Michael L.
Debating America’s Ideological Origins: Part III in Lumish Vs Swindle.
PJ Lifestyle editor, David Swindle, and myself are having a very interesting discussion around disagreements concerning the founding fathers and classical liberalism.
My latest contribution, linked to above, outlines historian Bernard Bailyn's argument as to the ideological sources of the American Revolution and to the Constitution of the United States. Swindle sees Judeo-Christian ideology behind our form of government, whereas Bailyn also includes, rightly so, the Heritage of Classical Antiquity, English Common Law, and the European tradition of Enlightenment Rationalism.
The piece then transitions toward a more personal conversation around the differences in our individual political evolution within recent years.
It's a very interesting discussion, so far and I would very much encourage you guys to check it out.
Part One by Lumish - Politics Vs Theology: Beginning A Debate With David Swindle
Part Two by Swindle - Secular Political Ideology Vs. Biblical Moral Values: Continuing a Debate with Michael Lumish
The Day of the Dhimmi is Done - Michael Lumish, PhD, proprietor. (mike.lumish@gmail.com)
You've mentioned being a cook before, but I never knew you went to CIA. I wish I could focus my online attention more towards food, as well, but as long as there are insidious tools like David Harris-Gershon and his type out there, I tend to feel a much more immediate need to focus on them, instead.
ReplyDeleteYou are forgiven for being a childhood Yankee fan, I suppose. ;)
If Daily Kos was good for anything, it was for exposing a certain ugly underbelly of the Left, which I honestly didn't know existed to the extent that it does.
I'm still a liberal, of course, and still a member of the Democratic Party, but I do tend to keep a wary eye these days, and I'm glad I read much more widely than I used to, and consider ideas from all across the political spectrum, regardless of their source.
Except for anti-Zionists, Klan members, NOI types, and other such bigots, of course...
There I was in my chef whites and toque, standing before my cutting board, a 12" Henckel in hand, and a steaming, freshly poached pig's head in front of me. The site was grotesque, vaguely nauseating, and it was my job to make head cheese!
DeleteDelicious head cheese. I kid you not.
It was probably the single most disgusting task that I ever had to do as a cook. In fact, it may have been the single most disgusting task that I ever had to do, period.
I had to poach the pig's head and then de-bone it. I chopped up the meat and fat to a small to medium dice and then made gelatin from the bones as a binding agent.
You add the spices, mix it all together, chill it down, and, Voila!, head cheese.
{Then you run off and throw up or something.}
"If Daily Kos was good for anything, it was for exposing a certain ugly underbelly of the Left, which I honestly didn't know existed to the extent that it does."
That was definitely my experience, as well. Y'know, after 9/11 only ten percent of the American population, or thereabouts, had unfavorable feelings for GWB. I was part of that 10 percent. I absolutely loathed the Bush II administration and I was grateful to come across dkos in 2005 or 2006 or whenever the hell it was.
For a long time I felt a sense of camaraderie with the people there.
But then, more and more, I began to see true malice directed at the Jewish national home. It was a consistent pattern of defamation often tinged with outright anti-Jewish bigotry of the sort that eventually lead to the Holocaust. All this talk of undue Jewish influence, justified by people such as Mearsheimer and Walt. This intense focus on any perceived Israeli Jewish wrongdoing - real or imagined - combined with a complete indifference toward things like the Darfuran genocide or the Congolese genocide, not to mention the ongoing occupation of Tibet.
And, as you know, the gradual acceptance of anti-Semitic anti-Zionists as part of the larger progressive coalition caused me to leave town entirely.
I do not blame you for hanging in there, tho, because I know that you are fighting the good fight.