Democrat media are making a big deal this morning about Mitt Romney’s $10,000 bet offer last evening during the Iowa debate. That wasn’t the “big deal”.
This was:
Excerpts from the Gingrich Youtube channel. Complete debate video here.
Democrat media are making a big deal this morning about Mitt Romney’s $10,000 bet offer last evening during the Iowa debate. That wasn’t the “big deal”.
This was:
Excerpts from the Gingrich Youtube channel. Complete debate video here.
I’m not sure if any republican can win the election. They will get ‘palinized’.
~Johnny 100 Pesos
I think the reason that Sarah Palin didn’t run as a Republican candidate, but stumped this summer all over the battleground states, is that she wanted to avoid the GOP candidate ‘dog-and pony’ show where desperate Republican presidential candidate wannabes eviscerate each other, plus she also wanted to sidestep being stabbed in the back/face by putative conservative pundits like Carl Rove and David Frum.
After the GOP RNC selects it’s John McCain retread and the Conservative voters are sufficiently non-plussed, she’ll step up as an Independent Presidential candidate who will win the Conservative vote & the Independent vote, obsoleting the elitist GOP hence forth.
(and also robbing Democrats of their traditional Republican enemy without which much of their firewall against Conservative ideas will be torn down like the Berlin Wall redux)
It was a really great speech, and he hit Stephie’s fastball out of the park. Then he took his time rounding the bases. Romney was smiling because he knee Newt had prepared that speeh and he was impressed.
I give him credit for a brave position, but it’s just a speech. I don’t think he will be any more effective than the last five presidents on Middle East policies.
He is technically correct: the Palestinians are a defunct tribe, called the Phillistines in the Bible. After the Roman expulsion of Jews from Judea, they renamed it Syria Palestinia.
But another poster here is also correct – there is a group of people with the titular name Palestinians, and some people care about their interests. They are terrorists, but they see themselves as victims and as the dispossessed. They do teach their children to hate. The innocent among them vote for and willingly assist terrorists.
They need to be bombed into submission or deported, not bargained or reasoned with. They will retain their hatred and sense of victimhood forever, regardless of what anyone does now. We might as well earn our hatred.
ET,
As always, with respect…why is it when I watch Perry I get an unrelenting urge to ask him if he spells it “potato” or “potatoe”.
He looks and sounds likes a reincarnated “Danny Boy”.
I’ll give Gingrich credit for one thing: he sure knows how push your guys’s buttons. He’s an operator all right. He knows that, upon hearing some tuffgai ‘hard truths’ aka ‘vapid posturing’ on a subject as far away from domestic issues as possible, many conservatives will simply forget that Newt fights for bigger government-always. ALWAYS. He fought for FM, he fought for gun control, and he fought against Paul Ryan. As Will put it: he’d have made a great Marxist.
Ideal Candidate but it ain’t happening: Johnson Want to love but can’t fully: Paul
Do like and can get elected: Hunstman
There I did it the GOP nom should be settled now. The correct answer is Jon Hunstman.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-august-15-2011/indecision-2012—corn-polled-edition—ron-paul—the-top-tier
Highlight: “Huntsman was the only Mormon running in the straw poll, and he came in second amongst Mormons”
“Clinton only appeared strong because he bested someone very weak.”
Another perspective is that Clinton appeared strong because he excelled at taking credit for the positive things Gingrich did.
ward – are you serious? No Palestinians existed before the creation of Israel? Gosh, then those people who were living there (and the British called it, for what it’s worth, in the pre-Israel dlays: ‘Palestine’)..didn’t exist? They were created? By whom?
Did they suddenly emerge out of the soil? Gosh. You mean that there was no-one living there at the time? Gosh.
I thought that people had been living there, with title to their farms, for centuries, governed by whomever – whether it was the Ottomans or the British. But, according to you – the land was empty.
Now, do you seriously consider that until and unless a settled population has a specific ethnicity, and/or, that ethnicity is given a specific name…that they don’t exist? Whew. That’s Nominalism at its most extreme. Look it up: Nominalism.
Several things to consider about Obama’s fictional realm.
Obama said the following, on a Sunday 60 minutes interview:
“He rejected questioner Steve Kroft’s suggestion that the public was judging him on his performance as president. “I’m being judged against the ideal,” he said. “Joe Biden has a good expression. He says, `Don’t judge me against the Almighty, judge me against the alternative.”‘
Think about this – in conjunction with my claims that Obama rejects reality and operates solely in a self-authored fictional or virtual realm. A realm where HE writes what goes on. That’s why we see him as a pathological liar, because the hard reality of facts is irrelevant to him; his words are his reality.
Now, look at his statement. He is saying that the hard reality of his actions don’t exist and shouldn’t be critiqued. He is saying that your criticism is YOUR fault. It’s YOUR fault because you are making the error of comparing material reality with Utopia. Of comparing the finite world with the infinite. YOU, the unintelligent ignorant, think that utopia should be reached, and if your current Obama world is not like that – well, ..that’s your problem.
So, according to Obama, any criticism…any criticism, is invalid because, to him, criticism only compares the ‘fallen material world’ (which is not his fault because it’s ordained as fallen) with the utopian. Neat way to get out of criticism!
Then, he goes further in rejecting criticism. He sets up a false future scenario which he says you, ignorant one, MAY use to criticize Him. It’s called ‘fallacy of presupposition’. Obama defines a future that never happened, and says that He prevented that future from happening! Wow,that’s quite the ego.
Obama says that IF his ‘stimulus’ hadn’t happened, THEN, a major depression would have occurred. So there. [That’s also a formal logical error of ‘affirming the consequent’].
You can’t assert a future that never happened and declare that you prevented that future from happening.
It’s a common ‘what if’ scenario among academics.
‘What if Napoloeon hadn’t lost at Waterloo, then this and this would have happened’. Hmmm.
So, Obama says that IF you criticize him, you are focusing on your image of utopia, and the only valid comparison of his actual deeds is to compare them with yet another fictional realm – the presupposed worst case scenario. Both are comparisons of reality vs non-reality and render any analysis of reality..invalid. Neat tactic.
ET: I don’t agree with Gingrich’s statement that, …. there can’t ever be a Palestinian state.
Gingrich did not say that, nor do I believe it to be his view. Clarifying remarks from his office afterwards, said he did support a Palestinian state.
http://tinyurl.com/72y7cd6
What I took from his remarks was that the world-view has become skewed. On the one hand we have the necessity of a state for The Jews – a religion that has been around for 3 to 4 millenia, vs. The Palestinians, a subset of Arab / Muslim culture who decided only recently to avail themselves of the offer of forming a state. The distinctions are important when mediating a deadlock.
Look at all of the sheeple taken aback by this. It’s just posturing guys. These are theatrics designed to make him look strong and decisive on an issue that his managers calculated to have potential political gain. Like I said, if he wins/during a general election don’t expect the same gusto.
greenmamba – my concern is that I don’t see the validity of a religion requiring that it be geographically and politically locked into a state.
My view of the emergence of that political entity known as the state is that it is an historical, i.e., temporal development of a population living within a geographic region. This population can be religiously varied. The key point is that this population seeks self-governance. That, is the state.
Nothing to do with ideology (religious or otherwise) and certainly, nothing to do with longevity of that ideology. Taoism etc and other such beliefs are older than most monotheistic religions; should they also be a political entity?
ET
// That is essentially saying that people exist only as ethnic groups {also called identity politics]. And that only such a distinct ethnic group is ‘allowed’ to ‘have’ a nation. Is that true?
Before Canada as a nation existed, were there a people, distinct ethnically, called ‘Canadians’? No? Well, gosh, doesn’t that mean that Canada shouldn’t be allowed to exist as a nation? //
Exactly
And [pace Joseph] “The term Palestine, is actually what the Romans termed the region. ”
The Histories of Herodotus c450 BCE
” This part of Syria as far as Egypt is all called Palestine. ”
Everyone should read Herodotus.
And why did the Romans name it “Palestine,” i.e. Philistinia? To uproot the Jews from the land connection. BTW, who lived their during Roman times? Jews, right? Some Greeks and Samaritans too, right? Ergo (that’s latin!!) Those people are the historic “Palestinians.”
Palestine is a name of British orientalism. What did the Arabs call “our Palestine”, and why don’t they point to that name? Whoops, the called it “Syria.” But to concede such loses the idea of a modern national group being wholly displaced.
Really, the citation that “the Greeks and Romans used the word Palestine” is one of the most inane arguments for the cause. Bigoted, Western, Orientalist too. Liberate Syria!!
JN – I’m against Said’s orientalist theory; after all, the perspective of those in the East towards those in the West can be just as invalid as West to East – then and now.
You cannot say with any validity that the reason the Romans called the area ‘philistina’ was to ‘uproot the Jews’. I think you’d need some specific, not speculative, data for that conclusion.
You’ll also find that all tribal peoples (and Judaism is tribal) are quite clear on rejecting ‘others’ into their tribe. This isn’t bigotry or racism as we know it; it’s a sense of collective identity and is found in all tribal systems.
Certainly, it can be overridden with racism, ie, defining others as subhuman – and we can find evidence of that in all such tribes – but, tribalism isn’t just about that; it operates as a strong cohesive societal structure – and that can be extremely functional and beneficial.
But the reason for giving an area a name is irrelevant. Oh, and not only the Jews, but many peoples lived in that area, and did not identify themselves as ‘Greeks’ but as..living in that area. Remember, this was in the pre-nation tribal era. Your identification was by family clan, not ethnicity and certainly, not ‘national’.
The point brought up by dizzy that Herodatus, an ancient historian, referred to the eastern part of the Mediterranean as ‘Palestine’ is merely a response to those who make the illogical claim that:
IF a people cannot claim to belong to a group with a distinct ethnic or political ‘name’, THEN, they cannot claim a distinct geographical territory.
My point was that this version of Nominalism, which we can also call in this instance, Identity Politics, is an invalid criteria for validating a nation.
As a footnote to ET”s
// Remember, this was in the pre-nation tribal era. Your identification was by family clan, not ethnicity and certainly, not ‘national’. //
Elie Kedourie, in “Nationalism” writes about
a confusion, which results from using nationalist categories in historiography. When the peculiar anthropology and metaphysics of nationalism are used in the interpretation of the past, history takes on quite another complexion. Men who thought they were acting in order to accomplish the will of God, to make the truth prevail, or to advance the interests of a dynasty, or perhaps simply to defend their own against aggression, are suddenly seen to have been really acting in order that the genius of a particular nationality should be manifested and fostered.
Abraham was not a man possessed with the vision of the one God, he was really the chieftan of a beduin tribe intent on endowing his horde with a national identity. Moses was not a man inspired by God inorder to fulfil and re-afirm His covenant with Israel, he was really a national leader rising against colonial oppression. Muhammad may have been the seal of the Prophets, but even more important, he was the founder of the Arab nation. Luther was a shining manifestation of Germanism; Hus a precursor of Mararyk.
Nationalists make use of the past in order to subvert the present. One instance of this transformation of the past occurs in a letter written against Zionism by an orthodox rabbi of Eastern Europe in 1900. In this letter, the Dzikover Rebbe contrasts the traditional view which the community of Israel had of itself, and the new nationalist interpretation of the Jewish past. Bitterness gives his speech a biting concision, and this letter exhibits in a clear and striking manner the operations of nationalist historiography, as well as the traditional interpretation which it has challenged.
‘For our many sins,’ writes the Rebbe, ‘strangers have risen to pasture the holy flock, men who say that the people of Israel should be clothed in secular nationalism, a nation like all other nations, that Judaism rests on three things, national feeling, the land and the language, and that national feeling is the most praiseworthy element in the brew and the most effective in preserving Judaism, while the observance of the Torah and the commandments is a private matter depending on the inclination of each individual. May the Lord rebuke these evil men and may He who chooseth Jerusalem seal their mouths.’ 2
2 The Rebbe’s letter is reproduced and translated in I. Domb, The Transformation, 1958 (published by the author).
Note: Kedourie was mainly against Arab nationalism, & he was against it not because he was a democrat, but because he was an Imperialist.
He’s only stating what anyone born before the 90s have known all along. You can see how history has been twisted as you grew up.
I Give “Newt “points for admiring this reality.
There is always a bit of the “eye of Newt” in any witches brew.
ET: I don’t see the validity of a religion requiring that it be geographically and politically locked into a state.
Well the Jews are a people and happen to be a religion. I’m surprised to have to remind you that history has determined that the Jews ought to have a state. It’s better that way. It’s not as if their state is taking up huge tract’s of the earth’s surface or anything. (The Kurds and Armenians are two other examples of peoples who should have a state.)
greenmamba – those are two interesting assertions you are making. I don’t agree with them and wonder about your empirical and logical grounds for making such assertions.
The first – you say that ‘the Jews are a people and happen to be a religion”. Hmm. First, could you explain what is meant by ‘a people’? Are you saying that Jewish people have a distinct ethnic or biological identity? Really?
And you say that they ‘happen to be a religion’? What does ‘happen’ mean in this sentence? Is their religion incidental? Or basic? What about reform Jews? And since when is a group or a people defined in their existential being…as a religion? Isn’t a religion an ideology? Your use of the verb ‘to be’ defines followers of Judaism as biologically Jewish. Hmmm.
Your other assertion is that ‘history has determined that the Jews ought to have a state’. I didn’t know that history is an Agent with a deterministic force! Could you explain how history has determined that’the Jews OUGHT to have a state’?
And why do you link ethnic or cultural groups with separate states? Do you reject the modern nation, with its CIVIC membership rather than ETHNIC membership?
Do you know the difference between our modern nations which are built around civic membership vs the old tribal political groups based around ethnic or tribal membership? You are obviously in favour of tribalism, a mode of organization that is dysfunctional in our modern networked world.
Um, a little more than 2500 years ago, some Greek guy referred to “Palestine”. What was his name.. oh, yes, Aristotle. Now, what would you call the people who have lived there for over 4,000 years? Trans-Jordanians?
Gingrich, the self-proclaimed “student of history” would be better styled as “inventor of history”. To listen to him, you’d think the Palestinian people, cum Athena, sprang full born from the pen of British diplomats in the 1920’s. That’s a crock, and even the Israelis know it. The Hebrew translation of Palestine becomes “Philistine”. Some of you may remember a famous skirmish between their best man and a kid who threw rocks.
Newt is as slimy as the amphibian he’s named for. Never mind his sexual peckerdildoes – I don’t give a rat’s patoot about his or anybody else’s – he accepts money from scum, he votes to enrich scum, and he’s fundamentally NO different from Romney, Bambam, or Hillary. Will he clean up the Fed? No. Will he allow the TBTF banks to fail? No. Will he constrain the MIC that is bankrupting America both financially with imperial adventures, and morally with the DHS/TSA/Patriot Act? No. Will he clean up the Augean stables AKA the US tax code? No.
Ron Paul or the collapse of America as we know it. Those are your choices. I know what most of you here will pick. Good luck with that.
ET: I agree that tribalism has some drawbacks in the context of modern societies, but perhaps you are making (what to me is) the mistake of thinking that being tribal is a conscious choice. I think it is part of our make-up as humans and will always find ways to reappear. I see the current war between left and right wing politics in western society as a manifestation of tribalism. So is supporting one’s favourite hockey team.
What constitutes a people: I do not have a ready definition but Greeks, Japanese, Chinese are peoples. They are defined by ethnicity and they have land areas where their traditions are maintained and evolved. Should we put a stop to that because it does not conform to your ideal of CIVIC rather than ETHNIC membership?
The Jews are defined not so much by their religion – as you point out, “what about Reform Jews” – but by the hatred they have endured when scattered into non-Jewish environments. That was one reason I added Kurds and Armenians as other examples. The other was due to an awareness that I was being loose with the term, “a people;” I hoped that by adding those examples we could avoid this semantic discussion. (I’m lazy, like most snakes.)
In applying theoretical models to modern society, one needs to maintain an awareness of what is actually happening; a particular concern is Islamic societies. I am sure you have noticed the intense tribalism occurring right now under the guise of the “Arab Spring.” With the topic being Gingrich on Israel, I am obliged to point out that these societies are rife with Jew-hatred. One can also scan the reader comments in numerous western publications like The Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, National Post, Washington Post, The Guardian, The BBC to see latent & sometimes overt, Jew hatred right here in modern CIVIC nations. Let’s recall that the United Church of Canada was recently prepared to debate barring Jews from political office in this country. In Canada, at a Liberal leadership convention, delegates were asked not to vote for Bob Rae as his wife is a Jew. Do I really need to explain that this is merely a continuation of history for Jews? Let’s face it, no-one at the same level has suggested that Muslims be barred from public office.
In the context of all of this, should the Jews have a state – especially considering that they have for 63 years and overall, it’s reasonably successful”
Hell, yes.
greenmamba – interesting points, but I’ll continue to disagree.
No, tribalism is not a choice, conscious or not; it is a politico-economic mode of organization that develops and functions only in no-growth populations in the thousands to multithousands. Not within the multimillions. It enables an economic and political system based around the extended family supporting its members.
When you get into growth economies and large populations, you must move into a civic mode of organization where both the state, the market and the nuclear family function as organizational and economic systems.
No, I don’t see the left and right political perspectives as having a thing to do with tribalism. You are transforming the definition of ‘tribalism’ into merely being an intellectual or emotional point-of-view. It isn’t; it’s a bonding to a biological familial ancestry.
And, tribalism has nothing to do with sports.
No, I disagree with your definition of civic membership (Chinese, Japanese, Greek citizens) as ‘people’ – by which I think you define them as tribal. A Greek citizen is most certainly not defined by ethnicity. Neither is a Chinese citizen, for there are many different ethnic groups who are Chinese citizens. Each locale, as well, have quite local customs – and even dialects.
As for Judaism, it is most definitely a religion, and being Jewish IS defined by this religion – and that includes every group from the orthodox to the conservative to the reform. My point was that there is no such thing as a ‘Jewish people’. That was the claim of the Third Reich.
I totally and completely disagree with you that the Jewish religion is defined ‘by the hatred of others’. That ignores and denigrates the Judaic religious beliefs which are very old, are extensive and complex, the Torah, the texts, the scholarship, the long history of shared traditions, the collective sense of ancient origin. This wealth of thoughts, emotions and beliefs is what defines Judaism. Not ‘being hated by others’! What an astonishing statement!
I’m a realist and so in answer to your question – should ‘the Jews have a state’? I remove the ‘should’ for I disagree that any religion or indeed any people have any basic ‘human right’ to a state. BUT – the reality is that Israel exists and I don’t question its existence.
No, I disagree with your view that the Arab spring is inducing ‘intense tribalism’. It is the opposite; it is a process of undoing the dictatorships of tribalism,- something that the West went through around the 15th century – and will take decades and much debate and internal fighting to resolve itself. But, these nations will move into democracy and the civic model. Their populations are too large for any other mode of organization.
As for your litany of Judaism and Jews being attacked – I don’t see it as the plethora that you do, and wonder that you ignore the endemic attacks against Christians and Christianity.
ET: We are essentially speaking different languages so let’s leave it at that except for the part about attacks on Christianity.
I certainly do not ignore it & had thought of adding it here as an addendum. Since you brought it up, I shall.
Western countries had better start defining themselves as Christian or they will be taken over by Islam. I say this simply because Islamic countries are becoming less liberal, the Arab Spring notwithstanding. Westerners have turned against their core religion, the one at the heart of our civilisation. It has become unfashionable to make declarations of Christian faith in much of the west and the same people who push this fashion are obeisant to Islam. The time-frame I consider here is shorter than yours. You might be correct about Islamic countries in the long term but I have deep concerns about the fate of western civilization in the interim.
“Um, a little more than 2500 years ago, some Greek guy referred to “Palestine”. What was his name.. oh, yes, Aristotle. Now, what would you call the people who have lived there for over 4,000 years? Trans-Jordanians?”
No, they were called back then Jews or Judeans, Samaritans, and Greeks. The Philistines, a “Sea People” disappeared or were absorbed. Arabs moved in much later, and yes, Arabs, by that name too, existed then. Also, “Palestine” only related to the coastal strip…where the Philistines had lived.
The Romans conquered not “Palestine” but “Judea”, which was already an ancient kingdom. They renamed it “Palestine” to diminish and uproot their enemy. The Carthaginians got it worse, though.
“My point was that there is no such thing as a ‘Jewish people’. That was the claim of the Third Reich.”
Really? History question: who said “Let my People go.”
ET, you are not an anti-semite, but have you considered that you have an obsession with Jews? Or do you treat every other group in the world the same way?
I am shocked! I have never seen a politician have the guts to stand up and say the truth without concern for “political correctness”. I really can’t believe someone had the guts to do that. He has my vote!