This is a great post!

Second time around is even better.

That there are those who are able to blind themselves from the debacle that was the great 'Soviet experiment' only goes to prove the depths of the dysfunction of many on the left.

When all is said and done, the merits of political movements or arguments can be gauged by those making the arguments.

When the left adopts a cause, you can be pretty sure it is a cause of a failed and/or immoral movement.
sigmund, carl and alfred | Email | Homepage | 03.20.07 - 11:26 am | #

Why would anyone object to a link to a previous post? One can just ignore it if one doesn't want to read it. Sometimes I ignore them, sometimes I find them helpful.

This person has to be on the lookout for something, anything, to complain about.

This sort of complain resonates with me because some appellate court judges get exercised over footnotes in briefs, which of course they could simply ignore. After all, they have no problem ignoring principles of law that cut against the result they have already decided upon before they read the brief.

But like this complainer of the links, some Judges need to find something, anything, to raise hell about. Power corrupts.
Flash Gordon | Email | Homepage | 03.20.07 - 11:30 am | #

"Like the followers of Jesus..."

It's lame and pathetic that you take a bigoted shot at Christians with your otherwise interesting post.

Why slam Christians, who stand with you in defending reason and civilization... and against all the evil designs of the Left and socialism? Christianity has been on the front lines of defending the West and Reason for 2,000 years. It's shameful you chose to slam it using the very same lies that Marx used.

You want to show off your courage in defending reason? Then grow a set of balls and slam someone who won't turn the other cheek. Instead you slam the same people who would defend you. Why?
Tiger | Email | Homepage | 03.20.07 - 12:24 pm | #

Does this mean your not going to look into "the Alan Sokal affair" cause I promise you its worthy of the Carnival of Insanities (unless its a little too old.)
e.Sellers | Email | Homepage | 03.20.07 - 12:50 pm | #

e.Sellers, the Alan Sokal affair is a riot. I've seen it before, and it is classic:
http://www.physics.nyu.edu/facul.../faculty/sokal/

Try reading the serious moron Paul Levy for a "brilliant" full-blown delusion perhaps rivaling Sokal's spoof:
http://www.awakeninthedream.com/ ...bushfather.html
and
http://www.awakeninthedream.com/...om/ quantum.html
J. Peden | Email | Homepage | 03.20.07 - 1:06 pm | #

"Does this mean your not going to look into "the Alan Sokal affair"..."

e.Sellers | Email | Homepage | 03.20.07 - 12:50 pm |

Your assumption that others are not already familiar is telling.

Prefacing your original mention of the subject with a snarky comment about the use of links by the doctor did not do your campaign much good either.

Flies, vinegar, honey.


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The Machine | Email | Homepage | 03.20.07 - 1:11 pm | #

Tiger wrote: Why slam Christians, who stand with you in defending reason and civilization...

Because in any contest between faith and reason, Christians choose faith every time. If otherwise, other Christians insist the chooser of reason over faith is a heretic and not a "proper" Christian. Once, heretics were burned at the stake. Now they are simply excluded from the "brother (Mother?) ship".

I don't call this defending reason or civilization. Its the dead remains of the time when the church had power of life and death over everyone - the dark ages. A time that was anything but one of reason and civilization.
A. Rational Human | Email | Homepage | 03.20.07 - 1:18 pm | #

Something is off here. When and where were the followers of Jesus waiting for the collapse of capitalism? Are you referring to the
Jews who were waiting for a savior to deliver them from the Romans?

Anyway, it appears the "Bolivarian revolution" is running its course down the tubes like all other socialist dictatorships.

We have been receiving confirmation from many sources that Venezuela has been running their oil industry into the ground much faster than expected.

Rather than the 3.3 million bpd production claimed by Chavez the central bank is only receiving deposits representing 1.7 million bpd.

Must be the Gringos sabotaging the wells.
Wr_guy | Email | Homepage | 03.20.07 - 1:47 pm | #

The moonbats bark thrice at midnight.

Soon, my brothers.
Anonymous | Email | Homepage | 03.20.07 - 1:48 pm | #

CAMPAIGN CONRTRIBUTIONS

So, when Hillariy's and McCain's muzzling of the internet goes thru
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/ new...RTICLE_ID=45138
will a repost be considered a double contribution, or a freebie?
ytba | Email | Homepage | 03.20.07 - 1:49 pm | #

Sorry for the OT. I'm testing Blogger comment access. Thanks
ximeze | Email | Homepage | 03.20.07 - 1:53 pm | #

"Because in any contest between faith and reason, Christians choose faith every time."

You are working from several false assumptions. A) Christians have faith because their faith is rational. B) The "dark ages" you describe (the Christian West) set the very foundation for the Enlightenment. This is historical fact.

It's a shame that you have to resort to dishonest slimes. Objectivists and Christians have a lot of shared beliefs and values. Sadly some Objectivists put their atheism as their primary value. Witness how many supported the socialist Dems in the 2006 elections. I fear these "rationalists" would probably side with Stalin over the Pope.
Tiger | Email | Homepage | 03.20.07 - 1:55 pm | #

The analogy was between Jesus' followers waiting for his second-coming and the utopia to follow (which they though was iminent in the first decades after Christ's death)and the socialists waiting for the second coming of their ideology by the proletariat rising up against their capitalist masters--which they believed would usher in a socialist utopia. In the first case, the Christians adapted to the situation. In the second, the socialists are incapable of adapting and are fighting reality with all their might.

What's so hard to figure out here?
Jan | Email | Homepage | 03.20.07 - 2:12 pm | #

Maybe because the two concepts have nothing to do with each other....
Tiger | Email | Homepage | 03.20.07 - 2:21 pm | #

Tiger wrote: The "dark ages" you describe (the Christian West) set the very foundation for the Enlightenment.

Irrelevant and immaterial. Every age sets the foundation for the next. If only because it was so bad, everyone wanted something better and was willing to try something else.

Reason works. Faith doesn't. End of discussion.
A. Rational Human | Email | Homepage | 03.20.07 - 2:40 pm | #

Marxists embraced psychology and psychiatry only to the extent it was useful to advance their political power. As usual.

Politics is about who has power. Extremist politics are characterized by a willingness to do anything to obtain power.
snoring citizen | Email | Homepage | 03.20.07 - 2:47 pm | #

The common feature between Marx and Freud, which accounts for their mutual popularity by their followers, is their deeply pessimistic perception of the nature of human nature.

The pessimistic perception of human nature, in turn, accounts for the attraction of larger government to control and restrain the predatory human individual. Although Freud criticized Marx's definition of "alienation," note the pessimistic commonality of their respective concepts.

When Marx specifically rejected human nature in his philosophy (in "Das Kapital"), he forever sealed his thinking as catabolic. Sayyid Qutb (OBL's favorite philosopher) has made the same mistake: cleansing a philosophy of human nature makes the resulting thinking, even if unintentionally, virulently catabolic, even suicidally homicidal.

The prevalence of the left in the professions of psychology and psychiatry has less to do with Marxist indoctrination in college than it does with a natural affinity by pessimists for the 'control' and 'cure' of inherently evil human nature.

These two psychologies--Pessimism and Optimism, about the nature of human nature--are eternal and entirely normal. They are themselves the manifestations of deep primal instincts: the optimistic, pro-active predator versus the pessimistic, passive prey.

'Be free.'
a Duoist | Email | Homepage | 03.20.07 - 2:54 pm | #

"Rational" human is now running away from his argument. The Enlightenment only arose in the Christian West. It did not occur in any other culture or tradition in the history of humankind. Faith and reason are two sides of the same coin. Too bad you are scared of the truth, hence your rush to end the discussion. I'm done commenting for now, but only because it's off-topic.
Tiger | Email | Homepage | 03.20.07 - 3:07 pm | #

Tiger wrote: The Enlightenment only arose in the Christian West. It did not occur in any other culture or tradition in the history of humankind.

Apparently he forgets the contribution of the Greeks and Aristotle to the history of reason many hundreds of years before his precious Christianity was created by government decree ca 300 AD. He also forgets the fact that Aquinas reintroduced Aristotle and reason into the thought stream of the church. An event that ended the grasp of the church over the minds of man and resulted in the Enlighenment, the Industrial Revolution, and our current technolgical civilization.

The roar of the Tiger is empty of content.
A. Rational Human | Email | Homepage | 03.20.07 - 3:20 pm | #

I guess what socialists are saying is that "Capitalism is the opium of the masses"....
suek | Email | Homepage | 03.20.07 - 3:25 pm | #

Christ's life on earth was in a Greek-Roman world. This was by His choice. In the beginning was the Logos...

Before Aquinas, there was Augustine of Hippo. The Apostle Paul preached in the streets of Athens.

The Roman State legalized an already popular religion in existance for three centuries, in hoc signo vinces.

Roar!
Tiger | Email | Homepage | 03.20.07 - 3:35 pm | #

"I guess what socialists are saying is that "Capitalism is the opium of the masses"...."
suek | 03.20.07 - 3:25 pm |

So I wonder if that would make socialism their arsenic.
ytba | Email | Homepage | 03.20.07 - 3:52 pm | #

HAVE YOU CONSIDERED HOME-SCHOOLING?

http:// atlasshrugs2000.typepad.c..._are_.html#more

. . . before Beslan becomes Burmingham?

And you thought the '60's were rough!

Oh, and in case you wonder what this has to do with a debate over capitalism vs communism, just consider that those distinctions don't matter to our Islamofascist enemy. So, let's get rid of him FIRST, before the question becomes just another meaningless (and forgotten) academic distinction.
ytba | Email | Homepage | 03.20.07 - 4:15 pm | #

"Capitalism" is term coined by Marx to paint it as bad. (Capitalism bad, Communism good - according to Marx and Engles.)

Before Marx came along, and even after, it would have been more accurate to talk about Free Markets.

In Socialism and other command economies, there is little freedom. Little choice in goods, services, etc. New companies are not started to produce new goods. Which is why everything from the automobile, to passenger air-travel to computers, cell phones and video games came out of free market economies (and countries).

Free markets are exactly that - Free. And as Milton Friedman said, most objections to free markets center around the fact that people choose what they want, rather than what some sanctimonious group thinks they should want. Americans really do want to drive big honkin' SUVs on 6-lane highways. As the price of gas goes up, they may change that behavior, but last summer, even with 3 dollar gas we set a record for number of gallons burned - not dollars spent but gallons burned.

The enviro-left doesn't like this. They don't want people to be free to drive SUVs.

The current state of insurance in Florida is due at least in part to the interference of the state. Why are beaches being built on everywhere? Because the state of Florida (and the US government) will provide Hurricane (and flood) insurance. Until recently it was provided below market rates. And the kept insurance companies from dropping policies. The result? We are more at risk for Katrina like disasters - not due to the environment, but due to overbuilding in hazard zones - than ever before.
Zendo Deb | Email | Homepage | 03.20.07 - 6:52 pm | #

http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhi...exhibit/online/

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/


I heartily encourage our "rational human" here to take a long hard look at what "rationality" in and of itself has already brought us.

The Nazis thought they knew it all, too.


.
The Machine | Email | Homepage | 03.20.07 - 9:37 pm | #

I don't get it, Doc. What's a nice girl like you doing admiring Freud? He wouldn't return the favor.
Your theory about K-12 getting shrinks off on the wrong foot won't flush. They were left-footed before K-12 was taken over by the Left and the stupid. More likely they fancy themselves intellectualoids of one stripe or another. Leftist intellectuals always have these things in common:
Aron- Intellectuals cannot tolerate the chance event, the unintelligible; they have a nostalgia for the abslute, the universally comprehinsive scheme.
Hoffer- The sick of soul insist it is humanity that is sick, and they are the ones to operate on it.
Franklin- A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.
Paul Johnson- The cruelty of ideas lies in the asumption that man can be bent to fit them.
jamzw | Email | Homepage | 03.20.07 - 10:15 pm | #

One sentence sums up Marxism-Socialism-Communism for me, "We pretend to work, they pretend to pay us".
Tom TB | Email | Homepage | 03.21.07 - 6:09 am | #

Faith in rationality was the method employed when we insisted the Earth was flat and the center of the universe.
SteveH | Email | Homepage | 03.21.07 - 7:00 am | #

SteveH Wrote: Faith in rationality was the method employed when we insisted the Earth was flat and the center of the universe.

If you are going to attempt to use a fact in an argument, at least give facts that are actually facts.

The ancient Greeks knew the earth was round and measured it to within a 10% or so of its current known value. That was the result of USING reason rather than simply believing blindly in reason.
A. Rational Human | Email | Homepage | 03.21.07 - 9:02 am | #

But why didn't people believe the Greeks? Could it be a lack of faith in them?

I think you should look into what people mean by "faith." To a Christian, the word "faith" means loyalty based on evidence of a relationship. And yes, this evidence is based on reason. (This is often hard for people to understand who are not married or don't have children, as the relationship here is love.)

It's impossible to force you to believe in this relationship, and I don't believe it's Christian to initiate force. So why be a jerk and resort to dishonest slimes and irrational fallacies? It only makes me lose my faith in you as a "rational" human.
Tiger | Email | Homepage | 03.21.07 - 9:16 am | #

Irrational Human congratulates the Greeks for getting the shape of the planet right, and then ignores their use of reason to claim the sun revolved around the earth. Implied in this are their superior reasoning skills due to a general lack of being weighed down by religion. Projection, anyone? The issue is honest inquiry with trial, and error. Aristolte was not a fan. He believed man could solve issues soley by the force of his reasoning mind. He postulated women had four extra teeth, but never went to the trouble of examining either of his two wives. This style of "reasoning" got the solar system wrong as well as a few other things. A few centuries later the Catholic Church liked his style so much they took it for their own, and Galileo paid the price for that one. The modern inheritors of Aristole's use of reason are leftist intellectuals, the over-miseducated, and a substantial number of atheist who never stop to consider they have formed a new religion with more rules and dogmas than Catholocism have accumulated in 1,600 years.
jamzw | Email | Homepage | 03.21.07 - 11:23 am | #

How does one really know if Aristotle really wrote anything? Was there really a man called "Aristole" or is he just a figment of immagination? Did the man really live and say what he said?

So tell me "Rational" Human, are you putting your FAITH in Aristotle?
Tiger | Email | Homepage | 03.21.07 - 12:00 pm | #

No, ARH is conveniently trying to use an example that does not hold water at all. The Ancient Greeks, a truly pagan society, with multiple gods, abandoned unwanted babies by the side of the road to die.

It was a mission of Christians of the era to go out and find and adopt and raise those babies.

"And as you treat the least of these, so have you treated me..."

Treat your children well or any claims as to civilization are moot.


.
The Machine | Email | Homepage | 03.21.07 - 12:55 pm | #

> I link to them so that I don't have to repeat myself or my arguments/ideas over and over.

What, you mean like a Democrat?

Oh, wait! They just do that when they are wrong, which is, well, about 90% of the time (the other 10% they are busy lying about whatever they are talking about. Yes, Lying, as opposed to being merely mistaken)
O Bloody Hell | Email | Homepage | 03.21.07 - 9:55 pm | #

"Reason works. Faith doesn't. End of discussion."

LOL ... Faith never works if you don't have any. I guess you didn't take the time to "reason" that one out.
darwin | Email | Homepage | 03.22.07 - 10:14 am | #

The biggest problem I have with this post is that it isn't historically accurate at all. Marxists had married their theory with psychology long before Marcuse and Adorno – they were co-consipirators with Walter Benjamin who did just that in the 1940s. Not to mention figures like Jasper, who were not Marxist per se, but definately fell on the side of the left. The ties between pyschology and the left go way further back than 1956.
The Zapman | Email | Homepage | 03.24.07 - 9:50 pm | #