[extropy-chat] No Joy in Mudville

[Giu1i0 Pri5c0]

No, I do read European media, but I also read American media. Like
today's NYT article attached below which, I believe, is quite relevant
to this discussion.
Now about muslim immigrant population: I shouldn't have to tell this
to a Libertarian, but if they come, it is because there are jobs for
them. If there are jobs for them, it is because there are jobs which
need being done and no local wants to do. They come due to the free
market of offer and demand, and we just bow and let them come.
Should we introduce some even more protectionist policies to keep them
out? Wouldn't you call this a massive intervention of the state in the
economy? I think I am lost, I really thought I understood
Libertarianism.
Or perhaps we are talking of "racial purity"? Well, I will have to say
that I just don´t care about the survival of the Italian, or British,
or French, or German, or whatever "race". What I do care about, and a
lot, is the survival of the human race. And I think our very survival
is in danger because of racial conflicts. Isn't it better to be all
coffee-with-milk posthumans?

NYT article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/04/opinion/04wills.html?ex=1100592981&ei=1&en=806f25bb8addc950

The Day the Enlightenment Went Out
By GARRY WILLS

Published: November 4, 2004
This election confirms the brilliance of Karl Rove as a political
strategist. He calculated that the religious conservatives, if they
could be turned out, would be the deciding factor. The success of the
plan was registered not only in the presidential results but also in
all 11 of the state votes to ban same-sex marriage. Mr. Rove
understands what surveys have shown, that many more Americans believe
in the Virgin Birth than in Darwin's theory of evolution.

This might be called Bryan's revenge for the Scopes trial of 1925, in
which William Jennings Bryan's fundamentalist assault on the concept
of evolution was discredited. Disillusionment with that decision led
many evangelicals to withdraw from direct engagement in politics. But
they came roaring back into the arena out of anger at other court
decisions - on prayer in school, abortion, protection of the flag and,
now, gay marriage. Mr. Rove felt that the appeal to this large bloc
was worth getting President Bush to endorse a constitutional amendment
banning gay marriage (though he had opposed it earlier).

The results bring to mind a visit the Dalai Lama made to Chicago not
long ago. I was one of the people deputized to ask him questions on
the stage at the Field Museum. He met with the interrogators
beforehand and asked us to give him challenging questions, since he is
too often greeted with deference or flattery.

The only one I could think of was: "If you could return to your
country, what would you do to change it?" He said that he would
disestablish his religion, since "America is the proper model." I
later asked him if a pluralist society were possible without the
Enlightenment. "Ah," he said. "That's the problem." He seemed to envy
America its Enlightenment heritage.

Which raises the question: Can a people that believes more fervently
in the Virgin Birth than in evolution still be called an Enlightened
nation?

America, the first real democracy in history, was a product of
Enlightenment values - critical intelligence, tolerance, respect for
evidence, a regard for the secular sciences. Though the founders
differed on many things, they shared these values of what was then
modernity. They addressed "a candid world," as they wrote in the
Declaration of Independence, out of "a decent respect for the opinions
of mankind." Respect for evidence seems not to pertain any more, when
a poll taken just before the elections showed that 75 percent of Mr.
Bush's supporters believe Iraq either worked closely with Al Qaeda or
was directly involved in the attacks of 9/11.

The secular states of modern Europe do not understand the
fundamentalism of the American electorate. It is not what they had
experienced from this country in the past. In fact, we now resemble
those nations less than we do our putative enemies.

Where else do we find fundamentalist zeal, a rage at secularity,
religious intolerance, fear of and hatred for modernity? Not in France
or Britain or Germany or Italy or Spain. We find it in the Muslim
world, in Al Qaeda, in Saddam Hussein's Sunni loyalists. Americans
wonder that the rest of the world thinks us so dangerous, so
single-minded, so impervious to international appeals. They fear
jihad, no matter whose zeal is being expressed.

It is often observed that enemies come to resemble each other. We
torture the torturers, we call our God better than theirs - as one
American general put it, in words that the president has not
repudiated.

President Bush promised in 2000 that he would lead a humble country,
be a uniter not a divider, that he would make conservatism
compassionate. He did not need to make such false promises this time.
He was re-elected precisely by being a divider, pitting the reddest
aspects of the red states against the blue nearly half of the nation.
In this, he is very far from Ronald Reagan, who was amiably and
ecumenically pious. He could address more secular audiences, here and
abroad, with real respect.

In his victory speech yesterday, President Bush indicated that he
would "reach out to the whole nation," including those who voted for
John Kerry. But even if he wanted to be more conciliatory now, the
constituency to which he owes his victory is not a yielding one. He
must give them what they want on things like judicial appointments.
His helpers are also his keepers.

The moral zealots will, I predict, give some cause for dismay even to
nonfundamentalist Republicans. Jihads are scary things. It is not too
early to start yearning back toward the Enlightenment.

Garry Wills, an adjunct professor of history at Northwestern
University, is the author of "St. Augustine's Conversion."


On Fri, 5 Nov 2004 08:46:53 -0800 (PST), Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Giu1i0 Pri5c0 <pgptag at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > I am not complaining that you elected a Republican president. There
> > have been many good Republican presidents. I am complaining that you
> > elected a president who wants to turn the US into a fundamentalist
> > theocracy in the purest taliban style.
> 
> This is a bit much. I am sure this is what your european media is
> telling you, while your own nations are capitulating to muslim
> immigrant populations left and right. Trying to claim Bush is the most
> religious president is ludicrous. Carter easily beats him in the
> devotional department, while being more of a sentiment of preferring to
> let America be devoured by lions in the arena in pacifistic bliss
> (which is why the Romans must love him so).