With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.
I enjoy paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.
July 18, 2008 - 6:37 p.m.
How did it get to be so late? I’m glad I decided to eat before I updated today. I really should have had this done before noon.
I thought of two entry topics during my brunch. Can I still remember them hours later? I think I actually can. I only need to write about one of them anyway. The other I'll save for a rainy day.
All of a sudden I am not satisfied with eating my usual fare. I bought sausages the other day so I did have something different for breakfast. Nothing I have in the house excited me for dinner. I think I'll eat out tonight.
I am spending today planning the Budgiedome schedule. I got some bad news last night. Red Molly isn't going to play and it looks like Aoife O'Donovan won't either. There is still a sliver of hope for Aoife. On the bright side David Massengill and Jack Hardy both asked if they could play.
So what did I want to write about? I know you know; tell me. Oh yes that's it, the perception of the United States around the world and how that affects our influence.
The US is not very popular right now. The governments of China and Russia are both better liked. As much as I criticize the Bush administration that is underserved. Sudan is committing genocide. We are actually trying to stop it. The Chinese and Russians are both supporting the Sudanese government. China is the main supplier of the weapons used to commit the genocide and are blocking UN sanctions to punish the murderers.
So why are we singled out for the world's approbation? Because more is expected of us. Yes other countries practice far worse forms of torture and do it far more widely. What we are doing is based on methods used by the Soviet Union and Chinese. The thing is they don't represent themselves as the defenders of human rights. The world perceives us as hypocrites. Abu Ghraib did more damage to our power than anything done by all the members of the "Axis of Evil" combined. When we speak out against what is going on in Sudan the enemies of Liberty can say, "They don't care about human rights, all they care about is oil.!" Is that fair? No; but it is also human nature. We have more power to do both good and evil than any country on the earth and that is going to generate both fear and resentment. The present administration scorns the opinion of the world and so weakens us. They refuse to accept this reality. They want us to operate as if we were in a vacuum. So now we are not in a position to exert our power in Sudan and Iran. Instead of complaining that we are judged unfairly what we need to do is follow the rule of Calpurnia. We like Caesar's wife must be above even the appearance of impropriety.
The great chance that we have after the next election is that Obama is perceived as antagonistic to the present administration and we will be given a clean slate by much of the world. They will support us in ways they have not supported us before if for no other reason to show their contempt for Bush. He can't afford to miss that opportunity.
There is an article from the Times that you should read. It is story of Ahmad Batebi, an Iranian dissident. See if you can read what happened to him without flinching; Dissident’s Tale of Epic Escape From Iran’s Vise.
Now I have to go and eat then get back to scheduling The Budgiedome.
The International Jewish Banking Conspiracy - October 07, 2008
On the Road to Westchester County - October 06, 2008
Inside the Madison Square Studio - October 05, 2008
I'm a Bosniac and I'm debating like I've never debated before - October 03, 2008
Islands in the Stream of Consciousness - October 02, 2008
Email me: GordonLew at gmail
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Horvendile July 18, 2008
