Opal12

[quote=jonhatfield]No. I'm somewhat Aspergerish and go to overall conclusions from immediate situations and seldom consider my resulting assumptions important enough to search for proof or argument. I know they are assumptions that may or may not be true or wrong and probably are partly right and partly wrong, party good and partly bad, and as often as not provable AND disprovable both ways depending on which details or angles are emphasized.

In my experience details can be a matter of not seeing the larger forest from focusing on the trees. Of course individual trees do stand out in the forest. In other words I see life and politics and geopolitics in relative terms and as uncertain and complicated, not in absolute terms and so uncertain that choice becomes more important in making a difference in outcomes. Time and circumstances may make absolute or perfect choices impossible and then principles & patience & persistence despite faults has to be the way to work through. The basic American idea is that all men are created equal and have the right to liberty and pursuit of happiness. Feudalism and the manorial system and serfdom were the opposites in the Old World but the Plantation system and slavery were the perverted form brought to and developed in the New World (and eventuated in secession and civil war (shades of Russia/Ukraine today). Freeing the slaves and end of Plantationism in America could not achieve the ideal of full equality for the freed slaves and "separate but equal" (segregation) was the imperfect but workable intermediate formal arrangement...a new form of serfdom for another hundred years but a step up from slavery and with the ideal of equality maintained in word if not in deed. One can see slavery and segregation as total injustice and hypocrisy and contradiction from the beginning of America...or one can see it all as a matter of time and circumstance that has nevertheless resulted in achieving during the past 60 years a large degree of the ideal of equality and integration despite what seemed insurmountable differences and obstacles...first time in human history...a key step forward for mankind.

We could focus on the record of wrongs and irony of how long "with all deliberate speed" took and remaining problems or we can look to how we have overcome. Don't forget the key word that made it come: "someday." That's the larger picture in one instance...and why I maintain looking to the larger picture is more important than searching the details. Of course, details are important too, relatively speaking. Yes,I'm an extremist as Dennis claims...an extreme middle of the roader, which is the ultimate offense to all the OPP extremists and absolutists who are so certain their extremes and absolutes are the only truth, the only way.[/b.

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johnatfield, yesterday evening I broke my right wrist and being right handed it is almost impossible for me to type. Consequently I will go directly to the reason for my answer.

Whether you believe it or not, you have a very complete reference library in your mind that you keep carefully organized and accessible. And with subjects that have been intensely evaluated and reevaluated by you.

There is nothing spontaneous in your answers as time is involved. You know what you want, where to find it and the last time you opened that drawer to reconsider the contents.

So, yes, you are a careful, curious researcher.

Floyd Brown Loc: Milwaukee WI

[quote=Opal12][quote=jonhatfield]No. I'm somewhat Aspergerish and go to overall conclusions from immediate situations and seldom consider my resulting assumptions important enough to search for proof or argument. I know they are assumptions that may or may not be true or wrong and probably are partly right and partly wrong, party good and partly bad, and as often as not provable AND disprovable both ways depending on which details or angles are emphasized.

In my experience details can be a matter of not seeing the larger forest from focusing on the trees. Of course individual trees do stand out in the forest. In other words I see life and politics and geopolitics in relative terms and as uncertain and complicated, not in absolute terms and so uncertain that choice becomes more important in making a difference in outcomes. Time and circumstances may make absolute or perfect choices impossible and then principles & patience & persistence despite faults has to be the way to work through. The basic American idea is that all men are created equal and have the right to liberty and pursuit of happiness. Feudalism and the manorial system and serfdom were the opposites in the Old World but the Plantation system and slavery were the perverted form brought to and developed in the New World (and eventuated in secession and civil war (shades of Russia/Ukraine today). Freeing the slaves and end of Plantationism in America could not achieve the ideal of full equality for the freed slaves and "separate but equal" (segregation) was the imperfect but workable intermediate formal arrangement...a new form of serfdom for another hundred years but a step up from slavery and with the ideal of equality maintained in word if not in deed. One can see slavery and segregation as total injustice and hypocrisy and contradiction from the beginning of America...or one can see it all as a matter of time and circumstance that has nevertheless resulted in achieving during the past 60 years a large degree of the ideal of equality and integration despite what seemed insurmountable differences and obstacles...first time in human history...a key step forward for mankind.

We could focus on the record of wrongs and irony of how long "with all deliberate speed" took and remaining problems or we can look to how we have overcome. Don't forget the key word that made it come: "someday." That's the larger picture in one instance...and why I maintain looking to the larger picture is more important than searching the details. Of course, details are important too, relatively speaking. Yes,I'm an extremist as Dennis claims...an extreme middle of the roader, which is the ultimate offense to all the OPP extremists and absolutists who are so certain their extremes and absolutes are the only truth, the only way.[/b.

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johnatfield, yesterday evening I broke my right wrist and being right handed it is almost impossible for me to type. Consequently I will go directly to the reason for my answer.

Whether you believe it or not, you have a very complete reference library in your mind that you keep carefully organized and accessible. And with subjects that have been intensely evaluated and reevaluated by you.

There is nothing spontaneous in your answers as time is involved. You know what you want, where to find it and the last time you opened that drawer to reconsider the contents.

So, yes, you are a careful, curious researcher.[/quote]

That was so ell put & so fitting of John

EconomistDon

You are soooo proud of your big brain and all that you've fed it, but you overlooked one huge fact -- the people living in the Middle East today are not the people who settled the first cities, developed cuneiform writing, music, and arithmetic. The people who developed those things lived in Mesopotamia, current day Iraq, for 10,000 years B.C. They were slaughtered or driven into Persia (current day Iran) by invading Muslim barbarians from Arabia in 637 A.D. The invaders believed that everyone had to convert to Islam, or be killed. They massacred entire cities full of people, men, women, and children. The Muslims displaced the original Mesopotamians almost entirely. Some years later, the barbarians invaded Persia and drove the Mesopotamians further east and north. In the years since 637 A.D., Muslims have destroyed many of the antiquities in Iraq because they represented religions other than Islam. The only claim to fame for Muslims that I have found is their work in translating important literature and documenting algebra that was developed in India. Algebra is an Arab word.

Opal - you should study history a little closer before bragging about how much you know.

jonhatfield Loc: Green Bay, WI

Mostly curious in the sense of peculiar or eccentric, ha, but thanks for your kind view of my thinking processes, which I don't quite understand myself. For example, my freshman "research" paper at the Univ. of Tenn. in 1956 compared farm consolidation onging at the time to farm consolidation toward the end of the Roman Republic that eventuated in the manorial system of the middle ages and feudalism. My professor was impressed and wanted me to revise the paper for publication but I refused because I thought my conclusions were based on too small an example (Clarendon Township, Calhoun County, Michigan, where my grandparents, relatives, relatives by marriage, and neighbors had farmed when I was a child) and because even if there was a parallel in farm consolidation, farmers were only a part of the free citizen base of America with independent business persons, workers in industry with their interests represented in union organization, etc...thus my parallel idea seemed to me exaggerated and alarmist. Today when business and industry are in the process of the same extreme consolidation farming went through half a century ago, I am more worried about the parallel and the possibility of a new form of serfdom replacing individual freedom and choice...but also the possibility economics and regulation will be large but thus only a side part in individual lives making possible larger individual freedom and choice. Retrogression or progression in the future?

Seems like original thinking? Not quite...a coincidence of personal circumstances and naivete--move from rural south central Michigan to suburban Appalachian Fountain City, Tenn. where Central High School had Latin classes and by coincidence all umpteen volumes of Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in the school library, which a nerdy compulsive reader like me read because of the Latin connection. Without the disconnection from original personal community, coincidence of Latin and Gibbon's book, and Asperger genes (from paternal grandfather? and he from his mother?), the idea (which is actually not particularly original--just a matter of connection or parallel) would not have occurred...also without the research paper assignment and taking Latin classes in college (do they even teach Latin in high school or college any more?).

Well, enough already about my coincidences and resulting "original" thinking. ha. Hope your wrist mends soon...OPP needs voices to occasionally counter the OPP "num nums" as Glaucon characterized one of the denser righties...not stupid, just dense.

Gee, too bad Dennis isn't around to taunt back into dendenning with me some more. I would like him tio react to Henry Kissinger interview where he said it was important for all sides to stand beside the President on ISIL action, that ISIL must be forcefully addressed but not with troops, that we have had 6 wars since WWII and won only one so the air and ally option was the way to go, that we live in a connected world unlike any previous civilization, and (this would really cork Dennis off) that Hillary Clinton is the greatest Secretary of State in his lifetime (I would credit Kissinger with that). Kissinger sees the "larger picture" always and appears to see Obama as also thinking in terms of the larger picture. Add to Kissinger's view of Obama and foreign policy the fact that Obama has spoken twice in very clear terms about America's exceptionality in world history and our role as example and defender of freedom and self government (twice--in answer to Putin's NYTimes editorial questioning America's acting in foreign affairs in the name of our exceptionality and more recently in a VA address) and one wonders how these people like Dennis on OPP speak of Obama as not believing in America--with some going so far as stating he hates America and is conspiring to destroy us. Insane partisanship. Normality is questioning actions and policy, not intentions. I suppose we are all somewhat "abnormal" on OPP but these people are sicko abnormal. I suppose someone who is Aspergerish shouldn't judge sick or abnormal. ha.

EconomistDon

The seventh century, specifically 637 A.D. is when the Muslim barbarians rose up out of Arabia to raise havoc in Mesopotamia and the near east. Their new religion taught them to convert all others to Islam or to kill them. They haven't changed their habits since the seventh century; they are still raping and killing anyone who is not Islam, especially Jews and Christians. So DennisDee is correct with his quote.

And, with respect to skin color, any high school biology class teaches how skin color is dependent on latitude. People who live for many generations in a hot sunny location evolve dark skin to protect from the sun. Otherwise, skin cancer will kill them. People who live for many generations in northern latitudes develop light skin that is better at soaking up vitamin D, which is necessary to remain healthy.

Those are your two lessons for today. You're welcome.

EconomistDon

Well, if that is the end of the debate, I must declare Dennis the winner. Dennis was clear and on topic in all his posts. Opal, however indulged in long meandering diatribes that were intended to impress, but only confused and annoyed. Before I retired, I coached all my young writers to keep their messages clear and succinct. Don't use 500 words to say something that can be conveyed clearly with 50. And, I suggest that Opal get a new attitude. He is not the genius he thinks he is; hurling insults at other very bright posters on OPP will make you unpopular quickly.

BTW, the Aztecs were conquered by Cortes, not Colon.

jonhatfield Loc: Green Bay, WI

So the great "economist" declares DenDen winner and Opal insulting. My experience is that DD is a small minded blimp, so my money is on Opal, though I do not particularly agree with Opal on specific issues.

BTW, Dennis is more insulting than Opal. Yeah, I'm such an "extremist," just like Dennis keeps dendenning. Somehow, Don, I don't think I'd put much stock in your economist advice. My, my, isn't OPP such a pleasant discussion site filled with polite, reasonable, and open-minded people...especially the so nice right wing OPPers.

EconomistDon

Thanks jon. I agree that OPP is full of interesting discussion. I read all your posts and felt none of the irritation that I got from Opal's posts. I don't like people who criticize others for not having a brain, or not knowing how to think or read or reason. The fact that someone has an opposing opinion does not mean they are stupid. And anyone who levels that claim is probably the stupid one. I thoroughly enjoy the discussion on OPP until it degrades to name-calling. I got really tired of Opal's self-adoration and his continued demeaning shots at Dennis' brain.

Anyway, if you want to cast your vote for Opal -- fine. Your opinion counts as much as mine.

jonhatfield Loc: Green Bay, WI

Your reply to me is more reasonable and polite than my somewhat snide treatment of your declaring Dennis winner in the Opal/Dennis exchange.

Your "vote" for Dennis was I think perhaps more a shot at Opal than actual winner assessment...a matter of demeaning Opal as self-adoring and demeaning. My "vote" for Opal quite frankly was only a counter and mostly reaction to Dennis's labeling "moderate" and "extremist" (himself & conservatives vs. anyone and anything not Tea Party) in denial of contrary facts and his citation of factoids and stray sources as absolute proof of his labeling.

Early in the Opal/Dennis exchange, if you recall, Opal pointed out a specific former exchange which Dennis denied. Reference to the specific site was provided and Dennis simply ignored the fact that he had been caught in denial and went on later about Opal as lying on another matter again and again that was exaggeration. That has been my experience with Dennis...in denial and exaggerated labeling.

Well, Opal and Dennis perhaps have faults...perhaps similar faults...and we, Don and Jon, perhaps have equal faults, perhaps similar to each other also...and perhaps there are no winners and in various ways we are all losers to some extent. Well, your reply to me at least was a winner. :lol: :lol: