See Previous Post that lead to this response HERE.
So, Richard, you want to lob a few grenades back at me, and then suddenly take the high road and call a cease war? (Marie may have deleted one of your post, but I’ve still got an email from face book with it.)
And yet even in your self-righteous “Forgive Me” post, you include a link that is doing again exactly what you are supposedly asking forgiveness for… If you ever decide to do some serious introspection, I have a great place for you to start. Go to the dictionary, and look up “hypocrite”.
Richard, I am sensitive to this being Marie’s thread, but I’ve had enough of sitting by politely while other people say egregiously inaccurate and insulting things about Christianity/Western Civilization and then get indignantly and self-righteously defensive when anyone else says anything questioning their way of thinking. (Or when they are challenged, they immediately either run away or suggest we take our disagreement offline). If you don’t want rebuttals, then don’t open the can of worms. As far as debating you one-on-one, what would be the point? If you almost have a PhD in philosophy, and (apparently) associate with Unitarian Universalist, then you probably have too much vested in your viewpoint to honestly consider another point of view. My interest is not in changing your mind, it is in showing anyone who is reading your bankrupt views that there is another valid point of view… a point of view that, in my estimation, does a lot better job of explaining the way the world is.
I could write a book addressing the things you wrote and implied. And maybe I will someday. But for now, just one or two points and then the real crux of the issue.
You say that after studying Nazi Germany and the SS for decades, you haven’t seen a “photo of anything like a peace symbol” associated with Nazi Germany? I’m not sure if that is a carefully and craftily written statement (with the reference specifically to a photo), or just being ignorant of the evidence, but at any rate, here is a link to a web site with “no affiliations with any political party, right or left wing and has no association with any organization other than those connected with” the collecting of “Imperial and Third Reich” military collectables.
http://www.germandressdaggers.com/Panzer%20Section%20Divisional%20markings%201%20to%203.htm
There are several Panzer Divisional Markings here that look like the Peace Sign without the circle, but if you look in the bottom right at the 3rd Panzer Division, 1041-1945, there is exactly the “peace sign” used later by the “peace movement”. We can debate about the meaning of these symbols for the Nazis, but the “peace” symbol did predate the supposed creation of them by Holtom in 1958 for the Peace movement.
I could be insulting and say that I hope your years of study of philosophy yields a little more complete and credible result than your decades of study of the Nazis, but I won’t. (Oh wait, I kind of just did, didn’t I? Sometimes I just can’t help myself.)
As far as your denigration of the internet, I couldn’t disagree with you more. I have found that far too many textbooks are carefully chosen to promote a politically correct point of view, and far too many classrooms are taught by professors who are ideologically driven. Both result in a censure of competing viewpoints and revisionist history. I am quite grateful that the internet has broken the near monopoly that the education establishment had on information.
I could go on and on about how your study and research is suspect because you have probably been brainwashed by the educational establishment. I could dwell out how you didn’t have a problem when Selecia used the internet as a source…when her viewpoint agreed with yours… but suddenly when I point out an opposing viewpoint from an internet source, that the internet is somehow “inferior” to your “real history books”. I could question at length your blind trust in “historians” (after all, as the old saw goes, history is just his-story). But I won’t. There is really no reason for you and I or anybody else to go tit for tat about all of these superfluous details. We might as well get down to the real crux of the issue…
The real crux of the issue…
All of this FUD about exactly when Bertrand Russell died, whether or not the Peace sign was ever used by Anton LeVey, etc. …. it’s really beside the point isn’t it? Because even if the evidence were wrong and it were proven that the peace symbol was created in 1958, and was created by an idealistic man who’s only intent was peace, the fact remains that the peace movement was co-opted, encouraged and promoted by groups of people who think that Christianity and Western Civilization in general (and capitalism and individual freedom specifically) are bad things and should be replaced by other religious, social and economic systems. It is a fact. It happened. It isn’t hearsay, it isn’t speculation. These people published papers themselves stating what their objectives were. Read David Horowitz, and spend some time on www.discoverthenetworks.org
And there is nothing astounding about this. It happens all the time. An example (to be completely fair about it) was the Christian co-opting of the winter solstice, (calling it Christmas). People who are pushing an agenda tend to hop on any bandwagon that they can find that is going their way.
In any movement, whether social, political or religious, there are always going to be people (the majority of them) who are only going to look on the surface of an issue. People who look at the “Peace” symbol as just a simple symbol of peace are in this category. There are others, the real drivers, movers and shakers behind the movement that are in tune with the deeper level objectives, goals and hopes of the movement. And these movers and shakers are driven by much more complicated motives. The leaders of the groups that were anti-Western Civilization and anti-Christian used the “Peace” symbol to lure public support for their movement. Again, this isn’t any kind of deep, dark, “conspiracy”. It’s just business as usual. It happens all the time.
Western Culture, and especially the culture of the United States, is inextricably entwined with Judaism and Christianity. Anyone who denies this is just ignorant of the facts or is stubbornly bigoted. It was the theology of Christ, which lost its way for a while and then was re-invigorated by Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation, with the doctrine that every man is equal before God, that paved the way for the enlightened political and social structures of Western Civilization. And it culminated in the social and political experiment that, for the last 200+ years, has been the United States of America. The religious beliefs of Christianity, that every man was of infinite value (after all, if God sacrificed his own son for each individual, then those individuals must have infinite worth, right?), every man was equal before God (and no longer needed a priest to approach God, but could do it themselves), made their way into society and politics. Mankind no longer had to submit to a “God-appointed” King, but was equal in stature to everyone else, regardless of bloodline, and thus free to self-govern. The self-governance has a price though, and that is the other side of the coin. The other side of the coin is the price we have to pay: The price is that we don’t wait around for a priest or a king to tell us what to do. We have to take the responsibility to learn and act on what religious people would call the “heart of God”, and what secular people might call “universal, timeless values”. These are things like honesty, integrity, accountability, compassion, forgiveness, etc. Liberals tend to forget this other side of the coin. But that’s a discussion for another time.
So, for those who looked below the surface, the “Peace Symbol” was and is representative of a group of misguided people who are pushing an agenda that will weaken, if not totally destroy, western culture. And since this western culture that they are trying to replace is inherently Christian, and the Peace Symbol is associated with this effort, the Peace Symbol becomes an anti-Christian symbol.
This ideological war of words is important: Because this western culture that some are trying to replace is a culture that has done more to raise the standard of living of EVERYBODY in the world than any other culture in the history of the world. Even people living in the poorest of nations live much longer today than they did 200 years ago. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo And the Western Industrialized countries lead the way, and pulled the other countries along with them.
The end of the world isn’t going to come just because somebody wears a peace sign. But symbols are important. Leaders know this. That is why Barack Obama refused (at least at one point) to wear a US Flag lapel… because there was something about that symbolism that he disagreed with. We could go on and on about the importance of symbols in changing public opinion, in propaganda, and in control of crowds. But that too is a subject for another day. Suffice it to say that symbols are important. And symbols are used to show allegiance or support for ideas.
And you don’t have to be the much hated “fundamentalist Christian” to think that Judaism/Christianity is important. Because let’s face it… nobody can prove whether there is or is not even a God. But even if it turns out that there isn’t a God, and the whole Jewish/Christian religion was manmade and not based on the divine, it will still be a fact that the values that were promoted and that came out of the Judeo-Christian ethic have done more to improve the lives of mankind on this world than any other philosophy or religion in the history of the world. That is why I support it. Not blindly out of some sort of religious obligation, but because it makes sense. There is very little in this world that you can know for sure. So each of us CHOOSES what we want to believe, and what we CHOOSE to believe says a lot about who we are as a person.
Marie approaches the subject of the Peace Sign from a surface level. To her is it just a pretty ornament that is associated with warm and fuzzy feelings of “Peace”.
Marie’s estranged approaches it from a bit deeper level. To him it is the symbol of the bastardization of something of worth, of something special, of something worth preserving.
It’s as simple as that. And n’er the twain shall meet.
I happen to agree with Marie’s estranged.
And I can politely disagree with Marie.
But when I come across somebody like you, energetically and vigorously promoting untruths, I tend to energetically and vigorously set the record straight.
Chao