The Left's False Narrative

**Hurin_Rules** · 07-17-2005, 03:20

Originally Posted by Red Harvest

Well, duh, it can traced because we have written records. And yet there is a huge gap in there where democracy was absent. It did not return until the shackles of the aristocracy and Church were thrown off over two millenia later. Might I remind you that Athen's democracy destoryed itself? The oligarchs won. And so VDH transferred attention to Rome, which was a republic. Carthage was also a sort of elected republic as memory serves... The Framers of the US Constitution actually feared Athen's form of govt. from what I've read.

More importantly we lack information to know how many other societies operated. It is a huge leap to assume that it did not exist elsewhere...considering that there were other elected forms of govt. existing at the same time that we do know of.

Its actually even worse than that Red. If you look to the real roots (as opposed to seeds) of democratic systems in the West, they lie in the Middle Ages, not in ancient Greece. Yes, we know all about Solon and Pesistratus and Cleisthenes, but the people who constructed the first representative governments in the West did not. Whence did the first parliaments arise? Edward Longshanks had never heard of Solon.

Several more mundane and realistic sources for the parliaments can be found in the high middle Ages. One source was the Church itself. The idea of elective represenation can be found in the Reform movement of the eleventh century, which began to push for free elections of bishops from the local clergy. Since the bishop of Rome was included in all this, this gave us the modern system of election by the cardinals. Another source was the germanic traditions of local assemblies (placita, in Latin) and rule by community consensus. These ideas stretched far back into the pre literate past of the germanic peoples, and probably predate the coming of the Greeks to Greece. The Rhine and Danube did far more for democracy in Western Europe than Plato or Aristotle ever did. The Germanic warriors expected to be treated as free men and to choose their own military leaders. Finally, we can also see the beginings of communal republicanism in the Italian city states of the eleventh century. But were the men of the communes reading Solon? No. Even if they had had access to ancient Greek texts, Plato was no lover of democracy. No, the roots of representative government in the West--the English parliament, the French Estates General, the cortes of the Iberian kingdoms, the communes of Flanders and Lombardy--lie in much different soil.

Assuming the cultural superiority of the Greeks becomes harder and harder to maintain when one realizes the real roots of modern democracy.

And assuming the cultural superiority of ANYONE inevitably leads us down a slippery slope towards racism, imperialism and the unmitigated horrors of the last century. Haven't we learned our lesson yet?

**Gawain of Orkeny** · 07-17-2005, 03:38

And assuming the cultural superiority of ANYONE inevitably leads us down a slippery slope towards racism, imperialism and the unmitigated horrors of the last century. Haven't we learned our lesson yet?

Ill have to put this away for the next time some Euro tries to claim cultural superiorty of us uncultivated Americans.

How many times have we heard that?

**Azi Tohak** · 07-17-2005, 03:49

Well, the first thing I can say is that I wish I knew how to quote, but I'll just have to thank Red Harvest for these points as I copy and paste:

"The Right's first shackle is intellectual dishonesty."

In what exactly? I really do wish the White House would admit they were wrong about Iraq, about how it is going to take a long time, but what else do you want them to admit to?

"Its second shackle is intolerance. Treating the war on terror as a religious crusade is a mistake of the 1st order."

Damned skippy! I will not stand by and let some religious nut bags attack my country for whatever specious reasons they have adopted this month. But by the same token, this is not a war against Islam. If it was, wouldn't you think we would have imported some of our own wonderful Jehovah’s Witnesses to convert the Muslims of Iraq? No, the government does not want a puppet state, they want a beacon for the rest of the middle east to rally around. And the war is a crusade, as defined by dictionary.com:

cru•sade
n.
often Crusade Any of the military expeditions undertaken by European Christians in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries to recover the Holy Land from the Muslims.
A holy war undertaken with papal sanction.
A vigorous concerted movement for a cause or against an abuse.

Yup, this is most definitely a crusade. Time to rid the world of nutbag Muslim extremists. And I will not tolerate their views that the US government is responsible for the way the world it is today. As fashionable as that is, to blame the US, couldn't France or China have helped out the poor, put-out Muslims that were constantly oppressed by the US? Sure. Did they?

"Its third shackle is believing nobody to the Left of Dubya could fight a war, or do it better. History proves otherwise. And when the history of the present is written, people are going to be looking back saying "WTF?""

Oh yes, (democrat) FDR did great fighting the war didn't he? All he did was allow the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor and not tell any of the 3000 dead (in one morning remember, the left is going ape we have lost 1700 in how many months now?) they were going to get a nasty surprise. FDR allowed Stalin to take half of Europe, and that half is still paying for what happened. Did FDR do the right think? I'm in no position to judge. The best thing he did during the war was keep the people on the home front supportive of it, while staying the heck out of Marshall's way. But remember, the media during the war, with a democrat president in office, was not howling over every dead solider the way our media loves to do, to put as horrible light as possible on Bush and the Republican party.

Then of course there is LBJ. He did brilliantly didn't he? I've got no more to say on him.

Lincoln was a Republican wasn't he? And it was the Democrats who wanted to keep slaves...ahh yes..

Then there is Woodrow Wilson, who refused to get involved in a war until his allies had effectively won it for him (wow…so THAT is where France gets it’s current foreign policy form…).

Seems to me HISTORY has proven that the left, which for some reason has been in power during most of our major wars, has avoided getting involved until our interests were threatened. No chance of (like Lincoln and Bush) starting a war for what is right is there? Nope, we are perfectly content in our moral relativism.

“Its fourth shackle is mistaking its view for moral/religious righteousness--i.e. never being able to admit a mistake.”

A. Has the left ever said “Oops we did it again”?
B. You know as well as I do that to admit a mistake is to cut your own foot off in the next election. Speaking of elections, has the Democratic Party ever apologized for Kerry as their choice? Hell, “Anybody but Bush” should have worked great. Was Kerry really the best choice?
C. Yes, I will agree there is too much religious influence in the Republican party. But the good news is, because of that, people know where Republicans STAND, as opposed to Democrats, who do whatever they think will keep them in power longer (i.e. Kerry, Clinton, LBJ, Carter). I say too much only because I disagree with the party on some big issues.

continue to part II

**Azi Tohak** · 07-17-2005, 03:49

“Its fifth shackle is that it can't do simple arithmetic--in war or at home.”

Let me see:

X number of terrorists – 1 dead terrorist (or imprisoned too) = fewer terrorists right?

But I might have to get someone from Harvard, Yale (you know, the Ivy league schools, the only places where smrt people come from, just ask the Democratic Parties leadership about THAT one) to prove that one for your satisfaction.

What else…ooo…more money in the hands of people means more money flowing through the economy right? Unless the people are too scared to invest because the media keeps telling them the sky is falling (which only happened under Bush, therefore it was Bush’s fault right?).

Oh, and here is another one:

National Tax Income – Democrat policies intended to keep them in favor = less money for body armor and APCs right?

I love how the media tries to blame Bush for that too. No. It is Democrats who want to cut military spending (except when it suits them and they have enough publicity) and pay for other pandering projects. Republicans want to increase military funding, at the expense of the pandering projects. But people like being pandered to (see FDR), so the constant increases in pork-barrel projects just hurt the military. I think that is pretty simple math.

Being an engineer, I might be able to do some math. Care to give me any? Mind, this has to be simple math, like how many Democrats does it take to screw in a light bulb.

“From the book I quickly concluded the guy has a serious Western superiority complex that seriously erodes the quality of his writing. It has that stench of colonial racial superiority.”

Ah yes…and racial superiority is only held by white males, who happen to go to church and stay married to their wives right? China is so wonderfully open and friendly! Just ask Tibet. I hear it is lovely in the winter when Chinese tanks go home. Or Japan? Isn’t gaijin an insult there?

I think that covers what I wanted to say about Red’s points.

And why am I reminded of Wasabi’s signature?

Azi

Sorry about the multiple posts, but the computer was having troubles with some math symbols.