Showing posts with label Founding Fathers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Founding Fathers. Show all posts
Tuesday, 22 January 2013
Wednesday, 3 October 2012
Well, if what one means by that claim is that the majority of Americans are Christians, that's most likely an empirical fact: most Americans really are Christian. However, it doesn't follow that because the majority of citizens are Christian, the nation itself is Christian. Why not?
This would be an instance of the logical fallacy of composition: assuming that what's true of the parts is necessarily true of the whole, as in, most Americans are women, therefore America itself is a female nation; or most Americans are white, therefore America itself is a white nation (I hope only racists and white supremacists would be convinced by such a blatantly obviously bad argument); or most Americans are old (hello Baby Boomers!), therefore the U.S. is an old nation! The problem, in other words, is that you can't automatically transfer the properties of the parts to the whole made up of those parts.
What else could the claim that America is a Christian nation mean? Maybe that our Constitution and guiding principles are based on Judeo-Christian tenets? Well, if you compare the First Commandment and the First Amendment to the Constitution, we can put that claim to rest: while Yahweh prohibits you from worshiping any other gods (how insecure), the Bill of Rights guarantees you the right to worship any goddamn thing you please, or not to worship anything at all. You could not find two more mutually exclusive claims if you tried.
What about the Founding Fathers? Weren't they Christian? Well, I think you're starting to get the point... none of these claims is really going to hold up to a bit of rational and historical scrutiny:
God bless America? Thanks, but no need: our success is a result of our drive, our ingenuity, our ambition, our geographical luck, our historical vicissitudes, and most importantly our secular values. We are great despite being Christian...
Wednesday, 18 July 2012
One great way to find out about the fascinating history of this strange phenomenon, and the one I would recommend, is to watch the excellent documentary series Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity, narrated by Jim Al-Khalili.
But if you don't have the time to watch that right now, here's a simple and short introduction to get you started with at least the etymology of these words:
But seriously, go watch Shock and Awe...
Tuesday, 10 July 2012
If you're kind of skeptical, the following video shows the hilarity of what happened when comedian Jen Kirkman drank a bottle and a half of wine and tried to talk about a historical event related to the founding of our nation...
Kudos to Sterling!
Monday, 9 July 2012
It is important to remember, however (and hence why I've delayed this entry), why we celebrate that day, and what the Declaration of Independence, that document penned by the inimitable style and genius of Thomas Jefferson and consigned to eternity by the force of its rhetoric and the universality of its message, ultimately represents: ideals that although no nation has yet fully embodied, even the nation that originally proposed them, nevertheless establish an ideal toward which all nations ought to strive and against which they can measure their moral and political progress.
And check out this interesting and short article on the morality/immorality of patriotism.
Tuesday, 29 May 2012
In this first installment of the documentary series Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity, professor Jim Al-Khalili explores the history of the scientific exploration of electricity through the work and incredible creativity and experimental rigor of luminaries such as Pieter van Musschenbroek with his Leyden Jar; Benjamin Franklin's famous explanation of electricity as a liquid with positive and negative charge, and yes, even the apocryphal kite story, demonstrating, like Newton had done before, that phenomena previously presumed to be heavenly in kind (thunder and lightning) were actually just instances of the same general laws that apply to mundane objects here on Earth; Henry Cavendish's experiments with the torpedo fish, which gave rise to the distinction between electric charge and voltage; Humphrey Davy's popular demonstrations at the Royal Society; the fascinating (and somewhat gruesome) dispute between the "animal" electricity of Galvani and the "no-nonsense" secular electricity of Volta; ; the isolation of chemical elements; and the prospect of resurrection and life after death...
Pure awesomeness :)
Monday, 20 February 2012
In moments like these, it's always a good idea to pay attention to what cooler and reasonable heads make of the situation, and what more fair-minded person can one think of than Bill Moyers?
In the following short essay, Moyers makes the right case: the first Amendment to the Bill of Rights, or what Jefferson referred to as the wall of separation between church and state, guarantees both freedom of religion, as well as freedom from religion. No one can impose their beliefs on you, but by exactly the same reasoning, neither should you be allowed to impose your beliefs on the rest of us.
RAmen!
Wednesday, 7 December 2011
The latest set of lame arguments tries to go the patriotic route by claiming that Christmas has been, even before the inception of this nation, an American tradition.
Well, these idiots are about to get schooled :)
Of course, the worst part of it all is that it's all just a big distraction from the real problems we fail to acknowledge and confront. Makes me mad :(
Monday, 4 July 2011
As I've argued before, the Founding Fathers were not this monolithic and unified myth of unanimous agreement we often fantasize or 'remember'. A lot of what they managed to accomplish (even the approval of the Declaration of Independence) was not simply the result of high idealism and selfless patriotism but of back-alley deals and political maneuvering (else we would have gotten rid of slavery from the start). Sometimes, as we all do from time to time, they did the right thing for the wrong reasons.This is to be expected. Admirable as they were in many respects, they were still human, and prone to compartmentalization, opportunism and sheer disagreement... but that's exactly the point of democracy: that we work through our problems, that we enter the marketplace of ideas and choose from among the various proposals those that are best defended. We don't all need to hold the same ideas as 'self-evident truths', but we can discuss them and let the best ideas rise to the top.
Anyway, the following clip shows that the birth of our own nation wasn't immune to the pain and struggle that all births must endure:
And if you want more, check out the Founding Fathers' rap or this ballad of the declaration...
Tuesday, 7 June 2011
I wish I could consider myself a prophet, since I called it, but sadly the truth is much more mundane: this woman is too petty and too predictable.I don't actually have much of a problem with ignorance. It's simply a lack of information which can be easily fixed. Arrogance, on the other hand, and the refusal to own up to one's mistakes (despite an ocean of evidence proving you wrong) makes me go bat shit insane because it's an insidious attitude contrary to the ideals of a lover of wisdom.
And that's exactly what Sarah Palin has done after her history lesson kerfuffle: she insists Paul Revere rode in the dark of midnight to warn the British that they were going to get ambushed the next morning. Yes, because when I think surprise attack, I always think 'let's warn the enemy ahead of time.' Luckily, Jon Stewart has something to say on the issue:
But since her followers have tried to "fix" the Wikipedia page on Paul Revere to fit in with what this bimbo believes, I guess she must be right...
Here's Stephen Colbert trying to prove Revere could have ridden a horse while ringing a bell and firing multiple shots from a front-loading musket:
I stand corrected... and possibly sterile...
Friday, 3 June 2011
You'd think a tea-bagger who professes to love America and who decides to travel through every state with her family to "celebrate" our traditions, landscapes, institutions and history, would read up on the basics of our history...Of course, if the tour is really just a back-alley way to secure funding for her as-yet-undeclared presidential run (because once she does declare her candidacy, she'd have to reveal all financial contributions, especially those of corporations bent on reducing taxes for the rich while screwing the rest of us), then the fact she has no freaking clue what the hell she's talking about should be no surprise to anyone...
Here is Sarah Palin's revisionary history on the significance of Paul Revere and his Midnight Run, which she declared while visiting... wait for it... the focal point for Paul Revere's ride!!!
So, he warned the British to protect our Second Amendment before we even had a Second Amendment... or a First, or a Constitution, or even a Declaration of Independence?
Anyway, if you need a reminder of Paul Revere's story, listen to this:
I wonder if Sarah Palin will characterize this latest failure as yet another "lame-stream-media gotcha moment"...
Tuesday, 1 February 2011
I always become suspicious when someone, conservative or liberal, tries to make a point by appealing back to the Founding Fathers. Part of it just has to do with consistency: since they were fallible humans, they were right about some things and wrong about others, so appealing back to them doesn't help us one iota in figuring out whether the particular belief appealed to belonged to one category or the other.Also, and I can't believe how much this point is always overlooked, the Founding Fathers did NOT agree on everything, so while it might be easy to find one founding father who agrees with your particular position, it's equally easy to find another who disagrees, so we're still not a step closer to solving the dispute. And even if a majority of them did agree on something, that only tells us they agreed, not whether they were right, which ought to be the real point of discussion.
Ultimately, appealing to our forefathers is an easy way to abdicate personal responsibility for our own choices by placing that burden on a bunch of dead white males who can no longer defend their position. It is also a sentimental appeal meant to go straight for the emotional patriotic jugular instead of focusing on the merits of the idea discussed. It is also a lazy strategy deployed in order to save oneself the burden of having to think for oneself...
And finally, it is also a dishonest strategy, since most people tend to project unto the Founding Fathers their own beliefs (just like the religious do with the Bible when it comes to their moral beliefs), while conveniently ignoring all evidence to the contrary (see Confirmation Bias).
Of course, while I agree with the spirit, the point could have been better made if Maher had gotten all of his facts straight:
- Paine was a deist, not an atheist (his problem was with religion, not with god)
- While some of the Founding Fathers espoused some elitism (Hamilton, for instance), other did not (Jefferson)
- John Adams was a Unitarian, and believed Christianity to be the wisest of all religions
- Jefferson did edit the Bible to get rid of all it superstitious nonsense, but he did consider Jesus to be an excellent moral teacher, so even he didn't consider the book to be complete bullshit
But you get the point...
.Friday, 28 January 2011
Did I miss something here? Has it become official policy for teabagging conservatives (like Michelle Bachmann this time) to either distort or be ignorant of basic American history? I can understand if ordinary Americans don't really know their own history, but those who run for office and feel themselves qualified to make decisions for the rest of us should really get an education (based on facts, not on what fantasies Glenn Beck and other douchebags make) before they start pontificating and making complete asses of themselves.And if they really do know their history, and still make these assertions, I'm not sure they could escape the condemnation of racism and bigotry that's already associated with them.
I know these people are obsessed with wanting to seem patriotic, but loving your country doesn't mean being in denial about its past blunders; it means doing your best to overcome that shady past and turn the country into the ideal you'd like it to be.
Anderson Cooper may have been pwned by a bonobo, but he won't be fooled by Bachmann, and that probably tells you something about the difference in intelligence levels we're dealing with here...
And how come all the hotties happen to be Republican and dumber than a retarded dodo bird? My penis is getting really confused here!
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