About Me
- Ralph Henry
- I'm an artist, educator, militant anti-theist , and I write. I gamble on just about anything. And I like beer...but I love my wife. This blog contains observations from a funny old man who gets pissed off every once in a while.
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3 comments:
To me this person is one of the masses that believes our founding documents are perfect near holy scriptures. Which they are not. The DOI is great, the constitution is not. First of all free press does nto exist, just ask any journalist who has tried to cover OWS or actually go to Liberty Square to show the violence. Family? For the first time in American history, families are the minority now. Individual rights? THose are non existent, for some that is. Rights in this country are selective and are more inclined to be called privileges, proof? Ask any person of Japanese decent about 1945, or better yet just google it and then tell me about rights.
On the other side, defecating in public, sex in public, basic hygiene, have people jsut forgotten that it was not very long ago that this was the case all over the world, hell for most of human history this has been the case, just the last 100 years we have seen the innovation to provide us to not have to do those things. Im jsut sayin' humans made it a long time without worrying about who shit next to the cave.
Intelligence and reasonableness don't go hand in hand, obviously. I particularly like the suggestion that "faith is a basic tenet of a civil society", as if faithlessness precludes civility. GODLESS HEATHENS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DECLINE OF AMURRIKA! What bunk.
I'm not totally on-board with the Occupy movement, actually. Their very broad message (banks and corporations are too influential, politicians are in their pockets, etc) is true, but what do you do with a message like that? Does congregating in public places effect any meaningful change vis-a-vis that broad message?
I generally find their specific complaints (when it comes to brass tacks) weak and ill-formed and their demonstrations seem more of a nuisance than anything else. But they are peaceful, and apart from messing up public spaces and perhaps turning off the odd shopper, they haven't hurt anything afaik.
I think the longer the occupations go on without substantive effects, the less sympathy most Americans will have for them, right? But when the authorities make clowns of themselves by being unnecessarily and callously violent, many Americans will feel sympathy for the occupiers instead of the authorities. So by ham-fistedly attempting to break up the demonstrations, the authorities sometimes exacerbate the problem. Irony!
@Anonymous: all "rights" are privileges that arise from group assent. Inalienable rights do not exist.
Our genetic tendencies and cultural norms result in institutions which approximate rights, but these "rights" have always been and will always be violated, often grossly, especially during times of widespread dissatisfaction and/or conflict.
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