Hi Jason
> From another old bit of parchment: "The thing that hath been, it is
that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be
done: and there is no new thing under the sun
wait... that was in the bible? i always presented it as a logical
argument- had reasoning and eveything.
:-) Why shouldn't it be logical?
It's from Ecclesiastes. Careful, or I'll post the whole thing, I love
it! I'm far from the only one, eg:
Ecclesiastes has had a deep influence on Western literature:
American novelist Thomas Wolfe wrote: "[O]f all I have ever seen or
learned, that book seems to me the noblest, the wisest, and the most
powerful expression of man's life upon this earth - and also the
highest flower of poetry, eloquence, and truth. I am not given to
dogmatic judgments in the matter of literary creation, but if I had
to make one I could say that Ecclesiastes is the greatest single
piece of writing I have ever known, and the wisdom expressed in it
the most lasting and profound."
Admittedly it doesn't have a lot in common with the rest of the Bible.
crap... anyways, i'm not saying he's wrong, i'm saying what good ol'
mark twain did so long ago "history might not repeat, but it
certainly rhymes".
its not the constitution, per se that is causing the problems, it's
the fact that we didn't go right ahead and do what was suggested
those 236 years ago, and re-write it every twenty-five years.
Ah, yes. Instead of that it got 10 times older than its use-by date,
and in the meantime the political system gained such a Gothic
accumulation of patches and fixes and add-ons and excrescences that
it's hard to see how it could possibly hope to achieve anything at
all, let alone stuff like democracy and progress. Obese and senile.
On the other hand, "The Founding Fathers Versus The Gun Nuts", which
I just posted, has something to say for it.
i just about guarantee my kids have little or no connection to the
social/political environment of even my parents, let alone that of
1776.
Safe bet.
shit happens, rules get outmoded, people die, and so on, ad infinitum.
:-) Sounds like a New York version of Ecclesiastes. I like it!
Bartleby's version:
Ecclesiastes
http://www.bartleby.com/44/4/1.html
Regardds
Keith
> Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2013 20:47:05 +0200
To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org
From: ke...@journeytoforever.org
Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Let's Give Up on the Constitution
Hi Jason
>"giving up" on the constitution would just give the US a new
>constitution. tradition and respect? that's all well and good, but
>somebody's going to want to write it down sometime or another, and
>it'll be the same rusty old arguments with a different piece of
>parchment two hundred years from now... there's no such thing as
>"new".
Paper shredders? :-)
Sorry... He does have a point though, more than one, IMHO.
From another old bit of parchment: "The thing that hath been, it is
that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be
done: and there is no new thing under the sun."
Would that it were still so. Until not very long ago, people were
born, and not long after that they'd die, and between the two events
very little changed, if anything. Now, for many or most of us, change
is about the only thing you can rely on (seven billion humans ain't
new?).
The Bible is a wonderful book to go cherry-picking in. I suspect it's
the same with the other great religions. And I think the US
Constitution is often just the same - I posted a recent article
explaining the crucial difference between what it actually says and
what most Americans think it says about gun rights, for instance. Too
often, it's just dogma. You don't need it. Other countries don't even
have a constitution, like the UK, for instance.
Literal, or legalistic, interpretations of the past aren't always the
> best guide to dealing with today's problems, let alone tomorrow's.
Things do change:
>> > And a genocide, and a civil war, over slavery.
>>
>>The interesting thing for me is that slavery was not a problem for
>>Jesus (I'm not sure about most other major religions but I think
>>this is true of them also), and nowhere does He mention democracy,
>>equal rights, or any of the current cornerstone concepts we take
>>for granted as truth. That is a surprise to me, and I wonder why,
>>and I wonder what deep and complex lessons that might have for us,
>>and what it tells us about our new thinking. And if democracy was
>>not mentioned as a system of government, then what was, and why?
>
>They had the Roman Empire on one hand and kings and priests on the
>other, there probably wasn't much left to discuss.
>
>But then they didn't argue about healthcare either, nor women's
>rights, or racism, the environment, libraries, education. We do make
>progress, we humans, we have a much better class of problems now.
All best
Keith
> > Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2013 23:54:37 +0200
>> To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org
>> From: ke...@journeytoforever.org
>> Subject: [Biofuel] Let's Give Up on the Constitution
>>
> > http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33506.htm
>>
>> Let's Give Up on the Constitution
>>
> > > By LOUIS MICHAEL SEIDMAN
_______________________________________________
Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list
Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org
http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
