Happy Birthday USA

[EnderAndrew]

I understand parliament. What I don't understand is what role royalty still serves.

[213374U]

Tradition, I guess.

[Walsingham]

The monarch is the head of state and serves as the 'constitutional longstop'. That is, she ultimately can choose to dissolve or form governments any way she wants. She also is head of the Armed Forces. However, attempting to invoke these powers for any reason other than one with immense popular support would result in the end of the monarchy. hence the theory among those who believe it is that she acts to prevent some sort of dictatorship arising.

 

It also means Murdoch can't elect our head of state, and annoys the fat bastard enormously. Which is cause enough in my book.

[Darth Flatus]

For all intenst and purposes the royalty serves as decoration. From what i hear it would cost a lot more to have a president as head of state. SO there's no real problem.

[Walsingham]

last figure I heard is that she costs 20 million, and generates 100 million. Which means she sustains about four large hospitals. Not bad.

 

The only thing I do object to is the civil list. There are nth cousins of the queen who do nothing but canter about trying to wear more outrageous clothes than their peers, who get thousands a year. ...Then attack the welfare state!

[metadigital]

Mecca is in Saudi Arabia.  I always thought Mecca was their holiest place, and non-Muslims are not allowed near it.  However, the History channel's recent show on Jerusalem had Muslims claiming Jerusalem was their holiest city.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The Hajj is the the fifth of the Five Pillars of Islam; the pilgrimage to Mecca (the holiest city in Islam),

Madinah, (the second holiest city on Islam, where Muhammad migrated to, the migration is called the Hijra).

 

Jerusalem is the location of the Temple that houses the tomb of Abraham (the Great Patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity and Islam).

 

 

 

Ironically the name "Jerusalem" comes from the Hebrew for "Heritage of Peace" - a contraction of "heritage" (yerusha) and Salem (Shalem literally "whole" or "complete") or "peace" (shalom).

[Azarkon]

Azarkon, you can't complain about people presenting facts to cow the oppostion. It beats the hell out of random ranting. Facts are at least something you can check up on, or should be. You take into account the number and the sources and you modifies your position, if necessary.

 

That's not what I complained about. I'm merely observing the miserable state of ignorance we ALL live in, since no one has the truth in the big picture and everyone's experiences determine the facts they know. That's a terrible way to judge, and yet it is the way the world works. And no, checking up on facts do not help: a stroll through google will not give you the truth anymore than reading the newspaper will.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

That's not what I complained about.  I'm merely observing the miserable state of ignorance we ALL live in, since no one has the truth in the big picture and everyone's experiences determine the facts they know.  That's a terrible way to judge, and yet it is the way the world works.  And no, checking up on facts do not help: a stroll through google will not give you the truth anymore than reading the newspaper will.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Short of actually being an eye witness all you can do is look at sources and conclude what you can from then.

[metadigital]

Azarkon, you can't complain about people presenting facts to cow the oppostion. It beats the hell out of random ranting. Facts are at least something you can check up on, or should be. You take into account the number and the sources and you modifies your position, if necessary.

 

That's not what I complained about. I'm merely observing the miserable state of ignorance we ALL live in, since no one has the truth in the big picture and everyone's experiences determine the facts they know. That's a terrible way to judge, and yet it is the way the world works. And no, checking up on facts do not help: a stroll through google will not give you the truth anymore than reading the newspaper will.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You are portraying an unnecessarily bleak and misrepresentative analysis of the world's information resources.

 

Apart from certain unimportant specifics, facts about historical and political issues are well documented and analyzed, should you look in the correct places. I don't think a "democratic" (as in "universal access, no censorship") information source like the internet is the best place; better to use trusted sources, as the trusted information is what is required for value judgements.

 

History books are a good start. Biographies of important historical leaders, and synopses of ideologies and philosphy are all good sources.

 

It is even possible to research biased reports, as long as the bias is known and correlated to the information sources.

 

Try harder.

[Darth Flatus]

Also learn to diferentiate quality of historical or in fact any type of info source.

[EnderAndrew]

the fifth of the Five Pillars of Islam; the pilgrimage to Mecca (the holiest city in Islam),

Madinah, (the second holiest city on Islam, where Muhammad migrated to, the migration is called the  Hijra).

 

Jerusalem is the location of the Temple that houses the tomb of Abraham (the Great Patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity and Islam).

 

 

 

Ironically the name "Jerusalem" comes from the Hebrew for "Heritage of Peace" - a contraction of "heritage" (yerusha) and Salem (Shalem literally "whole" or "complete") or "peace" (shalom).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks for the info. I like learning new things.

 

I thought Hajj was just a generic term for pilgrimage.

[Azarkon]

Short of actually being an eye witness all you can do is look at sources and conclude what you can from then.

 

Correct, and that's the pity.

 

You are portraying an unnecessarily bleak and misrepresentative analysis of the world's information resources.

 

Apart from certain unimportant specifics, facts about historical and political issues are well documented and analyzed, should you look in the correct places. I don't think a "democratic" (as in "universal access, no censorship") information source like the internet is the best place; better to use trusted sources, as the trusted information is what is required for value judgements.

 

History books are a good start. Biographies of important historical leaders, and synopses of ideologies and philosphy are all good sources.

 

It is even possible to research biased reports, as long as the bias is known and correlated to the information sources.

 

Try harder.

 

Not at all, if by correctly analyzed, you mean disputed back and forth for decades, moreso ignored by the public, who would rather listen to propaganda.

 

History books are at times as biased as anything else, especially the history books used in the education system. Specialty history books written by eye witness scholars may carry more weight, but they're still often one-sided sources. To get the whole picture you must not only look at both sides of the equation, but you must be personally involved in it. Anything less and your information source is at best second-hand and more likely third or fourth hand, and more often than you believe that information is lacking.

 

The books are rarely wrong - they seldom lie - but they are often lacking in the sense of not presenting the whole picture. And that, in history, is as dangerous as telling a lie. Here's the key problem: you can't *prove* easily that one source is correct whereas another is wrong, because your information is mostly a network of sources, seldom first-hand accounts. Without going into conspiracy theories, I hope you at least recognize that the flow of information is heavily regulated by government interests, and that while the media has a certain degree of mud racking capabilities, true breakthroughs of held secrets are far and few in-between without the presence of cooperative insiders.

 

The irony of the whole situation is that grand failures, such as Watergate and Black Hawk Down, are often picked up by the mediau by virtue of the fact that they were failures and could not be controlled. But successes are seldom known, because they represent situations in which the perpetrating organization is in control. Add to this the natural ability of people to bend the truth to their interests, and the information that flows to you, the public joe, is always in danger of lacking key details. And this they must, because if you were to go out and look and mud rake yourself, as I did, you will find that with regards to Iraq there are multiple perspectives on almost everything. Nothing, in the real world, is in black and white. Terrorists and suicide bombers that target innocent civilians do not do so because they are evil, but because they are desperate and easily corrupted by those who control their flow of information. Standing on a safe moral high horse it's easy to argue otherwise, until you yourself are put in the same situation of day to day live and death. People condemn soldiers that shoot civilians and torture prisoners without knowing the paranoid and feverish psychology of war. People condemn terorrists without knowing that they too are essentially soldiers caught in the same situations. In the end, it's ignorance on every side that creates the atrocities - and yet we continue down this road of fighting ignorance through ignorance.

[Hildegard]

Terrorists and suicide bombers that target innocent civilians do not do so because they are evil, but because they are desperate and easily corrupted by those who control their flow of information.  Standing on a safe moral high horse it's easy to argue otherwise, until you yourself are put in the same situation of day to day live and death.  People condemn soldiers that shoot civilians and torture prisoners without knowing the paranoid and feverish psychology of war.  People condemn terorrists without knowing that they too are essentially soldiers caught in the same situations.  In the end, it's ignorance on every side that creates the atrocities - and yet we continue down this road of fighting ignorance through ignorance.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Man, are you going to get flamed by the neo-con dickheads.......

[Walsingham]

Azarkon: I think I followed most of your arguement. But I'd disagree on some of your last points. I can understand why a soldier commits torture against a POW, and why in the midst of a firefight a soldier can shoot a civilian. I cannot condone the former, and believe it should always be punished. For without punishment of such behaviour it becomes more likely. The latter is more complex, since it can be the result of a genuine mistake, but it should be investigated where possible, and punished where it was the result of reckless behaviour.

 

Similarly, I can understand and agree that a terrorist 'soldier' is often the product of controlled information coming on top of ignorance. The Pakistani madrassahs are infamous for this. Orphans are taken at an early age and exposed to nothing but the narrow views of an extremist. small wonder then that they emerge with a strange perspective. However, that does not excuse the behaviour nor does it make our response any different. A man carrying the ebola virus can have all my sympathy, but I'm going to stop the s.o.b. dead if he looks like infecting others.

 

But I agree with your conclusion. Ignorance is the chief enemy. Or rather, understanding is our ally. Which is why internet forums are worth spending time arguing over! :D

 

EDIT: new improved neo-con flaming. Now with 50% less flame!

[metadigital]

Short of actually being an eye witness all you can do is look at sources and conclude what you can from then.

Correct, and that's the pity.

 

You are portraying an unnecessarily bleak and misrepresentative analysis of the world's information resources.

 

Apart from certain unimportant specifics, facts about historical and political issues are well documented and analyzed, should you look in the correct places. I don't think a "democratic" (as in "universal access, no censorship") information source like the internet is the best place; better to use trusted sources, as the trusted information is what is required for value judgements.

 

History books are a good start. Biographies of important historical leaders, and synopses of ideologies and philosphy are all good sources.

 

It is even possible to research biased reports, as long as the bias is known and correlated to the information sources.

 

Try harder.

 

Not at all, if by correctly analyzed, you mean disputed back and forth for decades, moreso ignored by the public, who would rather listen to propaganda.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Again, I think you are exagerating for effect. There is a great deal of will to understand problems, moreso when one's own problems are under control.

History books are at times as biased as anything else, especially the history books used in the education system.  Specialty history books written by eye witness scholars may carry more weight, but they're still often one-sided sources.  To get the whole picture you must not only look at both sides of the equation, but you must be personally involved in it.  Anything less and your information source is at best second-hand and more likely third or fourth hand, and more often than you believe that information is lacking. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

History books report facts, which are not up for interpretation, e.g. William the Conqueror did invade Britain, was a Norman, and the language imposed on the residents was French. We may not know what colour undergarments he wore, but we do know the big things. Whether they are presented in a glowing rose-coloured light is irrelevant, because historians are paid to peer through that veil when reading accounts, in oder to present their analyses.

 

And you are again making light of the whole discipline of history. It is very rare that subjective interpretations are presented as facts by professionals (unless they are giving a synopsis for braodcast media " ); the standard procedure is to say:

In the case of X, it resulted in Y, and was either due to A or B. The independent evidence seems to corroborate A, but -- if truth be told -- there was probably a bit of B and even C as well.

 

See?

The books are rarely wrong - they seldom lie - but they are often lacking in the sense of not presenting the whole picture.  And that, in history, is as dangerous as telling a lie.  Here's the key problem: you can't *prove* easily that one source is correct whereas another is wrong, because your information is mostly a network of sources, seldom first-hand accounts.  Without going into conspiracy theories, I hope you at least recognize that the flow of information is heavily regulated by government interests, and that while the media has a certain degree of mud racking capabilities, true breakthroughs of held secrets are far and few in-between without the presence of cooperative insiders. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Nope. You are describing ancient historical fables and myths, and ascribing the those descriptions to modern hsitory. We know the exact details of the lead up to WW1 (for example); how the assassination of the Arch Duke in the Balkans was blown into a global confict by virtue of the rampant nationalism and foolish treaty system, how the Germans were punished with reparations for "starting the war" and the resultant WW2, and furthermore, the world has learned from such things.

 

You are also completely avoiding the concept of third party records. We can safely rely on information gathered from a third party that relates to a subject that has no impact on them. Further, we can impose a filter to calibrate such information relative to the biases and beliefs of the people who provided it.

The irony of the whole situation is that grand failures, such as Watergate and Black Hawk Down, are often picked up by the mediau by virtue of the fact that they were failures and could not be controlled.  But successes are seldom known, because they represent situations in which the perpetrating organization is in control.  Add to this the natural ability of people to bend the truth to their interests, and the information that flows to you, the public joe, is always in danger of lacking key details.  And this they must, because if you were to go out and look and mud rake yourself, as I did, you will find that with regards to Iraq there are multiple perspectives on almost everything.  Nothing, in the real world, is in black and white.  Terrorists and suicide bombers that target innocent civilians do not do so because they are evil, but because they are desperate and easily corrupted by those who control their flow of information.  Standing on a safe moral high horse it's easy to argue otherwise, until you yourself are put in the same situation of day to day live and death.  People condemn soldiers that shoot civilians and torture prisoners without knowing the paranoid and feverish psychology of war.  People condemn terorrists without knowing that they too are essentially soldiers caught in the same situations.  In the end, it's ignorance on every side that creates the atrocities - and yet we continue down this road of fighting ignorance through ignorance.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm really not sure what point you are trying to make here.

 

If you are saying that the world is a complex place, and that simple platitudes written in black and white do not represent the complexities, then you are correct.

 

If you are saying that no-one is able to unpick the intricacies, then I suggest you enrol in further education, and take a modern history course. Your first essay will be thrown out, if it includes such generalisations as you on the one hand condemn and on the other use to support your condemnation.

 

I am not an expert on Iraq, yet that does not preclude me from believing there are such people, and to seek their expertise when necessary. For example, would you dismiss the bombing reports of the Bagdad Blogger during GW2? You have to know what questions to ask, to whom.

 

You seem to have a trust issue with information sources; perhaps this is a factor of your experience, rather than a blanket malfunction of information technology?

[SteveThaiBinh]

History books report facts, which are not up for interpretation, e.g. William the Conqueror did invade Britain, was a Norman, and the language imposed on the residents was French. We may not know what colour undergarments he wore, but we do know the big things. Whether they are presented in a glowing rose-coloured light is irrelevant, because historians are paid to peer through that veil when reading accounts, in oder to present their analyses.

 

And you are again making light of the whole discipline of history. It is very rare that subjective interpretations are presented as facts by professionals (unless they are giving a synopsis for braodcast media  " ); the standard procedure is to say:

In the case of X, it resulted in Y, and was either due to A or B. The independent evidence seems to corroborate A, but -- if truth be told -- there was probably a bit of B and even C as well.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't entirely agree. While history books do include a lot of facts, these facts can be selected according to the bias of the author. It's possible to argue that even the most diligent author who tries to be wholly objective cannot avoid the biasing influences of her own cultural background.

 

Recently, there was a huge row between China and Japan over Japanese school textbooks, in which the massacre of thousands at Nanjing was described as an 'incident'. That is undoubtedly true - but is it 'the truth'?

 

Moreover, while history books contain facts, they mainly contain argument supported by evidence. Different historical interpretations are possible of the same events using the same facts. That's why history is an art, not a science.

 

Azarkon, it's very interesting to read through your ideas. It looks like you're advocating an epistemological position that it's not possible to know the absolute truth of something, only to get some degree of understanding it by looking at it from several directions, all of which only give part of the whole picture. You might be taking a representationalist or idealist view, I'm not certain - or something else quite different (I struggle to understand all of this ). These are serious and widely-held views of the world, among philosophers and academics. Not everyone believes that the empirical approaches of the natural sciences work well when applied to understanding human behaviour.

[Aponez]

The last great hope of mankind.  May I not live to see the last day of the United States.  I beg no forgiveness for my love of country.  Happy birthday, indeed.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

You don't want live to see their last day Eldar, but I'll not drop any tear for them

[EnderAndrew]

Don't Cry For Me Argentina

[Aponez]

Don't Cry For Me Argentina

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

:D :D :D :D

[metadigital]

I don't entirely agree.  While history books do include a lot of facts, these facts can be selected according to the bias of the author.  It's possible to argue that even the most diligent author who tries to be wholly objective cannot avoid the biasing influences of her own cultural background.

 

Recently, there was a huge row between China and Japan over Japanese school textbooks, in which the massacre of thousands at Nanjing was described as an 'incident'.  That is undoubtedly true - but is it 'the truth'?

 

Moreover, while history books contain facts, they mainly contain argument supported by evidence.  Different historical interpretations are possible of the same events using the same facts.  That's why history is an art, not a science.

 

Azarkon, it's very interesting to read through your ideas.  It looks like you're advocating an epistemological position that it's not possible to know the absolute truth of something, only to get some degree of understanding it by looking at it from several directions, all of which only give part of the whole picture.  You might be taking a representationalist or idealist view, I'm not certain - or something else quite different (I struggle to understand all of this ).  These are serious and widely-held views of the world, among philosophers and academics.  Not everyone believes that the empirical approaches of the natural sciences work well when applied to understanding human behaviour.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

No Steve, you are guilty of reductio ad absurdum.

 

It is patently clear to everyone involved that the Japanese are not putting history into their new historical textbooks, they are deliberately trying to revise it. There were something in the order of a third of a million civilians killed and raped (of all ages and genders, and not in any specific oder) at Nanking.

 

It's not the first time the Japanese have done it, either. The building of the Burma railway was a forced labour camp in WW2, where about the same number of allied soldiers died (from disease and starvation) in a similarly horrific manner to the Jews in German concentration camps (Arbeit mach Frei), yet barely anyone under fifty has even a remote idea that Japanese militaristic expansionist empire-building started the Pacific WW2 conflict, let alone they commited atrocities that plumbed the depths of human depravity. The fat that Horihito was not only excused from trial, and also left in power is a disgrace to the memory of all those Commonwealth soldiers who were captured in the fall of Singapore (when the water supply was cut off).

 

So what the Japanese are doing is not history. And everybody knows it.

 

Sure there is a bias in writing a contemporary political document, which then becomes a historical record. But if one is aware of it, one can allow for the bias and read between the lines.

 

Pr

[SteveThaiBinh]

No Steve, you are guilty of reductio ad absurdum.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Am not!!!

 

Seriously, I don't agree with you, and I'd be happy to discuss this further, but not on this thread because it's too far off topic now and liable to imminent closure.

[metadigital]

I don't see the problem, this was a topical thread, anyway. :D

 

What don't you agree with, specifically?

 

My history? The Japanese even used germ warfare: Plague virus was found in Nanking.

 

Or my assertion that the important big ticket items can be gained by studying history?

[SteveThaiBinh]

These are the bits I don't agree with.

It is patently clear to everyone involved that the Japanese are not putting history into their new historical textbooks, they are deliberately trying to revise it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It's not patently clear to everyone involved. The Japanese that I know who support these textbooks aren't disputing the facts, they're disputing the importance and interpretation of those facts. Revising history is not the same as falsifying history - it's finding a new interpretation based as much on the facts as the old one.

Sure there is a bias in writing a contemporary political document, which then becomes a historical record. But if one is aware of it, one can allow for the bias and read between the lines.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It's the idea that one can 'allow' for bias, if by 'allow' you mean that you can remove it from the equation. There are indeed social scientists who take that view, but the point I was making was that in your comments to Azarkon you were implying that it was the only view possible. It's not. There are plenty of historians and social scientists who believe that history cannot be 100% objective and shouldn't try to be, and that while some knowledge of the biases of the author is useful, it's not possible simply to use it filter out the bias in the historical text as you seem to be suggesting.

[metadigital]

It is patently clear to everyone involved that the Japanese are not putting history into their new historical textbooks, they are deliberately trying to revise it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It's not patently clear to everyone involved. The Japanese that I know who support these textbooks aren't disputing the facts, they're disputing the importance and interpretation of those facts. Revising history is not the same as falsifying history - it's finding a new interpretation based as much on the facts as the old one.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

As long as the "interpretation" is supported by the undisputed facts, then not only is the "interpretation" valid, I would argue that it is essential.

Sure there is a bias in writing a contemporary political document, which then becomes a historical record. But if one is aware of it, one can allow for the bias and read between the lines.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It's the idea that one can 'allow' for bias, if by 'allow' you mean that you can remove it from the equation. There are indeed social scientists who take that view, but the point I was making was that in your comments to Azarkon you were implying that it was the only view possible. It's not. There are plenty of historians and social scientists who believe that history cannot be 100% objective and shouldn't try to be, and that while some knowledge of the biases of the author is useful, it's not possible simply to use it filter out the bias in the historical text as you seem to be suggesting.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Let's try to untangle this gordian knot, shall we?

 

I am not in total disagreement with you.

 

I don't know whether it is possible to be "100%" objective with history, either. What's more, I am not convinced it is necessary to do so in order to conjure the lessons we need.

 

History generally becomes "this is what we think is the best interpretation, but there are other factors, like these ...", not "This King did this because he wanted that and this person said this to him because of the other." That's historical fiction, not history. By including the various opinions, and their biases, we are able to weigh them against each other and the known, indisputable facts to deduce what is a very good approximation to the actual events, or near enough, damnit. That is how we "allow" for bias.

 

See?

 

And the elephant in the middle of the room is that barely anyone seems to be even partially aware of history, so that to argue over the internecine minuti

[SteveThaiBinh]

See?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm glad we were able to reach some level of agreement.

And the elephant in the middle of the room is that barely anyone seems to be even partially aware of history, so that to argue over the internecine minuti