Rejection of Christian teachings have destructive implications.
How many now remember/agree with this teaching that known to western world (and sometimes applied)?
“You heard that it was said: ‘You must love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
However, I say to you: Continue to love your enemies and to pray for those who persecute you,
so that you may prove yourselves sons of your Father who is in the heavens, since he makes his sun rise on both the wicked and the good and makes it rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous.’’
He wasn’t promoting ‘unrighteousness’, he was expecting followers to ‘prove themselves’ righteous by ‘loving their enemies’.
A new form of inquisition is emerging. Physical torture of heretics has been replaced with Cancel Culture. Appearing on the BBC's Question Time? Fill in a form about your views on DEI or lose your invitation. Questions about diversity have been a feature of civil service interviews for some years. A moralising, pure vs the impure, has captured nearly all our institutions. While we can resist individually recapturing or correcting institutions is another matter.
Dear George Agree with much of what you say - I have been promoting the importance of referenda for some time and arguing for changing the balance between representative and direct democracy.
Good article thanks. I would also suggest that the ‘left’ believe they are entitled to resort to ever increasing degrees of action. This includes violence, rioting, cancelling & persistent ad-hominem attacks. They feel justified in this because the ‘right’ are to them the new Hitler. The ‘right’ are destroying the planet (global boiling), killing people (druggies like Floyd), they are evil racists who (oh my gosh…) misgender people. Thus the lefties feel entitled to act in manner that hitherto would not have been ‘ok’ in a dispute.
Frank, allow me give an alternative take on the issues highlighted in your excellent essay.
There is a growing perception that democracy is faltering and failing as the best form of human organization, as evidenced by the dysfunction in the lead up to the US presidential election, including an attempted assassination of a former president.
Democracy isn’t failing but representative democracy, like the old taxi industry, no longer works in a complex, interconnected and polarized world.
The answer to the sclerotic taxi industry was not better managers and more regulation but a revolution in the form of ride sharing.
Similarly, the answer to the failing and hidebound representative democracy is not better candidates but a revolution in the form of open democracy.
Whatever the problem – cost-of-living, inequality, energy poverty, violence against women, drug addiction, social conflict and alienation, including the epidemic of loneliness – all can be traced back to the failure of representative democracy.
We now have both the concept and the technology to transition from representative democracy to open democracy, underpinned by a common vision, to address the myriad of social, economic and political problems besetting the modern world.
The essay seems quite dated, an echo of the phrase “The Personal is Political” from almost 60 years ago. Perhaps back to basics - when a crazy person gets a gun they shoot. Crazy is unpredictable.
There was an article out today harking back to 1968. And I remember my politics tutor saying in 1971 that he didn't think the USA could survive another election year like 1968. Maybe 2024 is the year of which he spoke.
Yes, too true of fortunately only a minority on the left.
Frank
Keen insight.
Rejection of Christian teachings have destructive implications.
How many now remember/agree with this teaching that known to western world (and sometimes applied)?
“You heard that it was said: ‘You must love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
However, I say to you: Continue to love your enemies and to pray for those who persecute you,
so that you may prove yourselves sons of your Father who is in the heavens, since he makes his sun rise on both the wicked and the good and makes it rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous.’’
He wasn’t promoting ‘unrighteousness’, he was expecting followers to ‘prove themselves’ righteous by ‘loving their enemies’.
Who now believes that?
Christianity is intolerant?
What a travesty!
Thanks
Clay
A new form of inquisition is emerging. Physical torture of heretics has been replaced with Cancel Culture. Appearing on the BBC's Question Time? Fill in a form about your views on DEI or lose your invitation. Questions about diversity have been a feature of civil service interviews for some years. A moralising, pure vs the impure, has captured nearly all our institutions. While we can resist individually recapturing or correcting institutions is another matter.
Dear George Agree with much of what you say - I have been promoting the importance of referenda for some time and arguing for changing the balance between representative and direct democracy.
Good article thanks. I would also suggest that the ‘left’ believe they are entitled to resort to ever increasing degrees of action. This includes violence, rioting, cancelling & persistent ad-hominem attacks. They feel justified in this because the ‘right’ are to them the new Hitler. The ‘right’ are destroying the planet (global boiling), killing people (druggies like Floyd), they are evil racists who (oh my gosh…) misgender people. Thus the lefties feel entitled to act in manner that hitherto would not have been ‘ok’ in a dispute.
Frank, allow me give an alternative take on the issues highlighted in your excellent essay.
There is a growing perception that democracy is faltering and failing as the best form of human organization, as evidenced by the dysfunction in the lead up to the US presidential election, including an attempted assassination of a former president.
Democracy isn’t failing but representative democracy, like the old taxi industry, no longer works in a complex, interconnected and polarized world.
The answer to the sclerotic taxi industry was not better managers and more regulation but a revolution in the form of ride sharing.
Similarly, the answer to the failing and hidebound representative democracy is not better candidates but a revolution in the form of open democracy.
Whatever the problem – cost-of-living, inequality, energy poverty, violence against women, drug addiction, social conflict and alienation, including the epidemic of loneliness – all can be traced back to the failure of representative democracy.
We now have both the concept and the technology to transition from representative democracy to open democracy, underpinned by a common vision, to address the myriad of social, economic and political problems besetting the modern world.
https://pbyt.net/project-open-democracy/
The transition to open democracy based on a common vision can begin with nothing more than a world leader like President Orban declaring his support.
The essay seems quite dated, an echo of the phrase “The Personal is Political” from almost 60 years ago. Perhaps back to basics - when a crazy person gets a gun they shoot. Crazy is unpredictable.
There was an article out today harking back to 1968. And I remember my politics tutor saying in 1971 that he didn't think the USA could survive another election year like 1968. Maybe 2024 is the year of which he spoke.