From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Mon Apr 25 2005 - 23:27:18 BST
Arlo,
> [Platt]
> > Your 2000 years carefully avoids any mention of the past 100 years when
> > secular socialism played out its reign of terror. I don't blame your for
> > avoiding the recent past since it doesn't fit your distorted ideas of
> > history.
Arlo
> Who's avoided it? It was a key component of the historical context you seem
> to want to conveniently avoid. Its your idea of a "distorted idea" to place
> your benevolent "Christian morality" in its context the two thousand years
> when it wielded power?
Christianity never "wielded power" for 2000 years. That's what I mean by
your distortion of history.
> You can say its "recent past" has been without crusades and murder, but
> that is ONLY because its power has been transferred to secular government,
> and hence the brutality. This has been my core point, and I believe to be
> fundamental in any analysis of modern practice.
Your assumption is that all governments, whether Christian or secular, are
guilty of initiating brutality on a scale equal to modern secular
communism. That's patently false.
> But of course, Platt. To "prove" secular government is "brutal", you'd have
> to ignore the brutalities that accompanied the religious power structure
> you seek to replace it with.
I have admitted to the brutalities of Christianity in the Middle Ages.
You have yet to show how Christianity initiated mass murder before or
after that. In fact, Christianity was instrumental in bringing down the
brutal Roman Empire.
> [Platt]
> > What you don't see to grasp is that any system which allows some people
> > to
> exercise unbridled power over other people intrinsically carries an open
> invitation to abuse by the likes of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro and other
> communist dictators.
>
> [Arlo]
> I graps PERFECTLY WELL that "systems which allow some people to exercise
> unbridled poewr over other people intrinsically carries an opne invitation
> to abuse". Why do you think I am so critical of the direction Bush is
> taking us?
Oh my God. You compare Bush to Stalin, Mao, Castro, Pol Pot?
That's worse than DMB lumping Pat Robertson with Hitler. Have you no
understanding of the checks and balances that prevent any American
president from attaining unbridled power? Can you not grasp the reality
that in order to attain Marx's goal of eliminating economic inequalities
that a concentration of political power is necessary, providing an open
invitation to dictators?
> But this aside, when did I ever say, in any way, that I support
> any totalitarian dictator? Indeed, your statement is ABSURD considering how
> vocal I have been AGAINST the inherent brutality of power structures.
Your approval of Marx suggest support for dictatorship since his vision could
not possibly be carried out except by a totalitarian government, as the history
of the 20th century proves. .
> [Platt]
> As a self-described admirer of Marx, I'm surprised
> > you never heard of the "dictatorship of the proletariat." And I'm
> > appalled
> that you seem to be supportive of a system and a philosophy that in
> practice and as a matter of historical record was every bit as monstrous as
> the Nazi regime.
>
> [Arlo]
> What's appalling is such blatant distortions. If you'd actually READ Marx
> instead of relying on McCarthian distortive scare-tactics, you'd see that
> what Marx advocated was never put into practice.
>
> Even a simple web search for "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" finds this
> from Wikipedia:
This is hilarious. You berate me for not reading Marx, then refer me to an
article in Wikipedia to explain Marx. I suggest you read the "Communist
Manifesto" and tell me what in it you disagree with.
> Even beginning readers of Marx understand that he considered ALL GOVERNMENT
> to be "dictatorship". He did not use the word is the sense it has become,
> that is rule by one tyrannical person.
Are you saying Marx was an anarchist? Is that what "beginning" readers are
supposed to conclude?
> [Platt]
> > All killing on a large scale, whether by
> > Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot or Pope Clement V has been justified by the
> > killers on moral grounds.
> That tyrannical power structures justify their actions by saying they are
> done "in the name of morality" says little to their actual "morality". The
> terrorists you fear so much believe their actions are "moral". The word
> means little if taken this way.
What is about terrorists that you don't fear? And what, pray tell, is
"actual morality?" Maybe we ought to start a new thread on that!
> [Arlo previously]
> The secularly driven economies of the capitalist power structure defeated
> the secularly driven economies of the totalitarian power structure.
> [Platt]
> > The political leadership in the West which guided the resources to defeat
> communism were inspired and influenced by Christian belief, as were their
> followers. Without that leadership (Reagan, Thatcher, Pope John Paul II) to
> challenge communist expansion and it's goal of world domination, things
> would be a lot different today.
Arlo:
> "Inspired and influenced by Christian belief"? Such as? Democracy?
> Capitalism? Wealth? Please.
>
> If freedom is such a "Christian belief", where was it during the two
> thousand years the church held all power?
As I keep trying to inform you, the church never held ALL power for 2000
years.
> One would think that if it was
> "Christian", then those would've been the free-est two thousand years known
> in history... But it wasn't, was it? Even if I accept the statement that is
> was an "advocacy of freedom" that brought down Russia, its still not a win
> for "Christianity". Its a win for the rational-secular idea of "freedom".
I find your "win for rational-secular idea of freedom" unsupported by fact.
Because men are "endowed by their Creator with liberty" puts God right at the
center of freedom. In other words, your right and mine to liberty comes from
God, not from a government permit based on some rational-secular idea,
whatever that may be.
> [Arlo previously]
> And it is exactly what you continue to do, evidencing the fear used by
> capitalist power structures to prevent dialogue that threatens the wealth
> fixations of this country.
>
> [Platt]
> > Given the history of communism and its record of genocide, those who
> > aren't afraid of it don't understand it.
>
> [Arlo]
> And those capable of understanding history condemn tyrannical regimes
> without the need to employ distorted scare tactics and deceptive rhetoric
> to protect the slightest challenge to the modern capitalist ideal of wealth
> fixation. And, they may even actually read the writings of the players
> invovled to get a true picture of what unfolded, rather than using
> McCarthian soundbites to scare and mislead people.
Or scaring and misleading people with leftist propaganda such as you and
liberal friends employ. Two can play the game of hysterical accusations,
if that's your idea of "critical thinking.".
> [Arlo said]
> > > The brutality of the past two thousand years that occured "in the name
> > > of
> religion", has been replaced (through a transference of power) to brutality
> occuring "in the name of fill-in-the-blank". What history shows us, is that
> power structures, then and now, are not guided by "morals".
>
> [Platt]
> > Again, I suggest you read some history.
>
> [Arlo]
> Professing one's morality, and being moral, are two different things in my
> book, Platt. Anyone can do the former (and historically has), few do the
> later. But again, this (above) is my core point and you continue to ignore
> it.
Well, suppose you spell out for us what "being moral" is. Would part of
it be to abolish private property as Marx recommends?
> [Platt]
> > What I hoped for was rundown of Marxist morality, such as, ownership of
> > private property is evil. But I guess that's asking too much. Again, you
> > avoid Pirsig's idea that today's intellectuals have no provision for
> > morals in their metaphysics.
>
> [Arlo]
> Marx saw "private property" as a focus on materialism that removed us from
> our humanity. In many ways, it is quite parallel to Jesus' refuttal of
> wealth and material possession, and is evidenced (again) by the Amish quite
> nicely. We can talk about that too, if you'd like. With regard to material
> possession, Jesus and Marx are very similar.
So your do favor abolishing private property?
> I've found you a web transcript of Marx's 1844 piece "Private Property and
> Communism". Read it, and we can start a thread on it, if you'd like. But if
> we do, I'd actually like to address the philosophy in it, and not simply
> argue over McCarthian soundbites.
>
> http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm
Let's argue about the following soudbite direct from Marx's "Communist
Manifesto:" "In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up
in the single sentence:Abolition of private property."
> [Arlo responds]
> Really?... I thought the basis for democracy in this country was
> pre-Christian Greece and the Iroquios Nation.
>
> [Platt]
> > I suggest you read some history, especially the documents of the founding
> fathers.
>
> [Arlo]
> Of course, you can't answer. I expected as much. Despite what the founders
> "claim", where do you find "democracy" in any historical period of
> christian domination? I can answer that for you, Platt. "Nowhere".
See my previous post showing how the foundations of democracy come
straight from Christian theology.
> [Platt]
> > You find Marx admirable. He advocated abolishing private property as
> > essential to his plan for a better world. You objected to each neighbor
> > owning a snowblower (ignoring of course that without evil corporations
> > there would be no snowblowers to fight over). The implications are clear.
>
> [Arlo]
> Yes they are. The implication is that although rational people can read
> what I've written, people afraid of discourse will use any distortion
> possible to obfuscate the point.
>
> As I said, I could care less if people owned their own snowblowers. What I
> personally believe is that it is that it is a waste of individual
> resources, and something that has been made "important" only by corporate
> capitalist interests. And is simply more evidence of how material
> acquisition supercedes all else in this country. And how even this
> slightest challenge to this, such as an offer to purchase a communal
> snowblower, is so impossible and threatening, that Marxism is a long way
> off.
>
> Imagine, that if instead of buying into consumerism, these people did
> purchase communal items when it made more sense than to have individual
> ownership. Why, this money could be invested and over time turn into real
> power! But we can't have that, no sirree bob, we *need* people spending and
> indebting themselves without regard or thought to support the wealth
> acquisition of corporate America.
>
> It is THAT dialogue that I am critical of. Not "individual ownership". Get
> real.
THAT dialogue as you call it as phony as a three-dollar bill. People do
not buy goods and services "without regard or thought to support the
wealth acquisition of corporate America." They spend their earnings on
what they value for themselves, their families and their friends. Your
statement "without thought" reflects the leftist view that Americans are
too stupid to know what's good for them, which of course by your lights
was the reason the majority reelected George Bush. With the stupidity of
the average God-fearing American being the prevalent belief among liberal
elites, it's little wonder the left is losing ground among the electorate
and that your dream of a great collectivist Utopia where everybody in the
neighborhood willingly shares a snowblower will never happen, unless by
dictatorial fiat.
> I'm going to move this over the thread DMB started, if you'd like to start
> a "private property" thread, we can do that.
Need reinforcements? OK by me.
Platt
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