Posted on 11/10/2008 11:37:17 AM PST by betty boop
It appears to be a drawn out assertion that there is no escape from theology - that even engaging in a conscious effort to avoid theology is an explicit expression of theology.
Suggestion.. Staniel Cay, Bahamas..
Pope Pipus I..
Been there, done it. It was good diving : ) I like the Exumas a lot.
Pope Pipus I..
Hmmm, Hosepipe - Pope Pipus. Could it be a mere coincidence? I think not. It must be a miracle. There is a God! How could I have been so blind? : )
The quote by Adams is held up as axiomatic, chosen to produce a preordained conclusion, and upon it built a "second reality" wherein all of the Founders share the same religious beliefs, and subscribe to the same sectarian/denominational doctines as the person making the argument.
Really, the past century in politics, and sociology has been applied dialectics. Obama is their 'synthesis.' (they think)
Balderdash! - Your fear is showing. No one has ever held up a universal, monolithic 'faith of the founders;' Only that they all were indeed believers in "the God of the Bible," which leaves much room for differences.
Philosophy may invalidate others’ reasoning due to logical fallacies, but it is impotent in establishing positive truth.
Voegelin's philosophy starts with an article of faith and therefore can only produce new articles of faith.
You got a lot about Hegel right, but you got Nietzsche entirely wrong. He despised Hegel’s notion of progress and took it to its most extreme so that we might notice its depravity.
I call ‘em like I see ‘em. If you want to dismiss it as “fear induced balderdash”, go right ahead. I’m not losing any sleep over it.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2126186/posts?page=12#12
... For two long we’ve tried to reduce our philosophy of economics and governance to bumper-stickers about tax-cuts.
Tax-cuts don’t motivate people. Tax-cuts don’t explain the proper role of government, or the relationship between liberty and prosperity, or the importance of personal liberty for its own sake, or why people should govern themselves and their families and their communities and why letting government manage them is such a tragic mistake.
We don’t explain those things, we just talk about cutting taxes because in an MTV world we figure no one has the attention span for the whole philosophical discussion.
And in a world in which there are a hundred channels, thats understandable. Most people don’t have the attention span. But too many Repubs don’t have a talent for this kind of discussion even when they have the stage and the microphone.
After decades of a dumbed down education system, most Americans don’t know what the defining principles of this country are. They don’t know what socialism is or why we should not want it. They don’t know why an infantilized populace is bad and wouldn’t recognize themselves in the description.
We’ve abdicated control of the education of our own kids. We’ve abdicated control of the news and entertainment media. Lose the schools and universities, lose the news and entertainment media, and you’ve lost the game. Maybe not immediately, but you’re fighting a rear-guard action from that moment forward. Sooner or later an Obama shows up and down you come.
There is some truth to your complaint, though I would suggest that the Declaration's "we hold these truths to be self-evident" is the part more properly identified as being "held up as axiomatic." On what other basis, after all, can the rights life, liberty and pursuit of happiness properly be labled as "unalienable?" They are axiomatic in the sense that they are "endowed by our Creator." I think the left doesn't actually believe this to be true -- at least, not in the way the Founders did, and also not like at least some conservatives do.
In that case, of course, the objective basis for the correctness of the Declaration would depend on a "first reality" that actually includes a Creator.
I like the Adams quote not for any "axiomatic" reasons, but rather for its practical (if unspecific) statement of the necessary conditions for limited government. Absent the self-policing nature of a "moral and religious people," it is difficult to imagine a system of "limited government" as not descending into anarchy; or, in order to prevent anarchy, the government would tend toward tyranny.
The question for you is, is there anything that you could offer as a "basis for conservatism" that is not in some sense "axiomatic" in a "second reality" sense?
LoL...
Depended in the week with Nietzsche.. he vacillated.. on many things..
Probably not. But with regard to issues like constitutionism and the intent of the Founders, there is a considerable body of work available for consideration. I'm skeptical of conclusions drawn from one quote by one man, and a single sentence lifted from the Preamble.
Axioms can properly be constucted an applied in mathematics. The term is something of a misnomer when applied to political philosophy, but generally speaking the less you base your conclusions on the more "axiomatic" it's going to appear, and I think there's a lot more to the situation than what's being presented as the relevant facts.
Nice response, but you dodged the question. To make it pointed: what should conservatives tout as the basic tenets of “conservatism?”
As Pascal put it:
“It is in vain, O men, that you seek within
yourselves the cure for your miseries. Your
principal maladies are pride, which cuts you
off from God, and sensuality which binds you
to the earth. Either you imagine you are gods
yourselves, or, if you grasp the vanity of such
a pretension, you are cast into the other abyss,
and suppose yourselves to be like the beasts
of the field and seek your good in carnality.”
So without God, we were left with a choice of
megalomania or erotomania; the clenched fist
or the phallus; Nietzsche or Sade; Hitler or D.
H. Lawrence.
——Malcom Muggeridge
I consider basic tenets of conservativism to be a healthy scepticism of government solutions, objective examination of all arguments presented for consideration and consideration given to the possible unintended consequences.
Mr. Muggeridge might profitably have added "the clenched fist and the phallus," and pointed to the emasculating tendencies of modern feminism....
The Republic. Beyond that I don't have any one size fits all answers for you. I can understand arguments presented from a theological standpoint, but I can't reconcile saying there's one "right" theology to base public policy on in a nation committed to freedom of religion.
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