I guess it depends…
…on what the meaning of “strong” is.
Obama warns the Supremes about overturning HCR [emphasis mine]:
“Ultimately I am confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress,” Obama told reporters today while speaking with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon.
Excuse me, but: WTF???
I suppose it was indeed “passed.” And by a “majority.” And I guess you could stretch the usual English usage of the word “strong” as it relates to majorities (it ordinarily means the same as “large”) and say that this majority was “strong” in that it fits definitions number 6, 9, 10, 12, 13, and 14 here. Let’s take a look:
6. Capable of the effective exercise of authority…
9. Not easily upset; resistant to harmful or unpleasant influences
10. Having force or rapidity of motion…
12. Extreme; drastic
13. Having force of conviction or feeling; uncompromising
14. Intense in degree or quality
You see? Obama’s right!
[Hat tip: Ace.]
[ADDENDUM: Great NY Sun editorial on Obama’s remarks. Read the whole thing.
And Glenn Reynolds has a question, and a suggestion that probably won’t be taken up:
…[H]ow will Obama’s feminist supporters feel, given that those all-important abortion and birth-control decisions also came from an “unelected” Supreme Court?
And if I were a Republican member of Congress I’d immediately introduce a proposed Constitutional amendment to elect all future Supreme Court justices in a national vote, with no input from the President. Just for fun . . . .]
Much more critically, Neo — “WtF you talkin’ ’bout, OWillis?”
THAT’S THE SCOTUS’s JOB!!!
It’s hardly “unprecedented” OR “extraordinary”, first off, and secondly, how large the majority was is utterly and completely irrelevant to its Constitutionality. Congress can support something 100% in both Houses, and STILL pass a measure which is UnConstitutional
Part of the SCOTUS’s job is to perform a long-term integrity check on the momentary lapses into MOB judgement which any body made of humans — much more so for semi-competent idiots like Congress — can fall prey to.
By making certain types of lawmaking more difficult than a simple majority, or even a simple “large majority”, they help rein in the government from stupid excesses (Prohibition shows even THAT system isn’t airtight). Certain types of lawmaking require a widespread agreement by all because they fundamentally alter the social contract between Americans and their Government, and it seems blatantly obvious that the SCotUS seems to be of the opinion (right IMNSHO) that it’s highly questionable if the Founders meant by granting Congress the power to regular interstate Commerce that they meant to grant them the power to force Americans to buy something.
“regular”==”regulate” doh.
IGotBupkis: Hey, but Obama’s the conlaw prof!
Actually, he’s counting on what he knows about SCOTUS, which is the cowardice factor: they are somewhat reluctant to overturn a law passed by Congress, especially such a large one, especially the whole thing.
That’s why I think they may find the mandate unconstitutional but severable.
mmmmmmm, what were the three amigos there for anyway? Calderon was complaining about too many Wal-marts and not enough gun stores close to the border, considering the cost of fuel and all. Which made the guy from Canada start speaking in French. Good times!
I don’t recall having ever heard a president commenting on an important Supreme Court case while it was under deliberation. But then, Obama has done many unprecedented things.
A less arrogant man might be lying low, so as not to remind them how he embarrassed and insulted them in the SOTU address.
What does the Zimmerman event and Obama’s challenge to the Supreme Court have in common: CRT. Critical Race Theory.
Practically, CRT is here to stay and is much more influential than a mere arcane legal philosophy of the 1970’s and 80’s. CRT tells both common and elite persons “you don’t have to obey the law.” Since the rule of law does not treat black people equally, why should the black man obey it? I wouldn’t either, and no-one obeys unjust laws willingly, but sabotages it at every opportunity.
It must escape Obama (no it doesn’t, it fills him with loathing and wrath) that one of the five justice who would rule against Obamacare is black. Further, that black man, Clarence Thomas, is likely the most vehement in opposition.
He’s confusing democracy with a republic. This is also, presumably, why he is in constant conflict with the individual states. It is the Supreme Court’s responsibility to remind the executive and legislative branches of their right and proper place in our federation. They should read both our establishment document, The Declaration of Independence, and our organizational document, The Constitution, to our civil servants. I think the following two passages are especially noteworthy:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights … That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed
and
We the People of the United States … promote the general Welfare … do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America
Obama needs to review the founding principle and the reasonably compromise Americans accepted. The “original compromise” (i.e. preservation of slavery) was not it, and was likely unavoidable in order to establish this nation.
The founding principle was individual dignity and the compromise was general Welfare. Individual and cooperative Welfare was intended to be provided through voluntary exploitation, including economic exchange, but also charitable works and donations. That is classical liberalism, which underlies American conservatism, and is only tempered by Judeo-Christian principles.
As for insurance, it is not meant to provided subsidies for common events throughout our lives. It is meant to mitigate risk in extraordinary circumstances. True health care reform would require behavior modification, since many Americans seem unwilling or incapable of self-moderating their own behavior, including consumption.
Strong majority: passed the House by 219-212. Had four Representatives changed their vote, we would not have had ObamaCare. That’s a REALLY STRONG MAJORITY.
>>> IGotBupkis: Hey, but Obama’s the conlaw prof!
I’ll agree he’s put a lot more of the con into the Presidency than anyone else except Slick Willie…
😀
Gringo, Gringo, Gringo, how DARE you intrude on a talking point by citing mere FACTS!!
Racist.
;D
One of the great things about Obama is that whenever you think that you’v found out everything there is to loathe about the man he gives you MORE!
I used to think the very best I could say about the President was that he is a clueless fool.
My opinion has just undergone a downgrade.
So, when is he going to “remind” the Justices that they “only server for life” and then remove their Secret Service protection?
server == serve
Here’s a definition of strong that shoots Obama down:
Strong: easily defensible; incontestable or formidable. The vote was none of those things. Passed in the middle of the night using every sort of arm twisting and bribery. (Corn Husker kickback and Louisiana purchase – and those are just the bribes we know about.)
Neither was the law itself any of those things.
Words, just words. Or do words matter? Hopefully the SC Justices know.
golo: That’s a nice court you have there. Shame if sumpin were to happen to it.”
Obama lectured on Constitutional law, he knows that a majority, however large is inconsequential to the constitutionality of a law. He also knows it barely passed in the House. So this isn’t about historical accuracy or constitutional law.
This is about preparing the political field for his reelection by expressing the premise that if the SCOTUS rules against Obamacare, that ruling is morally invalid because the majority of Congress voted for it, which necessarily presupposes that the only valid test of the veracity of an opinion is one based upon public consensus.
Obama is not going to run against Romney, he’s getting ready to run against both the SCOTUS and Congress, borrowing pages from FDR and Truman.
He can’t stand on his record, so he’s going to base his reelection strategy on the argument that those in power who are resistant to change are obstructing him from bringing about ‘hope and change’.
He’s counting on the media to trumpet his view and disparage any contrary view, as one motivated by pure selfishness and resistance to changing the status quo.
This is about introducing a new principle into the public discourse. That the majority opinion of the public (or who controls the media and yells the loudest) is what determines what is constitutional and what is not.
Already, liberal pundits are saying much the same thing.
This is the latest progression in post modernism; which posits that there is no way to determine objective reality, as everyone is limited to subjective perception of reality…thus the only barometer of the validity of an opinion, even by the SCOTUS, is mass consensus. The whim of the mob triumphant.
Thus the Constitution’s words only have the meaning of what the majority of the public momentarily agrees with, and thus “it depends upon what the meaning of is, is”.
It’s a philosophical dagger aimed right at the heart of the rule of law and it champions the triumph of the demagogue.
And the millions of liberal “useful idiots” who shall vote for him, haven’t a clue that in supporting Obama they promote a point of view that will inevitably destroy their liberty and make of them slaves to the nanny state they cherish.
For if words have no meaning beyond the convenience of the moment, then the rule of law is lost and without the rule of law, there is no Constitution.
Lincoln was right; “Don’t interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.”
Good comments all around. I especially admired NN’s.
I am a Constitutionalist. Old labels having been irreparably corrupted, I have, in my mind, divided the political spectrum into two groupings; Constitutionalists and Statists (or Constitution be damned, big government at all costs).
I know my memory is slipping, but I seem to recall that two different measures were passed in the House and Senate, then they faked the Conference Committee. Not only was the majority not a strong one, it may not have even been a legal one. Or was that some other Obamascam?
Well said, Geoffrey Britain. If I were on the Supreme Court and a president were engaging in such indecent demagoguery to try to influence my vote — especially a president with this president’s history of maligning the Court to its face and misrepresenting its decisions for political gain — I’d be sorely tempted to vote against him just to show him what he can control and what he can’t. I suppose I should hope that our Justices approach their Constitutional analysis in a more mature fashion than I would — but you know what, I don’t. I hope they diss him right back.
His rant today has thrown me back into the knave-or-fool question that preoccupied so much of our discussion here in the first year or two of his administration. That a former Con Law instructor could complain that “an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law” is beyond belief. Does he truly understand the Constitution that poorly, or is he intentionally seeking to deceive America about it? It has to be the second. He went to Harvard Law School. He knows the reason that the Justices are unelected (even if he can’t pronounce the word) — precisely to shield them from the sort of naked political pressure he sought to bring to bear upon them today. As for “somehow” overturning a “duly constituted and passed” law, maybe he knows what he meant by that, but I don’t, and I doubt there’s a judge or lawyer out there who does. One more time, he went to Harvard Law School. He read plenty of cases in which the Supreme Court overturned “duly constituted and passed” laws as unconstitutional, and no doubt he approved of many of them — Brown v Board of Education, Griswold v Connecticut, Roe v. Wade — not to mention Marbury v Madison, for crissakes. Did he fail to understand them all, or does he just want to make sure that America doesn’t understand them?
I need to stop; I’m sputtering with fury. But I can’t help wondering whether he has thought about the long-term consequences of sabotaging the American people’s trust in the Supreme Court and the Constitution in this fashion. He and the others who so gleefully advocate the end of all limitations on federal power will see things differently when the all-powerful government they are so bent on creating turns on them someday. They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.
I absolutely detest Obama…so much, I can’t even write about this.
Obama has benefited me in one way: He has caused many of my supposedly moderate liberal friends to reveal just how far-left they really are. It’s an eye-opening experience when friend after friend tells you that they are a-okay with polling place intimidation, false charges of racism, incitements to violence, union intimidation, and the total destruction of the economy as long as it brings socialism.
“I can’t help wondering whether he has thought about the long-term consequences of sabotaging the American people’s trust in the Supreme Court and the Constitution in this fashion.”
Of course he’s thought about it.
He doesn’t want to end limitations upon federal power, he wants to end the US as we know it, his idea of ‘fundamental change’ extends far beyond what any loyal American might imagine.
This is a man who refused to place his hand over his heart during the national anthem. Sometimes small actions speak loudly and in volumes, especially when a plethora of empirical evidence confirms that assessment.
This is a man who wants to reduce our nuclear arms to less than China’s.
Hypocrisy, contradictory statements, lying on a consistent basis, racial demagoguery and class division, corruption on a massive scale, betrayal of his oath of office, the list of his sins goes on and on, demonstrating just how unworthy this man is to be President.
And, more than any other factor, the MSM is responsible for the deceptions that led to his election.
He’s a knave, pure and simple.
Wow. Well said.
Personally, I am now convinced that he rode affirmative action with influential people covering for him, all the way to the presidency.
As Mrs Whatsit said, “he went to Harvard law school”, well maybe he didn’t read all the case law and study all the founding principles. The statement he uttered today proves he learned nothing there. He really doesn’t understand this country or the way our system is supposed to work at all.
How did he pass the bar exam? Was he given a pass on that as well?
At least Krauthammer will be good to read tomorrow or the day after…
–message brought to you by the silver lining committee
And now there are questions about whether Obama was informed of the initial vote of SCOTUS on Friday last and that this may be what changed the tone of his message. See Allahpundit:
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/04/02/did-the-supreme-courts-initial-obamacare-vote-leak-to-obama/
Curioser and curioser!
Rabbit Run!
The wine has gone into your soul
and you’d better run. The hourglass
turned. The red ribbed carcass
is the tale of your woe.
You’re sore and ready to go home.
Rabbit Run!
There’s nothing left . . . except to run.
You found the last can of food.
Everything’s wound down.
The ocean’s sound is done.
You’re sore and ready to go home.
Rabbit Run!
Your mind and fate uncertain,
You left the Texts,
accepted the joker’s jests
as best of bests. Now, fettered:
Your sore and ready to go home.
Rabbit Run!
There is peace at the End.
I like definition #14. Strong as in strong smelling.
Personally, I’ve never thought BHO to be exceptionally intelligent. A Harvard PhD means nothing if you can only regurgitate dogma, slogans, and nonsense to justify your position. He is a demagogue to the ninth degree. He is petulant and immature. And, he lacks all sense of decorum for the office he holds.
Darrell says, “He really doesn’t understand this country or the way our system is supposed to work at all.”
I have come to believe he actually hates the way our system is supposed to work. He’s lazy and feels it would be so much easier if he could rule like a Mao or a Fidel.
Personally, I am now convinced that he rode affirmative action with influential people covering for him, all the way to the presidency.
This is basically my Red farm system hypothesis. The curtain parted briefly when the JournoList scandal broke and let us see the equivalent of Party cell minutes.
Re Obama and con law, my understanding is that he didn’t lecture on con law per se, but rather on how to convolve racial politics with con law, i.e., how to game Constitutional law to chisel the rest of us for racial preferences.
Let’s stop the gab and cut to the quick: He is a totalitarian, a despot. We surely do not need to persuade one another of that on this venue.
Obama=Chavez=Putin.
“Let’s stop the gab and cut to the quick: He is a totalitarian, a despot. We surely do not need to persuade one another of that on this venue.”
The problem is that so many liberals do not see this as a minus.
Convolve and game: A very nice synthesis of Latin and Celtic. Very beautiful and hard to do. And then “chisel,” well, you had me at “convolve.”
Your prose is waiting, OC, it’s waiting. You have the natural ability of Steyn.
I wish I knew learned people in real life as I see here.
Geoffry Britain said: “This is the latest progression in post modernism which posits that there is no way to determine objective reality, as everyone is limited to subjective perception of reality…thus the only barometer of the validity of an opinion, even by the SCOTUS, is mass consensus. The whim of the mob triumphant.”
There are so many quotable quotes. Thank you all for reminding me that there is intelligence and precision.
Time rushes swiftly by and there is not enough of it to reread and mull on these gems. And to what end? Precisely to nail how lacking in perspecacity, honor, and courage is the current leadership?
Geoffrey Britain, don’t forget “flexibility”. He basically said he considers the American electorate a bunch of rubes to be conned. Not to mention selling out to the Russians.
I keep thinking of the old riddle: if a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?
The Left says NO.
The Right says YES.
I wanted to add this to the pot. I saw this online last night, and it is, I think, the spiritual heart of our fight.
[In his concentration camp memoir Man’s Search for Meaning], Victor Frankl concludes that the meaning of life is found in every moment of living; life never ceases to have meaning, even in suffering and death.
In a group therapy session during a mass fast inflicted on the camp’s inmates trying to protect an anonymous fellow inmate from fatal retribution by authorities, Frankl offered the thought that for everyone in a dire condition there is someone looking down, a friend, a family member, or even God, who would expect not to be disappointed.
Frankl concludes from his experience [in four concentration camps] that a prisoner’s psychological reactions are not solely the result of the conditions of his life, but also from the freedom of choice he always has, even in severe suffering. The inner hold a prisoner has on his spiritual self relies on having a faith in the future, and that once a prisoner loses that faith, he is doomed.
An example of Frankl’s idea of finding meaning in the midst of extreme suffering is found in his account of an experience he had while working in the harsh conditions of the Auschwitz concentration camp:
‘ . . . We stumbled on in the darkness, over big stones and through large puddles, along the one road leading from the camp. The accompanying guards kept shouting at us and driving us with the butts of their rifles. Anyone with very sore feet supported himself on his neighbor’s arm. Hardly a word was spoken; the icy wind did not encourage talk.
‘Hiding his mouth behind his upturned collar, the man marching next to me whispered suddenly: “If our wives could see us now! I do hope they are better off in their camps and don’t know what is happening to us.”
‘That brought thoughts of my own wife to mind. And as we stumbled on for miles, slipping on icy spots, supporting each other time and again, dragging one another up and onward, nothing was said, but we both knew: each of us was thinking of his wife.
‘Occasionally I looked at the sky, where the stars were fading and the pink light of the morning was beginning to spread behind a dark bank of clouds. But my mind clung to my wife’s image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise.
‘A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth — that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.
‘I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way — an honorable way — in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment.
‘For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, “The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory’. . . .”
Yes.
Yes, indeed, Beverly. Every once in a while you get to read something that stops you in your tracks and changes your life. One of those times. Thanks to you and to Victor.
I am reminded of More’s speech in ‘A Man for All Seasons’ – with the concept of the Constitution substituted for ‘laws’
“And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?
This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down (and you’re just the man to do it!), do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?
Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!”
Let us hope he did get a leak of the Friday SCOTUS initial vote.
Let us hope his behavior irritates them enough that any leaners more far into the “No” camp.
.
Of course, part of me thinks that he wants to run against the SCOTUS in November.
.
Also, let me remind you, InTrade gives him a 60% chance of winning in November.
Beverly: thank you for the VF! What an unspeakably great passage.
Even in the midst of the mindlessness and lack of civilization in which we APPEAR currently to be, it remains left to us to call upon, be in, be of … LOVE. To convert LOVE to political astuteness is the challenge, but that is the challenge before us.
Parker
Personally, I’ve never thought BHO to be exceptionally intelligent. A Harvard PhD means nothing if you can only regurgitate dogma, slogans, and nonsense to justify your position.
His talking points — such as “strong majority”- are often exceedingly easy to refute. That does not indicate a high level of intelligence on his part- nor on the staff that prepares his talking points.
An alternate explanation is that his talking points indicate that Obama and his staff underestimate the acuity of independents and opposition- assuming that they are a bunch of rubes that can easily be fooled.
Such statements also help to rally his base, which is more inclined to parrot such statements instead of analyze them.
its not a riddle..
its a game to reveal ignorance…
the same as which came first, or what is the sound of one hand clapping.
each has a real answer in which those who don’t know and wont admit it, will then pretend.
ie. use it and you will easily see the effect that i keep lamenting… that is, ignorance replacing knowledge.. and lies or made up stuff rather than honesty in i don’t know…
if a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?
the “not left” called the right, would say NO
the left would say YES..
you have it ack basswards…
and the reason is that your coming from a point of not knowing, or believing the not knowing games are knowing and parroting them!
if a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?
the sentence depends on your actually understanding the words definitions…
what is sound?
from wiki:
Sound is a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations
sound is a perception of a mechanical wave…
so if a tree falls in the forest and makes a mechanical wave… and no one is there to convert that wave into a perception, then does it make a sound?
no… a mechanical wave with no receptive device to convert it from that to a perception and so on, is not sound.
so this dishonest game of erudition… that is, smart people sitting around knowing what words mean giving someone else whose words and usage is so loose as to negate meaning such a device, get to sit there an chortle at the fact that their nature refuses to say, i dont know, or work it out, etc..
i always thought it was mean…
but then again, i think a lot of things that others dont think that puts me on the outside of abnormally normal by sway of volume.
the answer to which came first the chicken or the egg, is another such…
ie… the chicken is always a chicken. its a realized something.. the egg is a potential something unrealized… what comes first? the full realized something or the potential somsthing?
ie, can a lizard make an egg with a deformity in it that can then one day lead to chickens?
can a chicken with no deformity suddenly change its being and become a realized something else?
the left which believes the something can think its way to a new being… would say the later, the not left knowing the game would say the former.
potential can change… so the egg comes first.
and the sound of one hand clapping?
that is a mean game of a bhuddist nature…
ie… its almost an inside joke…
its kind of like saying
“Would a cow lick lots wife?” in a christian nation
so..
“would a cow lick lots wife?”
“what is the sound of one hand clapping?”
they all require a prior pool of knowledge before you get them… they all show the ignorance of others outright…
in cultures such is a way to show to others how stupid and bad someone is without actually letting the stupid know your showing everyone
ie.. its a less overt version of the movie staple showing how crass the westerner is.
but as i showed with the cow and lots wife its just a game where one is playing others…
and to me.. mean…
ok… would a cow lick lots wife?
of course… lot was the guy in which the angels appeared and said they are going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. lot was the one that argued in defense of the wicked and established our western sense of law in which its better to have 99 criminals go free than it was to punish one innocent…
so if you know the whole line behind it… you would know that he argued with the angel and god that if god was to destroy the cities… he was only picking a number of innocents to kill too. as it ends up, lot and his family were the only innocents and they left…
but on the way out, they were told “never to look back”.. that is… do not love your cancer… do not love the stuff that destroys you… do not look back… look forward
well, lots wife looked back, and was turned into a pillar of salt…
the other half of it is knowing farming… ie, cows require things called salt licks… that is, they will walk up and lick a block of salt to get what they need.. and farmers keep such around.
it harkens back to the time of Shakespeare were saying things directly and plainly was boring…
as far as one hand clapping?
well thats easy too if you know…
if not.. well… if not, it can be a comedian on stage making fun, and the audience laughing, and almost no one knows…
what does that look like to someone that knows and who, unlike me, doesn’t temper with understanding of the larger game?
What is the sound of one hand clapping?
ENLIGHTENMENT…
how so?
well what price would you pay to be enlightened? would you give up your right arm?
its interesting but google is so helpful, that you cant even find the answer in the west if you wanted it!
is that it? nope..
its a funny Zen Koan..
that last part of smack you has to do with ANOTHER koan… which of course some of them are in asian kung fu movies, but people dont get it.
last night i was watching a home construction show… they had noted the persons they were designing and building for had been to thailand.
and so they decided to make one of those bagoda like roofs with a raised platform…
and what did they call it?
A “Meditation Station”…
my wife and i laughed and laughed..
those things are not meditation stations, they are eating areas… and dancing areas and such.
the monks would often meditate after a meal.. so in many of these drawings you see the monk at the eating social platform… and he meditates.
the westerner who is all surface and no substance.. all fake and no honen…
they see monk, drawing, and see… sacred meditiation station…
now i tend to find this all really funny in a sad way given that the people that do this, are like pigs wallowing in their own ignorance and proud of the mudd..
they have not the time to know the substance of christianity, or judaism, or the vedas, or the bhuddist koans, and so on and so on.
they CERTAINLY apply the same to things like the constitution, and the general welfare clause, whose substance and definitions are in the federalist papers… which they dont read, they know waht welfare is…just as they know what commerce is…
ie.. commerce was not what we call it today, they changed the definition so the law would encompass more. the same way changing sex to gender is not a synonymic conversion as the other definitions of gender are also inserted with it over the more specific sex..
Zen masters have often spoken of Enlightenment as like the moon shining brightly in the dark sky, while the Zen Buddhist teachings are like a finger pointing up toward the moon. Too many people, however, instead of gazing at the great moon, prefer to relentlessly suck on the finger!
i find it even sadder that its taken till now for a consensus to build up as to the actuality i described BEFORE election…
but then people like hux cautioned us on not being unreasonable… but now… you have so many willing to not only admit that a socialist is a marxist is a communist is a moist, etc. when before, they had to be different things.
and that he is a totalitarian, as if a socialist, marxist, communist, etc… would be anything else.
this is like realizing what herr hitler was after the first four years and waking up to the realization of the great war coming that you cant stop..
hey… history repeats…
the first 4 years are now up, and its the second set that caused all the hell on earth (devils utopia)…
just compare the ideas of whether reality is in your mind or not… the old west would say, no…reality is separate from mind… but we do live in our personal realities… the eastern would say, no reality is separate from the mind…
the leftist spiritualist of the frankfurt lineage would sing “dont dream it, be it” with rocky horror as their anthem…
dont be a boy when you want to be a girl… dont dream it, be it… etc… dont be a woman, when you dont like being a woman, dont dream it, be it… etc.
another one is one of my favorites in which the same attitude is addressed by the master slapping the other on the head…
ie… the solution to the western idea of reality and you cant prove someone else exists, etc.. is to be knocked upside the head by someone else..
the subject then has to consider whether they are conceiving a reality in which they abuse themselves for eternity.. or they are in a reality that is apart from themselves..
the western argument happens in isolation and always assumes that the dream of the other wont try to kill the dreamer..
Frankl is also pushing a form of psychological analysis and treatment… Logotherapy…
but a lot of what he speaks of, like maslow, is good if you can weed out the not good…
Geoffrey Britain wrote : “Hypocrisy, contradictory statements, lying on a consistent basis, racial demagoguery and class division, corruption on a massive scale, betrayal of his oath of office, the list of his sins goes on and on, demonstrating just how unworthy this man is to be President.”
Frankly, where have you been for the last 50 years GB? All that matters now is how well a person appears on television. If he is suave, photogenic and articulate he is qualified; none of the character issues mentioned have any significant bearing.
Any electorate that would elect someone with Obama’s background deserves someone like Obama.
“from wiki:
Sound is a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations
sound is a perception of a mechanical wave…
no… a mechanical wave with no receptive device to convert it from that to a perception and so on, is not sound.”
Sound is NOT the perception of it, perception (what you call converting) is the ability to be aware of that mechanical wave, what we call a ‘sound’ is the label we place upon what we perceive. And because the label cannot physically exist without the ‘mechanical wave’, the label is NOT the object.
You are mistaking nomenclature and the human process by which we sense the auditory spectrum for the object itself, which exists whether anyone hears it or not. The term sound is a description of the mechanical wave, which exists separately from both the label and any sensing of that mechanical wave.
When we ‘convert’ the mechanical wave, what we are actually doing is converting variable air pressure to an electrical signal for mental identification , not giving it existence.
The ability to perceive something is irrelevant to whether it exists or not, nor does the act of perception in any way change the ‘mechanical wave’.
Sorry Artfldgr but it is you that has it ‘ack basswards’… ironically, you’re erroneously supporting the lefts’ argument that subjective perception creates objective reality.
Gringo: I disagree. His points may indeed be very easy to refute, but how many people read the refutation? Or think that much when they hear him speak? What he’s doing is propaganda, and propaganda works with a lot of people. I think Obama is bargaining that it works with the vast majority of people. He may be correct about that, even with the internet (or perhaps especially with the internet?); I truly don’t know.
Geoffrey Britain,
I am half deaf..
all my parts work, and everything is fine..
the signals dont get to my brain..
so in one ear, i perceive SOUND a perception
in the other ear, i perceive the waves…
the deaf ear cant “hear” in the sense that i can decode what is being heard or even understand a word… but i CAN detect low frequencies and know that they exist.
but in the other ear, i have the full perception of sound.. and sound is a perception.
no… i dont…
what your EYES see is not what you in your brain see… what your ears hear is not what your ears feel..
what you call sound is the end result of converting those waves..
which is why the definition is so careful to include the PERCEIVER in the definition.
the ability to perceive something IS relevant to whether it exists..
however, that is not the same as what you think you see becomes real…
SOME things DO exist outside the particular perceiver…
so if you asked, if a tree fell and no one was there to see it, would it still have fallen.. yes… but no one would have seen it..
if you asked if a tree fell and no one was there to hear it, would it make a sound.. no… sound is the perception of the waves, not the waves themselves.
in fact… tinnitus… is the perception of sound with no waves… ie. you can hear even when nothing makes a sound!!!!!!!!!!!
in fact.. depending on your mental state, or whether your on certain drugs of a fever, you can not only see things not there, but you can also have auditory hallucinations.
this shows that sound, vision, etc.. are not like a camera or a tape recorder… but are PERCEPTUAL devices that work on the data, and that this work can work when there is no data.
in the quantum world, reality breaks down outside the perception of a viewer… (schrodingers cat)…
and i also just showed that i did NOT suppor the lefts argument.
when tinnitus causes a sound perception with no stumulus, i do not claim you can hear it if i can… but the left does..
Sound is a perception requiring the ability to HEAR… the waves are the physical input that the system converts to something you call sound… your so used to it, that you cant think that you do this… but try to get a computer to understand speech… its taken them more than 40 years of work to get that… and even thats no perfect..
you and i live in a model our mind creates and updates as far as the world. its constant.
if i put glasses on you that turn the world upside down… if you dont take them off, in a few days, you will ‘see’ right side up again…
your brain will correct the orientation…
but most people dont know any of these things.. they dont know what illiusions and things imply about the machines that convert data into perception that it can then give a nothing in a brain a sense of.
you and i are both nothings… we are an emergent property… there is no seat of who you are, or what you think… in fact. most of what you think you dont think consciously.
but its not silly like the we only use 10% of our briain power…
i dont have it ack basswards.
there is no someone in the machine
perception is what the machine creates for the being in side the machine that is no where, and somewhere in the model.
by the way.
when you feel a sound with your hands.. or feet if your deaf and you want to dance.. you dont HEAR it… you FEEL it…
the perception depends on which device gets the data… not the quality of the data.
as any physics major here will tell you
a wave is a wave is a wave, and they all follow the same formula…
but when a wave of the right size hits an ear, it converts that to sound
when a wave of the same kind hits your hand, or your sternum in a concert, you feel it as vibration… pressure variations… as your brain cant convert the pressure data to sound for your consciousness to perceive.
outside of hearing… all you have are pressure waves of different scales..
this is why elephants can hear low frequency waves… and bats can hear high frequency..
but your eyes?
they perceive evne higher frequency waves…
those waves are called light…
ALL of them are wave filters and detectors and converters…
oh.. and all of them can produce sounds, and things without any stimulus either.
when you think, and talk to yourself, you hear your own voice… where is the sound? 🙂
there isnt any… your thinking doesnt move matter until your thinking gets your muscles to push air and vary vibrations and such in a special way that your devices can decode…
when your handicapped, you notice what others take for granted as normal and ubiquitous…
Actually Artfldgr in my first year in college I majored in math and physics, so I have a better idea than most whereof I speak. You are factually incorrect but obviously ego prevents you from admitting to error. Your convoluted, only partially correct explanation however is in service to obstinacy, which does you no credit.
Your ego and the ignorance it supports as a self-defensive mechanism extracts a heavy price, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not…
To add to the irony, you use unsupported denial as your sole defense against the observation that your position supports the left’s view of reality.
“…passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress…”
Actually it was a Congress where the “strong majority” in the House had already been voted out of power, and the “strong Majority” in the Senate substantially reduced.
The law was passed after the elections which eliminated the “strong majority”. Under a parliamentary system, this would be classed as a caretaker government which would be unable to pass new legislation, and especially not such radical legislation.
To claim a strong majority after it had been voted out is deceptive in the extreme.
Thank you, Curtis. You’re too kind.
From A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS:
William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!
Neo, you got spammed big time.