posted
Imagine with me for a moment ... if Mrs. Powell hadn't forbidden her husband from running for president. Colin Powell could have beaten Al Gore by a convincing, repectable margin. He would have pursued a more moderate, but still effective, war on terrorism. He would have maintained our international standing. And he'd be virtually unbeatable in this reelection, with far fewer angry, slathering critics.
But for a choice made by a single person, we would live in a better world.
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
Yeah, all that, assuming that some good ole boy from Texas didn't shoot him.
There was a relatively honorable Republican candidate for President in 2000 that would have done all those things. His name was John McCain. He didn't win.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Yeah, if McCain couldn't beat Bush in those primaries, I don't think Powell would have either. Powell is more of a deviant from the Repub party line than McCain -- he supports affirmative action and social programs.
Although perhaps Bush's trips to Bob Jones University would've looked a bit worse if he'd been facing a black opponent.
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posted
McCain had the disadvantage that no one in the general populace had heard of him, while Bush's instant name recognition and connection to a past era made him an easier sell to the common voter.
Colin Powell had him beat. The common voter knew Powell's name and respected him for things he, personally, had actually done for this country.
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
On a personal level I understand Mrs. Powell's request. There is still lots of latent racism out there. I have no doubt he would have been a larger target for assasinations than most presidential condenders.
If it looked like he was going to win, there could have been large scale racist uprisings, that would probably have been violent at least occasionally.
Would you want your family embroiled in the middle of that?
posted
Don't be silly. Rove made sure that the BushCampaign smeared McCain with a massive dose of lying TV&radio advertisements -- including ads run by "independent"groups -- just as he has in every campaign in which he was involved. Along with coordination with Limbaugh&clones, Rove used character assassination to push Dubya's nomination forward.
posted
Bullcrap, McCain didn't have the advantage of name recognition that Bush did, but that's hardly the only or even anywhere near the most important difference. He lost because Bush's people ran a much lower brow and negative campaign than McCain did. McCain (who I both worked and voted for) ran a much more honorable campaign. While he was talking about what he thought needed to be done with the military and not at all mentioning that George Bush flew in the silver spoon brigade during the war when he could be bothered to show up for military service at all, the Bush campaign were lining up veterans to smear his war record. When he was campaining on issues, the Bush campaign was labeling both him and Democrats and setting up push polls saying the he had an ilegitimate black child. McCain also didn't answer almost every serious question with "Jesus", stood for things outside of the traditional republican agenda, and was distinctly not the type of guy that a majority of Americans thought they'd like to have as a drinking buddy.
Colin Powell would have come up against all of these problems as well, with the added benefit that many of Bush's hardcore supporters wouldn't support him because of the color of his skin. He would have, however, picked up votes from Blacks and Democrats, but that wouldn't have helped him win the primaries.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
And again, Alma Powell said she believed that if Colin Powell ran for President, he was putting both himself and his family in danger from a significant proportion of the American people. For myself, seeing how just being the First Family is an incredible strain, I could see how this added strain of moving up to number 1 on every anti-black racist's to kill list would be something that would really disuade me from wanting my husband to run for President.
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posted
On the other hand, every time I see McCain standing next to President Bush on the campaign trail I think, "Four more years. He's only doing this so the Republican power brokers will back him in 2008. We just need to survive 4 more years."
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posted
Churchill was banished to the extreme fringe of the ConservativeParty because of his constant criticism of Germany's NaziParty, his farseeing opposition to his party leaders' desire to coddle up to Nazism, NevilleChamberlain's attempts to appease Hitler. And when Hitler's war fell upon Britain, Chamberlain fell from power and Churchill became the star which guided the UnitedKingdom through its darkest hours to the hopeful dawn of a new world.
There is no comfort in seeing a man sell his soul in exchange for his party's current goodwill, for hypothetical future political support of his ambition to become leader. Sad to think that maybe McCain is correct: that the era of statesmanship is dead in America; and only politicians who bend to the will of the inheritance&trust-fund oligarchs can hope to survive.
posted
C'mon. If Tom's near lifeless body were pulled from a burning building by a Christian, Tom would complain that the guy had said a prayer over him afterwards while waiting for the paramedics to arrive.
Or that he'd done it only to have the opportunity to give Tom the "fires of Hell" speech.
Tom speaks of Christians as Klansmen speak of blacks.
Posts: 2848 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
Nope. Firstly, I do not paint all Christians with the same brush; I reserve any disdain for fundamentalists. That you do not draw a distinction is, I suggest, a flaw.
Secondly, as I've posted before, I regard Christian fundamentalists as the single biggest threat to my way of life and to American culture as a whole. They have the potential and the power to do considerably more damage to the country than any foreign power.
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BTW, Sopwith, the whole "complain while a prayer is said over him" is an evocative but highly erroneous distortion of my position. Perhaps you should spend the time you've wasted coming up with a creative insult actually figuring out how I really feel on the issue.
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(And kat, I WOULD sell my car if there were other sources of reliable transportation that I could afford; sadly, no such viable options exist in this area. To continue the parallel, this is why I oppose school vouchers. *grin*)
posted
Yep. They're all bad in the same way that a Palestinian kid who roots for the stone throwers is bad.
He might be a great kid. He might take care of his elderly mother, never raise a hand in violence, buy cake for total strangers, and volunteer at a local hospital -- but his allegiance is given over to a group with evil goals and evil methods, even though he grants that allegiance for non-evil reasons.
Now, I would say that just such a person would be a perfect target for conversion; if he could be persuaded to reconsider his allegiances, or to change the organization to which he's chosen to belong from the inside, then more power to him. And fundamentalists who're actively working to talk people out of fundamentalism, like Phelps, would get a pat on the back from me -- if, of course, they weren't doing it entirely by accident and in an odious fashion.
---
(Remember, you guys said there could never be such a thing as an evangelical agnostic. *grin* )
posted
The great thing about being prejudiced against people due to voluntary group membership is that it's not bigotry (at least, not in the way you mean it; by the technical definition, of course, it is. *grin*)
That's like saying that someone who thinks less of bank robbers is a bigot, because he doesn't keep an open mind about armed robbery -- or that someone who wouldn't make time with a terrorist is a bad person, because terrorists can't help the way they are.
I would like to point out that people can choose to stop supporting Christian fundamentalism at any time, in the same way they can stop sending money to the Irish Republican Army or building car bombs in their basement.
I oppose Christian fundamentalists because I believe Christian fundamentalism is oppressive, malicious, and dangerous, and a philosophy that inevitably leads to violence, ignorance, and despotism. I oppose Islamic fundamentalism for the same reason. Which one makes me more bigoted?
posted
Assigning attributes to every member of a group because of the actions and beliefs of some other members of the group is one of the hallmarks of bigotry.
In other words, it's not bigoted to hate armed robbers because they commit armed robbery, or because armed robbery deprives people of property, or because threatening people is wrong.
It is bigoted to hate all armed robbers because some of them use the money to finance drug operations.
Dagonee Edit: Here's why it's bigoted:
quote:I oppose Christian fundamentalists because I believe Christian fundamentalism is oppressive, malicious, and dangerous, and a philosophy that inevitably leads to violence, ignorance, and despotism.
Again, you're projecting some expressions of the philosophy on all of them, and implying some big conspiracy. "Those fundies all stick together."
posted
I've got all sorts of evil running along in my brain, right now. . .
I don't think Tom's a bigot, because I could never see him trying to remove civil rights from fundamentalists. He's not Germany, in other words-- I feel comfortable that he'd allow Nazis and Dittoheads to speak their minds in the Republic of Tom.
I, however, as a Perhaps-Fundamentalist, would feel about as comfortable living in the Republic of Tom as an Orthodox Jewish boy would in a Parisian school.
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posted
Dag, you misunderstand me. I believe ignorance and oppression are inevitable consequences of religious fundamentalism. They may not be INTENDED consequences, but they're consequences nonetheless; it's like making armed robbery a more serious crime than unarmed robbery because people are more likely to get hurt, even if the armed robber doesn't actually shoot anyone this time or shoots someone without meaning it.
quote:Dag, you misunderstand me. I believe ignorance and oppression are inevitable consequences of religious fundamentalism. They may not be INTENDED consequences, but they're consequences nonetheless; it's like making armed robbery a more serious crime than unarmed robbery because people are more likely to get hurt, even if the armed robber doesn't actually shoot anyone this time or shoots someone without meaning it.
"It's not those fundies fault - they're just dumb because of their religious beliefs."
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
The quick and dirty definition of fundamentalism, as far as I'm concerned:
Defining one's morality based on one's faith, rather than choosing a faith based on one's morality.
This leads to other indicators of fundamentalism, like a literal interpretation of religious text, an unwillingness to entertain other points of view, slavish adherence to taboo, etc. But it really all boils down to defining "good" as what your god says "good" is, instead of defining God as what "good" is.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
You're not helping your cause, Tom. That definition includes an awful lot of religious people if you force the world into your dichotomy.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Hey, I never said it would be an easy fight. But, then, neither did I say it was a dichotomy; it's perfectly possible to be both religious and sensible.
It's NOT, however, possible to be both sensible and fundamentalist, because part of the definition of the latter involves deliberately rejecting common sense in favor of "faith," whatever that is.
Either there's a higher "good" out there, independent of its sources, or there isn't. If "good" is merely behavior as defined by an ancient entity, that means it's not any more "good" than any other behavior recommended by some other ancient entity; it would be like wearing a locket saying "What Would Wilford Brimley Do?"
"Good," under that definition, merely becomes a form of servitude, a badge of team membership: "I'm Good, because I obey Bill. You're not, because you obey Harry."
Ergo, the CONCEPT of "good" has to exist independently of a god in order for it to have any meaning as a concept instead of a playbook.
posted
Dag, I would submit that no religion of which I'm aware on Earth has a philosophy which is described by your hypothetical.
----
*nod* The difference, Trevor, is that I believe in a higher good. And consequently, I would not define doing what a powerful being told me without question as "good."
It's far too easy to come up with hypothetical, sci-fi examples of why this would be a bad thing.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:"Good," under that definition, merely becomes a form of servitude, a badge of team membership: "I'm Good, because I obey Bill. You're not, because you obey Harry."
This underscores your fundamental misunderstanding. It is good to obey God, both because his commands are good and because obedience is due God as the Creator.
Tom believes there is a uniform, higher or even absolute concept and principles of "good" with or without a supreme being.
Such a code is even binding the Supreme being, although we must trust His judgement when obeying his will as we cannot discern the inherent nature or purpose of His instructions.
The organized religions believe their Supreme Being is Good and as such trust Him implicitly. And believe their Supreme Being to be the source of all things and as such the canon reference for Good.
Tom believes there is a Supreme Good, but not necessarily in a Supreme Being, or that the Supreme Being so addressed is, in fact, Good.
posted
Tom's not a bigot. I agree with him... Some Fundamentalist types really scare me. I don't hate them, but I fear befriending them because if they knew how I was they might hate me or at least try to make me change.... I do agree that they should not try to foust their beliefs on a larger society. Especially when it comes to sex education in this day and age. The cases of HIV infection should be decreasing, but they are not... That is something to be concerned about...
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And no, Dag, I would say that the Christian God is empirically, as described in the Bible, not good. Let me be clear: He murders all of humanity. Twice. He is, in fact, said to be the author of a book in which He brags about doing it once and promises to do it again. He demands that a man sacrifice his own son, only to replace him with a sheep at the last second; note that any excuses for this act are all extra-scriptural, except for Mormons. His servants delight in the complete extermination of tribes. And He sends His OWN son down to be killed because He doesn't want to just forgive everyone's sins without some killing first. If you're Catholic, you believe that He routinely turns the soul of bread into an aspect of Himself without changing the bread in any other way.
This is irrational behavior. It is, in fact, behavior that violates the very moral codes that He has asked His followers to uphold. To accept these actions as "good," we MUST assume that we do not and/or cannot understand the underlying excuses for them.
I've had a similar conversation on this board before, and I agreed that I would be much relieved if Christian fundamentalists, instead of spending so much time trying to convert people to their worldview, instead used their direct line to God in order to talk Him out of destroying the planet. Sadly, this does not appear to be a burgeoning trend for prayer in the fundie community.
I LEFT a church over its attitude towards the apocalypse. I certainly don't need to tolerate that attitude in churches I didn't even feel like joining.
posted
None of this, of course, excuses Tom's sweeping generalizations, especially since they're based on serious misunderstandings of what others actually believe.
quote:Some Fundamentalist types really scare me. I don't hate them, but I fear befriending them because if they knew how I was they might hate me or at least try to make me change....
"Some" is very different than all, which is Tom's original premise.
quote:I do agree that they should not try to foust their beliefs on a larger society. Especially when it comes to sex education in this day and age. The cases of HIV infection should be decreasing, but they are not... That is something to be concerned about...
Actually, if traditional Christian sexual morality were followed there would be almost none sexually transmitted HIV cases. It's very unfair to blame HIV infection rates on one very small part of an overall larger philosophy.
posted
It was well-put, but it was also unfortunately unverifiable. I would submit that for everyone to whom Scott's sentence would apply, there is a counterexample.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
And counter-examples for everything. I hear there's one for gravity. . .
So if I drop a penny in a vacuum, and it doesn't fall at the right rate of gravity, do I blame physics? Or do I look for a crack in the vacuum?
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