--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, enlightened_dawn11 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > i find it odd that those who would criticize our next President for > the company he may keep hold him to an impossible standard, and one > that is impossible for any public figure to uphold. > > the way these accusations are always framed imply that as a public > figure, you are responsible for the lives, values, judgments, > speech and actions of everyone you have ever had more than a > passing association with, past and present. > > that is completely absurd, and certainly does not reflect the > christian values of forgiveness, compassion and self-reflection. it > is a really ugly spin. > > what is the next step? we draw up a list of each of the major > candidates' associations from the time they reached 18 'til now, > match each association against criteria that define each > association as "palling around" or not, and then take a microscope > to each of the people's lives deemed to be "palling around" with > the candidate in question? > > pardon me, but what a load of bullshit.
As a point of passing historical interest, from the token Cathar freak on this forum, this load of bullshit was first popularized by a man named Domenico Guzman, and the brotherhood of Dominican monks he founded, otherwise known as the Office Of The Holy Inquisition. All trials held by the Inquisition were pretty much a foregone conclusion; if you were called before the Inquisition, you were guilty. So the *point* of the trials was not to "punish the guilty." It was to provide a public forum as, tortured into doing whatever they were told to do, the heretics "named names." That is, they were made to "confess" the names of pretty much everyone they knew or had ever known. And the reason for extracting these names was to inspire terror in the general population, because the rule of law under the Inquisition was that if you knew a person who had been condemned as a heretic, you were a heretic, too. Done deal. It didn't even matter if you had just talked to him on the street, you were as guilty as he was, and as liable to be sent to the stake. It was a brilliant form of mindfuck then, and it is now. The purpose of this tactic was to make the population afraid to even talk with folks who might have "heretical ideas." Me, I want as leader of my country someone who is unafraid to sit down at a table with ANYONE, and talk things over with them. I want that leader to actually *listen* as the other person speaks, and try to figure out where he's coming from. And I want that leader to weigh what the other person says in coming to a reasoned and rational decision. To suggest that it is bad to talk to someone who thinks differently than you do is to suggest that it is bad to think.
