Oh! So that’s how you’re supposed to speak to people if you don’t want others to think you a lout.
Thanks.
Not saying 100% your quotes wrong, but I belive it was Kent Brockman who said something to that effect “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, democracy dosen’t work” (not quite word for word) In the comet episode after congress failed to pass a bill that would rescue them from a firey doom.
If you really have a problem with the word “redneck,” then use the “report this post to a moderator” function. Do the same if you have a problem with “white trash,” “hillbillies,” sister-fuckers," “Nascar watchers,” “rubes,” “crackers,” or “Opies.”
[For the humor impaired, the above post is sarcastic. I would never accuse anyone IRL of being a Nascar fan.]
If you don’t like being called an ill-mannered lout, don’t act like an ill-mannered lout. You are an ill-mannered lout.
Opies?
As in Opie Taylor from the Andy Griffith Show. It’s a slang word for white people…at least it was in White Men Can’t Jump.
The post has been reported, and my complaint is not simply about the use of the word redneck. The word was not even used in the post to which I object. It is the general attitude of contempt and malice expressed towards Southerners in that post which offends me. If he had talked that way about blacks or Jews, you would have objected. It was vicious bigotry, and you know it. You, however, have demonstrated your own prejudices on another thread.
And the term is “Okies,” not “Opies.” It’s short for Oklahoman. In the Great Depression, many desperate farmers in Oklahoma abandoned their farms, packed up their families, and drove west to California, where the term “Okie” evolved as a term of contempt for them and eventually became a term used for all rural whites (though I have heard the term used in neutral and even positives senses). Try reading Steinbeck’s * The Grapes of Wrath * and broaden your mind a little bit–though, frankly, I’ve seen little evidence of open-mindedness in any of your posts.
No, I meant Opies as in Opie Taylor. I know what an Okie is and I’ve read Grapes of Wrath.
Also, I’m originally from Lousiana. I come from a long line of southern rednecks. Does that change anything?
I’d put the two most influential bodies of law and thought as being the Common Law and Enlightenment Humanistic Liberalism, respectively.
In the case of the Common Law, we are talking about very pragmatic proceedures that arose out of resolving disputes among traders and other very secular and businesslike concerns, developed largely before the introduction of Christianity, and always remaining largely about it’s own complex collection of reasonable standards, precedents, and proceedures, rather than having much of anything to do with religious theory. Jefferson himself researched the subject extensively.
“For we know that the common law is that system of law which was introduced by the Saxons on their settlement of England, and altered from time to time by proper legislative authority from that time to the date of the Magna Charta, which terminates the period of the common law … This settlement took place about the middle of the fifth century. But Christianity was not introduced till the seventh century; the conversion of the first Christian king of the Heptarchy having taken place about the year 598, and that of the last about 686. Here then, was a space of two hundred years, during which the common law was in existence, and Christianity no part of it … That system of religion could not be a part of the common law, because they were not yet Christians.”
–Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814
The second doesn’t have a great name (that mess above is just my best rendering) but it is essentially “real” liberalism, coming from people like Locke, scientists, and economists. There are three pillars to it: democracy, capitalism, and liberal science. All three are related in that they involve the rejection of Aristotelian concept of a wise central authority being the best locus for power. All three involve the idea that the decentralization of authority is actually a more productive, adaptive, and more stable mechanism for governance, trade, and truth.
This particular revolution in human thought has no real precedent, and it certainly cannot be claimed to be based on any sort of old timey religious impulse dating back to the Ten Commandments. If anything, it is in open rebellion against the legal and moral concepts that gave the Ten Commandments their context, the idea of central authority and a singular, mandated truth. Locke was a Christian, for instance, but his letter on Tolerance argued that the state had no productive interest in trying to make sure that everyone correctly acknowledged the one true god. Many of the Christians of the Enlightenment developed similar ideas: the concept of public/civil/legal sphere vs. religious/personal sphere, wherein it made no sense to try and impose the needs of one sphere on the other. So it was that the proceedures of government and law could be concieved without any reference to religious belief being necessary. One could be a Christian, but perform secular duties in a manner no different than a Muslim or a Hindu, just as being a Christian doesn’t mean that the way you brush your teeth is distinctly or definitively “Christian” either.
In any case, Moore is at a impasse. He can claim that the TC are meant to be legal proscriptions, but then he faces the reality that, at best, only 4 of the commandments jibe with, and none of them are either exceptional, unique, or original as social proscriptions go. Or he can claim that they are moral laws meant to be enforced by God and not a state, but then, obviously, their relevance to the law is just as questionable.
Frankly, the idea that the Ten Commandments are central to the development of the American legal system, let alone the concept of law in general, is absolutely laughable.
Never objected to being called an “ill-mannered lout.” Sounds pretty cool. You meant it as a compliment, n’est ce pas?
Moderator’s Notes:
LyricalReckoner, watch the ethnic slurs, please.
LonesomePolecat, you have been warned before about using insults outside of the Pit. Watch your temper if you want to keep posting here.
In fairness to Congress, they were going to pass the bill until some congressman tacked on a rider to provide $40 million for the perverted arts.
There you go. Apos articulated quite well what I was groping at. Apos nailed it; thank you, Apos. You rock, Apos. You’ da man.
So although Locke wrote about Christianity, the actual content of his political theory—which fed directly into the formation of American nationhood—excluded the sort of theocratic high-handedness that Judge Moore is trying to foist on us. (Whatever happened to that great Christian quote of political philosophy, “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s…”?)
As to the OP, I guess the closest we have come to corroborating your thesis was that quote from Jefferson, that the pagan Saxons worked out English common law without reference to Christianity. That is far from being the whole story, but it must count for something. You know, Jefferson was on a big Saxon kick. He had this ethnic pride belief that the Anglo-Saxons were a politically superior race in their insistence on liberty. He saw America as an essentially Anglo-Saxon nation, the natural fulfillment of the political tradition going back to the forest tribes of ancient Germany, in contradistinction to the authoritarian systems of the Roman Empire and the Bible. Jefferson was a great thinker, but I’m afraid his ethnically exclusive vision of America just won’t fly anymore. The reality of America has moved on and become multiethnic.
Since we are talking about the past roots of something, not it’s current applicability, I fail to see what this has to do with anything.
Ill-mannered Lout is an ethnic slur? Gee-Whiz!
I thought the whole debate here was that the past roots of our governmental system do impinge on its present applicability. Or not. You can argue that the past roots do not impinge. (And you’d probably be right.) But that’s what this debate is about. That Judge Moore fella wants to take what he claims are the Chistian roots of America and impinge it on everybody else. The OP’s point is, if you can do that, OK, I want to impinge paganism on everybody in the public sector. Jaya Kali Ma!!! (<–Thuggee Americans for equal time)
Ah. Never heard it before.
No, Ill-mannered Lout is an insult, which is what MEBuckner warned LonseomePolecat about. He is the one who used it, not you.
What you were warned about was your use of the ethnic slur, hillbillies. As in: