This video is interesting and entertaining to say the least.  The producers certainly take a position but it is tough not to take a position on this issue; that American education is based on the Prussian model is undisputed.

“It is nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of intruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry.” – Albert Einstein

“Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mundane educational system… go to the library and educate yourself if you’ve got any guts.” – Frank Zappa

Via here

The Real Victims of Islam.

The news is filled with reports of the terrorist attack on Mumbai, India.  We do not yet know what the terrorists’ motives are; they could have to do with Kashmir, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, or any number of other hotspots.  One thing that is known is that the assailants are Muslim.  I believe one of the most effective aspects of Islamic terror is that it causes non-Muslims to hate and despise Muslims.  The actions of the terrrorists are reprehensible and I do not defend them at all.  The fate of their victims are horrendous and tragic and not to be belittled in any way.  However, I believe that the ultimate victims of Islam are often forgotten because it i easier to divide the world in to us and them and because we prefer to hate.

The murdered victims of Islamic terrorism are tragic but they are also dead, Islam can harm them no more.  The real victims of Islam are the people who have to live under it.  Much has been made of the plight of women in strict Islamic countries and rightly so; they are some of the most oppressed people on the planet.  I would like to point out however, that Muslim women in less strict and even western countries and even Muslim men have to live everyday of their lives believing in Islam.

Allah is a very distant god.  He would not even speak directly to the prophet Mohammed but had an angel mediate between them.  Muslim men and women spend their lives attempting to fulfill all the requirements to get into Heaven and escape Hell.  One of these is a visit to Mecca.  The Saudi governement places a strict cap on the number who can go to Mecca each year and hundreds of millions of Muslims will never even have the chance. Even completing the requirement is not gaurentee; those who escape Hell do so by the arbitrary descision of Allah. Even Mohammed said “What Allah will do with me, I know not.“   Think of the phychologcal and spiritual oppression of these teemining millions, these are Islam’s real victims.

A shirt by Threadless. Look em up!

Liberal and conservative economic models share a common flaw.  For the most part Democrats and Republicans are synonymous with liberals and conservatives but not quite.  The vast majority of Democrats and Republicans take a compromised position on economic policy.  They lean liberal or lean conservative but are unwilling to commit fully.  This is symptomatic of one or more of the following, intellectual laxity, a lack of commitment or belief in the cause, or pandering to voters which in turn shows  a lack of moral character and fortitude.  Socialists and Libertarians tend to be much more consistent in their economic policy views and carry liberal and conservative philosophy much closer to their respective logical conclusions than most members of the two major parties do.  For the sake of this article the terms “liberal” and “conservative” will refer more to the ideals of those philosophies rather than to the mostly inconsistent members of any particular party.

The thing that liberals and conservatives mutually miss or mess up in economic policy is love.  Yes that’s right, love.  I’ll start with the liberals.

Liberals tend to be concerned with the well being of the poor, which is good and loving.  So they begin on the right track but, they forget about love, and so go about it all wrong.  Liberal economic policy in a simplified form is like Robin Hood, take from the rich and give to the poor.  Because the money was not given freely, but rather forced by law, it is not charity. The rich, some of whom are very charitable, resent their money being voted out of their hands and given to the voters.  They feel that the masses have risen up and stolen from them like a pitchfork mob storming the castle.  Because it was not charity (that is, a gift), the poor begin to feel they have a right to it and thus that the rich have stolen from them.  The poor then come to resent the rich.  So liberal economic policy leads to greater mutual class resentment and less love.

Conservative economic policy focuses on what is just.  It is unjust to take a man’s private property so conservatives push for fewer taxes and freer markets.  They count on the market growing when there are fewer restrictions and generally it does.  This they reason, should help the poor in a trickle down effect.  In this model, the poor are an afterthought, not very loving.  The poor resent being an afterthought and the rich assume that the poor are poor because they are either lazy or stupid.  This is not a good way to breed love.

Charity (that is, grace) is the action of love.  Charity and love are two sides of the same coin. Where there is no love, there can be no charity, this is the problem of conservative economics.  Where there is not charity, there can be no love, this is the problem of liberal economics.  So liberals and conservatives take different paths to smothering love as much as possible.  Call me crazy.

    This is the seventh article I have written as part of an ongoing debate with Mr. Adrian Thysse on the reasonableness of Christian faith.  This is also the first of the 3rd generation of articles.    The second generation of articles were written as responses to Mr. Thysse’s comments on, The Faith of Reason.  This article is in response to a comment he made on one of those second generation articles. To make it easier to follow, I have cut his comment into sections and placed them in block quotes.

    It has been about a month since my last article and I know I promised to get back sooner.  I do apologize but, this is not the kind of blog that you read to hear about what I’ve been up to so I will not burden you with that.   I do intend to respond to all of Mr. Thysse’s points and for that matter I am also still planning to write an article on Jean-Jacques Rousseau.  I may write another article tomorrow, no promises though.

    I shall be responding to the last part of Mr. Thysse’s comment on Evil in Society.  It appears below.

Evolution neatly accounts for why we are universally horrified by the harming of infants.   -Mr. Thysse

    This is not the case according to Harvard evolutionary psychologist, Steven Pinker.   On November 2, 1997, Dr. Pinker published a now infamous article in the New York Times.  The title of the article was, Why They Kill Their Newborns.  In the article, Dr. Pinker lays out in no uncertain terms and quite convincingly, how the theory of evolution not only explains why, but predicts that women will occasionally kill their own newborn children.

“the emotional circuitry of mothers has evolved to cope with this uncertain process, so the baby killers turn out to be not moral monsters but nice, normal (and sometimes religious) young women.”

     This is in direct contradiction to Mr. Thyss’s statement.   One thing, (in this case, evolution) cannot be the explanation for opposites.  In a similar way opposites cannot both be used as evidence in the same argument.  An attorney would have to be insane to defend his client based on the premises that his client was both at the post office and at the pharmacy at the time of the crime.

    Mr. Thysse’s point that, evolution explains an abhorrence of harming infants and, Dr. Pinker’s point that evolution explains why young women kill their infants are obviously in direct opposition to one another.  Whether they are inferred from the theory of evolution, or used as support for the theory of evolution, a contradiction exists.

      My point in saying all of this is not to slam either Dr. Pinker or Mr. Thysse.  I am sure both of them could produce multiple sources and citations in support of their respective positions.  Dr. Pinker made the list of the 100 most influential intellectuals in the world, he’s a fairly authoritative source in his own right (and if you have been following this article series, you know that Mr. Thysse is better at finding citations and source material than I am.)  This does nothing however, for either of their cases.  Rather, the more source material they could both produce, the greater the depth of logical inconsistency in the Secular Humanist worldview.

    This debate originally centered on how reasonable the Christian worldview is and I admit that I have gotten a little off track with this article.  We will get back to Christianity, soon enough, but I felt that Mr. Thysse’s comment provided an opportunity to examine the reasonableness of Secular Humanism, one of Christianity’s chief rivals.  I expect comments on this one, so fire away!

    This is the fifth article I have written as part of an ongoing debate with Mr. Adrian Thysse on the reasonableness of Christian faith.  Mr. Thysse raised some very potent objections to Christianity in his response to my first article.  This is getting very good!  (and providing me with plenty of blog fodder) I’ll attempt to address his objections below.  Mr. Thysse’s full comment can be read on my first post in the series, The Faith of Reason.  To make it easier to follow, I have cut his comment into sections and placed them in block quotes.

2. ‘Evil’ is a societal construct. It does not exist outside of how we define it.

It is true that many actions or inactions are deemed to be evil because of their societal implications.  For example, many cultures have strong traditions and not to observe the traditions would be taken as a malicious attack on the people and culture who hold those traditions. 

    In Japan, a business card is thought of as a representation of the person who gives it out, so there is much ritual in the exchange of business cards.  To take notes on the back of a business card would be very offensive in Japan, it would be seen as blatantly disrespectful to the person who gave it out.  In the United States, a business card is seen as a tool, you are free to do what you please with it. 

    Here in Texas, for a man not to hold the door open for a woman would be very rude.  If it was blatant enough, he would run the risk of being confronted about it, certainly if there were other men present.  To do the same thing in New York would probably go unnoticed. 

    These deeds are all deemed evil in their respective societies because of the implications they carry.  It is fine to write on a business card in the United States because there is no societal implication to it.  The shared implication that all these action-society combinations is mal-intent.   They are all perceived as actions calculated to do harm to innocents.  This is evil.  There may be other things that are evil as well but this is one of them that is universally offensive.  The intentional malicious harming of innocents is considered evil in Japan, Texas, New York, and Timbuktu.  It is not a societal construct.
Fire away with the comments!

    This is the fourth article I have written as part of an ongoing debate with Mr. Adrian Thysse on the reasonableness of Christian faith.  Mr. Thysse raised some very potent objections to Christianity in his response to my first article.  This is getting very good!  (and providing me with plenty of blog fodder) I’ll attempt to address his objections below.  Mr. Thysse’s full comment can be read on my first post in the series, The Faith of Reason.  To make it easier to follow, I have cut his comment into sections and placed them in block quotes.

As to your point that “…Christianity is ultimately reasonable…”:

1. God is not a good explanation for the beginning of the universe. We do try to answer the question, but the origins of the universe is not “a question that you must answer.” Science may not know, but it is more honest to say “We don’t know” then to ascribe it to a God. We are then still left with the question – who created God?

I’m sorry if I came across as “you personally must answer this question, now“.  I merely meant that the origin of the universe is a question to be contended with and that science is incapable of doing this. 

    I think it is more honest to say “we do not know” than to say that “there is no god” as in, the seven on the Dawkins Atheism scale.  There is also a difference in knowing something through deductive logic and knowing through inductive reasoning.  Almost if not, all that we know, we know through induction.  Interestingly, much more emphasis was placed on inductive logic throughout the classical, medieval , renaissance/reformation, and the enlightenment ages.  It is only in the last two-hundred years or so that deduction has eclipsed inductions as the primary means of proving something in philosophy.  But that was a rabbit trail.

    To ask “who created God” is to assume God was created.  The reason you might assume God was created is that we have no experience (baring “supernatural” experiences that some claim to have) with anything outside of nature.  In nature things have beginnings and ends, they are finite.  God is by definition infinite and outside of the scope of nature.  God is supernatural.  It is logically possible that God was created but it is not logically necessary. 

    This is why I believe that the universe must have been created.  It must have had a beginning in something outside of nature because nature by virtue of being natural and following certain natural laws, does not spontaneously create itself.  The big bang points to a finite beginning and some have theorized that there exists a never ending cycle of big bangs and big squishes leading to more big bangs.  This just leads us to an infinite regression of squish, bang, squish, bang, squish, bang, ad infinitum.  This cannot be a natural process because all natural processes have beginnings.  This leads us to a dilemma, either the universe and nature do not really exist at all, or they were created by something outside of nature, something supernatural.

    Admittedly this argument does not immediately lead to the conclusion that that supernatural universe starter was Jehovah, God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob.  It does however, lead to the conclusion that there is something other than nature.

    This is the third article I have written as part of an ongoing debate with Mr. Adrian Thysse on the reasonableness of Christian faith.  Mr. Thysse raised some very potent objections to Christianity in his response to my first article.  This is getting very good!  (and providing me with plenty of blog fodder) I’ll attempt to address his objections below.  Mr. Thysse’s full comment can be read on my first post in the series, The Faith of Reason.  To make it easier to follow, I have cut his comment into sections and placed them in block quotes.

To me the great fault of Christianity is that it condemns all those who do not accept Christ – even the new born. This is not reasonable. First your bible condemns you, then it tells you how to be saved. All unnecessary if it did not give a blanket condemnation to begin with.

    This begins to get a little bit confusing so bare with me.  Does the Bible say that we are condemned? Yes it does.  Does the Bible say that we can be reconciled to god (saved) through Jesus Christ?  Yes it does.  The Bible says both of these things but the Bible is not the cause of these things.  These would be true even without the Bible.  The Bible is merely a record of what is already true, not the cause of that truth. 

    I am unaware of any verse that says newborns who die are condemned.  If you have such a verse I would be very interested to see it.  As far as I know, the Bible is vague on what happens to newborns who die.  There are some who believe that they are condemned but this has to be extrapolated.  I believe that the Roman Catholic church has a doctrine that says unbaptized babies are condemned, but again that is not strictly Biblical. 

This is the second article I have written as part of an ongoing debate with Mr. Adrian Thysse on the reasonableness of Christian faith.  Mr. Thysse raised some very potent objections to Christianity in his response to my first article.  This is getting very good (and providing me with plenty of blog fodder)!  I’ll attempt to address his objections below.  Mr. Thysse’s full comment can be read on my first post in the series, The Faith of Reason.  To make it easier to follow, I have cut his comment into sections and placed them in block quotes. 

Thanks for your detailed response. Your initial assumptions are correct. However, my point in choosing that particular verse is not that I believe man is born with the burden of ’sin’. (Our ‘burden’ is perhaps a result of our mental ability to recognize our own evolved imperfections)

Hi, Mr. Thysse,

    If our mental ability evolved along with our imperfections, then how can it be capable of recognizing them?  Wouldn’t our mental ability view our imperfections not as imperfections, but rather simply as what is? 

    To see that we (humans) are imperfect is to presuppose perfection.  If we had no concept of what a straight line looked like then it would be meaningless to say “this is crooked“. 

    The burden that you speak of, is not just the knowledge that we are crooked but also that we should be straight.  Do you think that a wild dog feels ashamed when he gets into the trash?  No, of course not.  It is only a dog who has been domesticated and told many times not to get into the trash, who shows any sign of remorse for doing so (and they do).  Dogs have no burden of crookedness on their own, they get it from their leaders (be it an alpha male or a little girl). 

It was merely to point out the circular reasoning that Christians are prone to. The Bible tells you that you are born a sinner, therefore you need a saviour.

I would be the last person to argue that the modern Christian church is a bastion of logic and rationality.  There are very few such bastions left.  Modern education has done a fine job of seeing to that.  Subjects like rhetoric, logic, argumentation, and critical thinking are rarely taught at all and have even taken on pejorative connotations.  However, the failure of modern man to live up to the standards of rationality (there are those perfect standards again), does not mean Christianity fails those same standards.
 
   I do not need the Bible to tell me that I am a sinner, I have moral codes that I am incapable of living up too.  I fail my own test.  Also you do not need to be in a room of toddlers long to see that selfishness and conceit are present very early in life.  In this regard, the Bible merely confirms what I have already observed.

    I have not doubt that there are many people who examine their lives and find that they have lived up to their own moral code perfectly.  I believe these people are deceiving themselves.  They are not holding themselves to an objective standard.  They create their code of morality to suit their own actions.  In this way, they will necessarily look good when held to the standard of this code.  This is a sham code of morality.  They have a double standard, one for themselves and one for everyone else.  Ask everyone else what they think of this person and they will undoubtedly be able to find some faults.

    So, the Bible does not condemn anyone.  We can see that we are already condemned.  If we see that we do evil (as illustrated above) and that God is good (The being than which no greater being can be conceived) then, we are necessarily separated from him(condemned).  The overall message of the Bible is not one of condemnation but of reconciliation for a world already condemned.

    For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
    (Joh 3:17 ESV)

    The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
    (Joh 10:10 ESV)

    All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of     reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their     trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
    (2Co 5:18-19 ESV)

Comment at will!

    A colleague of mine in the blogging world, Adrian Thysse commented on my last article, The Fifty-First Psalm in English Verse.  His comment brought up some interesting and very important questions facing the world today.  These questions are some of the key battlefields in the so called, culture wars.  I started to respond to Mr. Thysse’s comment with another comment but, it soon became too long and too divergent from the original article.  Mr. Thysse’s original comment appears below in full.

Adrian Thysse
June 30, 2008

“Behold, I in iniquity
Was formed the womb within;
My mother conceived me also,
In guiltiness and sin.

It is a heavy burden Christian’s bear, but self imposed.Doesn’t your passion for truth conflict with your faith? How do you keep them separate?

The first part is a direct quote from my post.  It is Psalm 51:5, in an English verse translation.  My response to the questions raised by Mr. Thysse is below.  In deciding how to respond, I found that moving in reverse order (of that in which the questions were posed) will work best. 

    How do I keep my faith and my passion for truth separate?  There is an underlying claim in this question and it is that, my faith is not also true.   I fully understand that Mr. Thysse is not a Christian and so, I expect him to believe Christianity to be false.  Also nothing should be taken dogmatically.  The more important an issue is, the more reason there is to test the conclusion.  Certainly world view and metaphysical beliefs are extremely important, and so should be subjected to the highest levels of scrutiny.  See my article, Pseudo-Polite Conversation, for more on my views on this.  

The unstated premises (I hope Mr. Thysse will forgive me for making assumptions) for this question are that,

• Christian faith is unreasonable and not supported by reason.
• I am a reasonable person (he says that I have a “passion for truth”) and yet am a Christian.
  
• The first and second premises contradict
  
• Therefore, I am either making a separation between faith and rationality (as Mr Thysse believes) or I am a walking contradiction.

    Now that I have spent two paragraphs expanding a six word question, I will get to answering it.  First I would like to thank Mr. Thysse for implying that I am a reasonable person.  Thanks.  I try my best to be reasonable and your ackowledgment of the fact means that we can conduct a civilized debate.

    Second, I do not keep them separate.  (Hey, a six word response!)  To do so would constitute a contradiction.  I can not love truth during the week and indulge in what I know to be fantasy on Sundays.  That would be literally and in all other ways, insane. 

    So, it appears that I have backed myself into a corner.  Mr. Thysse presented a dilemma, either I make a separation or I live a contradiction.  I have stated that to make a separation would be a contradiction.  So it appears that, I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.  I have already stated that I do not make a separation between my faith and my passion for truth.  I’ll now address the other option in the dilemma, namely that I am a walking contradiction.

    This, I do not accept.  I do not believe that a contradiction exists between my faith and my pursuit of truth.  (I suppose, I should be thankful to Mr. Thysse for assuming that I made a separation rather than asking “why are you a walking contradiction?”)  I find Christian faith to best explain the universe we live in.  That is to say, I find Christianity to be reasonable and rational. 

    We must dismiss completely, with the idea that metaphysical questions, (such as, what is ultimate reality, is there a god, what is the meaning of life,  and why is there evil?) are questions of science or that science could answer.  They are not.  These are not the sort of questions that scientists ask; nor are they the sort of questions that science answers.  If we found video footage of the last six billion (or 100 billion) years and could see the beginning of life and all the wars and famines in history, it would not tell us why there is evil, if there is a god, if he is active or passive, or if he is knowable or distant. 

    Science ( and mathematics, physics etc.)  is very useful but, it is limited.  Science can answer many questions but not questions of this sort.  I do not know if Mr. Thysse’s belief that Christianity is unreasonable is based on an adherence to science or not but, it is very common to believe that science is somehow at odds with faith, religion, and even philosophy.  It is not.  It cannot be.  Science being opposed to these things is like English muffins being opposed to purple.  If you believe in English muffins then you cannot believe in purple and the other way around.  It makes now sense at all.  You cannot even conceive of what it means for English muffins to oppose purple.  The same is true of science opposing faith.

    It seems that in the course of answering the question about separation, I have also answered the question, “doesn’t your passion for truth conflict with your faith?”  It does not.  My faith is based on what I believe to be true.  I believe it was Augustine who said that “all truth is God’s truth.”  This is what I believe.  If God exists, and I believe he does, then all honest search for truth whether molecular biology, astronomy, philosophy, or a criminal investigation, is a search for God.  This is true even when the searcher is not conscience of it or does not believe in God. However, when the search is not really about truth but rather about supporting a previously held position, then neither is it a search for God. 

    Now to respond to the first sentence in Mr. Thysse’s comment. 

It is a heavy burden Christian’s bear, but self imposed.

The burden is only self imposed if it is not true, but that is beside the point and not worth arguing about at the moment.  Mr. Thysse has made a very astute observation that most of the secular world does not recognize or at least, does not admit to recognizing.  Mr. Thysse has recognized the heavy burden.  Yes there is a heavy burden, but Christians do not bear it.  That is the essence of Christianity.  We have sinned, we are living outside of our original nature, we are God’s enemies but God in his love has extended his hand to us, so that we may become His children!  He has taken the burden from us!  We do not bear the burden because Jesus bore it on our behalf.  As Paul said,

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
Romans 8:1 English Standard Version. Underlining mine.

 Or even earlier in that same Psalm,

For your compassion great, blots out
All my iniquity.
Psalm 51:2 

And later,

With perfume do, you sprinkle me,
I shall be cleansed so;
Yes, wash me please, and then I will
Be whiter than new snow!
Psalm 51:7

Or as Jesus Himself said,

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.“ 
Mathew 11:28-30 English Standard Version. Underlining mine.

This is Why Christianity is ultimately reasonable and rational.

• It explains where the universe came from, God created it.  This is a question that you must answer no matter what you believe about old Earth creationism, young Earth creationism, intelligent design, evolution, the big bang, panspermia, or any other theory out there.
• It accepts the existence of evil as evil. (as does Islam and some other religions)
• It reconciles men who do evil with God, (Islam does not) who is pure good and has nothing to do with evil. 
  
• This is accomplished through Jesus Christ.  This is the lifting of the burden.

Looking back, I’m glad that I made an article out of this instead of a comment.  I hope this is useful to Mr. Thysse and anyone else out there with similar questions.  I gladly accept comments and criticism especially from Mr. Thysse.  Please don’t hesitate to comment, anyone, this is a debate after all. 

“Never mention politics or religion, in polite conversation.”  It’s a common phrase and you heard it many times.  It is also one of the most destructive ideas of Western civilization.  Think about it for a minute, is there anything more important to discuss than politics and religion?  Religion, is what you believe, is, and politics, is what you believe should be.  Religion in this sense could also be a worldview, it could be a particular theory of metaphysics, or it could be one of the more traditional religions.  In any case, it deals with man’s relationship to God or lack there of and questions of ultimate truth and reality.  Politics deals with man’s relationships with each other.  I can think of nothing that could be more important to discuss, especially in polite conversation. 

The purpose of this proverb, (I’ll be referring to it as the pseudo-polite rule, and you’ll see why in a second) is to maintain a polite atmosphere.  The fear is that, if it’s discovered that two people in a conversation disagree with one another, then the conversation will quickly turn to bickering.  I contend that if the conversation would turn to bickering simply because there’s a disagreement, than it is not a polite conversation to begin with, only pseudo-polite.  The parties to a conversation like that never had any real respect for each other in the first place, they just didn’t have the opportunity to display their disrespect.  It is extremely foolish and immature to take the position that one can only be polite with those one agrees with.  Now, it is true that there are many foolish and immature people out there who can only be polite with those they agree with but these people are bigots, and creating a pseudo-polite environment, only enables them to continue in their bigotry.

Arguments are after all, cooperative, not competitive ventures.  The purpose of an argument is always to come to agreement.  Usually when arguing, you are seeking to convert your opponent to your point of view.  Sometimes you’re seeking compromise, but either way you’re seeking agreement.  Also, when venturing into an argument, you accept the risk that you could be the one converted.  In this way an argument is a cooperative venture.  Those who seek to “win an argument” were never in an argument in the first place, they were in a bickering match.

I don’t know when the pseudo-polite rule was invented, but I do know that through most of history, in most cultures, it was not the norm.  Perhaps it is because rhetoric is no longer taught in most schools and so people have a distorted view of argumentation and can no longer distinguish it from bickering, or perhaps it is this distorted view that led to rhetoric no longer being taught in school.  Whatever the cause, one need only look at the debates between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams to see that arguing was not always equated with bickering and enmity.  These two men had extremely divergent views in both politics and religion, yet they had tremendous respect for one another and tremendous friendship. 

When the United States was in its infancy.  There was no Australian ballot.  The Australian ballot is how essentially all voting takes place in the Western world today.  It has become so common that there’s no longer any need to refer to it as the Australian ballot.  It’s simply the way voting is done.  You go into a booth and close the curtain fill out the ballot and place it in a box.  In this way, no one knows, if you voted Republican, Democrat, Whig, Socialist, or Libertarian.  We have become so concerned with the pseudo-polite rule that casting a ballot behind a shower curtain, has become a sacred right in most people’s minds.  When the US was in its infancy, ballots were cast by walking up to a table and picking up a red piece of paper or a blue piece of paper and placing it in the ballot box.  When voting, you may have turned and held up your ballot for everyone to see, you may even have had to do this on stage.  All your friends, family, and neighbors knew who you voted for and you better believe it got discussed.  This discussion is something that we have lost and I hope and pray that we can get it back.

I mentioned before that the pseudo-polite rule is one of the most destructive ideas of Western civilization, the reason for that is this.  The pseudo-polite role attempts to limit or shut down completely, argument and debate (among friends and family, at least).  Progress comes through dissent.  You can have no progress, if you have no disagreement.  If you only agree and you only speak about things you agree on then the status quo is the best you can hope for.  Progress only comes when someone says, “I think there is a better way to do this.”  That, is a disagreement. 

Furthermore, what is the point of conversation at all, if you’re only going to discuss things you agree on?  If you meet a friend for lunch and you both adhere to the pseudo-polite role, then you might as well just sit and smile at each other, because you’re not going to get anything done with conversation!  Conversation among friends like that (and they can’t really be friends if you can’t disagree) is nothing more than a mutual patting each other on the back fest!  A nation or a culture with out argument and debate is like a crab, it can only move sideways or backwards.  The nations with the most vibrant debating culture are sure to be the ones making the quickest and most rapid progress.  Get out of Pleasant Valley and stop being afraid of running into someone you might disagree with!