a clear and consistent agenda.

Ok, but their prime agenda is to stay in power. However, by misreading the public-- believing as you do that we the people are tolerant of messanic foreign adventures and are militeristic and credulous-- they are on the brink of losing their power and their agenda. Thoughts have consequences and epistomology is a two-way street.

The Law of Non-Contradiction

Now let us apply the law of non contradiction to the deity of Jesus.

1) God does not die
2) Jesus died
3) If Jesus is God then God both died and does not die.
4) The Undeniable Law of Non-Contradiction says that it cannot be the case that God died and does not die.
5) Therefore we are left with the case that Jesus is not God.

By invoking the law of non-contradiction, I regret to say that you have built your argument on sand. The law is unverifiable, unfalseifiable, begs the question, is circular, and also most importantly in the way you use it irrelevant. It is far from self-evident, as you claim.

Here is a counter-example, which I cribbed from the following link.

http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/phenom/old/lawnon.html

Light (l) is both a particle (P) and a wave (W). It makes sense to then say that (for all l) not (l is P and l is not P) and this statement is true because light is both a particle and not a particle.

But there is a more basic problem. "Not P" and "P" contradict each other, but only if "P" is "something". For example, do the following statements contradict each other? (a). All bobbles are jhjtssda. (b). All ghgad are bobbles. The answer is: who knows, as the sentences are incoherent. The same is true with metaphysical statements. Such statements leave us with neither affirming nor denying. They cannot be answered at all.

Now, let's apply the law to your propositions by simply asking whether God (p1) = Jesus (p2) and whether die in reference to p1 = die in reference to p2. In the absence of certainly about those asserted logical equivalences, it seems evident that the law of non-contradiction has no relevancy to the propositions you are trying to disprove. These propositions (or their rebuttal) may not be meaningless statements, but they are outside of what logic can tell us.

Spider Pig

aka Harry Plopper

http://youtube.com/watch?v=5XQ_GWKvDE0

Getting Iraq Wrong

Perhaps I’m the one mistaken for assigning too much value to truth. (Truth is overrated) . . .
Politics, advertising, business are areas I see as favoring the good liar.

No, I don't think we can assign too much value to truth, and nor do I think that ultimately lies favor the good businessman or politican. This is especially true in politics (or, for that matter, in your neighborhood bar), where misperception of capabilities or intentions can have deadly results. I view our involvement in Viet Nam and Iraq as an epistomological failure, much more so than a failure of arms or will.

What follows "Getting Iraq Wrong" by a one time apologist of American involvement in Iraq, Michael Ignatieff. Trusting that I'm within the bounds of fair use, here are some of its salient paragraphs of this important essay from Sunday's New York Times Magazine.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/magazine/05iraq-t.html

"The unfolding catastrophe in Iraq has condemned the political judgment of a president. But it has also condemned the judgment of many others, myself included, who as commentators supported the invasion.

"The philosopher Isaiah Berlin once said that the trouble with academics and commentators is that they care more about whether ideas are interesting than whether they are true. Politicians live by ideas just as much as professional thinkers do, but they can’t afford the luxury of entertaining ideas that are merely interesting. They have to work with the small number of ideas that happen to be true and the even smaller number that happen to be applicable to real life. In academic life, false ideas are merely false and useless ones can be fun to play with. In political life, false ideas can ruin the lives of millions and useless ones can waste precious resources. An intellectual’s responsibility for his ideas is to follow their consequences wherever they may lead. A politician’s responsibility is to master those consequences and prevent them from doing harm.

"A sense of reality is not just a sense of the world as it is, but as it might be. Like great artists, great politicians see possibilities others cannot and then seek to turn them into realities. To bring the new into being, a politician needs a sense of timing, of when to leap and when to remain still. Bismarck famously remarked that political judgment was the ability to hear, before anyone else, the distant hoofbeats of the horse of history.

"Fixed principle matters. There are some goods that cannot be traded, some lines that cannot be crossed, some people who must never be betrayed. But fixed ideas of a dogmatic kind are usually the enemy of good judgment.

"Good judgment in politics, it turns out, depends on being a critical judge of yourself. It was not merely that the president did not take the care to understand Iraq. He also did not take the care to understand himself. The sense of reality that might have saved him from catastrophe would have taken the form of some warning bell sounding inside, alerting him that he did not know what he was doing. But then, it is doubtful that warning bells had ever sounded in him before. He had led a charmed life, and in charmed lives warning bells do not sound.

"People with good judgment listen to warning bells within. Prudent leaders force themselves to listen equally to advocates and opponents of the course of action they are thinking of pursuing. They do not suppose that their own good intentions will guarantee good results. They do not suppose they know all they need to know. If power corrupts, it corrupts this sixth sense of personal limitation on which prudence relies."

Michael Ignatieff (Aug. 5) dismisses many of the early (and prescient) critics of the invasion of Iraq for “indulging in ideology” rather than “exercising judgment.”

It takes extraordinary chutzpah for those like Ignatieff, who were so passionately wrong about Iraq, to accuse the opponents of the war of being ideological, when in reality we were challenging the extremely ideological, indeed messianic, views of the war’s proponents.
The critics were not only right in predicting the disastrous consequences of the invasion but also in judging that those consequences flowed from the motives behind it, which we correctly said were rooted in the geopolitics of energy in the resource-rich Middle East. Ignatieff offers nothing, other than more ideology, to challenge this view.

Anthony Arnove
New York

As a good and friendly neighbor, this Canadian would like to apologize to all those on your side of the border for the lame, windy excuses now emanating from my fellow countrymen who, in light of current tragic realities, are rethinking their support for your president, his incompetent manipulators and their doomed-from-the-start, militaristic foray into Iraq.
Please remember in the future that the main reason those like Ignatieff or the “axis of evil” coiner David Frum are down there messing in your affairs is that we long ago stopped listening to their cloistered ramblings up here.

Wayne Scott
Toronto