Houston, We Have Website!
The era of The Misanthropundit has begun. Follow the link in the previous sentence, or above, to see the genuine, real article, under construction page. The Big Blog button brings you right back here. Folks, I had to start somewhere. I have the lot, now for the house Big Bubba Built.
posted by BigBubba at 10:06 AM
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17 Comments:
The Misanthropundit?... Of what stripe is your misanthropy? Of the Jonathan Swift variety? W.C. Fields? or Verne's "Capt. Nemo"? I certainly hope you/we faire better than the merry band of Shakespeare's "Timon of Athens"!
In other words... I hope you used a good bottle of bubbly when you struck it over prow of the domain name/URL and not some faux Champ-ale.
Buena Suerte, amigo mio. Que Dios nos accompanya!
-FJ
I found some software last night that looks like what I want. One is $300 and the other is $600. It is a process.
Ouch... there's no comparable "freeware" or shareware"?
-FJ
I like the old Bubba blog
beakerkins, nothing is going on elsewhere yet, 'cept the "under construction" page. I am going to ask for input and opinions from the regulars every step of the way. I just need multiple pages and possibly another domain, or two, for some of the things that I want to do. My new website has the capacity for 50,000 pages (10 mb) and up to four domain names.
Farmer John, I have seen some freeware, but, basically I am still looking. Of all the choices you offered I fancy a sober W.C. Fields.
Where's the Duck?
Happy Sixtieth Birthday Bubba! - Bubba
Putting a face on terror. Look for the TV screen, on the right, labeled "Secret Life of London Bomber."
Happy 60th bd BB!... and may you have many, many more!
-FJ
A few misanthropic quotes...
"Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people."
"I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally."
"I never vote for anyone; I always vote against."
"I've never struck a woman in my life, not even my own mother."
(Asked if he believed in clubs for women, Fields responded:) "Yes, if every other form of persuasion fails."
"All the men in my family were bearded, and most of the women."
(Invited to play golf by someone he didn't like, Fields responded:) "When I want to play with a prick, I'll play with my own."
“I believe in tying the marriage knot, as long as it's around the woman's neck.”
“Women are like elephants to me: nice to look at, but I wouldn't want to own one.”
“When asked : "How do you like children?") "Fried!"
“A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money.”
“Anyone who hates children and animals can't be all bad.”
“I never met a kid I liked.”
“Never give a sucker an even break.”
“Remember, a dead fish can float downstream, but it takes a live one to swim upstream.”
W. C. Fields, a lifetime agnostic, was discovered reading a Bible on his deathbed. "I'm looking for a loop-hole," he explained.
“You can't trust water: Even a straight stick turns crooked in it.”
WC: "You see, I am a member of the F.E.B.F."
Exec: "The what?"
WC: "F*ck everybody but Fields."
"I've been barbecued, stewed, screwed, tattooed, and fried by people claiming to be my friends. The human race has gone backward, not forward, since the days we were apes swinging through the trees."
"There is not a man in America who has not had a secret ambition to boot an infant."
-FJ
Happy Birthday Big Bubba and good to see Samwich is still alive and well.
The left needs a reminder about who allied with the Nazis in WW2. The Soviet - Nazi non agression pact has been forgotten.
A question for mr. ducky...
I just finished reading James Joyce's "Dubliners", and one of the footnotes in "The Committee" said that the Irish Nationalists thought "freemasonry" was a "protestant sect." Why were the Irish so obsessed with religion and determined to always frame the political debate on those terms? Does Ireland favor separation of "church and state"?
-FJ
Does anyone have a lead on abusive laundries, orphanages, industrial schools run by Baptists, Methodists or other Protestants? How about that famous Baptist, Roger Williams? Didn't he have something to say about ecclesiastical governments?
I have been slowed down the past few days because of a leg infection.
Interesting stuff gentlemen...
I posted a little research I had done on the genesis of Calvinism in the Netherlands at FPM...
FJ Post @ FPM
And so I view things a little differently... I agree with the Calvinist Treaty of Utrecht, that each state of a confederation of states should have it's own "official" religion, but that individuals within those federated states should not be required to participate (Article 13 - Freedom of conscience)...and then the further extension of free speech rights to families in 1619... and even private organizations... sort of like Roger Williams "shipboard" analogy.
Modern leaders, I think, seemed to think that "mutinous rumblings" of the crew, and even open public displays of "crew defiance" of orders given have become "acceptable", indeed "protected speech" and counter-enforced upon public ceremonies thereby denying the voiced right of the majority in public assemblies. And so I would supress "public parades" of behavior that contravene the standards of the state or county religion and arrest all such public participants and subject them to the jurisdiction of the "Nocturnal Council" (Censors) before deporting them from my state or county.
So whereas the freemasons could meet in their shrines, the Catholics in the churches, the unions in their halls in any state or county, it is when they bring (without observing ANY retrictions) ideas that contravene the will of the established majority into the public arena and demand that they be recognized by the public at large that I have a problem. I don't think that a "federal-level universal" religion should be established, but that individual "state" or even "county-level" religions should be allowed, as long as they permit "freedom of conscience"...which is what I think the 1st Amendment addressed when it said... "Congress shall make no law regarding"...
And so, if private organizations wished to pursue modifications to the state or county laws through citizen "initiatives" during a "prescribed period" immediately prior to an election, I've got no problem with that, as long it is not turned into a 365/7 un-ending assault on the established laws and religion and carried on as a "drumbeat" in the public press.
The United States currently has fifty states, meaning that we could theoretically handle up to fifty separate subcultures (or even more if enacted at a county level). And theoretically, each subculture could become a "majority" in any region they chose, and so, impose their own subculture in the "public sphere", but couldn't force it into "private" organizations, homes, or upon individuals in the public sphere (there would be an Article 13 equivalent freedom of conscience).
And when subcultures expanded or contracted, they could do as the Swiss Cantons do. People could purchase lands on the borders of the states or counties they wished to join, and after elections were held, transfer those lands to the bordering state or county, thus altering the old state borders. Fixed state and/or county boundaries would thus become a thing of the past.
But allowing states or counties to operate their own religions would require a "shrinking" of the federal role to defense, international relations, and interstate commerce. (Reminiscent of their original charter, isn't it?).
It would also over-ride the perennial "gerrymandering" activities of politicians, for I would require voting districts to truly be "majority" districts, representative of the natural cultural bonds of the citizens themselves, not 51-49 constructs in some cases, and 99-1 constructs in others that allow the political party in power to use diennial census data to acquire disproportiante representation. As political districts grew, let their representative's "voting power" grow in proportion to his districts population in the House.
The second president of the U.S., John Adams, was made infamous by his Alien and Sedition Acts... he even banned gatherings around "liberty poles" and arrested those who spoke in public against the then presiding government. It was a difficult time for the new republic, especially since the "rebellious ways" of the colonists were still fresh in people's memories and rampant....for they did not, as the indian sachem Tammanend did, expire in ball of flame... the coals were constantly re-"lighting"
Yes, allowing the states and counties would weaken the role of the federal government, I would not see this as too great a loss provided states and counties deferred all issues of defense, foreign relations, and interstate commerce to federal authorities and recognized their proper roles and responsibilities as delineated by ALL of the amendments to the U.S. Constitution (resurrecting the 9th and 10th).
And as for the military having to "accomodate" all thse subcultures and their practices, citizens would have to be aware that when they joined OR were drafted, they temporarily relinquished all "states" rights and become subject to the rules of the UCMJ and get "standardized" along with their "government issued" equipment.
Sorry, gentlemen...I guess I got carried away by some "muses" today...
-FJ
FJ,
I don't understand why in any case you would find an established religion desirable?
As for Joyce, remember that while he set all his major works in Ireland, he had a deep disdain for what he regarded as the Irish character: base, corrupt, provincial and superstitious. He had a particular contempt for Catholicism in a way that perhaps only the Irish can have, as it infused everyday life and politics. Take an impovershed nation with a once-rich culture, in effect unified by the Church (which co-opted its pagan traditions particularly effectively), subjugated and humiliated by its neighbor for centuries, then throw on top an authoritarian church that is paradoxically oppressor and liberator, collaborator and savior, and you have the peculiar neurosis known as "being Irish."
Of all the European nations, only Poland and Ireland can properly still claim to be devout. Being of partial Italian/Irish descent, I grew up wondering if I was "Roman" Catholic or "Irish" Catholic.
Norm,
I find the idea of having an established community-based religion desirable because I think it might strengthen ties in local communities and allows those communities to express their sentiments openly, without restraining their values for fear of "offending" their neighbors. And I think that the local values of the community should supercede the purely "economic" interests of the nation, for not all communities are the same.
But perhaps the main reason I support the idea of a community based religion, is that I could be ensured that the values I am trying to impart to my children are not countermanded and ridiculed in the schools they attend, by the cable channels on tv, the books they read, or by the community events they elect to participate in. Only in this way can a "village" properly raise a child.
I don't want them subjected to "national education standards". I don't want their values to have to be restricted to the "secular realm". I don't want them to think that "judging" other people's behavior (intolerance) is ALWAYS "bad"... kids need standards upon which to make judgements, and after they become of age, can choose to live according to any standards they freely choose (ie - like "Amish in the City"). After a "traditional" set of values has been imparted to them, they will be strong enough to be subject them to "critiques" and other people's opinions of right and wrong.
I thing kids need to learn "love of community" before learning about all the founders "errors" and "personal foibles", and all of the reasons why sophisticated citizens should shun them and choose to live differently.
The human brain has three major parts, id, ego, and superego. I find that some members of the left have been deliberately assaulting age old values and traditions in a deliberate attempt to break down the values imparted during parental upbringing that reside in the "superego", and thereby change the society at large (Herbert Marcuse, "Eros and Civilization"). Let them rule their own children and communities, and pass their values down to them, but leave mine alone.
Eros and Civilization
...and I find that many of the ideas of the Frankfurt School have been adopted by progressive politicians at the national level. I also find SCOTUS intrusions into community areas like "Roe" as usurpations of power. Judges should not be making laws that aren't written in the Constitution and then needlessly enforcing them universally on the population at large.
And yes, I also believe that there might actually be "better" ways of living, and I'd like the opportunity to explore those possibilities on smaller scales. Let the "successful" cultural communities grow larger, and the "unsuccessful" ones contract in a more natural culturally competitive environment. Why should we have to suffer "one-size-fits-all" legislation and values, or even worse, hip-hop for all?
Whenever Plato would subdivide his republics, he usually gave Zeus (guardian of limits and borders), Athene (guardian of wisdom and the state), and Hestia (the household gods/values) a kind of "universal" dominion (like the constitution), but then allowed "local deities" to be worshipped by the various "demes" (states). I always found this concept intellectually appealing a kind of mono-cultural/ multi-culturalism.
-FJ
mr. ducky,
That is, precisely my point. Let Massachusetts be Massachusetts.
The idea of a "national culture" and "national markets" force values down to their lowest common denominators. Sex, aggression, violence. Every day is a Dionysian festival, that never gets "redeemed" by a great morality play before everyone goes home for the rest of the year. I agree, unrestricted market capitalism has created a "junk culture".
I'm not saying we seal the borders at the state and county levels. Just let people live "differently" within them, but still be allowed complete freedom of movement. Why should we all be forced to live by the same rules? Why can't I live in a state that doesn't permit abortion? Is that tatamount to telling a woman that she is not allowed to have any control over her body? I prefer to think of it as saying she has no right to kill her unborn child. She should have "controlled her body" before arriving at the point of pregnancy. And yes, exceptions could be made, but whatever those exceptions are, they should not be construed so as to absolve her of exercising any personal responsibility. And if a woman who embraces personal irresponsibility and wants to live in a some "no fault" kind of life doesn't like those rules, SHE CAN MOVE to a place where they hand out free abortions on every streetcorner.
And the Constitution is not a "static document" that cannot accomodate change. It serves to define a process by which changes to law should be effected... even changes to the Constitution itself. What's wrong with that? You would prefer to start every session of Congress with a blank sheet of paper and no ground rules so that every meeting is one of "defining process"?
The "Code of Federal Regulations" in not an integral "part" of the Constitution. That's where the "nuclear regs" go. And if you want to "invent" some new "right" like homosexual marriage, submit it to Congress and get the States to ratify it. Don't try and back-door it in with legal mumbo- jumbo. Or even better yet, start supporting the ninth and tenth amendments so that you can enjoy whatever "rights" and "culture" you can get away with when living at home. Just don't expect me not to escort you to the border when you waltz into my county en flagrante delicto saying you have a right to wear nothing but your birthday suit in public. Everone in my county has to wear the Chador. I'll follow your rules when I come visit you.
The "Creator" was able to invent the physical laws of the universe, and never felt a need to change them. He made it so everything ran on its' own. And as a result, I can guarantee you, no one will ever violate the laws of physics.
Human's though, we're not as good at it. We seem to want to move every atom ourselves, one at a time. But let's not use the Constitution to do that.
-FJ
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