US Politics III

[DaveC]

To some degree yes. I'm not sure how much though. I love our European heritage. I love that we have inherited the philosophical DNA of Athens, Sparta, Rome, Byzantium, and England. While I do find other cultures fascinating and interesting, to me - Western Civilization is what I'm drawn to (and apparently, so are a great many non-Westerners)

the only reason we still are even aware of the philosophical DNA of those cultures is because the "darker-people-world" (*cringe*) quite literally kept classical science and philosophy alive and invented advanced mathematics after rome collapsed.

 

[shineon]

the only reason we still are even aware of the philosophical DNA of those cultures is because the "darker-people-world" (*cringe*) quite literally kept classical science and philosophy alive and invented advanced mathematics after rome collapsed.

True, but the monks did their share as well.
Aeon , let's talk about habits of the mind. These are begun in childhood and are hard to break or change. Did you grow up in a rigid or fundamentalist system? I notice your reverting to black/white thinking is a fairly ingrained habit of the mind for you. I'm not trying to judge you for this, just pointing out that that seems to be a groove you seem to fall back into quite easily. I think breaking the pattern of tribalism, which comes quite naturally to all humans myself included, is a good habit of the mind to practice.
I agree that Western Civilization has brought the world a good share of it's great ideas. Greece=Democracy, for example. The Judeo-Christian tradition of course originated in the Middle East. So there's really no one or the other, although S. Bannon would surely try to convince us otherwise.

 

[DaveC]

True, but the monks did their share as well.

"the monks" were masters of copying and translating and language arts but they weren't inventing entirely new fields of science and philosophy the way scholars in the islamic world and china were in the 5th to 13th century CE. the renaissance was largely fueled by italian intellectuals discovering greek translations of the arabic works of islamic science that had been brought to italy by genoese and venetian merchants operating in the eastern mediterranean. the mongols drove a lot of that knowledge and technology west; if it hadn't been for that it's almost certain western europe would never have advanced as rapidly as it did, regardless of the philosophical DNA of greeks and romans.

 

[anitram]

Please correct me if I am misinterpreting - are you suggesting that America would be "better" if it was less white? If so, please inform us what is inherently wrong about being white (given, as suggested, America would be better if we had less of it)

You're not even misinterpreting. You're inventing something totally outside of what I said.

 

[AEON]

the only reason we still are even aware of the philosophical DNA of those cultures is because the "darker-people-world" (*cringe*) quite literally kept classical science and philosophy alive and invented advanced mathematics after rome collapsed.

Well, please don't forget the Byzantine Empire...it survived until the 1400's - and when it fell the intellectuals fled west and helped initiate the Renaissance.

 

[DaveC]

Well, please don't forget the Byzantine Empire...it survived until the 1400's - and when it fell the intellectuals fled west and helped initiate the Renaissance.

**please don't forget the white people!!!**

you can't help yourself.

this is historically not true.

 

[AEON]

True, but the monks did their share as well.
Aeon , let's talk about habits of the mind. These are begun in childhood and are hard to break or change. Did you grow up in a rigid or fundamentalist system?

I grew up in Boy's Homes, eventually landing in one ran by Jesuits - they encouraged thought and debate. We were taught to find holes on logic (and logic, by it's nature, can be very "black and white"). Of course, the subjective experience is certainly valid, but it's much more difficult yo build systems of thinking around what "feels" right.

I notice your reverting to black/white thinking is a fairly ingrained habit of the mind for you. I'm not trying to judge you for this, just pointing out that that seems to be a groove you seem to fall back into quite easily. I think breaking the pattern of tribalism, which comes quite naturally to all humans myself included, is a good habit of the mind to practice.

I don't know if I agree with this. I'm still pondering and reading about this. The strange thing is - even if I don't want to be limited to the white tribe, the other tribes will certainly place me there by default.

I agree that Western Civilization has brought the world a good share of it's great ideas. Greece=Democracy, for example. The Judeo-Christian tradition of course originated in the Middle East. So there's really no one or the other, although S. Bannon would surely try to convince us otherwise.

Yes, there is certainly some blending of ideas. There's no doubt that cultures have overlap....like Venn Diagrams...I don't deny this.

 

[anitram]

AEON - just out of curiosity, do you know how long your family has been in the USA? Are they recent European immigrants? Or Mayflower types?

 

[shineon]

You have an interesting background, Aeon. I think the Jesuits are generally good thinkers and encourage one to questions one's assumptions. In that sense, I think they encourage a healthy intellectual stance. I'm guessing they formed in you a habit of intellectual curiosity and openness to questioning ? I can certainly see that trait in the current Pope, a Jesuit.

 

[shineon]

Dave C, you may look at copying and translating as primitive skills, but until Gutenberg arrived on the scene, they were essentially to preserving knowledge.

 

[AEON]

AEON - just out of curiosity, do you know how long your family has been in the USA? Are they recent European immigrants? Or Mayflower types?

My ancestors arrived in the 1650s in Virginia. I am a member of the Sons of the American Revolution (which requires documented proof of lineage).

 

[AEON]

Dave C, you may look at copying and translating as primitive skills, but until Gutenberg arrived on the scene, they were essentially to preserving knowledge.

Absolutely, the monks would memorize entire books of the Bible (some would memorize the entire Bible). The illumination of those Bibles would often serve a memory markers.

They believed that what you memorized actually shaped your brain. And it turns out, they weren't exactly that far off about that.

 

[AEON]

You have an interesting background, Aeon. I think the Jesuits are generally good thinkers and encourage one to questions one's assumptions. In that sense, I think they encourage a healthy intellectual stance. I'm guessing they formed in you a habit of intellectual curiosity and openness to questioning ? I can certainly see that trait in the current Pope, a Jesuit.

Thank you, Yes, I think they certainly encouraged intellectual curiosity and an openness to questioning.

If I may ask, what is your background?

 

[AEON]

**please don't forget the white people!!!**

you can't help yourself.

this is historically not true.

What is not true about it?

The end of the Byzantine Empire was May 29th 1453, when Constantinople fell the Muslim Turks.

Wikipedia

Impact on the Renaissance. The migration waves of Byzantine scholars and émigrés in the period following the sacking of Constantinople and the fall of Constantinople in 1453 is considered by many scholars key to the revival of Greek and Roman studies that led to the development of the Renaissance humanism and science.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Constantinople

 

[AEON]

You're not even misinterpreting. You're inventing something totally outside of what I said.

Then what did you mean by "stem the tide" when I was talking about Voter ID?

 

[DaveC]

Dave C, you may look at copying and translating as primitive skills

no, i never said they were primitive skills at all. you're putting words in my mouth.

What is not true about it?

The end of the Byzantine Empire was May 29th 1453, when Constantinople fell the Muslim Turks.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Constantinople

byzantium and constantinople were a shadow of what you think of as "the byzantine empire" by the 1200s much less the 1450s. the rise of islam and after that the crusades destroyed anatolia as the eastern centre of knowledge and shifted that base mostly to baghdad, the capital of the islamic caliphate.

i'm a little too buzzed from drinking during football today to get into it all in depth now. but if you want me to tomorrow, i will elaborate.

 

[KhanadaRhodes]

no, i never said they were primitive skills at all. you're putting words in my mouth.

if it helps, i have a master's in translation and i didn't think you were saying they were primitive skills either

 

[AEON]

no, i never said they were primitive skills at all. you're putting words in my mouth.



byzantium and constantinople were a shadow of what you think of as "the byzantine empire" by the 1200s much less the 1450s. the rise of islam and after that the crusades destroyed anatolia as the eastern centre of knowledge and shifted that base mostly to baghdad, the capital of the islamic caliphate.

i'm a little too buzzed from drinking during football today to get into it all in depth now. but if you want me to tomorrow, i will elaborate.

LOL. Well, you earned some points for being buzzed, watching football, and posting about the impact of the last days of the Byzantine Empire.

No need to elaborate on the matter (unless you want to). We can end up debating endlessly about how much or how little the Fall of Constantinople fueled the Renaissance. You will find sources that claim less. I will find sources that claim more.

However, my ultimate goal was to demonstrate that people forget about the Byzantine Empire when they bring up the Middle Ages - and how it remained more or less intact for over 1000 years...twice as long as the Roman Empire. Philosophy, art, and science were in good hands - and when the time came, these intellectuals did migrate west and, at a minimum, helped fuel the Renaissance - which eventually led to the Enlightenment and the birth of America...still considered the best nation on earth according to number of people on this planet that want to (or do) migrate to it. Our cultural heritage is the tree that provides the fruit.

So no, Western Civilization was not reliant on the Muslims, that's just revisionist/PC garbage...in fact,Europe spent a good chunk of the Middle Ages fighting off Muslim invaders (see Spain, Sicily, and Eastern Europe). I am totally with Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens on their critique of Islam.

And the proof is in the pudding - look at the countries where Islam dominates...do you want to live there? Heck, it seems even they don't want to live there. The so-called "Golden Age of Islam" was only a result of the plunder from taking over wealthy Christendom lands in Asia Minor and North Africa (and eventually Spain) - after their conquest was stopped by the likes of Charles Martel - that gold eventually ran out...and, well...it's been about the same for a long, long...long time without much hope of things getting better.

 

[Kieran McConville]

America isn't even close to the best country on the planet. Even if it were, to single it out as somehow the sole inheritor of the genius that is western civilisation is... fairly blinkered.

At the very least, I'd warn against hubris, because there's nothing in the previous post that couldn't have been substituted with the words 'The British Empire' a century ago.

 

[AEON]

America isn't even close to the best country on the planet. Even if it were, to single it out as somehow the sole inheritor of the genius that is western civilisation is... fairly blinkered.

At the very least, I'd warn against hubris, because there's nothing in the previous post that couldn't have been substituted with the words 'The British Empire' a century ago.

Unlike the British Empire...the sun never sets on those who "dream" to run...into the arms...of America.

 

[BVS]

LOL. Well, you earned some points for being buzzed, watching football, and posting about the impact of the last days of the Byzantine Empire.

No need to elaborate on the matter (unless you want to). We can end up debating endlessly about how much or how little the Fall of Constantinople fueled the Renaissance. You will find sources that claim less. I will find sources that claim more.

However, my ultimate goal was to demonstrate that people forget about the Byzantine Empire when they bring up the Middle Ages - and how it remained more or less intact for over 1000 years...twice as long as the Roman Empire. Philosophy, art, and science were in good hands - and when the time came, these intellectuals did migrate west and, at a minimum, helped fuel the Renaissance - which eventually led to the Enlightenment and the birth of America...still considered the best nation on earth according to number of people on this planet that want to (or do) migrate to it. Our cultural heritage is the tree that provides the fruit.

So no, Western Civilization was not reliant on the Muslims, that's just revisionist/PC garbage...in fact,Europe spent a good chunk of the Middle Ages fighting off Muslim invaders (see Spain, Sicily, and Eastern Europe). I am totally with Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens on their critique of Islam.

And the proof is in the pudding - look at the countries where Islam dominates...do you want to live there? Heck, it seems even they don't want to live there. The so-called "Golden Age of Islam" was only a result of the plunder from taking over wealthy Christendom lands in Asia Minor and North Africa (and eventually Spain) - after their conquest was stopped by the likes of Charles Martel - that gold eventually ran out...and, well...it's been about the same for a long, long...long time without much hope of things getting better.

Today's history lesson brought to you by Breitbart, the letter K, and the number 3

 

[Kieran McConville]

That's a little unfair, you think you have to be in the fucking KKK to think the way AEON does?

That said, it's a fairly narrow reading of history, suggestive of someone who's been marinating in Gibbon for too long (although he didn't have many kind words for the 'Empire of the Greeks' admittedly).

I don't want a bar of Harris or Hitchens - that loathsome cheerleader for war without end - but their breed of heavily armed liberalism is, or was, unfortunately all too mainstream.

 

[BVS]

That's a little unfair, you think you have to be in the fucking KKK to think the way AEON does?

That said, it's a fairly narrow reading of history, suggestive of someone who's been marinating in Gibbon for too long (although he didn't have many kind words for the 'Empire of the Greeks' admittedly).

I don't want a bar of Harris or Hitchens - that loathsome cheerleader for war without end - but their breed of heavily armed liberalism is, or was, unfortunately all too mainstream.

Do you think that post was meant to be taken seriously?

It's a wildly revisionist take on history, and yes I believe one that's been revised and adopted by certain groups in order to whitewash.

This in conjunction with someone who projects what he wants on people's comments and has had multiple comprehension issues, I don't find his take surprising and it's probably shared by a large portion in America.

 

[Kieran McConville]

Yeah, so like I said, all too mainstream a view.

How the fuck am I supposed to know if you're serious or not?

 

[BVS]

Yeah, so like I said, all too mainstream a view.

How the fuck am I supposed to know if you're serious or not?

Well I was using a reference to a children's tv show(Sesame Street), but maybe it's a US show?

 

[anitram]

Then what did you mean by "stem the tide" when I was talking about Voter ID?

What I meant is what I said - demographics is destiny. It is obvious to anybody who has studied US demographics for even 5 minutes that there are major shifts underway. Latinos/Hispanic will make up the largest group in the USA in not too many years. Those are just the facts on the ground. The AA population also has bigger growth than the Caucasian one. These communities by and large vote for the Democrats - the AA almost uniformly (~90%, with African American women being the single most "dependable" voting block in America), and Latinos/Hispanics by a very large margin. Add to that the fact the younger generation also leans left. The Republicans therefore have been using Voter ID laws, in combination with appalling and, as the federal courts are increasingly ruling, illegal gerrymandering to depress the minority vote. Because their policies run directly in contrast to the interest of these communities. But hey, keep at it. What I'm saying is that eventually these laws will become totally ineffective because the numbers will overwhelm them. The white South Africans had Bantustans once too...we see how those turned out for them.

 

[DaveC]

LOL. Well, you earned some points for being buzzed, watching football, and posting about the impact of the last days of the Byzantine Empire.

No need to elaborate on the matter (unless you want to). We can end up debating endlessly about how much or how little the Fall of Constantinople fueled the Renaissance. You will find sources that claim less. I will find sources that claim more.

However, my ultimate goal was to demonstrate that people forget about the Byzantine Empire when they bring up the Middle Ages - and how it remained more or less intact for over 1000 years...twice as long as the Roman Empire. Philosophy, art, and science were in good hands - and when the time came, these intellectuals did migrate west and, at a minimum, helped fuel the Renaissance - which eventually led to the Enlightenment and the birth of America...still considered the best nation on earth according to number of people on this planet that want to (or do) migrate to it. Our cultural heritage is the tree that provides the fruit.

So no, Western Civilization was not reliant on the Muslims, that's just revisionist/PC garbage...in fact,Europe spent a good chunk of the Middle Ages fighting off Muslim invaders (see Spain, Sicily, and Eastern Europe). I am totally with Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens on their critique of Islam.

And the proof is in the pudding - look at the countries where Islam dominates...do you want to live there? Heck, it seems even they don't want to live there. The so-called "Golden Age of Islam" was only a result of the plunder from taking over wealthy Christendom lands in Asia Minor and North Africa (and eventually Spain) - after their conquest was stopped by the likes of Charles Martel - that gold eventually ran out...and, well...it's been about the same for a long, long...long time without much hope of things getting better.

there is so much factually wrong with this post that i'm truly having a difficult time figuring out where to begin to refute all of this...like i genuinely can't tell if you're really this ignorant about such an enormous swath of history and in desperate need of several lessons or if you're just blatantly making shit up to dishonestly advance a narrative. and then you have the balls to complain about revisionism...holy shit dude. are you for real right now?

 

[AEON]

there is so much factually wrong with this post that i'm truly having a difficult time figuring out where to begin to refute all of this...like i genuinely can't tell if you're really this ignorant about such an enormous swath of history and in desperate need of several lessons or if you're just blatantly making shit up to dishonestly advance a narrative. and then you have the balls to complain about revisionism...holy shit dude. are you for real right now?

There is perhaps some unnecessary controversy around what I posted because of the Age of Political Correctness, but I didn't make anything up. Here are some Wikipedia articles for you (about as neutral as you are going to find.) There are certainly more scholarly works out there if you are eager to research this time period.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab–Byzantine_wars
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tours
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Muslim_conquests
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_science_in_the_Middle_Ages
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Vienna

Additional Reading:
6 Reasons the Dark Ages Weren’t So Dark - History Lists
How the Middle Ages Really Were | HuffPost
MYTHS ABOUT THE MIDDLE AGES
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=_9k-4DJhK-wC&printsec=frontcover&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false

Wikipedia
The cornerstone of Western thought, beginning in ancient Greece and continuing through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, is the idea of rationalism in various spheres of life, especially religion, developed by Hellenistic philosophy, Scholasticism, and humanism. The Catholic Church was for centuries at the center of the development of the values, ideas, science, laws, and institutions which constitute Western civilization. Empiricism later gave rise to the scientific method during the Scientific revolution and the Enlightenment. Values of Western culture have, throughout history, been derived from political thought, widespread employment of rational argument favouring freethought, assimilation of human rights, the need for equality and democracy.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_culture

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Well, the Democrats can keep ignoring them, and keep losing elections. And as Voter ID laws creep closer to becoming reality - the Democrats will continue to struggle to retain the white (and predict the black and latino) middle class.

So you struggle to see the racism and white privilege engrained in our political system, yet make a comment like this?

Right.

 

[AEON]

What I meant is what I said - demographics is destiny. It is obvious to anybody who has studied US demographics for even 5 minutes that there are major shifts underway.

I certainly don't dispute that.

Latinos/Hispanic will make up the largest group in the USA in not too many years.

Because of legal - or illegal - immigration? I think that would make a difference on attitudes.

Those are just the facts on the ground. The AA population also has bigger growth than the Caucasian one. These communities by and large vote for the Democrats - the AA almost uniformly (~90%, with African American women being the single most "dependable" voting block in America), and Latinos/Hispanics by a very large margin.

I don't dispute this.

Add to that the fact the younger generation also leans left.

They may lean Left, but they don't turn out to vote in the numbers they should

The Republicans therefore have been using Voter ID laws, in combination with appalling and, as the federal courts are increasingly ruling, illegal gerrymandering to depress the minority vote.

I only care about the Voter ID laws - the gerrymandering, well both sides are guilty of that. I'm certainly open to reforming that mess.

Because their policies run directly in contrast to the interest of these communities. But hey, keep at it. What I'm saying is that eventually these laws will become totally ineffective because the numbers will overwhelm them. The white South Africans had Bantustans once too...we see how those turned out for them.

I don't think that the Voter ID will stop illegal immigration or prevent America from becoming less white. However, it does appeal to common sense (good order) and will remove controversy about the validity of vote counts.

I think it is wrong to assume that minorities will always vote for the Democrats. Many Latinos have conservative values and will be drawn to the Republican party over time for that reason. It will take another few election cycles to see if "Economic Nationalism" catches on with voters in the inner-cities...