Today is the primary election for Duluth School Board and City Council.
At 10:30 I was the 36th voter in my precinct. My wife is an election worker in another precinct. At about 11:00 she said they had about 45 voters.
In the 2012 election, Duluth had an average of over 1600 voters per precinct, and that was with a turnout of over 70 percent.
If we can't even show up for local elections, do we deserve a democracy?
And this happens all over the world. George W. Bush was elected because many Democrats didn't show up in Florida in 2000. Morsi was elected in Egypt because many boycotted the elections. North Carolina has a Republican legislature because only 44% showed up in 2012, probably mostly Republican activists.
If you don't vote, please don't complain about potholes, taxes, schools, or anything else that government does.
See also "If you don't vote, you have only yourself to blame", Reader Weekly, 2004-10-28.
Showing posts with label Muslim Brotherhood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Muslim Brotherhood. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Muslims do speak out
Some people, I hope they are few, complain that Muslims don't speak out about terrorists claiming to act in the name of Islam. Did we have a lot of Christians in the South who spoke out against the Ku Klux Klan? How many southerners were as strong defending the rights of blacks as Atticus Finch of Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird" How many of us speak out against anybody who unfairly speaks ill of another person or group?
Like any very large group, Muslims have a diverse set of views. Too often, like in other groups, the rigid dominate any discourse. Iran under the Shah was a rigid dictatorship that allowed quite a range of freedom in non-political behavior. Iran under the Ayatollahs is a rigid sort-of democracy that constricts freedoms in many non-political behaviors. Unfortunately, it has become even more rigid and even less democratic since the election fraud of 2009.
As seen in the riots in Egypt, Muslims have a wide range of opinions of what government should be about, not all think that Shari'a law is a legitimate source of government. Remember also that more people showed up to mourn the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi than took part in the attack or justified it.
See also "Exploiting the Prophet", Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, 2012-09-22
One group of Muslims has set out to be a more open religious group that allows for more diversity and less gender or other sexual divisions. It is Muslims for Progressive Values. Among other practices prayer meetings are not segregated by gender and women do lead prayers. They were supposedly changing their website on January 25th, but as of this posting it hasn't happened. If the "Keep It Halal" video is not on the site when you visit, you might find it on YouTube at http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=44UsNBJE2ho&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D44UsNBJE2ho.
Like any very large group, Muslims have a diverse set of views. Too often, like in other groups, the rigid dominate any discourse. Iran under the Shah was a rigid dictatorship that allowed quite a range of freedom in non-political behavior. Iran under the Ayatollahs is a rigid sort-of democracy that constricts freedoms in many non-political behaviors. Unfortunately, it has become even more rigid and even less democratic since the election fraud of 2009.
As seen in the riots in Egypt, Muslims have a wide range of opinions of what government should be about, not all think that Shari'a law is a legitimate source of government. Remember also that more people showed up to mourn the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi than took part in the attack or justified it.
See also "Exploiting the Prophet", Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, 2012-09-22
One group of Muslims has set out to be a more open religious group that allows for more diversity and less gender or other sexual divisions. It is Muslims for Progressive Values. Among other practices prayer meetings are not segregated by gender and women do lead prayers. They were supposedly changing their website on January 25th, but as of this posting it hasn't happened. If the "Keep It Halal" video is not on the site when you visit, you might find it on YouTube at http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=44UsNBJE2ho&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D44UsNBJE2ho.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Following Michele Bachmann's reasoning about ancestry leads us to...
Michele Bachmann claims that an aide of Hilary Clinton, Huma Abedin, may have connections to the Muslim Brotherhood. I'll let you try to follow this path with
"McCain defends Clinton aide against allegations", Associated Press, Donna Cassata, 2012-07-18 and other sites
"Michele Bachmann Lies About Her Own Family History To Sound More Iowan", Chris Rodda, Dispatches from the Creation Wars
I guarantee if you are not a lawyer or a historian, your mind will be boggled by all the twists and turns.
However, using her own reasoning, how can we be sure she didn't support the German Occupation of Norway? After all, Quisling was a Norwegian. And when you go back seven generations in a country the size of Norway, just about everybody is a cousin at that many levels.
Her last name is Bachmann, a German name. How do we know her husband is not a cousin at some level to officials of the Nazi Party? For example, Christian Bachmann, a major in the Waffen SS, or Erich Bachmann, a lieutenant in the Waffen SS.
Many have accused Bachmann about being a neo-Nazi. That is a bit of a stretch, and even if true, I doubt that her current beliefs come from her ancestry or family relations. She was probably shaped by the current version of the Republican Party as much as she is trying to shape the Party.
Oh, wait a minute! George Seldes in the "The Great Quotations" gave a couple of quotes from Adolph Hitler about business. Since those quotes seem to parallel Michele Bachmann's thinking, she must be a Nazi. But I can't find my copy of "The Great Quotations". Besides, I saw some indications on the Web that Seldes wasn't always accurate in his quotations.
The moral: it is bad thinking to put too much into a single quote and it is bad thinking to write too much about a simple idea.
"McCain defends Clinton aide against allegations", Associated Press, Donna Cassata, 2012-07-18 and other sites
"Michele Bachmann Lies About Her Own Family History To Sound More Iowan", Chris Rodda, Dispatches from the Creation Wars
I guarantee if you are not a lawyer or a historian, your mind will be boggled by all the twists and turns.
However, using her own reasoning, how can we be sure she didn't support the German Occupation of Norway? After all, Quisling was a Norwegian. And when you go back seven generations in a country the size of Norway, just about everybody is a cousin at that many levels.
Her last name is Bachmann, a German name. How do we know her husband is not a cousin at some level to officials of the Nazi Party? For example, Christian Bachmann, a major in the Waffen SS, or Erich Bachmann, a lieutenant in the Waffen SS.
Many have accused Bachmann about being a neo-Nazi. That is a bit of a stretch, and even if true, I doubt that her current beliefs come from her ancestry or family relations. She was probably shaped by the current version of the Republican Party as much as she is trying to shape the Party.
Oh, wait a minute! George Seldes in the "The Great Quotations" gave a couple of quotes from Adolph Hitler about business. Since those quotes seem to parallel Michele Bachmann's thinking, she must be a Nazi. But I can't find my copy of "The Great Quotations". Besides, I saw some indications on the Web that Seldes wasn't always accurate in his quotations.
The moral: it is bad thinking to put too much into a single quote and it is bad thinking to write too much about a simple idea.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Freedom and democracy: It's not what you believe but what you do
I find it very hard to read Charles Krauthammer; I think he is very rigid in his thinking. When he wrote in his latest column, "From freedom agenda to freedom doctrine", Washington Post, 2011-02-10, that George Bush and the neo-cons were the only ones interested in promoting freedom and democracy, I stopped reading.
What he ignores is that the neo-cons solution was to bring freedom and democracy at the point of a gun. We can see how well that is working in Iraq and Afghanistan where chaos is more the norm. What he ignores is that the Egyptians have started on a path to freedom and democracy, not with guns but with their gums. They did it not with outside armies but by themselves.
In writing this, I did go back and skim Krauthammer's article. He does make a good point with the second point of his Freedom Doctrine, but most of the rest is a call for the world being as we think it should be, not as others may want it.
A much better read is "They Did It", Thomas Friedman, New York Times, 2011-02-12, written in Cairo. One of the best quotes is, "Because the Obama team never found the voice to fully endorse the Tahrir Square revolution until it was over, the people in that square now know one very powerful thing: They did this all by themselves."
What he ignores is that the neo-cons solution was to bring freedom and democracy at the point of a gun. We can see how well that is working in Iraq and Afghanistan where chaos is more the norm. What he ignores is that the Egyptians have started on a path to freedom and democracy, not with guns but with their gums. They did it not with outside armies but by themselves.
In writing this, I did go back and skim Krauthammer's article. He does make a good point with the second point of his Freedom Doctrine, but most of the rest is a call for the world being as we think it should be, not as others may want it.
A much better read is "They Did It", Thomas Friedman, New York Times, 2011-02-12, written in Cairo. One of the best quotes is, "Because the Obama team never found the voice to fully endorse the Tahrir Square revolution until it was over, the people in that square now know one very powerful thing: They did this all by themselves."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)