I am ashamed.

[kubicle]

Most were not rich and many of those that were didn't remain so.

I know I was caricaturing, but I have a hard time believing the interests of rich (by standards of the time) free white men weren't over-represented in the group that actually wrote the constitution (even if some of them lost their fortunes later on).

Also, politics then were no different than they are now.

I'm sort of getting that politics in the States hasn't really evolved much since those days (you seem to be hung up on pretty much the same issues). But our knowledge in sociology, economy, political science has taken great leaps since then (and you Americans have contributed a lot to that, but politically you seem to still be stuck in the 18th century).

There are many parts of the world were politics have evolved, and many political systems that are generally considered more advanced than the the one in the States.

The laws made today in Congress and the Senate, and signed by the President, are done by mainly rich white men, just like it was 250 years ago.

That alone should tell you there is something wrong with the Constitution.

I'm not saying the Constitution is worthless, your "Founding Fathers" can be compared to Newton...some of their ideas were ground breaking and progressive (like Newton's mathematics), some just as ground breaking and still useful even though fundamentally flawed (like Newton's gravity)...and some just idiotic (like Newton's alchemy).

One has to accept that people were fallible even in the 18th Century...and they didn't have all the knowledge we have today (even though we're still fallible, that hasn't changed). You can't really rely on their views, opinions and ideas when judging modern day issues (not that you really need to disregard them altogether, but you have to realize the [historical] context).

[vw72]

I find it interesting how this thread started about Steve's frustration over his feelings of guilt about being used and once again has degraded into more political drivel. Steve, I am truly sorry you feel the way you do, but it really wasn't your fault. Unfortunately, there are people in this world who will use the good intentions of others for their own less than noble purposes.

As for the rest of the thread, maybe Fox News or MSNBC would be a better place to post such rants. It always surprises me that the most active discussions on kubuntuforums.net has nothing to do with Kubuntu nor 95% of the world's population.

However, maybe I'm wrong and all of these postings really do have something to do with consoling or supporting Steve, if so I appologize to the group.

[PaulW2U]

It always surprises me that the most active discussions on kubuntuforums.net has nothing to do with Kubuntu nor 95% of the world's population.

Such discussions certainly wouldn't be allowed over at ubuntuforums.org.

[Qqmike]

Now that's a perceptive observation! This NOT ubuntuforums.org, thankfully!
These interesting and friendly discussions don't have to have anything to do with anything.
There ya go, the real scoop today.
:-)


Btw, I do think he's a traitor (Snowden, not PaulW2U).

[jlittle]

You need to fix your glass prescription. As a straw man left wingers Bob Beckel and Alan Colmes are a perfect fit. But, it's a leap to call Juan Williams a straw man, or Santita Jackson (Jesse's daughter, and a friend of "Rev" Jeremiah Wright), or Jehmu Greene, Claudia Cowan and probably one of the sharpest contributors to Fox New, Sally Kohn. To those Lefties I can add Kirsten Powers, Simon Rosenberg and the indubitable Marxist Dennis Kucinich,

Thank you, I've never heard that they have such commentators, though from the outside of the USA I don't recognize those names.

Sorry, when a news channel has commentators that express what from *my point of view* are extreme far right, hateful, nonsense, ideas, and espouse violations of the constitution that makes the USA great, and its defenders fear a socialist UN takeover, no amount of airtime given to supposed leftists can be excuse enough.

In reality, Fox isn't any more Right, or less Left than the other media.

If you really think that, I do not understand.

Regards, John Little

[Buddlespit]

Just a side note to GreyGeek: Dark matter can be measure by its gravity, it appears to exert pressure and can be "seen" thru gravimetric lensing.

[Shimapan]

Hm. Let's see about that:

* A woman's right to full and complete privacy over her own body

* The right for two (or more) people in a committed relationship to enjoy the full benefits of marriage

* The right to have a public education based on the latest that science has to offer, free of sectarian indoctrination and iron-age fairy tales

* The right to enter a polling place and cast a properly recorded vote without delay or harassment

I think that's good for now.

Fully agree, the Christian Conservatives (CC) have seriously twisted ideas of what constitues a "right".

1. Womans are considered completely worthless, rightless and full of sin in Christianity. Therefore, the CC consider themselves in the right when they decide over a woman's body, or any parts thereof (and an unborn child *is* an inseparable part of a woman's body, it cannot live on its own).
Here are a few verses from the Bible that clearly show what they think about women:
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/sa...ns_rights.html

Genesis 3:16
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

1 Corinthians 14:34-36
Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.

Ephesians 5:22-24
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.

1 Timothy 2:11-15
Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

Titus 2:4-5
Teach the young women to be ... obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.

More misogyny in the Bible:
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/women/long.html

GreyGeek, if you want to point out what's written in the constitution and what isn't, then two can play this game. The constitution does *not* grant any rights whatsoever to unborn children (otherwise, please show me where it *does*). Heck, not even the bible mentions unborn children. It's only the men that want to control every aspect of a woman's body, including pregnancy.

2. I'd say that comes from the CC villifying sexuality and every aspect of it. Not much of a surprise if you see how it's portrayed in the Bible:
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/sex/long.html

The "just and righteous" Noah (Genesis 6:9, 7:1) plants a vineyard, gets drunk, and lies around naked in his tent. His son, Ham, happens to see his father in this condition. When Noah sobers up and hears "what his young son had done unto him" (what did he do besides look at him?), he curses not Ham, who "saw the nakedness of his father," but Ham's son, Canaan. "A servant of servants shall he [Canaan] be unto his brethren." This is a typical case of biblical justice, and is one of many Bible passages that have been used to justify slavery. (Genesis 9:20-25)

Lot refuses to give up his angels to the perverted mob, offering his two "virgin daughters" instead. He tells the bunch of angel rapers to "do unto them [his daughters] as is good in your eyes." This is the same man that is called "just" and "righteous" in 2 Pet.2:7-8. (Genesis19:8)

After God killed Er, Judah tells Onan to "go in unto thy brother's wife." But "Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and ... when he went in unto his brother's wife ... he spilled it on the ground.... And the thing which he did displeased the Lord; wherefore he slew him also." This lovely Bible story is seldom read in Sunday School, but it is the basis of many Christian doctrines, including the condemnation of both masturbation and birth control. (Genesis 38:8-10)

Tamar (the widow of Er and Onan, who were killed by God) dresses up as a prostitute and Judah (her father-in-law) propositions her, saying: "Let me come in unto thee .... And he ... came in unto her, and she conceived by him." From this incestuous union, twins (38:27-28) were born (both were boys of course). One of these was Pharez -- an ancestor of Jesus (Lk.3:33). Genesis 38:13-18, 27-28)

"If any man's seed of copulation go out from him...." (God's law for wet dreams)
This passage tells you what to do if you get your "seed of copulation" on yourself, your clothes, or your partner. Thank God this is in the Bible. Leviticus 15:16-18, 32
"If any man's seed of copulation go out from him, then he shall ... be unclean until the even." 15:16
"And every garment ... whereon is the seed of copulation, shall be ... unclean until the even." 15:17

Under God's direction, Moses' army defeats the Midianites. They kill all the adult males, but take the women and children captive. When Moses learns that they left some live, he angrily says: "Have you saved all the women alive? Kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves." So they went back and did as Moses (and presumably God) instructed, killing everyone except for the virgins. In this way they got 32,000 virgins -- Wow! (Even God gets some of the booty -- including the virgins.) Numbers 31:1-54

Now if it comes to homosexuality, it gets even worse:
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/gay/long.htm

3. But Genesis tells us that the Earth was created in seven days! What could possibly be wrong about that? Okay, so Genesis has a few flaws, but still...
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/gen/1.html

(1:1-2:3) The Genesis 1 account conflicts with the order of events that are known to science.

In Genesis 1:1, the earth and "heaven" are created together "in the beginning," whereas according to current estimates, the earth and universe are about 4.6 and 13.7 billion years old, respectively.

In Genesis, the earth is created (1:1) before light (1:3), sun and stars (1:16); birds and whales (1:21) before reptiles and insects (1:24); and flowering plants (1:11) before any animals (1:20). The order of events known from science is in each case just the opposite.

(1:3-5, 14-19) "Let there be light"
God creates light and separates light from darkness, and day from night, on the first day. Yet he didn't make the light producing objects (the sun and the stars) until the fourth day (1:14-19). And how could there be "the evening and the morning" on the first day if there was no sun to mark them?

(1:6-8) The Firmament (Heaven)
God spends one-sixth of his entire creative effort (the second day) working on a solid firmament. This strange structure, which God calls heaven, is intended to separate the higher waters from the lower waters.

(1:16a) "God made the two great lights."
"The greater light [the sun] to rule the day, and the lesser light [the moon] to rule the night." But the moon is not a light; it only reflects light from the sun. And why, if God made the moon to "rule the night", does it spend half of its time moving through the daytime sky?

(1:16b) "He made the stars also."
God spends a day making light (before making the sun and stars) and separating light from darkness; then, at the end of a hard day's work, and almost as an afterthought, he makes 300 sextillion stars.
When were the stars made?

(1:17) "God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth."
Then why is only a tiny fraction of stars visible from earth? Under the best conditions, no more than a few thousand stars are visible with the unaided eye, yet there are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy and a hundred billion or so galaxies. Were they all created "to give light upon the earth"?

But even for the almighty god, creating the earth, stars and what not, and in a few days only, was extremly tiring, so he asked some fellow gods for help when he finally arrived at making the human, as evidenced by Genesis 1:26a: "Let us make man in our image." He then keeps this helping staff around. Genesis 3:22: "And the Lord God said, Behold, then man is become as one of us, to know good and evil." (Humans were ment to remain stupid and unable to tell good and evil apart.) Genesis 11:7: "Let us go down, and there confound their language." Eventually though he gets tired of his co-gods and decides to make himself the surpreme god. Exodus 18:11: "Now I know that the LORD is greater than all gods."

4. Now why should they be able to vote without harrassment? The Bible is full of intolerance, and they're just acting according to it.

The first commandment ("Thou shalt have no other gods before me.") condemns those who worship any other than the biblical god. (Exodus 20,3)

God drives out the pagan tribes and commands the Israelites to destroy their altars and places of worship. (Exodus 34:11-14)

Stay away from people with familiar spirits and don't "go a whoring" after them either. (Exodus 20:6)

If a man has sex with another man, kill them both. (Exodus 20:13)

People with "familiar spirits" (witches, fortune tellers, etc.) are to be stoned to death. (Exodus 20:27)

Handicapped people cannot approach the altar of God. They would "profane" it. (Exodus 21:16-23)

No stranger or slave can "eat of the holy thing." (Exodus 22:10, 13)

God tells the Israelites to make slaves out of their neighbors and their families. The "heathens" and "strangers" are to be their possessions forever. (Exodus 25:44-46)

Elections are only for god-fearing people. It's bad enough that there are elections in the first place, as they're not mentioned in the Bible! If the Christian Conservatives could do as they please, they would return to the middle age, where the church ruled everyone with an iron fist and where the Inquisition exterminated any heathens. Or, at the very least, they would instate a Christian version of Sharia Law (with little difference from it).

[Qqmike]

Not difficult to tear apart Christianity or any other religion. Religion is in the category of mythology (a la Joseph Campbell's paradigms and work), or even fairly tales. But some people need it. Everyone needs some kind of belief in something, even if it's a nihilistic belief in nothingness. And so on. Et cetera.

Back to the thread, abortion? Gays and other alternate lifestyles? Hell, try suicide or assisted suicide. My Christian friends believe that is about the worse thing you can do--a ticket straight to Hell. With the CC influence, is there any hope to legalize assisted suicide in the US? Doubtful. However, I believe a couple states have. I find it depressing that some religion can assert so much influence. Were the founding fathers so religious? I don't think so, were they? Any historians here? In any case, 'keep your religious beliefs to yourself,' huh? Don't mix it in with politics or laws or governing.

[HalationEffect]

Were the founding fathers so religious? I don't think so, were they? Any historians here?.

Worth reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism (especially section 3.6 "Deism in the United States").

[vw72]

I assume that since the topics discussed here have continued unabated, that they have the blessing of those behind kubuntuforums. It seems intolerance is the new norm as kubuntu forums. But thoughtcrime was chilling in 1984 and it is just as chilling in real life.

When I first came upon kubuntuforums, I was estatic because here was a site that was dedicated to supporting a distro I was very fond of and recommended to clients. That was then. I can no longer recommend my clients come here because for every support post there are ten posts like this thread. Kubuntuforums was a support site that occasionally had some discussions in poor taste. Today, it is more like a trash talk site with the occasional support question being answered.

Hopefully, Kubuntu will one day get its own official support site, because all the threads on this site in the genre of this one don't do anything but reflect poorly on Kubuntu. There's a reason that major distributions (and even smaller ones that are serious about their distro) don't permit these types of discussions, it reflects poorly on them. If you want to discuss politics, fine, go to a chat room or a political web site. If you want to discuss religion, fine, do likewise. But if your intention is to promote Kubuntu, then your discussions should be towards that end. Meanwhile, potential linux users wanting a good KDE experience are turning elsewhere. I just had a client alter a 1,000 seat Kubuntu install towards openSuse specifically because of content they saw on this site that they felt was offensive, so I know of what I speak.

My suggestion to whoever is in charge would be to create a policy of what is appropriate content or not and then follow it. If the policy is that everything is appropriate, then so be it, but you should really change the name from kubuntuforums then, because you are hurting the image of Kubuntu.

[Qqmike]

I think you're dead wrong.

It is difficult to speak rationally and not make the insecure feel threatened.

Maybe the mods should censor free thought and exchange. I'm tired of intolerance as exhibited by the likes of vw72.

[vw72]

I think you're dead wrong.

It is difficult to speak rationally and not make the insecure feel threatened.

Maybe the mods should censor free thought and exchange. I'm tired of intolerance as exhibited by the likes of vw72.

Let me ask you this. The title of this forum is Geek News. What does rehashing american politics or bashing religion have to do with Geek News? The title of this post was I'm Ashamed and it was about Steve's being used by Microsoft. Again, what does american politics or bashing religion have to do with that?

All I said is that the inflamatory comments about religion and politics hurt the image of Kubuntu and gave a specific real life example and you responded with a personal attack. It seems that your post exemplified exactly the point I was trying to get across.

But go ahead and continue, as the old rhyme goes "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me" applies. I am quite secure in who I am, but if the content of this thread is an example of free thought and exchange, well, then those words must have a different meaning than what they used to have.

[Qqmike]

"What does rehashing american politics or bashing religion have to do with Geek News?"

I believe the friendly-and-understanding consensus is that the thread DID depart from the original issue, but that it was OK to do so (at least this time).

"... bashing religion ..."

The choice of the word "bashing" kind of reveals your bent there, vw. Speaking for myself, I did not intend to "bash" religion, no more so that any philosopher would. It is commentary, observation, meta-anaylsis. Do you feel that, for example, thinkers like Joseph Campbell are "bashing" when they render some observation, analysis, or even an interpretation?

[bsniadajewski]

This is the Community Cafe portion of the forum where members can "take the load off" and vent about anything, even if it's not Linux-related. Plus, threads can, at times, veer off in all sorts of directions, as I, a nid-30's Linux-using Catholic (who does go to mass every Sunday), have seen.

@Qq

It all depend on how you view the unborn children. If you view them as human life, then the taking of that life is tantamount to murder, and murder is immoral. If you see it otherwise, then you'll think otherwise.


BTW, Shimapan. Not all Christian Churches, especially the RCC, view the first few chapters of Genesis as literal.

[jlittle]

Fully agree, the Christian Conservatives (CC) have seriously twisted ideas of what constitues a "right".

I provoked this foray into American politics by my knee-jerk reaction to Grey geek's socialist conspiracy for the UN to take over, so I'd like to point out that I am actually a conservative, church-going, christian. I think your CC are better characterized by "Christian Right" but that's not really fair to christians or the right. To quote a former Prime Minister of my country, David Lange, "funny sort of christians, these" refering to a "christian" party strongly influenced by the US "Christian Right".

1. Womans are considered completely worthless...

2. I'd say that comes from the CC villifying sexuality...

4. Now why should they be able to vote without harrassment? The Bible is full of intolerance, and they're just acting according to it...

If the Christian Conservatives could do as they please, they would return to the middle age, where the church ruled everyone with an iron fist ...

That's all nonsense, offensive antichristian propaganda. I suppose your point is to turn the selective chapter and verse style back on them but since you don't accept its validity, I don't see why.

I'll just say that Christ didn't consider women worthless, was a beacon of tolerance for the ages, and that the church did not rule with an iron fist, that was the feudal aristocracy (literally in that they wore armoured gauntlets).

If you are complaining about intolerance, being intolerant is self-defeating.

Regards, John Little