Makiah Bryant - Unbelievable

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Brack
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Re: Makiah Bryant - Unbelievable

Post by Brack »

LeBron owes officer Reardon an apology.


I agree that LeBron owes this officer and apology, but I doubt that it will ever happen.
Brack
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Re: Makiah Bryant - Unbelievable

Post by Brack »

What ever happened to subgenius??
Chap
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Re: Makiah Bryant - Unbelievable

Post by Chap »

Chap wrote:
Sun Apr 25, 2021 9:21 pm


Actually, a lot of what he said was addressed to the rulers of his age. He was concerned, amongst other things, about rulers who were primarily concerned with making money at the expense of basic decency, and the effect that this example would have on the ways their subjects lived their lives.

How different his world was from ours ...

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:
Sun Apr 25, 2021 9:43 pm

Sure. I was thinking of this quote
The root of the kingdom is in the state. The root of the state is in the family. The root of the family is in the person of its head.
regarding the foundations of power within Confucianist thought. I believe, and I could be wrong, they thought the individual was primarily responsible for their life and that flows upward just as much as bad policy (kings) flows downward.

- Doc
O... K... that seems to be all over the internet as a quotable quote, plus optional landscape background.

Image

I take it, however, that you won't mind my citing something a bit more lengthy, not to say meaty? The quotation you found is from the 19th C. translation of James Legge, and better more modern versions are available. His version is however freely available online, so I shall use it here. by the way, Meng Ke is the personal name of the person in question - family name Meng, given name Ke. He is more often referred to as Meng Zi 'Master Meng', a title turned into Latin by early western scholars as 'Mencius'.

A nice long passage explaining this guy's views on social policy and the responsibility of rulers is in Book 1, near the end of the first part:

http://nothingistic.org/library/mencius/mencius04.html


19. The king said, 'I am stupid, and not able to advance to this. I wish you, my Master, to assist my intentions. Teach me clearly; although I am deficient in intelligence and vigour, I will essay and try to carry your instructions into effect.'

20. Mencius replied, 'They are only men of education, who, without a certain livelihood, are able to maintain a fixed heart. As to the people, if they have not a certain livelihood, it follows that they will not have a fixed heart. And if they have not a fixed heart, there is nothing which they will not do, in the way of self-abandonment, of moral deflection, of depravity, and of wild license. When they thus have been involved in crime, to follow them up and punish them;-- this is to entrap the people. How can such a thing as entrapping the people be done under the rule of a benevolent man?

21. 'Therefore an intelligent ruler will regulate the livelihood of the people, so as to make sure that, for those above them, they shall have sufficient wherewith to serve their parents, and, for those below them, sufficient wherewith to support their wives and children; that in good years they shall always be abundantly satisfied, and that in bad years they shall escape the danger of perishing. After this he may urge them, and they will proceed to what is good, for in this case the people will follow after it with ease.

22. 'Now, the livelihood of the people is so regulated, that, above, they have not sufficient wherewith to serve their parents, and, below, they have not sufficient wherewith to support their wives and children. Notwithstanding good years, their lives are continually embittered, and, in bad years, they do not escape perishing. In such circumstances they only try to save themselves from death, and are afraid they will not succeed. What leisure have they to cultivate propriety and righteousness?'

23. 'If your Majesty wishes to effect this regulation of the livelihood of the people, why not turn to that which is the essential step to it?

24. 'Let mulberry-trees be planted about the homesteads with their five mâu, and persons of fifty years may be clothed with silk. In keeping fowls, pigs, dogs, and swine, let not their times of breeding be neglected, and persons of seventy years may eat flesh. Let there not be taken away the time that is proper for the cultivation of the farm with its hundred mâu, and the family of eight mouths that is supported by it shall not suffer from hunger. Let careful attention be paid to educatlon in schools,-- the inculcation in it especially of the filial and fraternal duties, and grey-haired men will not be seen upon the roads, carrying burdens on their backs or on their heads. It never has been that the ruler of a State where such results were seen,-- the old wearing silk and eating flesh, and the black-haired people suffering neither from hunger nor cold,-- did not attain to the royal dignity
.'

You get the general idea: if, as a ruler, you run the government so that your people live in poverty and want, then it is your responsibility if they go wrong. If you then do no more about the problem than setting your police force on them, that is then not a remedy for the situation you have created, but a further sign that as a ruler you are crap. The true ruler shows his quality by putting in place social and economic policies that lift people from poverty, and promote education and security for the needy. (Mulberry trees are for feeding silkworms, by the way)
Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:
Sun Apr 25, 2021 9:43 pm
I’m not sure how much ‘meng ke’ was devoted to Marxist political theory.
OK. I suppose that must have been a joke, and I'll take it as such.
Maksutov:
That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
Mayan Elephant:
Not only have I denounced the Big Lie, I have denounced the Big lie big lie.
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Doctor CamNC4Me
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Re: Makiah Bryant - Unbelievable

Post by Doctor CamNC4Me »

k
Hugh Nibley claimed he bumped into Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Gertrude Stein, and the Grand Duke Vladimir Romanoff. Dishonesty is baked into Mormonism.
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