On 2001-11-05 20:46, Marc Lamb wrote:
Someone writes, "Chris Patton notes that..."

:lol: My apologies, but this is an error caused by the so-called 'Information [overload] Age.

For some reason, I too get you, Mr. Patton, and Mr. O'Conor mixed up (if indeed that is the 'Chris' in question here). While you two are worlds apart in many ways, perhaps perception, or slight of 'generation', gives you away? Hence, despite beliefs, you are nonetheless so very closely bound by the 'unseen hand.'


:smile:

Good to see you back around, Marc. You are talking about Chris '68, right? That surprises me. My recollection is that he is a Bush apologist and therefore he is obviously coming from a decidedly different perspective than my own. But you may have a point about us both being first-wave Nomads. That means that there is hope for Chris yet if he ever screws his head on straight and gets off the Bush bandwagon (hehehe).

sv81 said:


"JayN cited us:
http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/fr/fr010919_1_n.shtml"

Is this proof that I agree with you?

http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...27/watta27.xml

http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...01/ixhome.html

What China presently thinks of our crisis.
http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$431SABQAAB2BBQFIQMFCFGGAVCBQ YIV0?xml=/news/2001/11/04/wchin04.xml&sSheet=/news/2001/11/04/i

Six terrorists using forged Israeli passports have entered the US.
http://216.26.163.62/2001/me_terrorism_11_02.html

Chris O'Connor actually has a unique perspective among the posters in that his cousin was a victim of the Pentagon attack.

Sobran strikes again addressing many of the topics discussed on this thread, most prominently the nature of patriotism:

(For info and discussion purposes only)

http://www.lewrockwell.com/sobran/sobran209.html

Is the Government "Us"?
by Joseph Sobran

Patriotism is never more needful than when your country goes mad. And Osama bin Laden has certainly driven America mad. Every American flag or decal on every motor vehicle is a tribute to his power. No American president's appeal could have evoked such a response.

Supporting the United States government, though a psychologically understandable reaction to the 9/11 attack, is a misguided answer to our needs. The Wall Street Journal has just run a long essay arguing that our greatest wartime Presidents ? Lincoln, Wilson, and Franklin Roosevelt ? imposed sharp though temporary restrictions on freedom, and that similar sacrifices of liberty to security may be necessary now.

Of course it all depends on how you define "greatness." A strong argument can be made that Lincoln, Wilson, and Roosevelt were our three most disastrous Presidents. All three of them helped destroy the original American system of limited, confederated government and built what the framers of the Constitution would call "consolidated" ? or monolithic ? government.

What may seem like temporary emergency measures in wartime often turn out to be not only permanent, but more decisive for our fate than the outcome of war itself. The real losers may be the citizens of the victorious state.

Your chance of being harmed by terrorists is remote. That you will be oppressed by your own government is a certainty. Are we really "citizens" anymore, in any serious sense? Or have we been reduced, as I believe, to mere infinitesimal units of a gigantic warfare-welfare empire, beyond our control and comprehension?

Let's face it. This isn't the America Norman Rockwell painted; he never heard of the Culture of Death. Every Trident submarine is capable of killing more people than Stalin did, and the grand totals in our abortion clinics are approaching Stalin's career record. Those are only the gory statistics; I say nothing here about the moral tone of American life.

We must ask ourselves, as patriots, just what we are supposed to be loyal to. In a conflict ? not exactly a "war" ? between a Godless, lawless, unconstitutional state, alias "America," and an alien band of superstitious fanatics, we owe our allegiance to the former, merely because it rules us?

As patriots, we love our country. As we should. We love our families, our neighbors, and those we recognize as our countrymen ? all those with whom we share a broad set of customs, traditions, morals, and countless other subtle and implicit links that are difficult to spell out.

But, this is a very different thing from submitting to the dictates of the state, which is composed of venal politicians ? men who swear on a Bible they don't believe in to uphold a Constitution they have no respect for.

Such men will sell us out in a flash. They always have, they always will. Yet in times of crisis, real or supposed, they expect us to rally behind them. If we don't, we are un-American. And the worst of it is that in an awful way they are sincere. They really think they represent all that is best in this country. They imagine they establish their bona fides by uttering bromides about "freedom" and "democracy" and imprecations against "terrorism."

A country is most likely to be betrayed by its own rulers. Roosevelt did this country more harm than any declared enemy ever did; not content with that, he betrayed much of what was left of Christendom by turning it over to Stalin. Yet millions of Americans thought they were being patriotic by electing and supporting him and revering his memory.

Even alleged conservatives still praise him, and few conservative politicians dare to suggest that his legacy is evil.

As Chesterton observed, anarchy starts at the top. Disordered rule, not street crime, is the real threat to society. But we have forgotten the old republican idea that the government is the servant of the people; today it is an imperious master, demanding our subservience and unconditional loyalty, even when it takes away our freedoms.

And we are called unpatriotic if we resist its tyranny!

We should be warned by the memory of Henry VIII, the king who ruined England. He claimed the absolute loyalty of his subjects, even when he presumed to dictate changes in their religion ? and he got enough of loyalty for his purposes. The horrifying fact is that he got it from nearly all of England's bishops.

St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More, who died for opposing Henry, were not only martyrs; they were true patriots.

They loved their country with something more than normal affection; they loved it with supreme charity.

*yawn*

This Sobran guy is way too over the top. I just can't take his ranting seriously.

Kiff '61

On 2001-11-06 13:34, Kiff '61 wrote:
*yawn*

This Sobran guy is way too over the top. I just can't take his ranting seriously.

Kiff '61

Maybe I'm just small-minded (though I like to think otherwise...), but I truly can't see how a person would respond that way.

Are you trolling? Please don't take offense if you're not -- maybe you could explain a bit?

Thanks

On 2001-11-03 21:35, madscientist wrote:
What does eliminating profanity, dressing nice, and being more sexually modest have to do with anything? That is totally irrevelant to the issue.

Have to do with anything? It has to do with whether they'll be more tolerant and freedom-loving and push for freedom and progress versus whether they'll want baseless rules, Authority as King and of course all the robot and blind follower stuff that goes with it. They won't simply stop swearing themselves, but they'll stop the world so no one except that awful evil fringe tolerates people using four-letter words. S&H predict not both a personal modesty and the large clampdown from the whole generation on the tolerance that goes with it. Millennials, write S&H, will both be "modest" themselves and want to tell others to clean up their act. They DO say that they will make profanity as obsolete as the backwards baseball cap as you pointed out. If some guy wants to talk about his wiener or put out a movie full of swear words or go around nude, and some midlife Boomer punishes him and tries to put him away....all the Millennials, all of everyone born since 1982 the Book goes, will agree with and even celebrate the Boomer's disciplinary action rather than protesting it and standing up for these moralistic Boomers' victim. They predict indeed that starting with the 1982 birthyear the majority of us will support social rules instead of rebelling against them for dress and style, for anything sexual, for anything in conduct and the way you treat adults as differing from other teens. S&H predict Millennials to move backwards in a TIGHTER direction. And personal dress has always complemented a change in tolerance towards others. I mean, look at the Victorians. They moved backwards in dress, directly associated with sexual modesty in this case, and moved sexual mores to their worst point ever. They dressed the way people of the time considered more conservative than before. A Victorian would be sure to get anyone arrested for showing so much as a leg. Then came the Lost generation's flappers. Flappers were considered the counterculture way at the time, and their style a counterculture style. People who adopted it were more tolerant of others, not just among themselves, and held progressive views on women's equality, on sex, and on personal freedom. Then you get into someone born 15 years later, disapproving of the flappers and dressing the way their mother wants them to as a teenager. They then go into war in the forties and die for their country and continue to serve out their life in an anti-Communist way. They introduce the grey flannel suit. The conformity of all time. These same people hunted out Communists and greatly feared their hippie children and the way they tore down their values. In the sixties businessman hair and grey flannel suits meant intolerant of people's choice to do what they want, long hair and pink tie-dyes meant everyone should listen to the beat of their own drummer and all that. No more social conventions! The beatniks and those kids who wore leather jackets hated conformity and their dress meant they hated conformity. After the Silents were the Boomers...another counterculture generation of youth who felt that people should do their own thing. Now there were also some Boomers who held on to the old ways, who loved their flag and their country, and were just dying to die in Nam. They dressed noticeably different from the hippies. Hippie - antiestablishment, narc - establishment. If any of these kids who WEREN'T considered typical Boomer youth saw another person making love with someone his own gender in the streets, he'd yell at him that the social values our society has held dear for centuries forbade that, and that he was BAD. Oh that's right, I forgot, he wouldn't YELL, because society says yelling's bad too. Well, he'd tell him oh so POLITELY.

In MR, S&H revised it, saying that there was a difference between Boomers and Millies use it. When Boomers used it, it meant an insult, but when Millies use it, ("You my motherf***er!!") they usually mean it in a more friendly way.

They revised it? Well GOOD! I have to wonder about a theory that keeps revising itself though. I mean with the beginning of the Unravelling and all that. Is the latest version always the right one and all dissenting beliefs wrong until S&H change the theory again to accommmmumud....ummmerrghh! to "make room for" those beliefs? If S&H said one thing one time and later another thing another time than THAT part of the theory must have been wrong either one time or the other, wouldn't it? I wonder.

As for modesty in sex, you can't win here, especially with the new "virginity is cool" credo, and many teen stars, such as Kirsten Storms, saying that virginity is cool.

Well there's also the "marriage is a dying institution" credo around so some people are behind both of them. Besides some people buying into the don't have sex until marriage crap doesn't mean that the majority of teens will agree with the OLD way. I mean in the sixties some teens made a movement towards "make childhood eternal!" but most of them never caught onto it and it didn't become a change that got permanently introduced, or even that the majority of their generation ever agreed with.

And who in the world is Kirsten Storms?

Plus, Millies are having oral sex in large numbers to keep from having actual intercourse. So the sexual counterrevolution is very real.

If they're cool and daring enough to have ORAL sex as teenagers they're too cool to try to get other people to stop showing off their sexuality. It's just another way of being sexual. And GI's, they just managed to start a baby boom by doing it all within marriage inside bed with their spouses and no one finding out about it until the woman was five months pregnant.

Are Brian and S&H both right? Yes. Imagine that you live in a 2 dimensional universe, and you cannot perceive a 3D world. Let's say you have a camera looking at a fish tank head on, and another one looking at it from the side. You would see entirely two different things, but would be looking at the exact same thing. Brian is saying that Heroes are very rebellious, while S&H are saying that Millies resemble the Borg. How is it possible that both are right? S&H say that Millies will follow the Gray Champion off the cliff. Brian says that GIs consistently had the largest communist party membership. Is this rebellion? Yes. Another clue can be found in Generations. Here, S&H say that Millies will follow behind a Boomer, as long as it is consistent with their secular blueprint. When people brood over S&H saying that Millies will follow the Gray Champion off of a cliff, they usually miss a VERY important detail, and that is that Millies CHOOSE the Gray Champion. Prophets do not suddenly STEAL power, and expect Millies to follow behind. They have to be "the chosen one" for that to happen. GIs largely supported FDR because his visions conformed largely to the secular blueprint of the GIs. The GIs didn't largely support the others. Heroes rebel against anyone who does not support their secular blueprint. But also, Heroes choose the Gray Champion. This is because the Gray Champion supports the Heroes. With this, the Heroes will follow Prophets off a cliff. But they are rebellious to anything they perceive as a barrier to their ambitions. So while GIs followed FDR like little robots, the same GIs staged massive protests and joined unions against industrialists they perceived as harmful, and staged antiwar movements during the 1930s that was even more consequential than the 1960s movement.

Well of course they were "rebelling against" one thing or another during the Crisis but S&H also write that Millies will accept a draft whenever it comes, regardless of who calls the war and the draft on, and will "march to duty" (Sarah quoted that part not too long ago). If Bush were to draft 1982 cohorts today do you think the 82'ers would accept their draft cards? T4T also writes all the time about the path teens will make in high school, starting from the Class of 2000. They say again and again that Millennials will obey the rules that exist during the Unravelling. In the Unravelling, a GC or leader for the generation hasn't even been chosen yet. So how could they have a leader they choose? -Craig

On 2001-11-06 14:02, Justin '77 wrote:

On 2001-11-06 13:34, Kiff '61 wrote:
*yawn*

This Sobran guy is way too over the top. I just can't take his ranting seriously.

Kiff '61

Maybe I'm just small-minded (though I like to think otherwise...), but I truly can't see how a person would respond that way.

Are you trolling? Please don't take offense if you're not -- maybe you could explain a bit?

Thanks

Am I trolling? No.

I just don't agree with Mr. Sobran's point of view. Maybe I've been reading too many gloom and doom scenarios on this board, and this latest diatribe sent me over the edge.

My initial response was flip. I apologize if it came across as trollish.

I'm going back to lurking for awhile. Maybe I need a break from this place.

Kiff '61

Justin:

This Sobran guy is way too over the top. I just can't take his ranting seriously.

Kiff '61

Maybe I'm just small-minded (though I like to think otherwise...), but I truly can't see how a person would respond that way.

Kiff can explain what he meant, I suppose, but I'll offer a critique of Sobran's piece. (In general, though, having read some of his other stuff, I agree that he's a bit over the top.)

A strong argument can be made that Lincoln, Wilson, and Roosevelt were our three most disastrous Presidents. All three of them helped destroy the original American system of limited, confederated government and built what the framers of the Constitution would call "consolidated" -- or monolithic -- government.

This is not unlike that infamous reference to "Democrat wars" indulged in by some Republican candidate or other. I forget which one. Neither Lincoln nor Roosevelt had any realistic choice, and so they should not be blamed for these developments any more than FDR should be blamed for World War II.


The "original American system of limited, confederated government" was designed for a world that no longer exists. In the present context, or even that of 1861, it became nonfunctional. Government exists to adjudicate potential conflicts internally and organize resources to meet external needs. The more complex a society is -- the more potential internal conflicts it has and the more difficult the external needs -- the more government it requires. The earliest human societies (small bands of hunter-gatherers) required no formal government at all. A society of smallholding farmers and small merchants requires less government than a modern industrial and information-age culture.


Had Lincoln or FDR not taken the steps they did, the United States would today not even exist.

Your chance of being harmed by terrorists is remote. That you will be oppressed by your own government is a certainty.

Excuse me, but I have already been harmed by terrorists, indirectly. What's more, if we don't succeed in stopping these fundamentalist movements, my chances of being directly harmed by them is quite unremote.


Nor have I ever been directly oppressed by my own government, as I would define "oppressed." (I might have been had I been old enough for the Vietnam draft, but I wasn't.) I have I suppose been indirectly oppressed by the drug laws, but far less seriously so than I would expect from the type of government that would prevail if the fundamentalists should succeed in their objectives. What's happening here is that Sobran is defining "oppression" rather differently than I would; indeed, by inference from another passage, he is actually recommending government policies that I would call oppressive.

Let's face it. This isn't the America Norman Rockwell painted; he never heard of the Culture of Death. Every Trident submarine is capable of killing more people than Stalin did, and the grand totals in our abortion clinics are approaching Stalin's career record. Those are only the gory statistics; I say nothing here about the moral tone of American life.

Oh, puh-leeze. Every army in the world is capable of killing more people than Stalin did; that's what military forces are for. I would certainly like to see cutbacks in our nuclear armaments, but this argument -- that we're morally equivalent to (or worse than) the Taliban because we're powerful enough to destroy the world is absurd. If we actually go and do it, that's another matter.


As for abortion statistics, well, that's where he's advocating a policy that I'd consider oppressive, if he wants to reverse that legally. Stalin murdered actual human beings. We are not talking the abortion of unconscious, non-sentient embryos here, but the callous starvation of millions of peasants and the systematic murder of political enemies, real and imagined.


The final clause about "the moral tone of American life" hints where he's actually coming from, and the next paragraph confirms it:

We must ask ourselves, as patriots, just what we are supposed to be loyal to. In a conflict -- not exactly a "war" -- between a Godless, lawless, unconstitutional state, alias "America," and an alien band of superstitious fanatics, we owe our allegiance to the former, merely because it rules us?

So, Sobran agrees with Osama bin Laden that America is "Godless." And he must mean something comparable to Osama's argument from the Sharia when he calls America "lawless," because in the usual meaning of the word he is self-evidently wrong. Maybe we're "lawless" because we don't abide by God's law in Sobran's interpretation.


He is not quite on the Taliban's side, since he refers to them in uncomplimentary language, but I'm at a loss to define how those same terms don't apply to Sobran himself, except for that single word "alien." Sobran seems to be merely an alienated superstitious fanatic, rather than an actual alien one.


I can see why he has problems with this conflict in terms of personal loyalty.

Brian, you are getting lost in the details. I thought you defended the right of people to dissent in this present undeclared war? Sobran is standing up for anybody's right to dissent. Furthermore he is claiming that the dissenters are more patriotic than those who would silence them who reflexively label all dissenters as unpatriotic and un-American. You support the right to dissent, do you not?
I can add detail later. But take a step back, take a breath, and look for the common ground in the general and disregard the dissonant in the particular. That common ground is the key to our future success.

Stonewall:

I thought you defended the right of people to dissent in this present undeclared war? Sobran is standing up for anybody's right to dissent.

I don't see where Sobran was standing up for anyone's right to do anything. He never mentioned antiwar protesters in that article, for instance. What he did mention was the alleged culpability of America, essentially for not being a Catholic theocracy, and the particular evil of three presidents none of whom (except maybe Wilson) had much choice about what they did.


Of course I defend people's right to dissent, in virtually all circumstances, whether I agree with them or not. That really isn't the question. Nor is that right being challenged, as far as I can see, by anyone of importance.

On 2001-11-06 15:44, Craig '84 wrote:

Have to do with anything? It has to do with whether they'll be more tolerant and freedom-loving and push for freedom and progress versus whether they'll want baseless rules, Authority as King and of course all the robot and blind follower stuff that goes with it.

Not so. Whether or not people regulate dress has nothing to do with "rights". If your argument holds, then the American government of the 1800s decade was FAR more tyrannical than the British government that controlled America in the 1760s. Again, if Millies make new rules, then they are NOT baseless within the context of society. Remember that it is the job of Heroes to rebel against what they perceive as social dysfunction. No one makes rules just for the hell of it. If Millies decide that marijuana is bad, then it is because they tied it to the social dysfunction and anti-civic habits from the 1990s. The same is true for all other social habits. In the book Millennials Rising, the authors clearly state that Millennials will CHOOSE which social habits are good, and which are bad.

They won't simply stop swearing themselves, but they'll stop the world so no one except that awful evil fringe tolerates people using four-letter words.

Now you are taking things WAAAYYYY out of context.

S&H predict not both a personal modesty and the large clampdown from the whole generation on the tolerance that goes with it. Millennials, write S&H, will both be "modest" themselves and want to tell others to clean up their act.

Exactly. And you seem to be totally blind to this happening?

They DO say that they will make profanity as obsolete as the backwards baseball cap as you pointed out. If some guy wants to talk about his wiener or put out a movie full of swear words or go around nude, and some midlife Boomer punishes him and tries to put him away....all the Millennials, all of everyone born since 1982 the Book goes, will agree with and even celebrate the Boomer's disciplinary action rather than protesting it and standing up for these moralistic Boomers' victim. They predict indeed that starting with the 1982 birthyear the majority of us will support social rules instead of rebelling against them for dress and style, for anything sexual, for anything in conduct and the way you treat adults as differing from other teens.

In T4T, the authors say that interest in the elegant and rational in fashion will rise. Oh how I look forward to this.

S&H predict Millennials to move backwards in a TIGHTER direction.

Whoa! Hold yer horses! BACKWARDS? Let me ask you: What do you consider progress? Will we keep "progressing" until all of us are nudists and are in a perpetual orgy? You probably do not like to hear this, but there needs to be order in society to keep it working. Has anyone told you how the "Summer of Love" in San Francisco evolved? It's a frightening story. Read up on it. Besides, going "backwards" is largely a matter of perception. Millies will think of sexual modesty as going FORWARD into a world with less chaos and more order, and a more simple lifestyle. Look at society through the eyes of a GI in the 1960s. Having cleaned up the world, their perception was that society was going "backwards" into more drugs, laziness, antirationalism, teenagers having babies, fathers not be around, etc.

And personal dress has always complemented a change in tolerance towards others. I mean, look at the Victorians. They moved backwards in dress, directly associated with sexual modesty in this case, and moved sexual mores to their worst point ever. They dressed the way people of the time considered more conservative than before. A Victorian would be sure to get anyone arrested for showing so much as a leg. Then came the Lost generation's flappers. Flappers were considered the counterculture way at the time, and their style a counterculture style. People who adopted it were more tolerant of others, not just among themselves, and held progressive views on women's equality, on sex, and on personal freedom.

Not necessarily. Remember that this same generation was as racist as the others that came before it. Also, you seem to exclude the fact that Nomad generations are the ones who START the change into conservatism. This same generation of flappers became a VERY conservative generation. So while you are screaming about Xers (and Yers, a non-existent generation) being against authority, and pro-individual rights, and everthing else, you seem to have totally missed the fact that Nomad generations totally reverse course during a Crisis, and become VERY conservative during the High. So who was the generation most opposed to feminism, racial integration, and racial equality during the 1950s and 1960s? The same generation of Flappers in the 1920s. So by the 2030s, the biggest obstable to your dream of total societal anarchy will not be Millennials, but Xers. Besides, remember that there was no hero generation. The Victorian Era was done by Nomads, not Heroes. With no Hero generation in place, there was an overreaction against the prior Transcendental Generation. This meant a total collapse of feminism, the rise of the KKK and Jim Crow, and other social ills. So think twice before you credit Xers for social freedom.

Then you get into someone born 15 years later, disapproving of the flappers and dressing the way their mother wants them to as a teenager.

Recall that Xers LED the reversal from the Flapper culture.

They then go into war in the forties and die for their country and continue to serve out their life in an anti-Communist way.

Ok...was there a point to this statement?

They introduce the grey flannel suit. The conformity of all time.

Who largely wore the grey flanneled shirt? GIs or Silent?

These same people hunted out Communists and greatly feared their hippie children and the way they tore down their values.

Sure, they feared the hippies, but recall that GIs did not put up much of a fight against them, and bent over backwards when the hippies began their attacks. Listening to you talk, I fear that you will hunt people who don't conform to your anarchist view of society. Besides, no matter what ideology Millennials decide to follow, their Prophet children will tear it down. So if Millennials decide that anarchy is the good social system, then the next crop of Prophets will bear a frightening puritanism that most people today think is impossible. The grass is not always greener on the other side.

In the sixties businessman hair and grey flannel suits meant intolerant of people's choice to do what they want, long hair and pink tie-dyes meant everyone should listen to the beat of their own drummer and all that....No more social conventions! The beatniks and those kids who wore leather jackets hated conformity and their dress meant they hated conformity. After the Silents were the Boomers...another counterculture generation of youth who felt that people should do their own thing.

So whoever wears long hair is now a hippie, and however dresses "nice" is a rights abuser? Well I'll never wear a suit again. I just might mysteriously become anti-gay! These suits have magical powers to change who you are!! On a more serious note, I have an afro that is two inches in length. By your analysis, I should be a Black Panther! Nothing can be further from the truth. Oh, and another thing: If an African American like me decides to wear a black suit, am I a sellout to my race, or am I a member of the Nation of Islam?

Now there were also some Boomers who held on to the old ways, who loved their flag and their country, and were just dying to die in Nam.

I've never heard about someone going to war specifically to die in it. If we did that, we would never win wars. If Boomers really wanted to die, I don't think that they would travel 10,000 miles just to be shot. There are much better ways of killing yourself. One popular way if jumping off buildings. Breathing under water is another way to kill yourself. Or how about shooting yourself in the head? Or easiest of all, just eat a bottle of pills. Whoever traveled to Vietnam because they have a death wish really did NOT explore their options. Come on! Even suicide cults during this period knew of more efficient ways to kill themselves.

They dressed noticeably different from the hippies. Hippie - antiestablishment, narc - establishment. If any of these kids who WEREN'T considered typical Boomer youth saw another person making love with someone his own gender in the streets, he'd yell at him that the social values our society has held dear for centuries forbade that, and that he was BAD.

Actually, the first thing any person would say is, "GET A ROOM!" If I saw two people making love on the sidewalk, I'd say the same thing. Other than that, in one of your previous posts, you stated that sex in the missionary style is oppressive. So you also have issues with certain sexual practices. But since you are for sexual freedom, maybe you will want to try rimming, golden showers, or scatting.

Oh that's right, I forgot, he wouldn't YELL, because society says yelling's bad too. Well, he'd tell him oh so POLITELY.

Ha! You wish!! These pro-establishment people had no problem clubbing protesters, nor did they have problems killing those 4 protesters at Kent State in 1970.

They revised it? Well GOOD! I have to wonder about a theory that keeps revising itself though.

ALL theories constantly revise themselves. No theory remains unchanged for more than 5 years.

I mean with the beginning of the Unravelling and all that. Is the latest version always the right one and all dissenting beliefs wrong until S&H change the theory again to accommmmumud....ummmerrghh! to "make room for" those beliefs?

That sounded like a line from Porky Pig. Or is that just our education system failing. :wink:

If S&H said one thing one time and later another thing another time than THAT part of the theory must have been wrong either one time or the other, wouldn't it? I wonder.

Again, theories are ALWAYS constantly revised. Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, Quantum Physics, and Evolution are revised DAILY. In that case S&H seem to be much more static than other theories. Besides, when a theory is changed, it is because a better truth has been found.

Well there's also the "marriage is a dying institution" credo around so some people are behind both of them.

Marraige is not dying. Even so, families are rising rapidly.

Besides some people buying into the don't have sex until marriage crap doesn't mean that the majority of teens will agree with the OLD way.

True, but the fact that teens are even SAYING it is grounds for change.

I mean in the sixties some teens made a movement towards "make childhood eternal!" but most of them never caught onto it and it didn't become a change that got permanently introduced, or even that the majority of their generation ever agreed with.

There is a practical reason for this. One cannot pay bills if they are children forever.

And who in the world is Kirsten Storms?

Wow, you are really behind the times. Ever watch Zoog Disney?

If they're cool and daring enough to have ORAL sex as teenagers they're too cool to try to get other people to stop showing off their sexuality.

Whoa!! So all of a sudden, these 10 year olds are cool because they are getting a receiving blowjobs? How low can society get?

It's just another way of being sexual.

Again, perception here counts. To these kids who are doing it, oral sex is not even sex. Besides, who are they to argue when (former) President Clinton, (former) leader of the free world, and the (former) most powerful single individual on this planet says that a blowjob is not sex, who are they to argue?

And GI's, they just managed to start a baby boom by doing it all within marriage inside bed with their spouses and no one finding out about it until the woman was five months pregnant.

What does this mean? It is still sexual intercourse. Sex is sex is sex! Doing it in marraige, or on the street means absolutely nothing.

Well of course they were "rebelling against" one thing or another during the Crisis but S&H also write that Millies will accept a draft whenever it comes, regardless of who calls the war and the draft on, and will "march to duty" (Sarah quoted that part not too long ago). If Bush were to draft 1982 cohorts today do you think the 82'ers would accept their draft cards?

T4T also says "They will (initially) seem pacifist, hard to ruffle, their civic power as yet untapped." Also, the question is whether or not fighting the war is crucial to national survival.

T4T also writes all the time about the path teens will make in high school, starting from the Class of 2000. They say again and again that Millennials will obey the rules that exist during the Unravelling. In the Unravelling, a GC or leader for the generation hasn't even been chosen yet. So how could they have a leader they choose?

Of course adults will make rules for them because THEY ARE CHILDREN!!! This is a no-brainer! Millies will choose theyr GC when they become adults. When you become an adult, you are able to make your own rules! Geez!

Thank you, Brian, for your comments. You voiced my problems with Sobran's article better than I ever could.

One thing, though: I'm female. :smile:

Kiff '61

On 2001-11-06 17:36, Brian Rush wrote:
Justin:

This Sobran guy is way too over the top. I just can't take his ranting seriously.

Kiff '61

Maybe I'm just small-minded (though I like to think otherwise...), but I truly can't see how a person would respond that way.

Kiff can explain what he meant, I suppose, but I'll offer a critique of Sobran's piece. (In general, though, having read some of his other stuff, I agree that he's a bit over the top.)

A strong argument can be made that Lincoln, Wilson, and Roosevelt were our three most disastrous Presidents. All three of them helped destroy the original American system of limited, confederated government and built what the framers of the Constitution would call "consolidated" -- or monolithic -- government.

This is not unlike that infamous reference to "Democrat wars" indulged in by some Republican candidate or other. I forget which one. Neither Lincoln nor Roosevelt had any realistic choice, and so they should not be blamed for these developments any more than FDR should be blamed for World War II.


The "original American system of limited, confederated government" was designed for a world that no longer exists. In the present context, or even that of 1861, it became nonfunctional. Government exists to adjudicate potential conflicts internally and organize resources to meet external needs. The more complex a society is -- the more potential internal conflicts it has and the more difficult the external needs -- the more government it requires. The earliest human societies (small bands of hunter-gatherers) required no formal government at all. A society of smallholding farmers and small merchants requires less government than a modern industrial and information-age culture.


Had Lincoln or FDR not taken the steps they did, the United States would today not even exist.

This is mostly true, though I would take exception with the blanket application of the more complex the society, the more government it needs. It is true to a degree, but with lots of caveats and exceptions.

I agree about Lincoln and Roosevelt, except to say that some (not all) of what they did was retained when it should have been ended at the end of the respective Crises.

Your chance of being harmed by terrorists is remote. That you will be oppressed by your own government is a certainty.

Excuse me, but I have already been harmed by terrorists, indirectly. What's more, if we don't succeed in stopping these fundamentalist movements, my chances of being directly harmed by them is quite unremote.


Nor have I ever been directly oppressed by my own government, as I would define "oppressed." (I might have been had I been old enough for the Vietnam draft, but I wasn't.) I have I suppose been indirectly oppressed by the drug laws, but far less seriously so than I would expect from the type of government that would prevail if the fundamentalists should succeed in their objectives. What's happening here is that Sobran is defining "oppression" rather differently than I would; indeed, by inference from another passage, he is actually recommending government policies that I would call oppressive.

Let's face it. This isn't the America Norman Rockwell painted; he never heard of the Culture of Death. Every Trident submarine is capable of killing more people than Stalin did, and the grand totals in our abortion clinics are approaching Stalin's career record. Those are only the gory statistics; I say nothing here about the moral tone of American life.

Oh, puh-leeze. Every army in the world is capable of killing more people than Stalin did; that's what military forces are for. I would certainly like to see cutbacks in our nuclear armaments, but this argument -- that we're morally equivalent to (or worse than) the Taliban because we're powerful enough to destroy the world is absurd. If we actually go and do it, that's another matter.


As for abortion statistics, well, that's where he's advocating a policy that I'd consider oppressive, if he wants to reverse that legally. Stalin murdered actual human beings. We are not talking the abortion of unconscious, non-sentient embryos here, but the callous starvation of millions of peasants and the systematic murder of political enemies, real and imagined.


The final clause about "the moral tone of American life" hints where he's actually coming from, and the next paragraph confirms it:

We must ask ourselves, as patriots, just what we are supposed to be loyal to. In a conflict -- not exactly a "war" -- between a Godless, lawless, unconstitutional state, alias "America," and an alien band of superstitious fanatics, we owe our allegiance to the former, merely because it rules us?

So, Sobran agrees with Osama bin Laden that America is "Godless." And he must mean something comparable to Osama's argument from the Sharia when he calls America "lawless," because in the usual meaning of the word he is self-evidently wrong. Maybe we're "lawless" because we don't abide by God's law in Sobran's interpretation.


He is not quite on the Taliban's side, since he refers to them in uncomplimentary language, but I'm at a loss to define how those same terms don't apply to Sobran himself, except for that single word "alien." Sobran seems to be merely an alienated superstitious fanatic, rather than an actual alien one.


I can see why he has problems with this conflict in terms of personal loyalty.

Brian, all societies without exception are built directly or indirectly on a basis of religious law from one belief system or another. You can adjust the degree of application, and draw from more than one religion to undergird a society, but you can't escape the presence of religious rules.
No society can.

On 2001-11-06 20:15, HopefulCynic68 wrote:
You can adjust the degree of application, and draw from more than one religion to undergird a society, but you can't escape the presence of religious rules.
No society can.

i don't believe that. one could easily argue that laws against things like murder and theft are not necessarily based upon some sort of religious code of morality, but instead upon a practical, secular code that identifies murder and theft as counterproductive and a threat to societal security and integrity.


TK

HopefulCynic:

Brian, all societies without exception are built directly or indirectly on a basis of religious law from one belief system or another. You can adjust the degree of application, and draw from more than one religion to undergird a society, but you can't escape the presence of religious rules.

I don't agree. What I would agree is that there was a time when all societies were founded on religious law, and all modern societies are descended from older ones where that was true. But our own society explicitly rejected that foundation, and evolved a secular legal system based on humanistic principles. So did every other modern society.

On 2001-11-07 10:13, Brian Rush wrote:


I don't agree. What I would agree is that there was a time when all societies were founded on religious law, and all modern societies are descended from older ones where that was true. But our own society explicitly rejected that foundation, and evolved a secular legal system based on humanistic principles. So did every other modern society.

In his book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order, Professor Huntington points out the irony that during the 1950s Americans considered themselves arrayed against "godless Communists," while during the 1990s (and now 2000s) Muslims consider themselves arrayed against "godless American secularists."

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Kurt63 on 2001-11-07 13:18 ]</font>

Kurt mentions...

In his book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order, Professor Huntington points out the irony that during the 1950s Americans considered themselves arrayed against "godless Communists," while during the 1990s (and now 2000s) Muslims consider themselves arrayed against "godless American secularists."

An interesting book and perspective, but don?t assume the crisis has to develop along the ?Islam v West? or ?West v Rest? model. Many Arab countries are successfully adopting western technology (and to a lesser degree law). Modern secular values can integrate as successfully with Islam or Hinduism or Buddhism as they have with Christianity.

Again, I prefer a variation on Toffler?s ?Waves of Civilization? model. The classes are hunter-gatherer, agricultural feudal, autocratic modern, democratic modern and (perhaps theoretically) networked global. Thus, if WW I destroyed the remnants of agricultural feudal government, WW II eliminated fascism as a contender, the Cold War Communism, the current conflict might be another bump in the road as modern democratic capitalist systems are confronted by autocratic traditions. Tyrants have been quicker to pick up the West?s technology than its government.

Thus, bin Ladin is attempting to push the Islam v Judeo-Christian angle, while the west has been pushing freedom (democracy and human rights) against autocracy and religious hatred.

One might also see bin Ladin as clinging to a First Wave religious empire perspective. (We must all abide by the Book). Dubya uses a Second Wave industrial empire perspective. (There is only one Zone of Influence left in the world, ours. You have to accept our values and power, or face our armed forces.) On the other hand, if terror and guerrilla war make it difficult to impossible for major players to subdue minor powers, it might become necessary to develop a Third Wave global perspective. Rather than have the ?winners? of the Industrial Age Great Power Game keep the rewards of their victory, a global zone of influence, we might have to develop a scheme where there are no zones of influence. Perhaps we don?t want great powers sending armies and money abroad to defend their ?vital interests? (read economic advantage) at the expense of the locals.

One of my original posts on this board was ?Three Models, One Vision? merging Clash of Civilizations, The Third Wave and The Fourth Turning. September 11th has confirmed my opinion we need to be aware of all three perspectives, while not becoming too deeply committed to any of them. I don?t think we ought to think in terms of defeating Islam. We should be trying to offer them a better direction to move their culture than bin Ladin offers. The Third Wave and Fourth Turning perspectives also emphasize that we have some growing to do ourselves. It is not just a matter of imposing our modern culture on their ancient culture. We have to grow our dated culture into something new.


_________________
We shall not have Freedom from Fear, everywhere in the world, while we forget the other three.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Bob Butler 54 on 2001-11-07 14:02 ]</font>

An interesting book and perspective, but don't assume the crisis has to develop along the "Islam v West" or "West v Rest" model. Many Arab countries are successfully adopting western technology (and to a lesser degree law). Modern secular values can integrate as successfully with Islam or Hinduism or Buddhism as they have with Christianity.

They can, but does that mean that they automatically will? The Western Democratic philosophy contains a messianic component that proclaims that it is the inevitable, final state of mankind, Fukuyama's "End of History." However, when looking to other peoples' hopes and expectations, it is possible to imagine other futures.

Again, I prefer a variation on Toffler's "Waves of Civilization" model. The classes are hunter-gatherer, agricultural feudal, autocratic modern, democratic modern and (perhaps theoretically) networked global. Thus, if WW I destroyed the remnants of agricultural feudal government, WW II eliminated fascism as a contender, the Cold War Communism, the current conflict might be another bump in the road as modern democratic capitalist systems are confronted by autocratic traditions. Tyrants have been quicker to pick up the West's technology than its government.

I am familiar with the Toffler model. I found it quite interesting to note that al Qaeda could be quite easily seen as a Third Wave organization. It is organized in a highly decentralized manner, with its various nodes communicating in a non-hierarchical organization, across the Internet and other information pathways. Thus, the removal of Osama bin Laden will not prove a terminal blow to the organization. I believe that the biggest blow to al Qaeda has been the mass arrest of hundreds of suspected cell operatives. However, without evidence, the West cannot keep these people locked up forever, and their release will allow the cells to reform.

One might also see bin Ladin as clinging to a First Wave religious empire perspective. (We must all abide by the Book).

Perhaps, though I am not certain that the Toffler model demands that Third Wave peoples take on a secular viewpoint. Also, I would point out that while Mr. bin Laden has been using Afghanistan as his base of operations, his most important recruits have been drawn for middle-class Muslims who were educated in the Third Wave West.

It is not just a matter of imposing our modern culture on their ancient culture. We have to grow our dated culture into something new.

You are quite right. The American President has been quite careful to avoid turning this battle into an inter-civilizational war. I only hope that he is successful in that.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Kurt63 on 2001-11-07 14:43 ]</font>

On 2001-11-07 14:01, Bob Butler 54 wrote:
Kurt mentions...

In his book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order, Professor Huntington points out the irony that during the 1950s Americans considered themselves arrayed against "godless Communists," while during the 1990s (and now 2000s) Muslims consider themselves arrayed against "godless American secularists."

An interesting book and perspective, but don?t assume the crisis has to develop along the ?Islam v West? or ?West v Rest? model. Many Arab countries are successfully adopting western technology (and to a lesser degree law). Modern secular values can integrate as successfully with Islam or Hinduism or Buddhism as they have with Christianity.

Again, I prefer a variation on Toffler?s ?Waves of Civilization? model. The classes are hunter-gatherer, agricultural feudal, autocratic modern, democratic modern and (perhaps theoretically) networked global

Another perspective that?s been in my mind as I read S&H is that of Arnold Toynbee (who was mentioned in T4T). One part of his description of a ?growing? civilization ? as opposed to disintegrating ? was the way that, in contacts with other cultures, they spread primarily through persuasion rather than by force. Now, I?ve wondered for some time whether this generational cycle is an examination of the rhythm of growth in a growing civilization. S&H have said, I believe, that our line of saeculae began with the Reformation in Europe, and have implied that some cultures don?t really have the 4-generation rhythm that we?ve seen. Toynbee declared his own belief that one can?t tell if a culture is still growing while living in it. But if we look at the primary causes of friction between our ?civilization? and ?Islamic civilization?, it doesn?t appear to be simply or even primarily against our uses of force. Certainly, we are capable of much greater damage militarily than we?ve actually caused; we haven?t even shown much interest in military conquest, except when we feel ourselves directly threatened. From this view, we might be encouraged to see our civilization as still growing just because our enemies have more complaints about the force of our culture than of our armies, as a general rule. At least, that seems to be the source of the general resentment against us. At the same time, our economic dominance is often seen as a form of force, and it is in that area that our civilization is probably most dangerous to outsiders, and our military force has most often been used on behalf of our commercial interests.
Perhaps a perspective like this can be useful if we begin to decide what aspects of our culture we want to emphasize in influencing others.

On 2001-11-07 15:10, Carl Fitzpatrick wrote:

Another perspective that's been in my mind as I read S&H is that of Arnold Toynbee (who was mentioned in T4T). One part of his description of a "growing" civilization - as opposed to disintegrating - was the way that, in contacts with other cultures, they spread primarily through persuasion rather than by force. Now, I've wondered for some time whether this generational cycle is an examination of the rhythm of growth in a growing civilization. S&H have said, I believe, that our line of saeculae began with the Reformation in Europe, and have implied that some cultures don't really have the 4-generation rhythm that we've seen. Toynbee declared his own belief that one can't tell if a culture is still growing while living in it. But if we look at the primary causes of friction between our "civilization" and "Islamic civilization", it doesn't appear to be simply or even primarily against our uses of force. Certainly, we are capable of much greater damage militarily than we've actually caused; we haven't even shown much interest in military conquest, except when we feel ourselves directly threatened. From this view, we might be encouraged to see our civilization as still growing just because our enemies have more complaints about the force of our culture than of our armies, as a general rule. At least, that seems to be the source of the general resentment against us. At the same time, our economic dominance is often seen as a form of force, and it is in that area that our civilization is probably most dangerous to outsiders, and our military force has most often been used on behalf of our commercial interests.
Perhaps a perspective like this can be useful if we begin to decide what aspects of our culture we want to emphasize in influencing others.

My understanding is that such people as Osama bin Laden see the West as already possessing a de facto world empire, where military occupation is only needed where peoples actively try to resist Western dictates-for example, Iraq. As such, Western meddling (or whatever word you wish to use) in the internal affairs of nations only seems to reinforce this view. I believe that the generational cleavage underway in Iran suggests that there is a universality of certain Western ideals. However, the West's biggest challenge is in dealing equitably with those who reject those ideals. Even Iranians who are favourably inclined towards the U.S. do not wish to return to a position that allows for American meddling in Iran's internal affairs.

This all looks too much like the recent attitude that has truly frightened me about the future. What's wrong with "these kids today"? The thing that's wrong with these kids today is that they're rejecting decency and modesty as arbitrary and view sexual liberation as the only progress. Whatever happened to decency? Don't these kids care about order any more? Now only freedom is viewed as progress, from the all-time low of Victorian society to the Summer of Love, hailed as progress in the right direction from which feudalistic, biblical, chaos-fearing tradition was the lower order. I was always taught that there needs to be a balance between freedom and law and order, and both of them are good and neccessary in their own ways, but I can't tell you how many of the new crop I've seen on message boards speaking as if personal freedom and equality were the marks of cultural progress and everyone should be f--king like rabbits when the ultimate utopia is reached. The thought is that since women, ethnic minorities and now even sexual deviants have been granted more and more equal rights as time has progressed, and sex "is becoming more and more open" every day since those nasty Victorian days, than more personal freedom is always equivalent to fairer and better. Can't you see the animality, the disgrace of elegance in what makes humans human, that this rolling-around-in-the-mud Woodstock utopia has?

I know what you mean. This seems to have become a common marker of youth in this past decade. When youth today speak or write on such issues they have so much more clear and simple perceptions than they used to. Used to, meaning in comparison to those of say, twenty years ago. These teens, such as some of the posters on the forum, view the world as a one-dimensional battle between all-good freedom and all-evil law and order. A sort of tug-of-war, if you will, wherein the fight for progress leads forever down the higher point on the single x-axis of social progress in the linear scheme.