Ted Kennedy: Lion of Liberalism or Lyin’ Liberal?
De mortuis nihil nisi bonum.
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Entries(RSS)
Do we have the right to speak about the scandalous living pastor of the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help who intends to profane his parish by allowing an open heretic to serve a liturgical office?
Maybe it is not even worth it. Still, when I heard about it I couldn't help but wish that the Vatican would recreate North America a missionary district and govern the Church there through vice-royalty.
I finished my nasty book project this afternoon and turned to Google news for the first time in months, and that is when I realized that cutting myself from the world during the project had not impoverished my mind or my life very much at all.
By the way... Dr. Fleming, by "De mortuis nihil nisi bonum," do you refer to the *inactionability* or the *unacceptability* of "defaming" the dead?
I meant it entirely as a joke. I might have written. Si de mortuis nihil nisi bonum dicere debeamus, nihil dicamus.
Farewell to all,I've decided to no longer comment here at CM.Robert in Oklahoma,Dr.Wilson,Nicholas.....Dr.Fleming;all the best.
Sempronius is a good fellow who should not be run off by one brush-off. Like most of us, though, he should read more and speak less. Following my own advice, I am taking a vacation from this website. It is with increasing frustration that I have been made aware that it is impossible, on the internet, for anyone to stick to the point of any discussion. I am going to write an essay entitled "Blogolalia".
@3: My apologies. I figured it was a joke and that that was probably the sense, but I couldn't help continuing the joke by asking; either way it would have been funny.
@4: Hope you don't mean that, but see you soon in Europe (yes, I believe in hope)...
"It is with increasing frustration that I have been made aware that it is impossible, on the internet, for anyone to stick to the point of any discussion. I am going to write an essay entitled “Blogolalia”."
This is my problem on the best of days. My apology to Sempronius, the moderator, the lurkers and the posters. It is a darned good blog but I am not sure what that means. It may be that blogging is like being a darned good republican or darned good democrat. I hate to lose Sempronius and Tom Fleming but I think that is the end or purpose of blogging --- talking to yourself. Someone wrote a play about the future of organ transplants wherein the last scene only a simple blob of a person on the stage all folded up in a wheelchair, making groaning sounds, with spotlight fading in intensity along with the groans until there is nothing but the sound of monitors going beep beep, beep beep. Blogging is a kind of conversation, just as living with a dozen different transplants is a kind of life. I would rather talk to you in person.
If we could speak no ill of the dead, there would be no history worthy of the name and no conversation about good and evil.
"If Ted Kennedy were arrested for being Catholic, there wouldn't be enough evidence to convict him." -Msgr William Smith
Nothing good to say right now. Taking Dr Wilson's observation into account, perhaps we could wait a couple years and then bring on the ill speech? Someone will have to do it. There was too much evil done.
I think Ted Kennedy, liar, philanderer, homicidal drunk driver is fair game for anyone. What I do object to is the late WFB's habit, imitated by some of his former friends, of getting even in obituaries.
To keep the Machiavelli discussion going while I am in Quebec, I'll post one more piece about the later chapters of book one, where he grapples with the serious question of how a people can maintain the liberty it has acquired. I do not promise to answer any questions or respond to comments.
Prufrock is dead. What level of the Inferno DOESN'T he fit into?
Ted Kennedy's greatest crime was the 1965 immigration law. For that he deserves perpetual residence in the lowest level of the Inferno with Judas and Cassius.
At least as a Roman Catholic, the late seantor will have people praying for his soul after his demise. I'm sure he thought that in life the major blunders he foisted on the American people were considered to be good deeds. His errors will be revealed for what they are - sins.
"What I do object to is ... getting even in obituaries."
The exactly proper note, I think. While one should not gloss over a sordid record, Kennedy's character (or lack thereof) is not the point. The willingness to apply a moral yardstick to a man's career is not the same thing as pouring out spite and bile onto the soil of a graveyard.
It's the presence of Death, rather than the memory of Ted Kennedy, which should be treated with respect.
Ted Kennedy fully expected to never abide by a single law he helped foist on the rest of us. He was one of the greatest enemies of the productive classes this country has ever experienced. What the people of Massachusetts refused to do, nature did. Perhaps the real curse of the Kennedys is finally over--one of them in power.
"It is with increasing frustration that I have been made aware that it is impossible, on the internet, for anyone to stick to the point of any discussion. I am going to write an essay entitled 'Blogolalia'."
Dr. Fleming - In my opinion, it is impossible for a discussion to have a single point. One point naturally leads to another. That is why it is impossible for anyone to stick to the "point" of any discussion, on the internet or anywhere else. I look forward to your essay.
"Dr. Fleming - In my opinion, it is impossible for a discussion to have a single point. "
That is a very good point. In online discussions such as a blog or the discussion board at an online magazine, there can be several points under discussion by several groups of posters in any one thread. Not everyone seizes upon the same phrase in a column or essay as the basis for a discussion.
In online discussion venues in which I have been participating since 1995, every attempt I've ever seen at keeping a discussion "on point" has resulted in frustration for the moderator. Insistence on controlling a discussion is a proven formula for turning a stimulating forum into a tedious online classroom.
I have found the problem to be not so much as not sticking to the point as to missing the point altogether.
Online discussions reflect the nature of most common face-to-face discussions, which also have all the same tendencies. The problem stems from the nature of the modern mind. Just try to have an intelligent discussion with most people you meet. I quit trying a long time ago, as well as avoiding all other blogs like the plague. The fact that a paleocon blog like this is also plagued with the same tendencies says something about us all. How could we not be corrupted by the world we live in?
"The fact that a paleocon blog like this is also plagued with the same tendencies says something about us all. "
I'm sorry if I seem dense, but what tendencies are these? Maybe I'm missing the point. Is it the tendency of a conversation to broaden that has offended some here?
I suspect that it may have more to do with the tendency of people in general to pursue a line of thought that is interesting and to stray from a line of thought which some may find obtuse or tedious. There seems to be no remedy for that tendency, the alternative being to withdraw from the discussion.
The question is not one of being offensive but of engaging in a productive discussion. If we wish to speak aimlessly about anything that flits through the brain, we have friends and family members who are required to endure our conversation. I fear Clyde Wilson is altogether correct in his characterization. I have received letters and emails from serious readers of Chronicles, who question the wisdom of even having a website. They say they have enjoyed many of the articles and some of the discussions, but too often the discussion degenerates rapidly into the pointless assertion of reckless and unsupported opinion. I had thought, wrongly it seems, that we could slowly educate participants into the style of civilized discourse. It would appear not only that this is unlikely, but that it is rejected even in principle. What goes on in other internet discussions is exactly what I would like to eliminate.
In the case at hand, the point of this discussion is to grapple with what, positively, NM has to offer us by way of understanding the nature of government, political power, and political liberty. I maintain that his original and significant thought can only be grasped in the context of Florentine/ Italian history. I shall post something tomorrow on I.16-21, chapters which contain much that is quite relevant to American history and which were certainly brooded on by American statesmen, who may not have wished to admit they were learning from the infamous Machiavel, much as a respectable liberal today would not wish to praise a Southern slaveholder too much.
Why don't you just delete comments that are not "productive"? You after all are in control. Or screen potential participants in an application process, and only allow pre-approved participants to comment? This would be better than the anonymous free-for-all that you don't like and want to avoid. One of the main problems with Internet discussions is anonymity without accountability. I do, however, realize that implementing either of these suggestions will be a time burden.
RIP to Ted Kennedy, one of the most pathetic monuments to date of the degeneration of American politics into the cult of personality, an endeavor for which he was particularly ill eguipped. He spoke at my college in 1972 (out at the airport) and I witnessed a totally incoherent individual obviously totally boozed out, shouting about "bullets not stopping us" referring to all recent assasinations and attempts at the time, including the then very recent crippling of George Wallace. At age 20, my conclusion was that he might have made a very fine Boston bartender in a saner world. The hysteria of the twilight atmosphere was chilling; armed Secret Service men everywhere and a crowd which would ripped him limb from limb but for the 8 foot chain link fence. Exhibet A to Dr. Fleming's sober teaching on the paramount nature of the private life.
"There seems to be no remedy for that tendency, the alternative being to withdraw from the discussion."
I am going to lead by example and conviction -- see you in San Antonio-- until then, I am out of here!!
"who question the wisdom of even having a website."
However, it can also be truthfully said there are many people who would never have heard of Chronicles, or of any paleconservative other than Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul, were there no Internet.
Ron Paul is a libertarian, a nice man, but a libertarian. And what difference does it make, precisely, if people hear of someone. If I wanted a mass following, I'd still be writing for USA TODAY, to name only one among the many entirely worthless publications that used to publish my stuff. Most of the people who "have heard of Chronicles" do not even bother to subscribe to the magazine, either because they are too stupid to read it or prefer their status as free-riders on the Web. Hopelesser and hopelesser, as Alice might have said
This is probably going to get me in big trouble, but I find it funny that the entire premise of this thread is "Commenters seize on small errors or questionable statements made in passing by the authors of articles and pontificate on these small things instead of the main point; therefore Dr. Fleming and others are sick of the website," but then when a commenter refers to Ron Paul's beliefs loosely instead of strictly, in passing and not really relevant to his main point, Dr. Fleming himself does the same thing! (I admit he did get around to my main point eventually.)
As for the main point, I thought the magazine was published (and the website as well) so that the number of educated people in America was slightly increased and the number of crass or unreflective people that Dr. Fleming so dislikes was slightly less. Not that I can claim to have moved into the first category, but articles written here have influenced my views on many issues, and I hope for the better. Isn't one changed person a small victory?
It doesn't have anything to do with whether Dr. Fleming himself or any of his writers has a "following," whatever that means. If I am wrong about the purpose of the magazine and it is instead just a format for Dr Fleming, Dr. Wilson, et al. to get their thoughts down on paper as a writing exercise, it might as well be closed down and they should keep private journals instead.
P.S. I hope I don't get the blame if these changes are actually implemented, but it is possible to 1) have a website with comments disabled or 2) have a website for subscribers only.
P.P.S. And when I say "heard of," I of course meant "heard of and subsequently subscribe." If people become freeloaders, so much the worse for them.
What trouble can anyone get into on a website? And it is not at all irrelevant to describe the estimable Dr. Paul correctly. If words are to be used, particularly a term I probably (along with Dr. Gottfried) invented, they should be used correctly. If we are getting lots of subscribers off the internet, that is big news to me.
Let us also be careful in defining objectives and motives. I do not necessarily dislike unreflective people. They can be very good people, better than the most refined intellects, but their opinions are not worth listening to, especially where those opinions are forged by mass media. Any writer worth his salt writes for at least two reasons, both in the hopes that his work may influence people he regards as worth influencing and--and this is equally important--that he does a good piece of work. Even a columnist is practicing a craft, and if he cannot do it at all competently, he is probably not worth reading, no matter how true his opinions may be. As for confining one's writings to private journals, the idea becomes more attractive every day, but there is a better one: the vow of silence.
Just to take one little instance, when I foolishly, some 20+ years ago, set out to wise up some part of the American right and began speaking about the Old Right and facetiously used the term "paleoconservative," I had no idea of the completely idiotic uses to which my feeble efforts could be put. Now there are not only paleo blogs and postpaleo blogs and postpostpaleo blogs, but there are lightwitted young men who spend their free time--of which they appear to have an inordinate amount--arguing about who has sold out or not sold out the "paleo movement" and the Great White Race. All I have to say is "Gosh!"
From childhood I was possessed by the idea that I did not wish to die a complete and utter fool--though only a fool would presume to teach his fellow men. To the extent it has been possible to figure out a few things that do not appear obvious to everyone, I have tried to share them and to create forums--a magazine, lecture programs, website--through which like-minded fool-killers can express and develop and share their thoughts. In retrospect, though, it might have been better to have confined my work to classical philology and gratified my literary ambitions by writing and not publishing poems or at least, like A.E. Housman, privately publishing them. Basta.