yikes!

[winterbadger]

My friend Nick pointed me to this: http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=7591

Really, I can't imagine how unpleasant it must be inside some of these people's heads. The unrelenting hatred for everything and anything that relates to liberalism, humanism, and social and gender equality is truly stunning.

Comments

[blushing-grace.livejournal.com]

I regretfully read the "Top 10 worst books" and honorable mentions, and going down thought to myself

I've been meaning to read that one, and that one, hopefully that one...

[peaceful-fox.livejournal.com]

I did the same thing!

[winterbadger]

Yeah, Nick pointed out that (hopefully) this just spurs people to read thigns they might not have otherwise. :-) Nothign like telling people they can't/shouldn't do something to make it look attractive. :-)

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

Well, maybe one or two of those I could agree with. "Mein Kampf" certainly, and "Beyond Good And Evil" as well.

Some of the others, well, it's debatable; Marx was badly misinterpreted by the Bolsheviks, I think, though that misinterpretation did great harm.

But then I see things like Friedan, Kinsey, Dewey, Keynes, and the like, and I say...what planet are these folks living on?

Oh, right...planet Conservative, where progress is wrong and the best morals are the ones that keep the powerful in power.

[winterbadger]

Yeah, the place where it's fundamentally unacceptable to think that anything but Judeo-Christian divinely inspired holy writ is a suitable founding for a system of morals. I mean, John Stuart Mill? Harmful? Only people totally incapable of accepting that humans can devise a system of ethics for themselves would feel this threatened by rational and inoffensive works of philosophy.

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

Please, none of the "Judeo-Christian". These guys, and Jews, are pretty darn far apart.

Well, except the Orthodox, but I don't think they're really Jewish anymore...

[winterbadger]

Heh. I think just cutting a major section of the religion out like that, while it would be nice, isn't really somethign we can do. I know lots of Christians who would like to ditch the Catholics or their own Orthodox, but it doesn't really work like that :-)

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

In this case, I'm not just saying so because I'd like ot ditch the Orthodox, but because I think they've abandoned a fundamental part of Judaism, the oral scripture, in their (recent, granted) embrace of textual literalism.

It's not a very Jewish stance to take, on their part, so...there you go.

[winterbadger]

You think the Orthodox have abandoned the Mishnah and the Talmud?

[robbysmom.livejournal.com]

Conservative doesn't bother me so much as close-minded. ack!

[winterbadger]

The problem is that they seem to be synoymous these days. Conservatives (and some liberals) don't seem to want to debate policy as much as simply deny the legitimacy of anyone else's point of view. There's no reasoned debate, just open warfare.

It'a hardly unusual for American politics, but it's hardly a desirable state of affairs.

[poeticalpanther.livejournal.com]

But what a list! Some of my favourites...but then any group that speaks with pride of Phyllis Schlafly being among their number probably isn't one we want to spend a lot of time on, anyway.

[redactrice.livejournal.com]

I love the fact that 14 of the 15 judges are men, and the lone female is Phyllis Schlafley. Now there's a representative group!

[blueinva.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't worry overduly though, the group they're pitching to isn't known for it's literary prowess, more for it's ability to burn books.

The whole notion of 'harmful' books is bizarre. Independent thought; get thee behind me!

As far as the Judeo-Christian thing...

[john-arundel.livejournal.com]

If they arnt Jewish and (I would observe) they are def. NOT Christian - at least no more true to the spirit of Christianity than the Soviets were to the spirit of socialism...what does that make them? Im mean - Jesus was quite the hippy- bucking the establishment and getting in the fundementalist faces and all. How do conservatives reconcile this whole thing?

Re: As far as the Judeo-Christian thing...

[winterbadger]

Oh, the same way the Church has ever since it stopped being coutnerculture and became The Man back in 313 CE, by focusing on the letter of Christian scripture (and declaring a lot of it "uncanonical") instead of the spirit.

BTW, NB and I were talking about going to see Ep 3 on Sunday; care to see it again?

Re: As far as the Judeo-Christian thing...

[john-arundel.livejournal.com]

As with anything - applying laws or principles intended to help or protect people without first (and this is where the literalist falls down - continuously) subjecting the application of the said laws to deep introspection and compassion - is a betrayal of that idea.

Speaking of 'the man' - I'll have to check with 'the woman'. I will be gone part of Saturday for the annual LaBelle business meeting and so may be in trouble for additional time 'off'. Were you thinking afternoon or evening?

I'm sorry to hear that you and Nora wont be a romantic unit - but, if your really happy, than I am too. I think that all the hard work you put into this relationship, despite the fact that it didn’t work quite as you intended, does set a positive precedent for future ones.

Re: As far as the Judeo-Christian thing...

[winterbadger]

[afternoon or evening] Hadn't gotten that far, honestly. But if you're LBCing Saturday, I won't hold my breath on your availability Sunday. :-)

As far as things with NB go, I don't know I'd say I'm happy, but I think things worked out for the best. We make very good friends but, trying to look at it dispassionately, I think we wouldn't make good partners. There are too many places where our needs don't fit, and if we tried to force it to work one or both of us would always be knowing the other person was unhappy about how things were and being unhappy in turn about that. because we both care about each other a lot and want each other to be happy. And sometimes that means accepting that the other person needs to get some of their needs met by someone else.

As fara s the hard work goes, I do feel that it suggests that allt he time Chris and I spent learning how to communicate and build and miantain relationships really wasn't wasted. :-)

Re: As far as the Judeo-Christian thing...

[winterbadger]

Oh, and I spotted your comment in old contemptible's LJ about the decline of the Epis. Church, and though you and I have been over this before, I couldn't help but want to comment. I'd urge you to look at who in the EC right now is being exclusionary and trying to bring down the pillars of the temple rather than have people they don't like pray in it, and who is trying to be inclusive and accept all people who sincerely believe in Christ's teaching. What you (and I in my time) love most about the EC is its traditional liturgy and its contemplative and theological nature. The first is going to change in any event, sad to say, because otherwise the Church just won't appeal to younger and younger people who simply don't understand Cranmer's language. And the latter is not the province of the people in the so-called "Anglican Church in America"; they're about anger and exclusion and hatred, not love for all mankind, humility and mercy and justice.