Saturday, January 10, 2009

You can always count on sin

Psalm 11:3

If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?

Psalm 73:2-10

2But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped. 3 For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
4For they have no pangs until death; their bodies are fat and sleek. 5They are not in trouble as others are; they are not stricken like the rest of mankind. 6Therefore pride is their necklace; violence covers them as a garment. 7Their eyes swell out through fatness; their hearts overflow with follies. 8They scoff and speak with malice; loftily they threaten oppression. 9They set their mouths against the heavens, and their tongue struts through the earth. 10Therefore his people turn back to them, and find no fault in them.


Unless we remind ourselves of our theology, it’s easy for Christians to become discouraged or embittered by the triumph of evil. By the way in which life seems to routinely reward stupidity and evil.

For weeks and months after 9/11, we were told that “9/11 changed everything.” Of course, I knew at the time that this slogan was hyperbolic.

Still, it was striking to hear Obama indicate, earlier this week, that his idea of counterterrorism involved repealing all of the countermeasures which the Bush administration introduced after 9/11, and replace it with campaign to polish our public our image.

After 8 years, the liberals learn nothing. Let’s reset the clock to the status quo ante—before 9/11. We’ve gone from “9/11 changed everything” to 9/11 changed nothing.

Or take the economic crisis. From what I’ve read, this goes back to the Clinton administration, which threatened to prosecute lending institutions which were guilty of “red-lining.”

That policy was continued and aggravated by leading Congressional Democrats like Chris Dodd and Barney Frank.

So how does the electorate react? Let’s empower the Democrats. Let’s elect even more Democrats to Congress. Let’s watch Obama fill his administration with retreads from the Clinton administration.

And while we’re at it, let’s borrow from our enemies (e.g. China) to subsidize trillion-dollar deficit spending as far as the eye can see.

The level of sheer, monumental, unteachable stupidity is something to behold.

How should Christians react to this? Several things could be said, but for now I’ll confine myself to one observation:

Although it’s understandably galling to see how often corrupt men are rewarded for their corrupt behavior while good men are marginalized or penalized for good behavior, corruption has a silver lining. For lesser evils can restrain greater evils.

It’s like those SF stories about a dying alien race that plans to colonize the earth. It sends a scouting party in advance of the invasion. The aliens assume human form to blend in with the populace. The plan is to study human beings in order to find out our weaknesses. The best way to defeat us.

It also involves a strategy of infiltration. To replace us, one-by-one. By the time we catch onto the plot, we’re outnumbered. It’s too late to counterattack.

The alien scouts are chosen for this mission because of their ideological purity and dedication to the cause.

But by assuming human form, they are gradually seduced by human appetites and vices. Our corruptions corrupt the aliens.

The scouting party goes soft. It becomes the very thing it intended to conquer and eradicate.

And we see this play out in politics. A totalitarian regime requires a lot of dedication. Heroic self-sacrifice. The autocratic ruler is single-minded. An ideological purist. Ruthless in his unyielding consistency.

But over time, his deputies are seduced by the sensuality of power. By the perks of high office. They lose their fighting trim. Their dedication to the cause slackens.

They settle for pomp and circumstance. State dinners. Posh accommodations. A name on a bridge. High titles and long limos. Famous people meeting other famous people who are famous for being famous—or famously famous for knowing someone who knows someone famous.

So much of what they do is frivolous and ephemeral. It’s all for show. Trifles and baubles. Useless people doing useless things—to make the lives of useful people more onerous.

They never meant a serious problem they couldn’t dodge. They generally leave the world in the same sorry condition they found it—except when they make it worse.

People like that do a lot of harm. They’re a constant drag factor on any attempt to improve the status quo. Most of our efforts get diverted into damage control. Reversing their wrongs and restraining them from further harm.

My point, however, is that while their corruption is a source of harm, it also limits their harm. If they weren’t so venal, they’d do far more harm. Petty corruption is a check on absolute corruption.

You can always count on sin. Sin is so predictable. Sin is the great leveler.

17 comments:

  1. Hey Steve,
    I'm not sure I follow.

    Are you saying that the sycophant Clinton retreads, now sycophant Obama Captains, are a blessing in the fact that their self serving behavior is better than those who might actually be committed to full implications of Liberal ideology?

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  2. They're less of a curse than if they were ideological purists in the ruthless pursuit of a false ideology.

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  3. I'm always leery of equating a political ideology with evil, at least in this case. Conservatives think liberals are stupid and dangerous for advocating social change programs and diplomacy. Liberals think conservatives are stupid and dangerous because they're bellicose and promote ruthless capitalism that favors the very wealthy.

    Here's the only thing I know for a truth: human beings are corrupt and fallen no matter what their ideology is. There is always an element of corruption in power. Both conservative and liberal ideology pushed to extremes result in hell on earth. There are rich corrupt Democrats and rich corrupt Republicans. There are decent, caring conservatives and decent, caring liberals. Elements of both ideologies are important to a healthy democratic society.

    Gsnieder,
    By calling the former Clinton administration members, now working for Obama, 'sycophants', are you implying that only Democratic governments are corrupt or sycophantic? Really? After eight years of Bush, Cheney and their ilk?

    Let's get real here. None of our recent presidents or congressmen have been paragons of moral virtue. They're all self-serving and in the pocket of special interests.

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  4. JD,
    No doubt the fall effects everybody irregardless of their political ideology but that doesn't mean that all ideologies are the same and no one ideology is better than any other.

    You seem to have bought into the current zeitgeist that the Bush administrations ideology was corrupt. I don't see that as a whole. Sure there were sycophants in the Bush administration. No doubt Bush and his captains made mistakes. The Republicans essentially departed from their ideology when they controlled both the White House and Congress. That they departed from the basics of their ideology is what was their downfall.

    When I heard Obama say the other day that he would not behold to any ideology I thought that was the stupidest thing I ever heard. Everybody has a political ideology.

    To claim that all ideologies are the same is merely to claim a post-modern ideology, taking an ideology that is in opposition to other ideologies. Liberals want to allow all ideologies except those ideologies that do not want to accept all ideologies. Their ideology is self-defeating.

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  5. Gsnieder,

    I'm not saying that all political ideologies are equal. As I said, I think both conservative and liberal ideologies taken to extremes are harmful. I think a political ideology that combines some features of liberal thought (such as the concept of public goods, worker protections and consumer safeguards) as well as some features of conservative thought (fiscal responsibility, protection of small businesses, etc.) is superior to either of them on their own.

    The transgressions of the Bush administration go far beyond simply betraying conservative ideology. They are specific, demonstrable wrongs that people should feel outrage over. To just name a few: warrantless wiretapping, restricting the definition of torture, going to war in Iraq on false pretenses, introducing tax cuts that turned the surplus of the Clinton years into a horrifying deficit, suppressing scientific research on crucial issues such as global warming and the carcinogenic nature of certain pollutants to avoid putting regulations on big utilities...the list goes on and on. To say nothing of Bush's 'misunderestimating' of the English language:)

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  6. JD WALTERS SAID:

    “The transgressions of the Bush administration go far beyond simply betraying conservative ideology. They are specific, demonstrable wrongs that people should feel outrage over. To just name a few:

    1.warrantless wiretapping”

    Sorry, I don’t share your outrage. Why should the Executive branch need a warrant to eavesdrop on a foreign terrorist? A warrant requires a finding of probable cause. That would treat a foreign terrorist as if he were an American citizen—entitled to Constitutional protections. It also fails to distinguish between fighting crime and waging war.

    Why should we have to meet some legal burden of proof to eavesdrop on a foreign terrorist? He is not even a defendant in a court of law. Intercepting enemy communications in time of war is a necessary element in counterterrorism. And judges don’t wage war. The Executive does.

    As Mark Levin points out: “The NSA intercept program shouldn't be controversial. The Constitution and precedent make clear that the president, especially during war-time, can intercept enemy communications, including if those communications involve U.S. citizens within the United States. It is absurd to argue otherwise. And now, we're supposed to be offended when the government data-mines third-party phone records. This doesn't involve eavesdropping, but merely running these millions of phone numbers and tens of millions of phone contacts through some kind of computer analysis. This has nothing to do with the Fourth Amendment. The case law couldn't be clearer.”

    http://levin.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjMwZjJlN2VmNDhhZTc1OGJlMDIwNmNiMGEyZGRiNmQ=

    2.restricting the definition of torture”

    I don’t know who you’ve bothered to read on the subject. It sounds as if you’re reading has been very lopsided on the subject. Have you read any of the following treatments on the subject of “torture”?

    http://www.christianitytoday.com/books/web/2007/sept24a.html

    http://www.opinionjournal.com/federation/feature/?id=110010945&ojrss=wsj

    http://philologous.blogspot.com/2005/11/torture-terrorists-so-what-if-we-did.html

    http://philologous.blogspot.com/2006/09/whats-wrong-with-common-article-3.html

    http://philologous.blogspot.com/2007/08/jesus-and-torture.html

    http://maverickphilosopher.powerblogs.com/posts/1159318129.shtml

    http://maverickphilosopher.powerblogs.com/posts/1119720579.shtml

    3.going to war in Iraq on false pretenses”

    Once again, I don’t know who you’ve been reading. For example, have you read any of this material?

    http://www.dougfeith.com/facts.html

    http://www.waranddecision.com/misconceptions/

    4.introducing tax cuts that turned the surplus of the Clinton years into a horrifying deficit”

    Tax cuts don’t create deficit spending. Overspending creates deficit spending. The failure lay, not it cutting taxes, but in not cutting the budget.

    5.suppressing scientific research on crucial issues such as global warming”

    i) Why do you think it’s the job of gov’t to fund such research?

    ii) What makes you think we have a global warming problem in the first place? Have you been reading both sides of the argument?

    6.and the carcinogenic nature of certain pollutants to avoid putting regulations on big utilities.”

    That’s too vague to comment on. We are energy consumers. That comes with a certain risk.

    The more you regulate a “big utility,” the higher the rates that consumers must pay for utilities. Do you think consumers should be priced out of the market?

    7...the list goes on and on.”

    I’m sure it does. But to judge by your list thus far, I don’t see much evidence of critical thinking.

    I have many disagreements with the Bush administration. It’s striking that your list of “outrageous” and “demonstrable” wrongs failed to intersect with my own list at any point.

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  7. Steve,
    Off topic:
    I would love to see one of the Triabloggers do a review of Gran Torino.

    I saw the movie and am interested what you guys think of what I thought was a pretty clear gospel presentation at the end.

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  8. JD,
    I think your categories of liberal v. conservative ideologies are malignant at best.

    The American ideology (read:Conservative)is liberty within the confines of the law. It's ideal is maximizing individual liberty within the constraints of protecting the public good by minimizing harm by one person (group,corporation, country) against another. It believes the best way to achieve these ends is by limiting the size and scope of governmental interference.

    Thus, the policies you delineated are already included within an American ideology. But Liberal ideology is different in that it believes that the government should define liberty and control the means to achieve it's definition of liberty.

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  9. Steve,

    Thanks for the sources, they were very interesting reading. I still abide by my view that the actions I listed were transgressions, and outrageous ones.

    1. Warrantless wiretapping:
    Regardless of whether some people don't mind the occasional data-mining for the greater good of preventing terrorist attacks, the fact remains that the presidents' actions were of-at the very least-dubious legality:

    http://www.npr.org/news/specials/nsawiretap/legality.html

    At worst, his actions constitute a dangerous precedent for the undermining of constitutional rights whenever there is a perceived threat to the security of the nation. That's authoritarianism.

    2. Restriction of the definition of torture

    This is not about whether security forces have the authority to inflict pain or discomfort in order to extract potentially life-saving information (even though experts testify that torture usually only leads to fabricated confessions). The abuses at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere had little to do with intelligence gathering. They were monstrous, inhuman acts which violate every sense of decency and international accountability which the Bush administration tried to downplay as atypical when they were not. What's worse, it is estimated that about 90% of the victims of these abuses were innocent, at least of terrorism charges. Even if these abuses were only the result of poor regulation and oversight they still constitute a gross failure of military intelligence and an appalling atrocity.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse

    3. There are lots of countries that have the ability and intention to create chemical and biological weapons, including the USA. The original rationale given for going to war with Iraq was to find and destroy WMDs which intelligence was absolutely certain existed. They didn't. That means we went to war on false pretenses.

    4. Tax cuts combined with deregulation of the financial industry led to housing and credit bubbles which led to overspending by consumers and the over-leveraging of banks, which resulted in the mess we see today. The government is having to overspend now to compensate for the financial promiscuity which was encouraged by the Bush administration.

    5. Global warming is real, it is manmade, and it is a huge problem. And if the corporations producing greenhouse gases lack the incentive to produce honest research on the impact of those gases, then it's up to the government to do so. I have read numerous treatments from both the 'advocates' and the deniers and it is clear that the latter are guilty of gross manipulation and distortion of the evidence. The fact is that human economic activity is producing gases (not only CO2 but also methane, CFCs and nitrous oxides) in the right quantities and concentrations to overwhelm the planet's capacity to recycle and is wreaking havoc with climate patterns which we have relied on for our well-being for thousands of years (patterns of rain and dryness, heat and cold, ocean currents, etc.) The best summary of the evidence is currently found in James Gustav Speth's "The Bridge at the Edge of the World", chapter 1.

    6. I do think it's possible and desirable for all humans to have access to reliable, affordable, environmentally benign energy. The problem is that the waste products of coal plants are toxic in concentrations far beyond the ability of local ecosystems (including humans in the form of lung diseases, etc.) to cope, and the cost of that damage is not priced into the electricity produced by those plants. If electricity from coal is cheap due to lack of environmental protections, then it shouldn't be that cheap, in the same way that it might be cheaper to produce clothes in sweatshops where workers are paid less than a dollar per hour o work 16-18 hour days, but that doesn't make it right.

    But the Bush administration was not just wrong in ignoring these facts about global warming and toxic byproducts of the energy industry. The problem was that it deliberately suppressed evidence produced by the EPA and other bodies so that the public wouldn't even know that the problems existed, much less that they were real but unavoidable costs of maintaining a certain standard of living.

    Just as a disclaimer, this is not an indictment of conservative ideology in toto as insane, wicked or both. I am just standing by my claim that the Bush administration has been guilty of serious violations of ethics and fiscal irresponsibility and that on the whole the legacy of the Bush administration is a negative one on virtually all fronts.

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  10. Gsnieder,

    It may be that there is provision in conservative ideology for protection of the public good and the enhancement of general social welfare, but in practice conservatives have tended to emphasize individual autonomy over the public good with the assumption the advancing the former would lead automatically to the latter, when it is far from clear that that is inevitable.

    Similarly liberal ideology at least in theory makes provisions for individual autonomy but in practice in its zeal for social transformation and skepticism of the invisible hand it has emphasized broad government intervention and legislation where it perhaps shouldn't occur.

    My point remains the same: both liberalism and conservatism when taken to their extremes in the hands of flawed, sinful, selfish people lead to hell on earth.

    And Steve and Gsnieder,
    Remember my initial point was only that I am queasy with identifying liberal ideology as inherently evil when it is far from clear that conservatism is the superior alternative in either theory or practice. A little humility in the face of our tendency to elevate flawed, partial ideologies as absolute goods is in order.

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  11. JD wrote:
    ---
    (even though experts testify that torture usually only leads to fabricated confessions)
    ---

    I don't have time to answer to everything JD brought up (and I don't really have to since Steve's already responded a great deal), but I did have to address the above claim.

    This is only true if the person being tortured is actually innocent.

    But since the evil torture of waterboarding was used against all of three people by the CIA, it's obvious that the "extreme measures" are only used against those who our intelligence forces already know have real, actionable information. And when they have real, actionable information, then they'll give that up rather quickly.

    This is why analogies to such tortures as our POWs endured in Vietnam, for instance, don't apply here. For the most part, none of our POWs had any actionable intelligence. Nor did the VC have any real desire in gaining information. They just wanted to torture our troops. So our troops being tortured would say whatever they thought the VC wanted to hear in the hopes of ending the pain. Thus, you hear stories that "torture doesn't work because people will say anything under torture."

    But that's only true, as I said, when the torture is meaningless and those being tortured have no actual information to give up. If someone has actual information, they will give it up. They will surrender it under torture. And spy agencies know this too. They know if an operative with sensitive information gets picked up by the enemy that the operative will crack. It's not a question of IF, but merely when.

    And it's logical too if you think about it. If you'll confess to anything if you have no information, how much more quickly will you reveal what you actually know? And a trained interrogater can tell the difference between someone who is saying what he thinks the torturer wants to hear and someone who has actual information. (And for the record, the US doesn't torture any terrorists unless we've already established that they do have such information, such as in the case of KSM.)

    So it is false, and naive, to think that torture doesn't "work." Of course this is different from determining whether it is moral or immoral, but it is false to say it doesn't provide results.

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  12. Peter,

    I wasn't talking about waterboarding used in intelligence gathering. I was talking about U.S. personnel urinating on prisoners, electrocuting them, making them stand for hours in humiliating conditions, setting dogs on them...all under the nose of their superiors. I'm talking about the incompetence of the Bush administration in not spotting these abuses from the beginning and possibly even sanctioning them.

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  13. Hi JD,

    Let’s keep in mind the terms of your original allegation: “The transgressions of the Bush administration go far beyond simply betraying conservative ideology. They are specific, demonstrable wrongs that people should feel outrage over.”

    Now let’s apply your fourfold criterion to your chosen examples. Remember, your examples have to constitute “specific, outrageous, demonstrable wrongs.”

    “Regardless of whether some people don't mind the occasional data-mining for the greater good of preventing terrorist attacks, the fact remains that the presidents' actions were of-at the very least-dubious legality.”

    i) Of course, to say something is of “dubious” legality is a weaker claim than saying it’s “demonstrably” illegal.

    So I’m waiting for you to make good on your original claim.

    ii) Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the action was illegal, how would an illegal action be “outrageously wrong.”

    That would only follow if you equate legality with morality. Do you think it’s always wrong, and not merely wrong, but outrageously so, to break the law?

    When Christians broke the law by hiding Jews from the Nazis, was their action outrageously wrong?

    “At worst, his actions constitute a dangerous precedent for the undermining of constitutional rights whenever there is a perceived threat to the security of the nation. That's authoritarianism.”

    i) ”A dangerous precedent.” So you’re making a hypothetical claim about the future. How is a hypothetical claim about the future “demonstrable”? Feel free to “demonstrate” the veracity of your hypothetical claim about a future event. I’m waiting for you to make good on your original claim.

    ii) In what sense is a hypothetical postulate “outrageous”? Do you mean it’s hypothetically outrageous? Of course, many things are hypothetically outrageous. It’s hypothetically outrageous that Napoleon was a cannibal. Since, however, that hypothetical is false, it’s hard for me to generate much outrage.

    iii) Assuming, for the sake of argument, that your hypothetical postulate eventuates, how would the Bush administration have committed an outrageous wrong? After all, you’re not claiming that the Bush administration violated constitutional rights whenever there was a perceived threat to our national security. Rather, you’re claiming that a subsequent administration might be guilty of so doing.

    In that case, wouldn’t the administration in power which is actually responsible for the commission of the outrageous wrong be in the wrong?

    If the Bush administration didn’t commit that abuse, but a subsequent administration did, how is the Bush administration guilty of an outrageous wrong it didn’t commit? How is it responsible for what another administration did? Does it have any real control over what another administration does?

    “What's worse, it is estimated that about 90% of the victims of these abuses were innocent, at least of terrorism charges. Even if these abuses were only the result of poor regulation and oversight they still constitute a gross failure of military intelligence and an appalling atrocity.”

    i) But that is not the “specific” wrong you originally alleged. You originally alleged a “restricted definition of torture.” Now, however, you’re substituting a different specific allegation. So what became of the “specific, demonstrable, and outrageous wrong” of restricting the definition of torture? I’m still waiting for you to make good on your original claim.

    ii) Moreover, in order to “demonstrate” your allegations, I think you have to do better than a Wikipedia article. At a minimum, you would have to address the other side of the argument. To take just one example:

    http://www.dougfeith.com/#Geneva

    “There are lots of countries that have the ability and intention to create chemical and biological weapons, including the USA. The original rationale given for going to war with Iraq was to find and destroy WMDs which intelligence was absolutely certain existed. They didn't. That means we went to war on false pretenses.”

    i) I’m waiting for you to “demonstrate” your claim. I don’t see where you’ve done that. Indeed, not only have you failed to “demonstrate” your claim, but from what I can tell, your claim is demonstrably false.

    a) According to the Duelfer Report, “In the end, there are only three possible explanations for the failure to find the WMD materiel that had been catalogued in detail by UNSCOM. Saddam might have destroyed it, he might have hidden it in Iraq, or he might have transferred it out of Iraq. To this day, we do not know for sure which explanation is correct.”

    http://www.waranddecision.com/misconceptions/misconception-8

    b) And according to the Congressional War resolution, which states the official casus belli, we went to war for (by my count) 25 different reasons:

    http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021002-2.html

    So, as per (a)-(b), I’m still waiting for you to make good on your claim. The prospects seem less that promising, but perhaps you’ll surprise me.

    ii) Even assuming, for the sake of argument, that you can “demonstrate” your claim, you also need to explain how it was an “outrageous wrong” for the administration to go to war under these pretenses when, by your own admission, “intelligence was absolutely certain [WMD] existed.”

    Even if the administration went to war under false pretenses, how is that an “outrageous wrong” if the administration was acting on intel which was “absolutely certain” with respect to their existence?

    Seems to me that would far exceed ordinary standards of justified or warranted belief.

    “Tax cuts combined with deregulation of the financial industry led to housing and credit bubbles which led to overspending by consumers and the over-leveraging of banks, which resulted in the mess we see today.”

    i) Once again, you’re changing your original claim. Originally, your specific claim was limited to tax cuts.

    ii) Assuming, for the sake of argument, that we accept your version of events, how is it “outrageously wrong” of the Bush administration to allow consumers to overspend? Do you think it’s the duty of gov’t to prevent consumers from overspending? If so, how do you propose to implement that policy? Should every American consumer submit a weekly projected budge to the gov’t for gov’t review? Should the gov’t tell me how many CDs or DVDs I’m allowed to purchase in a year?

    For someone who objects to authoritarian gov’t, you have an odd way of illustrating your thesis.

    “The government is having to overspend now to compensate for the financial promiscuity which was encouraged by the Bush administration.”

    Feel free to demonstrate that gov’t overspending is a necessary antidote to the economic crisis.

    “Global warming is real, it is manmade, and it is a huge problem.”

    Given the fact that you’re no climatologist, and given the further fact that “experts” come down on both sides of this issue, I hardly think your dogmatic claim is anything close to being “demonstrable.”

    “…is wreaking havoc with climate patterns which we have relied on for our well-being for thousands of years (patterns of rain and dryness, heat and cold, ocean currents, etc.).”

    Assuming, for the sake of argument, that your factoids are even “demonstrable,” how is allowing that outcome an “outrageous wrong”?

    Man has been manipulating the environment for millennia. Should the Dutch torpedo their dikes and let nature take its course?

    And why would it be “outrageously wrong” for people in Lapland to enjoy longer summers and shorter winters? I daresay some arid countries would appreciate more rain. And some dark, chilly parts of the world would appreciate longer agricultural seasons. It’s a tradeoff.

    “I do think it's possible and desirable for all humans to have access to reliable, affordable, environmentally benign energy.”

    i) Demonstrate that claim.

    ii) While you’re at it, demonstrate why the Bush administration is responsible for the energy policies of all the other nations of the world.

    “If electricity from coal is cheap due to lack of environmental protections, then it shouldn't be that cheap.”

    Tell that to a widow on a fixed income.

    “I am just standing by my claim that the Bush administration has been guilty of serious violations of ethics and fiscal irresponsibility and that on the whole the legacy of the Bush administration is a negative one on virtually all fronts.”

    i) You’re not just standing by your original claims. You’ve swapped out some old claims and swapped in some new claims.

    ii) Even when you are standing by your original claims, you’re not standing by your original criteria. I’m struck by the consistent gap between your claims and your criteria. You either need to lower your criteria or withdraw your claims.

    Did you not intend to apply your fourfold criterion to each claim? But I don’t know what a selective application would prove. To say that Bush policy is either demonstrable, but not wrong, or else indemonstrably wrong, doesn’t get you where you want to go.

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  14. "I was talking about U.S. personnel urinating on prisoners, electrocuting them, making them stand for hours in humiliating conditions, setting dogs on them...all under the nose of their superiors."

    You mean the people who were prosecuted and jailed for what they did?

    I somehow miss how having the army arrest and convict people (Abu Ghraib, for instance) somehow translates into "sanctioning" the behavior.

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  15. "The level of sheer, monumental, unteachable stupidity is something to behold."

    Indeed. (Shakes head sadly, mournfully).

    The challenge is to be humble, gracious and understanding towards the "level of sheer, monumental, unteachable stupidity" that's uttered and promoted by people, knowing that we too are often unintelligent in a number of ways.

    Compounding the potential for anger is when you point out somone's stupidity and they react vociferously towards you and your observation of their stupidity-in-action-and-or-word by saying that you are being judgmental, unkind, unloving, mean-spirited, self-righteous, arrogant, etc....

    I.e., one can be penalized and slandered in the court of public opinion for daring to say that someone else's actions or words are monumentally and unteachably stupid.

    Calling an idea (and some people identify their self-identity by the ideas they hold) stupid is Politically Incorrect.

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  16. "Petty corruption is a check on absolute corruption."

    Both comforting and discomforting at the same time.

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  17. Steve,

    I mean to get back to you but right now I've got papers due before Dean's Date so it will have to wait a bit.

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