Posts Made By: Mark Costello III

Hi, Dave. I looked over the article by Francis Poretto and I have to say I disagree with a few things in it. Taking the last paragraph cited in your note,

"The Founding Fathers held that politics and public office were unsuitable occupations for a career. Their original Constitutional design included several provisions intended to obstruct the establishment of the sort of life in public office that's common today. Their prototype statesman for the newborn Republic was a man of independent means who could leave his affairs in a steward's hands for a few weeks each summer while he busied himself with the rei publicae: i.e., with questions of state. It took several Constitutional Amendments, two World Wars, a Great Depression, and one hell of a lot of demagoguery to create the niche that makes political careerism possible.

The professional deceiver -- the politician -- emerged to occupy that niche"

I just don't see that in the constitution. The only limits are on the Executive, and in particular the President, and that's only because of the 22nd Amendment. The Supreme Court Justices have served for life (or until they choose to retire) from the beginning. Our history is dotted with representatives and senators who stayed in their office for decades. Everyone probably remembers the 19th century triumvirate of Henry Clay, John Calhoun, and Daniel Webster.


Touching on the first couple of paragraphs

"Politicians of our day are bolder, subtler, and more adroit in their deceits than any of their predecessors. Atop that, their consciences are more completely numbed than any non-felonious offender recorded by history. Those that claim to be Christians are almost certainly lying about that as well. At any rate, they appear confident that there is no afterlife, or that the consequences of their lives on Earth can somehow be finessed or effaced.

With very few exceptions, the contemporary American politician is, by definition, a sociopath. "

I believe and certainly hope the exceptions are more than a "very few." Off the bat I can think of a couple of career politicians who were, at least in my opinion, good men. Here we had the conservative Jesse Helms. My favorite is this guy who represented my home town when I was growing up:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_E._Bennett_(Congressman)

I remember my 12th grade political science teacher, an arch conservative grousing "nobody can beat Charlie Bennett." I always wonder why that made him so unhappy, and looking back, I still do.

As to the current President, I've done my little bit to "resist" him by not voting for him or anyone on my slate that he endorses, and occasionally arguing against this or that policy of his in places like here or in letters to newspaper editors. But as long as he doesn't pull a "Tricky Dick" or "Slick Willie," he has my respect. And I do not expect him to do either....


Best,

David Cotterell said:

Let's take some time out from our little debates and reflect.......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normandy_landings

Dave

While down here in Jacksonville, Florida, I talked a bit with my Dad about this. At the time he was on a minesweeper in the Mediterranean off the coast of Italy. Later as the naval war in the Atlantic and Mediterranean wound down, he volunteered for submarine duty in the Pacific. He was in the Los Angeles area receiving final training and maybe an assignment to a boat when the Japanese surrendered. Thanks to him and his generation, I've had a life of peace and liberty....

An appropriate name for her website....

Concur, give them the same treatment that people from where I came from (Florida) give water moccasins in their back yards, because that's what ISIS effectively has made themselves out to be. I'm not a friend of this administration or Democrats in general, but I'm willing to wait for the President's initiatives and plans for dealing with ISIS to unfold before offering criticisms....

Against any Democrat on the horizon, Tom Cotton's good by me. Against other Republicans on the horizon, we'll have to wait and see. My guess is that he'll spend time working in the Senate and not run in 2016....

William Durant (Story of Civilization) and Norman Cantor (Dartmouth professor - Civilization of the Middle Ages) write the same things concerning the start of Islam and at least the First Crusade.

Hello, Dave. I did not find the essay from Heather Cox Richardson to be quite as good as evidently you did. Although you and Ms Richardson have me at a disadvantage in that I never read God and Man at Yale, I can still say that the essay strikes me as having omissions and problems that are material to what she is trying to say. In the interest of brevity, I’ll just zero in on a few items and I’ll be brief in going through each.

First, value orthodoxy and Christianity. Ms Richardson evidently implies that the conservatives are trying to put these in place as the guiding principles as they are new to the nature. If Ms Richardson is an expert on 19th century American history, she should review things that perhaps she forgot or otherwise escaped here notice. She could start her review by visiting the Lincoln Memorial and reading his 2nd inaugural address in which Abraham Lincoln invokes God several times. Belief in the absolutes of Christianity was the prevailing mindset of the 19th century. It certainly was on in the 18th century. Read Glorious Cause by Robert Middlekauff (hint: it has TWO chapters titled “Children of the Twice Born”). Read “How the Scots Invented the Modern World.” Or just read “Common Sense” by atheist Thomas Paine, in which he dresses his arguments in imagery written to appeal to Protestants. Or on the contrary, provide examples where the predominant opinion of the 19th or 18th century here was that it was OK to slaughter babies before they could breathe air.


This brings me to the next issue, the Enlightenment. What was that, the one by Edmund Burke, or the one by Voltaire, the one that drove the French Revolution. Read any book on the French Revolution to see how that went about (hint: Lenin thought the French Revolution was a wonderful model for the Bolshevik Revolution).

Finally, maybe I can’t speak for all conservatives, but I and maybe a lot of other conservatives are not wanting to eliminate liberalism. I would like to see liberals to champion causes such as the one they did in the 1950s when perhaps most everyone still subscribed or at least appealed to the absolutes of Christianity. Liberals like Harry Truman, Hubert Humphreys, etc. Instead, we have liberals who, in abandoning absolutes, championing things like the vile practice of abortion and the ugly view of political correctness (Newspeak, Ministry of Propaganda and Enlightenment, etc.)....

This guy is smart on a lot of levels and has a good future once he retires from the NFL. Hats off to you, John....

Up to now, I've tried to limit myself in criticizing various actions and policies of President Obama, knowing that as a conservative I can't expect a liberal President and administration to do what I'd like to see done. But this action was totally out of left field. It's the kind of thing someone would do if they want to get a Mideast arms race really moving, and it has all the hallmarks of a something done in a temper tantrum....

Saw this man on CNN Monday night.

http://www.inquisitr.com/2049179/a-hero-among-the-chaos-veteran-robert-valentine-stands-up-to-young-rioters-in-baltimore/

Salute.