Is there such a thing as a moral right to a piece of land?

[lord of the mark]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by molly bloom

See ? There's the defensive posture yet again.

when person Q, someone who lives in X, says Y gives a good impression of whats going on in X, and someone else says no, thats only a personal experience of Q and not representative, it would seem natural of Q to get defensive.


"Whether you do or don't live in the United States has nothing to do with a programme you haven't seen, a transcript you haven't read, and a woman you haven't met."

It IS relevant to whether the interview of that woman,
or the anecdotes ive described, give a better overall impression of life in the US. Maybe youre not getting this, but I dont really care about your TV show, or this woman. I DO care that your posts are giving folks who read them, and who DONT live in the US, a misleading impression of what life in the US is like. I often get the impression that many Europeans think all American fundies are raving bigots, and that anyone who isnt a fundie lives in fear of them. I DONT like the way fundies are slowing down social progress on some key issues, but the picture some folks have of them, and of life here, is just incorrect.




"It showed 'fundamentalists' from different countries with different faiths, who for differing reasons and with differing degrees of 'justification', exhibited the same kinds of paranoia and sense of self-righteousness."

Did it attempt to analyze why those fundies differ from fundies who lack that kind of paranoia and self-righteousness?


"That's your reading of a show you haven't seen and your misinterpretation of my posts."

Thats the impression your posts gave me.


"Well, you would, wouldn't you ?

Good grief, my posts aren't about an overview of the whole Protestant Evangelical movement in the United States, nor are they about life in general in the United States."

You do not give the impression that you think it isnt representative of the whole evangelical movement, and you do seem obsesses with asserting that my counterexamples are not more representative.


"What are you doing- channeling the paranoid style of American politics into your misreadings of my posts ? It certainly seems that way."

I would think taking one example of a phenomenon, and leaving the impression it was typical, are a better way to stir paranoia.


"How lovely for you. I've been to a Muslim wedding, but somehow that doesn't cancel out the presence of Muslim fundamentalism in this country, and doesn't make me feel that the programme was trying to portray an unbalanced picture of this country, or Muslims in this country."


There are right wing websites that post about goings on in the Muslim world. Every word is true. Yet the overall picture they convey is false, the false impression they give is dangerous, profoundly dangerous.




"No, it's yet again a demonstration of how you can't see the wood for the trees."

Ive hiked in the woods, and seen many kinds of trees, and how they exist together, and sometimes dont, and so im not so interested in someone lecturing me on the forest based on having seen a nature show, and being able to quote the words of William Bartram and other 18th century naturalists.

[molly bloom]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by lord of the mark

Originally posted by molly bloom

See ? There's the defensive posture yet again.

when person Q, someone who lives in X, says Y gives a good impression of whats going on in X, and someone else says no, thats only a personal experience of Q and not representative, it would seem natural of Q to get defensive.

My posts weren't about daily life in the U.S.A. .

How many times does that have to be stressed ? The woman fundamentalist featured wasn't shown as being representative of Protestantism, Americans, women or even ALL Protestant Evangelicals.

There's your paranoia all right. Unless I chant 'U.S.A. ! Okay! ' in every single post I make where North America gets even a tangential mention, clearly I am trying to belittle American institutions and the country and the people.

Yes, 'America' has enemies, inside and outside, but I'm most certainly not one of them.

It IS relevant to whether the interview of that woman,
or the anecdotes ive described, give a better overall impression of life in the US.

Was the 'overall impression of life in the U.S.A. ' the point of the programme ?

No. Case closed.

Maybe youre not getting this, but I dont really care about your TV show, or this woman.

Evidently.

That's why you're so defensive and hot under the collar about it, and have spent time and written SIX posts of various lengths about a woman you haven't met, whose views you haven't heard, in a programme you haven't watched, a transcript of which you haven't read.


I should be so unconcerned about things....

I often get the impression that many Europeans think all American fundies are raving bigots

That's very nice, and suitably vague and all encompassing.

It doesn't apply to me however, nor (judging by the programme) did it apply to the interviewer, European, Catholic and ex-Dominican though he be.

Did it attempt to analyze why those fundies differ from fundies who lack that kind of paranoia and self-righteousness?

Watch the programme.

Read a transcript.

Until then, forbear to comment on it any further, is my sage advice.

Thats the impression your posts gave me.

How convenient for you.

I am not responsible for the 'impression' my posts give you.

Either quote me or stop trying to channel what ain't actually there in black and white.

You do not give the impression that you think it isnt representative of the whole evangelical movement, and you do seem obsesses with asserting that my counterexamples are not more representative.

'Impression', 'seem'- couldn't you be more accurate and precise ? Try quoting my words- they are plain for all to see.

I am not obsessed with asserting that your personal experience of one wedding and one Protestant Evangelical family are more representative of the Evangelical movement as a whole. I fail to see how your personal experience could be more representative than a programme which set out to place the Evangelical movement in context.

Since I've simply been replying to your misreadings of my posts and your comments on a programme you still have yet to see, I'd say the paranoid obsession is yours, not mine.

I would think taking one example of a phenomenon, and leaving the impression it was typical, are a better way to stir paranoia.

'Impression'- watch the programme. Be less vague.

There are right wing websites that post about goings on in the Muslim world. Every word is true. Yet the overall picture they convey is false, the false impression they give is dangerous, profoundly dangerous.

And ?

'Every word is true'- what exactly does that mean ?

That you've been studying all those websites, or you're employed as their fact-checker ?

I think we should be told...

Ive hiked in the woods, and seen many kinds of trees, and how they exist together, and sometimes dont, and so im not so interested in someone lecturing me on the forest based on having seen a nature show, and being able to quote the words of William Bartram and other 18th century naturalists.

How very pious of you. Despite your piety, let me remind you of just how familiar I am with the basic tenets and texts of Christianity, especially the New Testament, and the origins of Protestant movements in the United States. This woman's interpretation of the Bible and her view of the world would in parts seem quite familiar to some 17th and 18th Century Protestants, even though the concentration on End Time prophecies is more 19th and 20th Century in flavour.

John Winthrop, Governor of Massachusetts:

2. All other churches of Europe are brought to desolation, and our sins, for which the Lord begins already to frown upon us, do threaten us fearfully, and who knows but that God hath provided this place to be a refuge for many, whom he meant to save out of the general destruction.

And seeing the Church hath no place left to fly but into the wilderness, what better work can there be but to go before and provide tabernacles and food for her, against she cometh thither ?

from: 'Reasons to be considered for justifying the undertakers of the intended Plantation in New England, and for encouraging such whose hearts God shall move to join with them in it. ' (ca. 1629).

There's her paranoia, sinfulness, her feeling of divine sanction and mission.

Here's her hostility to other Christians and non-Christians:

First, it will be a service to the Church of great consequence to carry the gospel into those parts of the world, to help on the coming in of fulness of the Gentiles, and to raise a bulwark against the kingdom of anti-Christ which the Jesuits labour to rear up in those parts.

Of course Winthrop had more justification to be paranoid- a small population of like-minded Protestants amongst the unregenerate mass of English settlers, surrounded by the forces and colonists of Catholic France and Catholic Spain, facing hostility from natives and from Stuart Great Britain and lacking support even from the Independent minded Cromwell, who was not of the same religious nature .


What's her 'reason', I wonder, for such hostility to Catholics and non-Christians....