Letters to the Editor
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Published Letters: 1420 Editor's Choice: 20
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Xlp Thlplylp
[Read the article: The Lawless Surveillance State]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I am aware of the lip service paid to the power of wealth by the founding fathers (and the other non-founding fathers you mention, such as Milton Friedman and Eisenhower). The more nuanced point is that this lip service never managed to find its way into the constitution, which is designed to protect the property rights (a notion which it leaves essentially unanalyzed) of the wealthy against the impediment of democracy.
There are constitutional limitations on government, but not on corporations.
There should not need to be constitutional limitations on corporations, which, as you know, are legalistic inventions, constructs chartered by the states, and given certain economic powers on the theory that corporations are a benefit to the people. Meaning actual persons, and not legal persons.
But corporations are also to be highly constrained by the laws, to counterbalance those powers and to prevent the abuse of those powers. Quite obviously, the simple act of buying politicians for the purpose of evading their responsibilities and obligations under the law undermines the basic system of corporate governance and should be considered criminality of the highest order.
Obviously, many corporations do not live up to their charters and are a danger to the people and to our government, which is promised to be "of the people, by the people, for the people". I figure about ten percent of them need to have their charters revoked immediately, their assets liquidated, and their officers prosecuted. Lobbying and corporate campaign contributions should be banned outright.
Just doing that would probably, eventually, allow for the resolution of every serious problem the country has. Conversely, failure to do so is certain to result in a corporatist totalitarianism that will make life on earth a living hell for everybody but the corporatists and their goon squads. A lot of the third world has already succumbed to corporatism. We're next.
Americans take a great deal for granted. My guess is that it is probably too late already to reverse current trends.
The question is whether government and business exist to serve the interests of society - or whether society exists to serve the interests of business and government.
Increasingly, that choice is being made for society by government and business, who deny that America was founded for the benefit of "We the People". The concept that the the US is a country of the People, by the People, for the People"s far too 'socialistic' to accomodate their taste for greed and power, and this is why corporatists hate democracy, and by extension, hate America and its people, and are so intent on undermining it for their own unworthy purposes.
It gets worse the more you look at it. We are in grave danger.
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So many straw men, so little time.
[Read the article: The atheist delusion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Haught doesn't offer any reasonable criticism of atheism, and no reasonable defense of religion, precisely because there aren't any. He does offer a lot of false reasoning, invalid assumptions, bad presumptions, all the while pretending to some Higher Truth.
That's dishonest. Evidently it is Haught who is delusional, and not atheists.
The problem is that simple facts and simple reasoning, much less science, clearly show that many of the claims of religion are absolutely false. It's not the fault of science that religion is wrong, but science gets attacked anyway. Not the other way around. Religion is dishonest about that, but then, religion depends on dishonesty.
Religion cannot dismiss factual reasoning and at the same time claim to be reasonable. That's a contradiction. But that's what religion insists on doing. And that's dishonest also.
Moreover, the more facts and reasoning you show religionists the more angry they get, and if you show them enough they lose their tempers:
Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed. Faith must trample underfoot all reason, sense, and understanding, and whatever it sees must be put out of sight and ... know nothing but the word of God.
- Martin Luther
It is also dishonest for religion to claim that it's not possible to 'prove or disprove' the existence of gods, because proof is for strictly for mathematics and cannot be applied to the empirical world, for which one must resort to evidence and logic. It's a red herring, because the concept simply does not apply.
It doesn't help for religionists to claim that gods belong to the spiritual world, and not the physical world, because that would be an admission that gods do not exist in the physical world but only in the imaginations of religionists, and therefore that gods do not exist. This they have to avoid, like all facts and reasoning. That's dishonest too.
But religionists do require it to apply, and again, religion is dishonest. There are no valid facts and no valid logic which demonstrate that gods exist, exactly as there are no valid facts and no valid logic which demonstrate that unicorns exist. Therefore, unicorns do not exist. Neither does the Easter bunny, the Tooth Fairy, or Santa Claus. And neither do gods.
But religionists nevertheless insist that gods do exist, and are prepared to lie and kill if you don't believe in gods in the same way that they do. Any characteristic contrary to the beliefs of religionists makes the possessor subject to their attack. I submit to you that religion is contrary to morals by its very nature.
It's remarkable how much the invisible resembles the non-existent. Show me the unicorns. Then we'll talk.
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AnOptomist
[Read the article: The atheist delusion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It angers you deeply that people like me sleep peacefully in the certainty of purpose, and hope and love and meaning because of our Faith in what we see (a universe Created by a God who loves you and me).
You're quite mistaken when you say "It angers you deeply". False presumptuousness on your part, and as usual quite dishonest.
Proves my point: religion is by its nature contrary to morals.
No, not angry. Just disappointed that you're willfully stoopid, and proud of it.
At least you don't claim to be 'reasonable'. That would be dishonest also.