Posted on 03/22/2007 11:28:22 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
...We constantly present the false impression that government can solve problems that government in America was designed not to solve. Families are significantly less important in the development of children today than they were 30 or 40 years ago. Religion has less influence than it did 30 or 40 years ago. Communities don't mean what they meant 30 or 40 years ago.
As Americans, we're not sure we share values. We're sometimes even afraid to use the word values. We talk about teaching ethics in schools -- people say, "What ethics? Whose ethics? Maybe we can't." And they confuse that with teaching of religion. And we are afraid to reaffirm the basics upon which a lawful and a decent society are based. We're almost embarrassed by it.
.... What we don't see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.
... The fact is that we're fooling people if we suggest to them the solutions to these very, very deep-seated problems are going to be found in government.
... They are going to have to be just as solid and just as strong in teaching every single youngster their responsibility for citizenship. We're going to find the answer when schools once again train citizens. Schools exist in America and have always existed to train responsible citizens of the United States of America.
If they don't do that, it's very hard to hold us together as a country, because it's shared values that hold us together.
(Excerpt) Read more at query.nytimes.com ...
Thankyouverymuch! Nice to be back. Areafiftyone, or someone, claimed I was making personal attacks and no such thing happened. Oh well, the break was nice. I only hit reply about one or two hundred times to see the blue screen of timeout.
This will get straightened out in time, and the liars will get the punishment I got, and then some.
I guess you missed your 8th grade civics class. Complete freedom has another name: Anarchy. Even a formerly maggot-infested, dope smoking, Hippie, pinko like me (35 years ago)can understand that freedom is not absolute.
That said, I believe in American Exceptionalism in the most important sense that our Judeo-Christian Constitutional framers clearly believed that God was the source of our natural liberties, not government. Flashbunny, have you ever heard of the Ten Commandments?
They're used incorrectly against Bush.
"Meanwhile, you are still trying figure out how to raise your guys profile, so that people outside of politcal blogs will get a chance to hear his message."
Who is "my guy"?
Do you have memory problems too? I said yesterday that I'm not supporting anyone yet, ergo there is no "my guy".
I've seen many trolls with signup dates back to 1998. It means little. Your liberal political ideology and actions here indicate you are a troll.
Is murray mom still around?
There are a LOT of liberals from 1998 that just have been able to hang around for some reason.
"Do you have memory problems too? I said yesterday that I'm not supporting anyone yet, ergo there is no "my guy"."
Well no, I guess technically, Hillary isnt a "guy". ;)
"You got all that from 5 minutes of interaction with me? LOL~ yeah right. STFU. your an idiot."
LOL. That might be more effective if you used the right form of "you're".
"LOL. That might be more effective if you used the right form of "you're"."
Its a common tactic of those losing a tit for tat banter on a forum to start policing grammar and spelling. You are just following pattern.
All Rudy is really doing in this little section of speech is restating a few well known truths in the context of law enforcement. First, there's no question that the "community" holds less power over individuals today than in the past. A sense of community, "social capital," was what helped keep kids in line, discouraged them from deliquency, kept them in school, etc.
Second, the idea of "authority" is often misunderstood. "Authority" and "authoritarianism" are not the same thing. "Authority," as many philosophers point out, lies in the hands of followers, not in the hands of leaders. Authority occurs when people voluntarily and on a limited basis suspend their judgment in favor of that of someone else.
Third, I think Rudy was speaking in the context of crime and law enforcement, not in a broad civil liberties sense. But regardless, there is truth in the idea that even in a free society, people cede some of their liberty in exchange for being able to live in a civil society. And yes, Ben Franklin was not entirely right on this point.
No, I just want liberals who can't control their temper to be banned. They add nothing to this board or the conservative movement. They are the antithesis of everything this board exists for.
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