THE VOICE OF REASON
Solon, (born c. 630 BCE—died c. 560 BCE), Athenian statesman, known as one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece (the others were Chilon of Sparta, Thales of Miletus, Bias of Priene, Cleobulus of Lindos, Pittacus of Mytilene, and Periander of Corinth). Solon ended exclusive aristocratic control of the government, substituted a system of control by the wealthy, and introduced a new and more humane law code. He was also a noted poet.
How is the idea that Christ is simultaneously God Himself and His son intelligible and coherent?
How is Christianity more intelligible and coherent than Judaism and/or Islam?
How is Christianity doing compared to Judaism and Islam?
Has Christianity become associated with the ideology of the West who want to spread the abomination of gay marriage all over the world?
Both C S Lewis and J R Tolkein are children's writers. Why would any intelligent adult think these two writers of children's fiction have anything interesting or authoritative to say about Christianity?
McGrath seems to be saying that it is just a matter of choosing the story you prefer. The exercise of reason must surely be more than just such an individual and subjective preference.
Should you choose your religion on the basis of the stories you like to hear or choose your religion on the rules you think society should best live by?
Is Christianity the religion of the neocons, which Islamic State has more or less declared war against?
7:48 "Trump's popularity is because he is not associated with the political sector ... not that he knows what to do or has any advisers who know what to do."
"Political change cannot come within the current political system."
10th minute - Marine Le Pen would either be assassinated or her character assassinated. Dominique Strauss-Kahn was taken out.
12th minute - Jeremy Corbyn faces mutiny from the Armed Forces if he were to become Prime Minister.
Left-wing parties behave like right-wing parties once they are in office.
Capitalism turns everything into a commodity that can be bought and sold.
18th minute - "The law is only applied to the helpless."
American people incapable of recognising leadership.
1st minute "Nixon was removed." He was accused of selling out to the Commies because he was too much of peace-nik, and did all sorts of things for ordinary people eg EPA. It is so easy to stifle a good President. JFK taken out for the same reason.
5th minute - Kerry, Putin, Syria.
13th minute - "The Neocons have been going for decades. They are in the Pentagon, the military and the media." John Kerry eating crow.
16th minute - Kissinger and Brzezinski were Cold Warriors, but they are not neocons. The neocons are actually evil.
17th minute - Putin keeps asking the US "Do you know what you have done?" Not only did the US create ISIS, they are buying their oil.
18th minute - The Pentagon have run 16 war games and lost every single one of them to Russia.
19th minute- US weaponry doesn't even work. The Russian stuff works.
21st minute - "If the Russians were neocons they could wipe us off the face of the earth with no cost to themselves." They keep relying on diplomacy and telling the truth.
22nd minute - "The Russians will stick with diplomacy as long as they can risk trusting America."
23rd minute - Goldman Sachs might just tell Hillary to lay off the rhetoric, if there is someone intelligent there and doesn't want WW3.
4th minute - Kerry should demand Obama fire Victoria Nuland.
12th minute - Nothing in it for the US vassal states of the Europe when Russia finally loses patience.
13th minute - Stampede out of NATO.
14th minute - Refugee crisis being blamed on the mainstream parties.
15th minute - Neocons now turning their attention towards confronting China.
17th minute - "We must acknowledge our problems. You to be an American in Washington or in the media to be that stupid."
18th minute - "My readership is three times the New York Times'. The United States becoming a despised place. Everything has turned against us. We are a house of cards without friends with bought and paid for puppets whose allegiance is now in doubt." It is a joke that we are a superpower, that we have values, that we are a democracy. We are the most despised and the least trusted."
21st minute - "American people are clueless. They live in The Matrix."
22nd minute - "Cui bono? The neocons. 9/11 is the new Pearl Harbour. When things have quietened down, something more happens eg Charlie Hebdon, San Bernardino .... "
23rd minute "Putin in complete control. Obama backing Kerry to calm things down. Then we'll probably have another false flag attack. They will blame ISIS or Russia. Every neocon is a fanatic."
Nobody is really in charge of America because the political classes in reality have very little power and are at the beck and call of the lobbyists.
Can you imagine a dictator being told what to do by the arms manufacturers? He would soon tell them where to go.
It has always been a fallacy that democracies are always more peaceful than dictatorships. Athens was not exactly peaceable, nor did its democracy last very long. Whatever the nature of the government, it will find itself wanting to assert itself, show off and posture when it feels itself to be weak and losing power. Failing empires who call themselves democracies are just a likely to do this as any petty tyrant in a tinpot dictatorship. Think of short men who take on larger than life personalities to over-compensate for their lack of height.
In any group 51% of its members are stupider than the other 49%. In a democracy, we submit to this majority of the stupid.
Indeed, a democracy only works if all voters are wise, and we already know that most voters are venal, morally corrupt, ignorant, intellectually lazy and easily led.
A wise ruler with wise advisers would best be able to keep the lobbyists and other enemies of society at bay, but not members of a political class riven with factionalism trying to do outdo each other while worrying about their status and the income that needs to go with it.
Can you imagine, for example, a Caliph being at the beck and call of his arms manufacturers? Granted, Hitler and Mussolini were hardly peaceable in their urgency to build their empires, but then again Franco had no interest in foreign adventures nor did Salazar. The Chinese one-party system would be best for the Americans. It will be interesting to see the debates they will have when they decide to change their constitution and abolish their oligarchy.
Dictator Trump would be a hopeful start, since the Americans already clearly adore him.
This mindset — this lackluster, lukewarm, status quo, never-rock-the-boat approach — is destroying the Church from within. Men like Cdl. Dolan are allowed to pass over scandals and ignore them because they know they will never be called out or challenged by those milquetoast lackeys more concerned about their careers and money than the truth and souls.
This is exactly how the whole homosexual priest sex abuse scandal went on for so long, this same attitude. Homosexual men have infiltrated the Church for decades, and whether they intended to or not — some did probably, others not — they have been part of a destruction of the Faith that staggers the mind. And their accomplices among the hierarchy are even more staggering. The very men consecrated to protect and love the sheep have abandoned them for every corruption conceivable. The silence around this evil, the participation in these evils, the refusal and denial of so many regarding this evil, shows how deeply the diabolical has dug its way into the Church.
If extramarital sex were treated as sexual offences, we wouldn’t have any of this nonsense, though this smacks of sharia law. But needs must, and we cannot continue to have the court system clogged up with complaints being made by mentally ill men who want to be women, nor must we continue rewarding lying promiscuous women who make false rape accusations because they have been financially incentivised at £11,000 a pop.
Liberalism meaningless: the rich think it means freedom from laws and taxes, the poor think it means freedom from poverty and oppression.
Either Liberalism is the same thing as Conservatism or it is not. Anne McElvoy seems to think they are the same.
Do you get the impression that Anne McElvoy uses Liberalism and Conservatism interchangeably? I do.
Is Anne McElvoy's series on British Liberalism just a rehash of her series on British Conservatism?
Listening to Anne McElvoy on British Conservatism/Liberalism, do you get the impression it is just "shit UK governments do"?
British Liberalism and British Conservatism seems to be nothing more than "shit the British government does and thinks".
Anne McElvoy's on Conservatism/Liberalism should be a programme called What Passes for British Political Thought since the French Revolution.
British Conservatism came from an Irishman as a belated response to the French Revolution.
Conservatism is an ideology no older than the American and French Revolutions, which failed to prevent Russian Revolution.
Ask a Western politician or journalist to tell you where Conservatism ends and Liberalism begins, and he will start prevaricating and looking nervous and shifty. Try it yourself if you don't believe me. Predictably, I received no answer from Anne McElvoy when I asked her this question.
@annemcelvoy Where does Conservatism end and Liberalism begin?
Liberalism and Conservatism means whatever Western politicians want it to mean.
Liberalism and Conservatism means motherhood and apple pie to the typical British voter. It therefore means precisely nothing.
In Australia the party closest to Conservatism is called the Liberal Party. Does this mean confusion, incoherence bordering on mania and dementia?
The West whose ideology is Conservatism and Liberalism do not even have an agreed "scripture" for their "religion".
Has Conservaliberalism stood the test of time - all 252 years of it so far?
ISIS have the Koran said to come from God, while the West do not even have an agreed "scripture" for their ideology. Perhaps it can only be found in The Unholy and Unwritten Conservaliberal Book of Making It Up As You Go Along?
There was a reason why the plebs demanded that The Twelve Tables of Romebe placed in a prominent part of the forum so that the operation of Rome's laws would be accessible and foreseeable.
What are Western values? It seems to mean Conservaliberalism which it cannot even agree on or officially define.
Would Edmund Burke be shocked and disgusted that a Conservative Prime Minister has legalised gay marriage?
Liberalism + Conservatism + Wolfowitz Doctrine + Full Spectrum Dominance + Neoconservatism + Neoliberalism = American Imperialism
Can even the most intelligent intellectual defend an ideology that does not have a commonly agreed source?
Is it wise to defend ideologies that are clearly incoherent and make no sense at all which no one can define?
It is clearly unwise to present a programme on these incoherent ideologies relying only on politicians' reminiscences of what was said and done when they were in government and politics without any attempt to define where Conservatism ends and Liberalism begins. Let us call it Conservaliberalism then!
Is PC Liberalism the equivalent of Sexual Liberation and casual fornication leading to widespread bastardy and national degeneracy? Is this the "way of life" the West is so keen on defending?
ISIS hate gay marriage while Conservaliberals seem to be saying they are prepared to defend it to the death. What is the point of defending a practice that would result in racial and national degeneracy which God has already declared to be an abomination in both the Bible and Koran?
Another expression of Conservaliberalism is being in the EU and NATO, irrespective of whether or not it is in the national interest, because, let's face it, these pygmy politicians have no idea what to do outside it, because they have no imagination or principles, and have no idea what the national interest is. They only want to be in office without being in power and only think in terms of elections the way children think of playing musical chairs.
Why do Liberals and Conservatives pretend they can't understand why people hate immigration when they know being hospitable to even family members can be a pain?
Would Victorian Conservaliberals' views on sexual morality be closer that of ISIS than the gay and female advisers of Downing Street?
Did Anne McElvoy mention that the National Liberal Party merged with the Conservative Party in 1947? I don't think so.
The Liberal Nationals also changed their name to National Liberals at this stage. (Their reluctance to take this label originally is said to be a reaction to Lloyd George's use of the name for the earlier National Liberal Party in the 1920s.)
So, Conservaliberalism is a good thing then? Well, it has made the West what it is now ...
If I had been presenting the programme, I would have pointed out that Conservatism was no more than a response to the French Revolution.
Since both Conservatism and Liberalism are the same thing in the mind of Anne McElvoy, we can say that Conservaliberalism is no more than 252 years old. I choose 1763 because that was the beginning of the American Revolution, which the French had a part in. http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/features/americanrevolution/timeline.html
If the French had not fought the Seven Years War then they would not have found their coffers empty and having to replenish them through the imposition of objectionably high taxes.
If Louis XVI had been Caliph of France - a Caliph is a constitutional dictator - and governed Islamically according to all the rules of the Koran, he would not have lost his head.
If Henry Tudor had been Muslim, it would have been no big deal for him to have up to four wives. Think of the number of heads that would have stayed on shoulders and the wars avoided if there had been no Catholic Church for Protestants to protest against and all the religious wars and persecution in Europe that would have been avoided. Forget all the non-Christians the Christians killed, ask yourself how many Christians the Christians killed. It is just possible that Christians killed even more Christians than they killed Muslims. Quite a thought, eh? It was the schismatic nature of Christianity that caused white people to endlessly fight, persecute and kill each other. It was Conservaliberalism that started two World Wars, after all, but Anne McElvoy doesn't mention that either. It is not surprising then that white people became so good at war and took over the world. Now that they only go around hypocritically pretending that they invade oil-rich Muslim countries to save Muslims from themselves and pay mercenaries to fight their wars, they will most probably go the way of the Roman empire.
Was the The Seven Years War fought for Koranically-approved reasons? No, because it only officially permits defensive wars. Sure, go acquire an empire if you want - the Koran allows Muslims conquerors to impose the jizya on their conquered after all, but if you don't win it or can't really afford it, then on your head be it.
Was WW1 fought for Koranically-approved reasons? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_military_jurisprudence Nope. Should Russia have entered it? Nope. If the Russians had had a Caliph of Russia rather than silly Tsar with an equally silly Tsarina carrying on with Rasputin, there would have been no Russian Revolution either.
What do the French now think of their Revolution? Do you know they are now on their fifth Republic? Yep, every time they change their constitution, a new republic is formed, and they have changed their constitution five times already, cos they keep getting it wrong ...
As Zhou Enlai said, it is too early to tell if the French Revolution was a good thing. Since he is dead, perhaps we should ask the French people what they think of the French Revolution now. I did recently and the response was a Gallic shrug.
Does the picture below say anything you might want to say about Conservaliberalism?
My petition:
Debate the feasibility of establishing a Caliphate by referendum.
ISIS are threatening to impose a Caliphate and fly the flag of Islam in Downing Street. Should we jump before we are pushed?
Click this link to sign the petition: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/115623/sponsors/mFx8m80LEbj3s9PrSGnd
At 10,000 signatures you get a response from the government.
At 100,000 signatures your petition will be considered for a debate in Parliament.
Irrespective of whether you are Muslim or even want a Caliphate, wouldn't it just be great to see Parliament debate the pros and cons of having a Caliphate?
A Caliph would be a kind of constitutional monarch or dictator. (Yes, it is logically possible to have a constitutional dictator if it is possible to have a constitutional monarch! What is a king but a dictator in all but name? A constitutional monarch is a monarch limited by the constitution, and a Caliph would be a constitutional monarch (or dictator, if you prefer) limited by what the Koran allows.
Now that I have put it this way, it doesn't sound quite so frightening, does it?
As for the atrocities that ISIS have committed, you will doubtless be aware that the French Revolutionaries did their fair share of beheadings too, and after a while they calmed down under the dictatorship of Napoleon Bonaparte who crowned himself emperor.
If you ask a Frenchman what he thinks of the French Revolution, all you would get is a Gallic shrug and the comment that "Nothing has changed."
Did you know that the French are now on their Fifth Republic? If they change their constitution again it will be their Sixth Republic. If they were using sharia law, would they be changing their constitution as often as they change underwear? God's laws are eternal and universal, and won't need such constant correction. Wouldn't it be nice for us to all settle down after knowing and being told what's what and where we all are in society? You betcha!
Think of all the exciting Saturday evenings the British Nation would enjoy choosing a Caliph through a TV show called Britain's Got a Caliph.
MPs voted this week to authorize British forces joining airstrikes against Islamic State forces in Syria. General Sir Simon Mayall is former defence advisor to the government on the Middle East and the Prime Minister’s security envoy to Iraq during first half of 2015; Aimen Dean is a former al-Qaeda member who switched to work for MI5 and MI6 in 1998.
Mayall: "A huge demographic bulge of young people" [in the Middle East while the West ages] - demographics is destiny. They have plenty of angry young men prepared to sacrifice life and limb, turbo-charged by their religion.
So this is what ISIS have.
What have we got? Imbeciles in government, and imbecilic senescent voters in denial who don't marry, don't have legitimate children or don't bring up whatever children they have properly, who refuse to sacrifice anything or take any risks unquestioningly swallowing the absurdities the government stuffs down their unresisting throats to justify their atrocities while pretending to believe that Muslims become terrorists for no particular reason other than they are Muslim.
Dean: "ISIS is a symptom, not the cause."
Husain: "This sounds more about image than actually what we can achieve" in response to Mayall saying Britain should "be there" because it is a permanent P5 member, we have a UN Resolution blah blah".
So this is why our government bombs people, is it? And you are OK with this, are you?
We deserve what's coming to us, for bombing people for image reasons and thinking this right and proper while pretending to be horrified and outraged that ISIS are gunning for us.