(second try) re: this election, and the nature of evil

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

Kemper wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/37954>:

<< Barack Obama:
Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization
in International Relations. Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude
Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political
Science. Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

vs.

John McCain:
United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899

Sarah Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester North Idaho College - 2
semesters - general study University of Idaho - 2 semesters -
journalism Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester University of Idaho
- 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism >>

Under ordinary circumstances, any sign that a candidate is educated,
knowledgeable, a nerd, a geek, a wonk, an egghead, a highbrow, a
grind, or even intelligent, will absolutely prevent him/her from
winning the Presidency. Americans are very anti-intellectual, and the
two places this shows most closely are the tradition of torturing
schoolchildren who get good grades or like to read, and Presidential
elections from Adlai Stevenson (for whom, I have heard, the word
'egghead' invented -- I wasn't born yet then) through John Kerry.

Tonks wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/37966>:

<< Does good exist at all if evil does not provide the place where it
can be nurtured and supported? >> 

IIRC Gandhi seemed to think that even if all the good people died
(because they were willing to be killed rather than do evil), more
good people would come along.

<< as someone said to me not long ago, 'the reason that Christianity
continues to exist at all is that it has always been separated from
the government. If it were not it would have been destroyed along with
it's country." >>

That is why Machiavelli wrote somewhere that "a man cannot be both a
prince [ruler] and a Christian."

However, it seems to me that the usual way in which government-backed
Christianity is destroyed is not because the nation virtuously refuses
to defend itself militarily or economically, but because
government-backed Christianity soon turns into a religion which
explains why wars of conquest, capital punishment, torture, and
obedience to dictatorship (whether by a hereditary monarchy or by the
successful leader of a military coup) are *demanded* by Christ.

Tonks wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/37971>:

<< Do the ends justify the means, as Saul Alinsky teaches? His methods
include humiliating the opposition >>

I don't believe that Saul Alinsky advised murdering the opposition's
most popular leaders, nor hiring young men with AK-47s to hang around
polling places shooting everyone who comes near, nor gathering a small
group of loyal colonels to, on signal, turn against their generals and
their civilian government, and march their loyal soldiers on the
capitol, the same way they learned to conquer enemy capitols, and then
install their coup leader as President for Life and send out teams to
kill a few thousand people on a list of people who might resist the
new regime.

Alla wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/37970>:

<< So do I admire John Mccain? (snip) I definitely liked his
concession speech, that being the **only** speech of his I liked. >>

That was a great speech! Not exactly great oratory, but it was so
honorable and more than gracious, really a true example of 'putting
country first' before party loyalty or personal ambition. I choose to
believe that that speech restored his personal honor that he had laid
aside for the sake of political ambition. I like believing that McCain
is a good man who wants what he sincerely believes is best for our
country, even if he is 180 degrees dead wrong about what would be good
for our country.

<< Eliot Spitzer screamed about fighting corruption a lot >>

Be fair. Spitzer didn't take bribes to award state contracts, give
pardons, or any other official acts. There's no word he took free
gifts -- he *paid* for his prostitutes.