Actually, my first year in college was in 1977, directly out of High School (and what beginning formal education in my fifties, even if true, could possibly have to do with my actual level of education or knowledge in any specific area is anyone's guess. I suppose its just another R. McGraham character smear that he thinks, because it means something to him, means something to anyone else).
I'm not the guy who spoke in speech class in front of bored classmates and then came to the internet to brag about how he defended his thesis in an "academic setting"! That was you. LOL!
I've never taken a speech class, or given a speech in an academic setting.
Again, I think it is obvious to anyone who has ever seen you post, that you’re posturing about being an intellectual.
Hmmm. That's exactly my perception of you. One of us is correct here, and one of us is dancing in the dark. Well, my posts speak for themselves, and, well, so do yours.
You think you’re so far above everyone you encounter.
Projection example 1.
This is either a bad joke or a sad charade.
Projection example 2.
What’s certain is that you have no credibility anywhere.
Projection and externalized inner conflict example 3.
Even your ignorant pieces at Frontpage get little support from the choir.
Self conscious intellectual insecurity example 4.
And that "bigger dog" would be you?
LOL! Yes, and I'm supposed to be the narcissist?
You're not supposed to be. Narcissism is a character defect. I'm only the bearer of the news (which everyone else knows perfectly well is true, as they have told you again and again, to no avail).
I don’t even consider you a dog.
Meeeowwww...
You’re a worn out punching bag that entertains on occasion.
I've been called a lot of things, but a punching bag??
No Loran, only you like to say these things. Because you see, I have all the documentation I need to prove otherwise. I have unsolicited emails from credible scholars who state otherwise. You know this, and it burns you up. Because you see, when one has been showered with praise from those who are clearly scholars, it doesn't really matter what some uneducated hick from Kershaw South Carolina has to say about me.
If your speaking of the KEP issue, the tiny coterie of neo-orthodox scholars you mention are far out of the mainstream of LDS thought, and they're only cuddling up to you because you're the best regurgitator and gatekeeper for their 19th century Book of Abraham production theories and they don't have to discredit themselves intellectually and
spiritually among fellow LDS by having their names associated with open dissent to core LDS doctrine.
I've been apprised of who these people are and what their particular intellectual agenda is, and so long as you are a reliable attack dog (though I doubt, given your temperament and personality, they will ever associate themselves with you publcally, particulary with a feverish apostate who's hostility to the Church runs far deeper than just the Book of Abraham issue), you will be used in that capacity.
Watching Wade and Will
tear you to little bloody pieces again and again in extended debates, while you strut around reminding everyone how smart you are, has been a real gas, but its long over and long beyond its shelf life.
Socialism is a word that gets thrown about a lot and it confuses unsophisticated minds such as yours. "Socialism" as it has been endorsed by those you hate, is quite simply a system that has never been experienced aside from a couple of short lived experiments. Socialism is simply a system where the means of production is controlled by the working class. Following your logic, America must be a Communist country like China, because it is also a Republic.
Somehow it doesn't surprise me that you are more than capable of resurrecting and resuscitating every tendentious, threadbare excuse and apology for the utter failure of the theory and inherently necessary application of socialist economics and social theory that became popular after Khrushchev's revelations of Stalin's (but strangely, not Lenin's) crimes that anyone with a particle of intellectual seriousness and honesty already knew had occurred but which intellectually and morally vacuous intellectual hacks such as yourself whitewashed, buried, apologized for, and
incessantly and brazenly lied to preserve.
"Socialism" as practiced in numerous socialist societies since the October Revolution is a manifestation and direct derivative of the theoretical assumptions and concepts inherent in socialist theory. This is why each and every socialist revolution and social experiment ended in precisely and exactly the same way and featured the same litany of social, cultural, economic, and moral failures.
The endless nauseating attempts by many Western intellectuals, since the fifties, to twist and turn in the wind in an attempt to protect and preserve socialist
theory, while abandoning the inherent and inevitable consequences of the logical and consistent application of socialist theory to actual existing societies, is one of moral and philosophical failure on an apocalyptic scale, made all the worse by the fact that the truth, both as to theory and history, have always been known and available to any so inclined as to pursue it.
Oh, so now you finally want to concede the nuances of Socialism while regurgitating a Wiki article?
I've been discussing the nuances of the various schools of the Left here in this forum and elsewhere for years on end. Where have you been? What are you talking about? Are you even lucid, Kevin?
I've never read a Wiki article on socialism in my life. Cast the bones again, and see what they portend...
They are both forms of collectivism deriving from a broad, general undercurrent of ideological assumptions and beliefs common to the historic Left (including Nazism's racism)
You will not find a credible professor anywhere in this country who supports such insanity
You clearly have no idea whatsoever what you're talking about, and frankly, continuously debating a
profound and deeply unread dunce who thinks he can use pure self assured bluster (and make bizarre claims that he clearly could not possibly have any experience or background regarding) to muddle his way through debates on subjects and issues for which he has had little if any intellectual preparation has become less than enlightening (or even entertaining).
You will only find fringe fanatics, and maybe only a few of them.
I could name drop all the historically distinguished scholars and intellectuals who have held this (historically and philosophically accurate) view, but what good would it do to a determined anti-intellectual ideologue with no actual acquaintance or understanding of
what it means to be educated, let along wise or intelligent.
EA has already mopped the floors with you on this subject, demonstrating that Nazism and Fascism have much more in common with the Conservative Right.
Delusion mopped the floor with himself by showing he has utterly no acquaintance with the historical or political-philosophcal issue at all, save from the standard, formatted academic leftist/mainstream media perspective itself rooted in the overwhelming desire, dating from the thirties, to save the dreamy-eyed romance of utopian collectivism from its own necessary consequences.
German Nazism was driven by a strong sense of Nationalism, which is quite the opposite of modern "leftism," as you like to call it
.
Good heavens what twaddle! Call others beyond credibility all you want, because you need to keep doing that as loudly and shrilly as possible in order to deflect awareness of the obvious fact that you have not the slightest serious grasp of these issues and concepts whatever.
Extreme Nationalism is the darling philosophy behind the current, “You’re a Great American” Conservative movement,
You are a typical leftist cartoon intellectual holding a cartoon comprehension of that with which you disagree. Again, this is all polemic, no substance. You have no more idea what modern conservatism is than what is implied by your own philosophy.
Modern conservatism is a major form of classical liberalism, and, by definition, is the antithesis of any form of statist collectivism, including ultra-nationalism of any kind. Libertarianism is another school, and both are utterly opposed to both anything like Nazism or socialism/communism. Nazism was nationalistic? Yes...uh, but that doesn't by itself separate it in some clear compartment from socialism There are also a number of features (which can be clearly seen in Hitler's own statements as well as the 25 point Nazi party platform) that are very clearly derivative of and closely allied with traditional utopian/revolutionary socialist ideas and political
initiatives.
Secondly, Marxist revolutionaries in the 20th century have long used nationalism and ethnic chauvinism as vehicles to carry socialist ideology to political power. As with the KEP, you're just a regurgitator of the nostrums, shibboleths, and self serving orthodoxies of others, but you don't actually understand the fuller background and complexity of the subjects.
where we learn that being a citizen of a particular country gives you special rights and privileges undeserved elsewhere in the world.
Whatever you mean by this, I'm sure it makes you feel "smart."
Nazism promoted war and was divisive, whereas the modern leftist is generally opposed to war at all costs, and is essentially egalitarian.
Rama lama ding dong. Whatever Kevin. The historical reality is, of course, that, outside of Nazism, almost the sole source of all war, revolution, social breakdown, imperialist adventurism, conquest and domination of other nations, and institutionalized repression, has been socialism, primarily in its Marxist form.
The sick humor in all this is that socialism/communism has been the most aggressive, war-like ideology in history, and the most committed to slaughtering its own people (democide) in all human existence. Nazism is its equal here, but only lasted a little over a decade. Socialism lasted some 70 years around the world, and did vastly more human damage than Nazism ever did (and perhaps ever dreamed of doing, as, while Nazis kill you for what you are (Jew, slave, gypsy), socialists kill you for who you are (middle class, business owner, scholar, journalist, poet, scientist, higher income farmer, non-socialist etc.) and there is no discrimination as to race or ethnicity. Only political correctness matters).
Nazism was also propped up by an unrelenting and sophisticated system of propaganda, very similar...
to the relentless government propaganda common (and similar in style and form) to Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Communist China, East Germany, Yugoslavia, Poland, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Latvia, Estonia, North Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba, Nicaragua, Mozambique, South Yemen, Ethiopia,
present Venezuela, and some other socialist nations of the 20th century.
No difference detectable here.
1970, February
To villages we go, to the borders we go, to places in the fatherland where we are most needed we go
Dao nongcun qu dao bianjiang qu dao zuguo zui xuyaode difang qu (到农村去到边疆去到祖国最需要的地方去)Nazi:
"You are the front!"
Soviet again:
"The motherland is calling."
And back to Nazi:'
"We remain comrades."
Here's some more happy, smiling worker ants:
And some others:
http://www.iisg.nl/landsberger/images/c05.jpg
"Studying for the mother country."
Is this one Naziish enough for you:
From East German, circa 1958:
Here are the "new people," the new men and woman of racially cleansed National Socialist Germany, and one cannot escape the parallel to the "New Soviet Man" and Marxian idea of humankind cleansed of all human defects through correct ideology and the abolition of capitalism
to the current corporate-funded Right Wing media.
All major media are corporate funded, Kevin. The entire environmental movement is corporate funded. The diversity movement is corporate funded and sponsored. Armand Hammer was a Soviet spy and inveterate fellow traveler. Hello???
Nazism was also anti-Communist because it strongly supported the private ownership of property.
Nice try, but this slight-of-hand just won't wash. The Nazis did leave capital in private hands. However, what you convienently failed to mention is that business and industry was rigidly controlled by the state, and allocation of resources, prices, and quantities of manufactured goods and commodities were under the thorough domination of the Nazi government. The Nazis (as anyone actually educated about their actual ideology would know) were viscerally anti-capitalist; they were unalterably opposed to
free market economic relations. No economic activity that did not benefit the state, or which was not compatible with Nazi ideology and goals, or which was individually directed (rational self interest outside that of the German collective), was opposed.
There is a reason why modern Nazis sympathizers are more likely to hail from the Right than the Left.
This is hopeless. The "Right?" And what is that, Kevin? Everything not the Left? The head-spinning disorientation in attempting to make sense of your poor man's Phil Donahue boilerplate is almost nausea inducing. Modern Nazis are totalitarian statists, just like, say, Ward Churchill. They have a different set of priorities, but agree fundamentally on the necessity of a completely regimented, collectivist society grounded in group privilege, as determined by the correct ideology, and the elimination of out groups - the politically incorrect (or racially, or ethnically, or socioeconomically, or whatever).
The Nazis and communists had no trouble banding together against the social democrats and true liberals in the 1930s, and fought each other for supremacy in that country, not because of ideological differences, which although they existed, were not as salient as that which bound them together as enemies of liberalism, but because both were totalist systems that cannot tolerate political competition.
They became fast allies (well, they had been since the Wiemar Republic, but the new Axis had different intentions) as soon as they were no longer threats to each other within the same body politic.
The notion of a Social democracy, for example, makes your head explode because you’re so used to reducing everything into one of two categories: God’s Capitalism or the Devil’s Totalitarian State.
Anyway, democratic socialism is a contradiction in terms. The two forms of economic organization and the relative principles governing the purpose of the state and the relationship of the state to the individual and the mediating institutions of society work against each other and the one, the socialist welfare state and its prime directives and ripple effects in the general culture, will always attempt to dominate and overwhelm the other. The inherent tendency of the state is to grow, spread, and colonize ever more aspects of human life, and socialism provides that innate tendency a powerful fertilizer easily the equal, and probably in excess of that provided by the sibling ideologies of National Socialism and Fascism.
Then I guess by your logic, Thomas Jefferson who said, "experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor," was a Socialist!
I don't believe so, but, as you don't appear to understand logical inference or deduction, you can go anywhere you like with this.
The rest of your ravings can be safely snipped.
You are not a particularly educated man, Kevin
Maybe you should tell that to the scholars -mostly Mormon and from BYU - who felt the need to take time out of their day to send me praise after reading some of my "political rants," as you describe them. You know, guys like Davis Bitton who wanted me to co-author a FARMS piece with him because he was impressed with the “deft” and “scholarly” manner in which I engage the issues. I can name a half dozen scholars from BYU who quickly came to a conclusion opposite to yours. Gee, who should I trust on this one? Seasoned scholars who’ve been properly trained by reputable institutions of higher learning and understand true scholarly discourse, or should I opt for the isolated opinion of Loran Blood, “Think Tanker” extraordinaire whose professed education comes from ... him?
and you have no temperament for careful intellectual work or debate. You have no philosophical capacities whatsoever.
Coming from someone like you, these are all compliments I assure you.
You are a poseur, which is why your entire style of discourse is grounded in bombastic narcissism, self-serving intellectual prancing, and personal invective.
I'm not the one trying to get attention on forums that don't want me there.
I just concluded a couple of weeks of stimulating, extensive, and civil debate and discussion with both Rob Bowman and Don Bradley on several issues, including the doctrine of the Trinity. There has also been some political commentary there, and so long as you don't show up, there have been few sparks and no slugfests. I feel more "at home" there than in past years. Indeed, so long as people like David Bokovoy don't wade into that forum trying to promulgate highly idiosyncratic, avant garde, and politically provocative doctrines dear to their own hearts but far outside established LDS doctrine, the place is relatively serene and I feel perfectly welcome there (I know who the lefties are there, including among the mods, and I'm careful, in most cases, to avoid giving them a chance to cut me off and give resident liberals the last word).
You have to come to this forum - where you despise it and everyone participating therein -
Hardly. Recently, I had some very stimulating and interesting debates with both Analytics and Stak. Its only when you, show up, Kevin, that it all goes to hell (well, and a few others, but I mostly avoid them now).
to complain about why your home forum keeps banning you!
Glass house, Kevin, glass house. I'll never even approach your record here.
Yes, I know there are a few neo-orthodox liberals and leftists in the apologetics community who are comfortable letting your bark away while they keep their names out of public connection to your Keith Olbermanesque ravings and obnoxious, uncivil anti-intellectual polemics and personal smears of everyone who disagrees with you.
I'll meet anyone, regardless of advanced degree background, who holds philosophical and political views similar to yours, in the arena of ideas on the basis that they are as wrong, confused, and intellectually disoriented as you are. I have a long, long, and continual intellectual history behind me, and a great deal of life lived. Believe me, Ronald, I fear no "intellectual" on no other basis than the waving of a degree in my face.
Apparently, you're willing to lick the boots of any formally educated academic who massages your megalithic ego and prods you to foam at the mouth in public while they do the heavy intellectual lifting behind the scenes. Fine. None of my business. Be assured, however, that many, many people see you for exactly what you are. There is no mystery there. None at all.
Gee? Gee won't even speak to you anymore and has given up any attempt to debate you or have an intelligent discussion. Does Gee know more upon political and philosophical subjects than I do? He may, or he may not, but his Egyptology degree doesn't add up to anything beyond that unless that's demonstrated on its merits on a case by case basis.
Nibley was a gross economic and political illiterate (including seriously deficient in modern political and social history and political economy), but I still have his books, and I still gain profound and useful insight into those areas in which he had expertise and within which he spoke with authority and mastery of his subject.
How many flat rocks can there possibly be in one messege board?
