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Morality vs. Religion
Dec. 23rd, 2025 01:56 pmMorality vs. Religion
“Morality is doing what is right no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told no matter what is right.”
~ H.L. Mencken
“Morality is doing what is right no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told no matter what is right.”
~ H.L. Mencken
2 - Enjoy
“What this country needs is more unemployed politicians.”
~ Edward Langley
"What's wrong with our children?
Adults telling children to be honest while lying and cheating.
Adults telling children not to be violent
while marketing and glorifying violence.
I believe that adult hypocrisy is the biggest problem children face in America."
~ Marian Wright Edelman
~ Edward Langley
= = = = = = =
"What's wrong with our children?
Adults telling children to be honest while lying and cheating.
Adults telling children not to be violent
while marketing and glorifying violence.
I believe that adult hypocrisy is the biggest problem children face in America."
~ Marian Wright Edelman
Violence / Falsehood
Dec. 11th, 2025 09:17 pmViolence / Falsehood
"Let us not forget that violence does not live alone and is not capable of living alone: it is necessarily interwoven with falsehood. Between them lies the most intimate, the deepest of natural bonds. Violence finds its only refuge in falsehood, falsehood its only support in violence. Any man who has once acclaimed violence as his method must inexorably choose falsehood as his principle."
~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, novelist, Nobel laureate (1918-2008)
~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, novelist, Nobel laureate (1918-2008)
Interesting: he was born a year before my mother.
Public Debate ?
Dec. 7th, 2025 09:16 pmPublic Debate ?
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum -- even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate."
~ Noam Chomsky, linguistics professor and political activist (1928- )
~ Noam Chomsky, linguistics professor and political activist (1928- )
“we won” is nearly always not
A lesson people and I think “liberal minded” people in particular have not learned or have forgotten is that “we won” is nearly always not. We are about to see that with a number of diseases. Measles, even polio and perhaps somewhere lurks smallpox outside those special labs.
We won the Civil War! Nope, a rebellion was put down and then allowed to simmer generations.
We won against Fascist and Nazi ideology! Nope. We crushed a couple of nations fully infected, hanged or purged some of the worst, but paid little attention to the festering infection in our own nation. They laid very low here after 7 December 1941 and into the 1950s when all eyes turned to another infection, Communism al la Soviets and Chinese. But you know, that freedom of expression even as it was pure poison breaking out as bombs in churches and lynchings.
Anyone knowing even a bit about antibiotics as revealed by penicillin use long ago knows winning against an infection by incomplete application of the cure leads to worse in the instance and emergence of new strains of the agent resistant to the cure. Even people knowing that fail to apply that knowing to infections of the body politic. Get weak knees at the very thought of carrying on the cure until the agent is indeed no longer a threat.
Odd isn’t it? Some sincere believers of religion likely still think human or child sacrifice is holy. We do not tolerate that. But in other “beliefs” that actually cause more human and child death and misery we split hairs, make intricate excuses. Yes, any suppression can be turned on the good as well at the evil. Not doing what is necessary to prevent evil triumphing? That is not “good” as we are experiencing.
Somewhat along those lines is my sleeping pill last night. I usually don’t need such an aid but now sometimes I do. It is worth a watch as a warning. How a strange transformation can take place in what looks like “political” things. How staunch Imperialist can morph into SS Nazis with weird ideology even for Nazis.
~ pelagicray @ Daily KOS — Abbreviated Pundit Roundup - What is this thing that people call the First Amendment
We won the Civil War! Nope, a rebellion was put down and then allowed to simmer generations.
We won against Fascist and Nazi ideology! Nope. We crushed a couple of nations fully infected, hanged or purged some of the worst, but paid little attention to the festering infection in our own nation. They laid very low here after 7 December 1941 and into the 1950s when all eyes turned to another infection, Communism al la Soviets and Chinese. But you know, that freedom of expression even as it was pure poison breaking out as bombs in churches and lynchings.
Anyone knowing even a bit about antibiotics as revealed by penicillin use long ago knows winning against an infection by incomplete application of the cure leads to worse in the instance and emergence of new strains of the agent resistant to the cure. Even people knowing that fail to apply that knowing to infections of the body politic. Get weak knees at the very thought of carrying on the cure until the agent is indeed no longer a threat.
Odd isn’t it? Some sincere believers of religion likely still think human or child sacrifice is holy. We do not tolerate that. But in other “beliefs” that actually cause more human and child death and misery we split hairs, make intricate excuses. Yes, any suppression can be turned on the good as well at the evil. Not doing what is necessary to prevent evil triumphing? That is not “good” as we are experiencing.
Somewhat along those lines is my sleeping pill last night. I usually don’t need such an aid but now sometimes I do. It is worth a watch as a warning. How a strange transformation can take place in what looks like “political” things. How staunch Imperialist can morph into SS Nazis with weird ideology even for Nazis.
~ pelagicray @ Daily KOS — Abbreviated Pundit Roundup - What is this thing that people call the First Amendment
Molly Ivins Moments
Aug. 29th, 2025 09:28 pmTWO of Them - Enjoy
[W]hen the going gets tough for the press in America, the press fudges, the press jellies. That's what we're doing now. We are retreating to a fine old American press cop-out we like to call objectivity. … The odd thing about these television discussions designed to "get all sides of the issue" is that they do not feature a spectrum of people with different views on reality: Rather, they frequently give us a face-off between those who see reality and those who have missed it entirely. In the name of objectivity, we are getting fantasyland.
—From Who Let the Dogs In?
“I say unto you, you do not know what courage is until you have sat in the basement of a Holiday Inn in Fritters, Alabama, with seven brave souls, led by a librarian, who are fixing to form a chapter of the Ay Cee Ell You. They are always driven to this extreme by local pinheads who not only don’t get the Bill of Rights but are eager to trash it. I have been called in through the American Library Association on some bizarre cases: say, the local Christian fundamentalists have decided talking animals are satanic, and consequently, they demand The Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and The Wind in the Willows be removed from the town library.”
—From Bill of Wrongs (2007, Random House)
~ Molly Ivins, (1944 – 2007)
—From Who Let the Dogs In?
“I say unto you, you do not know what courage is until you have sat in the basement of a Holiday Inn in Fritters, Alabama, with seven brave souls, led by a librarian, who are fixing to form a chapter of the Ay Cee Ell You. They are always driven to this extreme by local pinheads who not only don’t get the Bill of Rights but are eager to trash it. I have been called in through the American Library Association on some bizarre cases: say, the local Christian fundamentalists have decided talking animals are satanic, and consequently, they demand The Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and The Wind in the Willows be removed from the town library.”
—From Bill of Wrongs (2007, Random House)
~ Molly Ivins, (1944 – 2007)
Intelligence
Aug. 21st, 2025 09:33 pmIntelligence
Life cannot be classified in terms of a simple neurological ladder, with human beings at the top; it is more accurate to talk of different forms of intelligence, each with its strengths and weaknesses. This point was well demonstrated in the minutes before last December's tsunami [2004], when tourists grabbed their digital cameras and ran after the ebbing surf, and all the 'dumb' animals made for the hills.
~ B.R. Myers, author (1963- )
~ B.R. Myers, author (1963- )
Intelligence - what good is it if not to think things through?
Golden Rule
Aug. 14th, 2025 07:51 pmThe early one . . .
“Don’t do to others what you would not want others do unto you”
~ Confucius
~ Confucius
Gore Vidal
Aug. 4th, 2025 07:53 pmGore Vidal
In His Own Words:
"The four most beautiful words in our common language: I told you so."
-
"The United States was founded by the brightest people in the country—and we haven't seen them since."
-
"A good deed never goes unpunished."
-
"You know, I've been around the ruling class all my life, and I've been quite aware of their total contempt for the people of the country."
"The four most beautiful words in our common language: I told you so."
-
"The United States was founded by the brightest people in the country—and we haven't seen them since."
-
"A good deed never goes unpunished."
-
"You know, I've been around the ruling class all my life, and I've been quite aware of their total contempt for the people of the country."
Visit from Aliens?
Jul. 10th, 2025 07:59 pmVisit from Aliens?
"If aliens from outer space ever come and we show them our civilization and they make fun of it, we should say we were just kidding, that this isn't really our civilization, but a gag we hoped they would like. Then we tell them to come back in twenty years to see our real civilization. After that, we start a crash program of coming up with an impressive new civilization. Either that, or we just shoot down the aliens as they're waving good-bye."
~ Jack Handy
~ Jack Handy
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
When I invented the web, I didn’t have to ask anyone’s permission. Now, hundreds of millions of people are using it freely. I am worried that that is going to end in the USA. ... Democracy depends on freedom of speech. Freedom of connection, with any application, to any party, is the fundamental social basis of the Internet, and, now, the society based on it. Let’s see whether the United States is capable of acting according to its important values, or whether it is, as so many people are saying, run by the misguided short-term interest of large corporations. I hope that Congress can protect net neutrality, so I can continue to innovate in the internet space. I want to see the explosion of innovations happening out there on the Web, so diverse and so exciting, continue unabated.
~ Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web (1955 - )
~ Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web (1955 - )
History Lesson
Read what William Shirer discovered when interviewing everyday Germans after WWII. Every German city lay in ruins and millions had been killed.
"There was so much that was true that did not make sense: the monumental apathy of the German people and their deep regret, not that they had started the war, but merely that they had lost it; their whining complaints at the lack of food and fuel and their total lack of sympathy or even interest in the worse plight of the occupied peoples, for which they bore so much responsibility; their boredom at the very mention of the Nuremberg trial, which they were convinced was only an Allied propaganda stunt; their striking unreadiness for, or interest in, democracy, which we, with typical Anglo-Saxon fervor and blindness, were trying to shove down their throats."
~ William L. Shirer, End of a Berlin Diary
Their deep regret, not that they had started the war, but merely that they had lost it.
"There was so much that was true that did not make sense: the monumental apathy of the German people and their deep regret, not that they had started the war, but merely that they had lost it; their whining complaints at the lack of food and fuel and their total lack of sympathy or even interest in the worse plight of the occupied peoples, for which they bore so much responsibility; their boredom at the very mention of the Nuremberg trial, which they were convinced was only an Allied propaganda stunt; their striking unreadiness for, or interest in, democracy, which we, with typical Anglo-Saxon fervor and blindness, were trying to shove down their throats."
~ William L. Shirer, End of a Berlin Diary
Their deep regret, not that they had started the war, but merely that they had lost it.
So, it's something i watch: is the MAGA cult going to be any different?
I'm not expecting that will happen.
I'm not expecting that will happen.
Governmental Silencing
May. 8th, 2025 09:52 pmGovernmental Silencing
Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.
~ Harry S. Truman, 33rd US president (1884-1972)
~ Harry S. Truman, 33rd US president (1884-1972)
Clown or King?
May. 6th, 2025 09:51 pmClown or King?
When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus.
~ Turkish Proverb Elizabeth Bangs, writer (1956)
~
Well, turns out that the real source was trashed by the internet.
See this for the real source:
See this for the real source:
Blog 6 When is an old Turkish proverb not an old Turkish proverb?
by Elizabeth Bangs
by Elizabeth Bangs
Chosen Leader –
Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought.
To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears.
To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.
To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen.
To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies.
To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.
~ Octavia E. Butler, American science fiction writer (1947–2006)
To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears.
To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.
To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen.
To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies.
To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.
~ Octavia E. Butler, American science fiction writer (1947–2006)
The Authentic Human
Apr. 15th, 2025 03:23 pmThe Authentic Human
“The authentic human being is one of us who instinctively knows what he should not do, and, in addition, he will balk at doing it. He will refuse to do it, even if this brings down dread consequences to him and to those whom he loves. This, to me, is the ultimately heroic trait of ordinary people; they say no to the tyrant and they calmly take the consequences of this resistance. Their deeds may be small, and almost always unnoticed, unmarked by history. Their names are not remembered, nor did these authentic humans expect their names to be remembered. I see their authenticity in an odd way: not in their willingness to perform great heroic deeds but in their quiet refusals. In essence, they cannot be compelled to be what they are not.”
~ Philip K. Dick, American science fiction author (1928–1982)
~ Philip K. Dick, American science fiction author (1928–1982)
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY
Apr. 12th, 2025 09:52 pmA THOUGHT FOR TODAY
No greater mistake can be made than to think that our institutions are fixed or may not be changed for the worse. ... Increasing prosperity tends to breed indifference and to corrupt moral soundness. Glaring inequalities in condition create discontent and strain the democratic relation. The vicious are the willing, and the ignorant are unconscious instruments of political artifice. Selfishness and demagoguery take advantage of liberty. The selfish hand constantly seeks to control government, and every increase of governmental power, even to meet just needs, furnishes opportunity for abuse and stimulates the effort to bend it to improper uses. ... The peril of this nation is not in any foreign foe! We, the people, are its power, its peril, and its hope!
~ Charles Evans Hughes, jurist and statesman (1862-1948)
~ Charles Evans Hughes, jurist and statesman (1862-1948)
Patriotism
Mar. 27th, 2025 09:34 pmPatriotism
The true patriotism, the only rational patriotism, is loyalty to the Nation ALL the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.
Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.
~ Mark Twain, American author and humorist (1835–1910)
Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.
~ Mark Twain, American author and humorist (1835–1910)
