Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2007 August 23

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[edit] August 23

[edit] main issues for the political bases

The U.S. Presidential hopefuls in the Republican and Democratic parties are now courting their respective bases, those voters most likely to vote in primaries and in caucuses such as the Iowa caucus. What are the main issues and concerns, in each case, for these party faithful? --Halcatalyst 00:00, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Many of the issues are the same for both parties, such as Iraq, although the positions on each issue will be different for each party. In more general terms, I suspect that candidates from both parties will want to distance themselves from Bush's foreign policy, which has not been a success. How to deal with North Korea, Iran, Syria, and the Palestinians/Isreal will also come up. For Democrats primarily, the future of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and the prisoners in them will also come up, as will freedoms given up in the PATRIOT Act and by Bush's executive orders (such as the freedom from having your phones tapped without a warrant). Allowing federal support for stem cell research will also be a likely Democratic issue.
Immigration remains unresolved, as do perennial social programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Then there are those "flag-burning issues" (things which won't generate any new law, but which candidates up for election bring up to distract the electorate from the real issues), such as banning gay marriages, banning abortion, requiring school prayer, etc. I would expect these to come mainly from Republicans this election cycle, as they have the most reason to distract voters from the real issues (like their failing to catch Bin Laden when in power). StuRat 00:32, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Isreal? I can't resist inserting this: Keats and Chapman were walking through the Jewish neighborhood of Dublin one day, when they met a mutual friend, Paddy O'Cohen.
  • All stopped to have a little talk, which turned to the conditions in the Near East. O'Cohen delivered strong opinions on the need for security and expressed his strong support for the policies of Ariel Sharon. Keats and Chapman each offered slightly differing opinions, but all were on cordial terms, and O'Cohen went his way.
  • After a moment, Keats commented on the great feeling of isreality which O’Cohen had. But Chapman demurred: "What isreality?" he asked. --Halcatalyst 02:03, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
There is information, and sources aplenty, in Democratic presidential debates, 2008 and Republican presidential debates, 2008. Rockpocket 01:17, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
TMI. In a nutshell, what turns the partisans on? --Halcatalyst 01:58, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

The Pew Research Center asked voters who self identified as Democrat or Republican (or Democrat- or Republican-leaning) what they considered the most important issue effecting the 2008 Primary vote. The results were as follows:

Most Important Issue Democrat voters Republican voters
Iraq War 38% 31%
Economy 16% 12%
Health care 13% 3%
Education 12% 5%
Terrorism 5% 17%
Immigration 3% 12%
Abortion 1% 7%
Foreign policy 8% 8%

-- Rockpocket 05:41, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

  • Thanks, Rockpocket. Extrapolating,
Democrat priorities Republican priorities
Iraq war 38% Iraq war 31%
Economy 16% Terrorism 17%
Health care 13% Immigration 12%
Education 12% Economy 12%
Foreign policy 8% Foreign policy 8%
Terrorism 5% Abortion 7%
Immigration 3% Education 5%
Abortion 1% Health care 3%
  • These are illuminating but incomplete results. Probably everybody reading this realizes that poll outcomes depend on the questions asked; questions can be worded in such a way that the answers given by well-designated pollees are quite predictable. Reputable organizations like Pew of course do their best to avoid this problem. But some words in the political space are extremely emotionally charged: for example, "terrorism."
  • I'd like to know of attempts to encapsulate the issues as they would be viewed and expressed by the two sides. For example, on abortion: (1) Abortion is a moral evil. (2) Abortion is a woman's right. Those diametrically opposed propositions have been bruited continually for over 30 years and have been adopted in the R and D party platforms. But what about the other issues? Anybody care to distinguish between R/D views on foreign policy, for example? Or point to a place where someone else has attempted to summarize the issues for each side? --Halcatalyst 14:39, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Actually, your example of abortion is not an example of diametrically opposed statements. That particular debate is one where there can be no progress because the "warrant" of the argument is never stated and cannot be empirically determined. The question is "personhood" and "legal personhood." One side takes a stand that metaphysical personhood begins early (perhaps conception) and that therefore legal personhood should begin at the same point. The other side takes the position that legal personhood depends upon a series of tests (viability outside of the womb, etc.). These are both matters of asserted principle and cannot be proven nor disproven. Both are speaking of a legal definition that depends entirely upon community consent and trying to say what it must be without such community consent, and therefore neither can talk to the other. However, "moral wrong" and "woman's right" are not opposite statements. Smoking is a "moral wrong" and a "woman's right." Getting drunk is both. In other words, morality and rights are not separate matters and do not routinely exist at opposite ends of a single spectrum of licensed action. Utgard Loki 16:37, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Well put. --Halcatalyst 01:49, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Despite the illogic, I'd say the way I expressed the two sides of the abortion issue is the way the partisans on each side would describe it, which is what I'm looking for. Would you agree?
  • Here's another shot: (1) U.S. foreign policy must be muscular and nationalistic. (Republicans) (2) U.S. foreign policy shoud emphasize diplomacy and international cooperation. (Democrats)
  • I could devise more such summaries, but I would like to know what others think: people here and/or what has been published elsewhere. Help? --Halcatalyst 14:11, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Summaries such as the one you provided for foreign policy are good, in general, but the parties do vary from time to time. In that example, after a blatant failure of diplomacy, like the Iran Hostage Crisis, even Democrats will tend to favor military action. Conversely, after the failure of militarism, as in Iraq, even Republicans will tend to favor diplomacy. StuRat 05:00, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
I hate to speak for anyone, but I would summarize, for myself, two axes along which the parties in the US split. One is on the issue of collectivism and the individual (one of the oldest of US tensions). If one believes in greater federalism and federated responses to problems, and therefore federal accumulation of income, then one is Democratic. If one believes that only the individual is sovereign, then one is Republican. However, if one is answering "sometimes," then one is Democratic in today's atmosphere. Therefore, "Is there a role for the federal government in the amelioration or solving of social ills?" (not "how much" anymore, I would say, but just "any").
Is the United States special or enjoy a special destiny in the world? If you answer "No," then you pretty much have to be Democratic. If you answer "yes," then you're more likely to be Republican (unless the answer is, "Yes, it is the first nation God means to solve the problems of poverty"). There is an adjunctive position to this. "If the US is divinely or historically special, is the duty of the government to interpret the will of God/History for its people?" If yes to that, you're darn near guaranteed to be Republican. Should foreign policy be determined by the treatment foreign nations give to their own people? If yes, you are definitely Democratic. Should foreign policy be determined by the ideological alignment of a foreign government? If yes, you could be either, but, if "no," you are definitely Democratic.
Does the United States enjoy a corporate right to material wealth? If yes, GOP. If no, either.
Is the world about to end due to God's will? If yes, almost surely GOP. (This is most emphatically not fringe, nor irrelevant, nor merely coincidental. James Watt and George W. Bush have both argued that some of the actions they have favored are commendable because the world is about to end. In Watt's case, he purported to have a dream of a civil war in the US when overseas oil ran out, and so he believed that every domestic drop should be consumed first so that we could then have a foreign war. In Bush's case, he told Woodward that global warming and history's judgment of his presidency did not worry him because of the nearby apocalypse.)
Is the Bible a "literal" guide to both one's personal and one's political life? (The quotation marks should be self-explanatory, because there are no literal interpretations of the Bible.)
Do individuals have a duty to their fellow citizens, or is it merely a virtue to help others? If "duty," more likely to be Democratic.
Is the free market a sovereign determinant of worth, or does the free market inevitably lead to corruption? If "sovereign," then Republican. If "corrupt," Democratic.
Is this the kind of thing you're looking for? Utgard Loki 17:16, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
An excellent response. Thanks! --Halcatalyst 18:42, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Thanks, all, for your thoughtful responses. Behind the scenes politicians can be thoughtful too. Would that the public political discourse were also. But that discourse is mediated by television, mostly, and its modus operandi is the production of ideas which can be compressed into 30- or 60-second segments (the "debates"); the politicians, or at least their handlers, believe that repetitious, emotionally-laden "sound bytes" are the means to sway the undecided; and the most likely caucus/primary voters, that is the partisan activists, as a whole, accept this system. The candidates in turn pander to partisan prejudices during the caucus/primary season, only to moderate what they say during the election campaign; and the media seize on and sensationalize trivial "gaffes" to try to excite public interest, but the vast majority of citizens are not that interested and indeed tire easily of these games.
  • As an active volunteer for one of the candidates, I say this not cynically but sadly. --Halcatalyst 14:25, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Late commment, but as to that Pew Study, I could see many people being concerned about both the Iraq war and terrorism and covering both by calling them "Foreign relations", etc. If they weren't explicitly mutually exclusive, I would be wary. 68.39.174.238 03:03, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm planning on voting for John Edward. If he can communicate with the dead, he can ask Lincoln what to do ("whatever you do, don't watch any plays"). I think Edward's the best candidate since Paul Simon (even if Garfunkle wasn't his choice for VP). :-) StuRat 04:25, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] state caucuses

What states besides Iowa have Presidential caucuses? --Halcatalyst 00:02, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

According to United States presidential primary, Nevada and Iowa have caucuses, while all the other early States have primaries. As for the later States, Nebraska is replacing their primary with a caucus for the first time next year. Democratic Party (United States) presidential primaries, 2008 also lists as having caucuses: Alaska, Colorado, New Mexico, North Dakota, Michigan, Washington and Maine. Rockpocket 01:10, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Thank you! --Halcatalyst 01:59, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Note that there is much discussion in Michigan of an earlier primary, or, as State Sen. McManus puts it in a letter to the editor today: "A semi-open primary, as I proposed in Senate Bill 624, which the Senate passed Wednesday, would maximize participation without compromising party rules." This would be a setback to John Edwards' hopes. Wareh 16:20, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Trotsky or Stalin?

I've read-and heard it said-that it would have been better if Trotsky had suceeded Lenin as Russian leader rather than Stalin. Is there any real reason to suppose that he would have been more humane? Blanco Bassnet 02:04, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

No one can say what might have been. Given how barbarous and paranoid Stalin was, it's easy to argue that Trotsky wouldn't have been as bad. It's also easy to argue that Trotsky, the general, would have conducted the Russian affairs during WW2 better, but, ultimately, it's impossible to say. The personality-driven massacres of Stalin would not have occurred, but there is no way to be sure that show trials and disappearances wouldn't have happened anyway. Furthermore, given Trotsky's preference for decentralization and anarchism, it's also possible that, had he succeeded, he would have been replaced by someone else. There's no telling. We know what did happen: Stalin was a monster. We cannot know what would have happened. Geogre 02:51, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Trotsky learnt a lot about how to run a military machine, but remember that he wasn't a soldier, he was a politician in charge of the Red Army. He saw the need (as others didn't) to rely on the advice of professional soldiers. Perhaps because he was driven out and assassinated, we're inclined to see Trotsky now as a victim, more rational, more of an idealist. He had some good qualities (it's hard to say that of the bruiser Stalin!) and was brighter and more capable, but he was also a 'hard man'. The following isn't properly applicable to Trotsky (who was far from 'unselfish'), but here is one of my favourite Joseph Conrad quotations...
“ The scrupulous and the just, the noble, humane, and devoted natures; the unselfish and the intelligent may begin a movement, but it passes away from them. They are not the leaders of a revolution. They are its victims. ”
I offer this as part of the answer to your question because it's arguable that in the Soviet Union of the 1920s and 1930s no humane leader would have survived. Xn4 13:06, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
(Fantastic Conrad quote. I assume that's from The Secret Agent? Very nice. I almost want to nick it for my commonplace book.) Geogre 13:31, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, Geogre. That's from Under Western Eyes. Xn4 14:20, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
He would almost certainly have been much too busy raising hell elsewhere to be causing massive famine and organising show trials for old friends at home; Stalin, on the other hand had nothing else to do.Hornplease 14:02, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

afaik Trotsky was an extremely intelligent bloke, but that doesn't necessarily make a good politician. Perhaps Trotsky would have had Stalin killed in 1946 1940 in Mexico, as opposed to vice versa.martianlostinspace email me 14:43, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I think it is possible to give a meaningful answer here, based not upon speculation, or counterfactual assumptions, but a reading and an interpretation of Trotsky's record when he was in power, rather than writing about its abuses from the margins of history.
In the early 1920s he was one of the party 'hard-liners', fully behind the oppressive and politically counter-productive policy of War Communism, when the economic justification for this had passed. He was also the man responsible for the destruction of Russia's independent trade union movement, an advocate of the 'militarisation' of labour. It was he, moreover, who in 1921 was behind the brutal supression of the Kronstadt rebellion, a protest against the Bolshevik government's misuse of power. He accepted with some reluctance the partial return to free market economics, ushered in by the New Economic Policy, believing that the peasants should be coerced by a policy of enforced collectivisation, prefiguring Stalin on this issue by some years. In the 1990s, Dimitri Volkogonov, a Russian historian, discovered previously unexamined Russian state papers, showing that Lenin and Trotsky worked together on a policy of deliberate terror, again foreshadowing Stalin. He was later to denounce Stalinism from exile not because it was violent, but because it was violent for the wrong reasons. Secret police, a one party state, show trials, deportations and mass shootings were as much a part of the 'Trotsky system' as they were that of Stalin. We might as well, I think, let the man speak for himself;
Violent revolution was necessary because the undeferrable demands of history proved incapable of clearing a road through the apparatus of parliamentary democracy. Anyone who renounces terrorism in principle must also renounce the political rule of the working class. The extensive recourse, in the Civil War, to execution by shooting is to be explained by this one simple and decisive fact. Intimidation is a powerful instrument of both foreign and domestic policy. The revolution kills individuals and thus intimidates thousands.
Would things have been any better under Trotsky? No, they would not. Clio the Muse 02:29, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Having reread some of the contributions made in the above by other editors I would just like to correct one or two small factual inaccuracies. Trotsky most definitely did not have a preference for 'anarchism and decentralisation'. Stalin was as bright, capable, intelligent and as well-read as Trotsky, and a far better political tactician. If any one has any doubt about this I would urge them to read the excellent biographies by Simon Sebag Montefiore. Trotsky's own Stalin is sour, inaccurate and, at points, racist. Clio the Muse 03:05, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
I think that Russia under any form of communism would have been bad, regardless of the virtues of the leader. bibliomaniac15 Prepare to be deleted! 03:08, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
I would agree with a lot of Clio the Muse's comments above - but I think that the quotation dredged up to 'let him speak for himself' is more than a little disingenuous. Trotsky, like other Bolsheviks, enjoyed being blunt and matter-of-fact about these kind of things. It was necessary to be so, in their view, because if the Bolsheviks and the workers in general absolutely refused to make use of violence or non-legal methods where necessary they would inevitably be defeated by their (less scrupulous) opponents. For all its bluntness, Trotsky is not really doing a great deal more in this passage than renouncing pure pacifism and defending the principle that violence may in some circumstances be both necessary and justified. In this case the circumstances were the need to defend a popular revolution against internal enemies, heavily backed by foreign powers, who were attempting to restore a brutal, authoritarian, and fantastically inegalitarian regime. That regime had denied its citizens any semblance of civil rights and had presided over carnage on a massive scale during Russia's involvement in WWI, which had led to its decisive rejection. The POV that violence was indeed necessary to defend the revolution against reaction can be put quite strongly. But in any case, if we leave the specifics to one side we are left with a principle to which any practical politician would subscribe. It is easy to strip passages like this from their context and present them as an apparently unique endorsement of violence, when in actuality, every war, foreign intervention, or suppression of internal dissent is justified in essentially the same terms, but in less direct and self-conscious language (Iraq, anyone?).
To reiterate though, you had him bang to rights on deeds. The man behind Krondstadt and the militarization was certainly no friend to the Russian workers. 89.243.7.4 18:14, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
My goodness, 89.243, what a lot of value judgements! You will note that the quotation, disingenous or not, was in reference to the essential point of the question. It was selected entirely at random, and I could produce other examples, to confirm that Trotsky was just as brutal and no more 'humane' than any other Bolshevik, including Stalin. There were many decent left-wing politicians who, unlike Trotsky, renounced 'terrorism in principle', and managed to contribute in their own way towards greater concepts of human justice. But, as I have said, Trotsky denounced Stalin, not because he was violent, but because he practiced the 'wrong sort' of violence. I rather suspect that, on the basis of what you have written, that you also have concepts of the right and wrong sort of violence. I have no idea what you mean when you say that Trotsky was 'no friend to the Russian workers'. He was a Bolshevik, was he not, and by your estimation at least, a defender of a 'popular revolution.' Or do I take it that some 'defenders' are more equal than others?
Anyway, more generally, and for the benefit of other readers, let me straighten out a few factual misconceptions. People might think from the above that the Bolsheviks overthrew Tsar Nicholas II, or am I to take it that the 'brutal, authoritarian and fantastically inegalitarian regime' was that headed lattery by Alexander Kerensky? The truth is, of course, that the Bolshevik Coup of October 1917 hijacked the 'popular revolution', that of February 1917. They then went on to establish a 'brutal, authoritarian and fantastically inegalitarian' regime; undermining the independence of the Soviets; dismissing the Constituent Assembly, established by the most democratic franchise in Russian history, because they were in a minority. All power went not to the Soviets, but the the Bolshevik Party, more specifically to the Council of People's Commissars and even more specifically than that to Lenin, and ultimately to Stalin. This monoply was sustained by Cheka, the first Soviet secret police, that practiced forms of torture of Medieval flamboyance. The Bolshevik coup, moreover, was a direct cause of the ensuing Russian Civil War. Although it is certainly true that some of those in the Volunteer Army wanted to see a restoration of the old regime, this was far from general. One of the leading causes of the White defeat was a complete lack of political consensus.
Now for the regime of poor old Tsar Nicholas, the one that 89.243 clearly has in mind when writing of a 'brutal, authoritarian and fantastically inegalitarian regime.' Of course it was nothing of the kind. For all its faults-and there were many-it was positively benign compared with what was to follow. Finally, and though is totally and utterly beside the point, I would ask people to consider if Nicholas should be charged alone for standing by his friends and allies in 1914, and for defending the territory of Russia? Yes, the carnage of the Great War was terrible; but the 'crime' of Tsar Nicholas was no greater than that of Herbert Asquith or Raymond Poincare. And, yes, before I forget-Long Live Holy Russia, remembering always the Blessed Martyrs! Well, I'm only human, and have to permit myself at least one value judgement. Clio the Muse 01:21, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
For all his faults, Nicholas has long struck me as a more decent and honourable man than any of the other significant monarchs of the Great War. He fumbled his abdication (as he did so many other things), but he did little to deserve the hatred that came his way from much of a defeated nation. Since I realized what the tune was when I was about thirteen, I have always found the hymn God the Omnipotent (sung in the Church of England to Prince Lvov's tune for God Save the Tsar! rather thrilling. Hear it here. Xn4 02:42, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
It is thrilling, and beautiful. Thanks for that link, Xn4. Clio the Muse 00:04, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A US base in the USSR

After seeing so many interesting discussions on the subject of World War II, I decided to ask another question.Can you give me any information about Western military bases in the Soviet Union (Poltava, Murmansk) and about the Soviet air base in Bari? Thanks, Jacobstry 13:38, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I know of no western bases, either at Poltava in the Ukraine, or at Murmansk. The Yugoslav Partisan Air Force had the use of several bases in Italy from 1944, including one at Bari in the south. I know of no Soviet presence. Clio the Muse 01:48, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, two US airbases were established in former Soviet republics of Central Asia and used for operations in Afghanistan - one (now closed) was at Karshi-Khanabad in Uzbekistan, the other (still open) is at Manas in Kyrgyzstan. Xn4 03:28, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
On Poltava, there was a book written: Infield, The Poltava Affair. I'm not aware of anything other than passing mentions of the Soviet Air Force detachment at Bari with the Balkan Air Force, or the RAF squadrons in north Russia in 1941 and 1942. Murmansk was not a "western base" in any real sense. Merchant ships and warships spent time there, sometimes several months between convoys, but contact between the ships and the city was prevented. Angus McLellan (Talk) 07:29, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Please follow this link. I 'm not sure what the "Poltava Affair" was about, however. --Ghirla-трёп- 14:04, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Murmansk was a Western base in World War I. See also the Polar Bear Expedition. Rmhermen 14:12, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] communications pre-telegraph

I was thinking about The Shootist, in which John Wayne's character rides into town and buys a newspaper reporting the death of Queen Victoria, and that made me curious: when her uncle died 64 years earlier, how long did it take to get word to all the colonies? —Tamfang 21:04, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

By 1833 the introduction of steamships had reduced the Atlantic crossing to 22 days. You will find somre details here [1]. The passage to Australia was probably three times as long. Clio the Muse 03:15, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Can British Tourist become a criminal?

The Office of Foreign Asset Control, the entity which enforces the embargo against Cuba, has promulgated regulations (at 31 C.F.R. Part 515) that "prohibit persons subject to the jurisdiction of the United States from purchasing, transporting, importing, or otherwise dealing in or engaging in any transactions with respect to any merchandise outside the United States if such merchandise (1) is of Cuban origin; or (2) is or has been located in or transported from or through Cuba; or (3) is made or derived in whole or in part of any article which is the growth, produce or manufacture of Cuba."

You are a British tourist, you go to Cuba, buy a Cuban cigar and then travel to Mexico and enters USA. Would you be a criminal when you enter USA even if you are already consumed the cigar in Mexico.

Second question, the law states "merchandise", is that only physical goods or does it also cover services like prostitution or health care services. What is you did not pay for the services, aka receive the services for free, are you still a criminal? Is Michael Moore and a bunch of SICKO americans criminals?

202.168.50.40 22:16, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Using the "services" of a prostitute is illegal regardless, at least in the US and UK it is. Furthermore, I would image that people under the "jurisdiction of the United States" include anyone travelling through it. However please remember that wikipedia cannot and will not give you legal adivce SGGH speak! 22:47, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
You're wrong about the UK - if a consenting adult pays another consenting adult for 'sex' here, that isn't unlawful in itself. Subject to the usual age limits, a man or woman working alone, not in a brothel, not on the street, not advertising such services, is not committing any offense, nor is the person who pays. Xn4 00:35, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I can't imagine US authorities would try to prosecute a non-American for going to Cuba; in fact, they rarely take action against Americans who do so as tourists. -- Mwalcoff 22:56, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Do US customs officials balk at allowing people into the US if they have stamped Cuban visas in their passports? Corvus cornix 15:52, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, I have three in mine and they have never stopped me! But quite frankly, Corvus cornix, Cuban visa stamps are pathetic; small and easy to overlook. Clio the Muse 00:08, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Note that the US "ban" on travel to Cuba is aimed at businesses wanting to do business there, not individuals looking to travel. Technically, an American who buys even a candy bar in Cuba is breaking the law, but the law's intention is to prevent people from buying a million Cuban candy bars (or cigars). -- Mwalcoff 02:34, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] God and nuclear war

Any religious people here? What's the current thinking on what God's reaction to a full-scale, planetwide nuclear war would be (i.e. one that threatens to destroy all life on earth)? Would God intervene to prevent this 'unauthorized armageddon', as it would be contrary to his grand design for humanity, as written in the Bible? --62.136.226.208 23:04, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I think He would prevent it... but that doesn't mean we should be presumptuous and test that theory either. Prophecy has a history of being conditional. ◄Zahakiel► 23:13, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Why would he do such a thing? Man's fate is man's own doing, if I understand the Bible correctly (and not being a believer, frankly). That's what free will is all about. God doesn't intervene directly (in any measurable way) in every other stupid thing man does, no matter how much harm it causes, I don't know why this would be anything more special. --24.147.86.187 23:27, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, I suspect that's why the question was directed to those who do believe that He has a plan. He may not intervene always on an individual scale, but there's no such thing as unbounded free will either. Humans have all kinds of limitations, natural and (as in this case) otherwise. ◄Zahakiel► 23:31, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
He has a plan, but he gave man the free will to do himself in (as an individual and as a group), last time I checked. It's not free will if you can't make the wrong choice. --24.147.86.187 23:57, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
No the christian god concept removes free-well when he feels like it. "Exodus 7:13: And he hardened Pharaoh's heart, that he hearkened not unto them;" and "Exodus 10:20: But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart,". Since from reading the christians bible I can only conclude their god is a sick and twisted creature of evil, then who knows what he'd done about a nuclear war - he might enjoy it. --Fredrick day 13:13, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
God supposedly has a plan for the redemption of humanity. Humans unleashing something that would destroy all humans (and end his 'experiment') would throw a big spanner in the works as far as God is concerned. I think I saw this theory mentioned here before - but look at WWII. God saw that things were starting to get 'out of hand' WRT the 'Final Solution' and he intervened to cloud Adolf Hitler's judgment, strike him with insanity, deliver the Aryans into the hands of their enemies and scatter their people to the four corners of the earth, never to be a threat to anyone ever again. It's an interesting interpretation. --62.136.226.208 23:38, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
So now God gets credit for Hitler losing the war? Funny how he waited for 6 million to die first! And amazing that he ordained that Stalin should have control over all of Eastern Europe. And etc. etc. etc. I think this business of assigning God "credit" for things like this is a bit far-fetched. The Bible is pretty explicit that the works of man are the works of man alone — if man does evil, he does it by his own hand, not by God's. If he does good, he does it by his own hand. God tells man what he'd like man to do, God provides a way for man to attain immortality, but God does not intervene when man makes bad choices. Hitler's insanity was purely pathological (caused by a virus he contracted years before he took power), not divine, and in any case had very little to do with the downfall of Nazi Germany on its own. Yes, you can interpret all of history through a "God is responsible for good things" lens but it is an epistemologically silly approach, and belittles any true nature of religion, in my opinion. --24.147.86.187 23:57, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
You may not find this current, but C. S. Lewis did suggest God would stop an all-out nuclear war. Try the last two verses of his poem On the Atomic Bomb... Xn4 00:25, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
As if your puny gadget
Could dodge the terrible logic
Of history! No, the tragic
Road will go on, new generations trudge it.
Narrow and long it stretches
Wretched for one who marches
Eyes front. He never catches
A glimpse of the fields each side, the happy orchards.
I don't really see that poem as implying that God would stop nuclear war at all. It looks to me like Lewis is just arguing that the atomic bomb, despite all the hype about it being some new power, is really just a new form of the same sort of power that people have always had, and that despite its apparent monumentality history will march on. There were a number of intellectuals who took the position just after the end of World War II that the bomb was not as significant as it was being made out to be by scientists (Gertrude Stein famously said that she "had not been able to take any interest in it" and that it was "not any more interesting than any other machine"). That's the light I read Lewis's poem in; I don't really seem him implying that there would be divine intervention in the case of nuclear war. --24.147.86.187 02:51, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Free will does not mean that God left humans and doesn't care about what they do. In the past, God certainly has intervened to save both individuals and groups and to punish the wicked (e.g. the Flood). In any case, the Bible says that the Lord "will remember [his] covenant between ... all living creatures of every kind." In other words, because God created life, he has the power to take it, but if his whole creation is at stake, he's not going to just watch us kill everybody. There are things that our finite mind cannot comprehend in the field of morality, but we should do our best to exert the free will we have and to not destroy our whole race. bibliomaniac15 Prepare to be deleted! 03:14, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

  • The subject of history as God's will in a nuclear age was addressed several ways. Lewis's statement, above, is in contrast to T. S. Eliot's Little Gidding, where the London Blitz reminds Eliot of the vanity of human wishes. This is a subject he returns to, in a way that is more in concord with Lewis's lines, in Choruses from The Rock. In it, he imagines a barren waste (a waste land?) and the Holy Spirit (as "the wind") commenting on humanity's concerns: "And the wind shall say,/ Here were decent, godless people,/ Their only monument the asphalt road and a thousand lost golf balls." For Eliot, the human losses of even a nuclear war were neither confirmation nor denial of spiritual reality, because the bomb would be God's bomb, or not, but the true waste, true apocalypse, was that of reality. (Elsewhere, in East Coker, Eliot makes this clear, with "Go, go, said the bird, mankind/ cannot bear very much reality.") W. H. Auden seems like a more hardbitten and worldly thinker, but he argues that divine history and human history only sometimes intersect, so the apocalypse occurs "in the fullness of time," and that fullness is not ours to know. In other words, he thinks that the nuclear war might occur because it is the right time by God's schedule and that it simply couldn't occur otherwise.
  • The problem of free will and history is similarly...assuaged?...by suggesting that when the time is right the right things arise on their own will. By this view, and I believe it's pretty orthodox, Hitler didn't have to become Hitler, but someone did and Hitler willed it. Judas Iscariot is the classical focus for the question, because theologians have wondered since the beginning of Christianity whether he was damned. The general view is that Judas didn't have to betray Christ, but someone did, and Judas willed it. Getting back to The Bomb, though, it would appear, to humanity like this: if God does not will it, it simply would not happen, and if God does will it, then someone will desire it and commit the act. God would not need to "intervene," because no one would try it. Geogre 12:59, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
I may have misunderstood the C. S. Lewis poem, as 24.147.86.187 thinks. It has struck me that in his The Magician's Nephew, Jadis finds herself alone in the desolate world of Charn after using the Deplorable Word, a device which killed all living things except herself. The book came out in 1955, so there's a parallel with nuclear war. His poem On the Atomic Bomb appeared in 1964, after Lewis's death. In Mere Christianity, he wrote: "Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love of goodness, or joy worth having. A world of automata - of creatures that worked like machines - would hardly be worth creating." Henry Margenau quoted this and added to it: "It is of course our free-will which permits the pursuit of evil. One might ask, why would God create a world in which evil is allowed? ...It is through this act of divine grace that God allows us to accept or reject him, or to seek knowledge or remain ignorant. Yet, all of this in no way diminishes his universal power and knowledge." Xn4 01:55, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I've always been fascinated that people who claim to support a "culture of life" can at the same time accept the existence of nuclear weapons. The NNPT obliges the "nuclear haves" to work towards the elimination of these weapons, but no mainstream politician (in the US at least) supports that notion. During the Cold War there were frequent ecumenical conferences on what should be the Christian response to the threat of nuclear war. I've read the transcripts of a number of those assemblies. The anti-nuke clergy generally took an "it's an affront to all Creation" view, while the pro-nuke folks espoused a "better dead than Red" view dressed up in religious language. It's mind-boggling to me that the elimination of these weapons isn't the #1 political issue for people of all political stripes; it's like ignoring a rattlesnake under the baby's crib. --Sean 13:59, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
I may be be only 14 but I've read the bible from cover to cover and there is no "grand design for humanity". The bible is more like a history book-- Phoenix 13:39, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Che!

Slightly related to the question above about Trotsky. What would the world be like now if Che Guevara had survived and was still alive now? --62.136.226.208 23:16, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, Alberto Korda would likely be more obscure. —Tamfang 23:43, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Why not go to Cuba and find out for yourself? For I have seen the future and it creaks! Sorry; I'm being facetious. In what way would the world be different? Why, the Cuban government would be making periodic announcements about the health-or lack of it-of two geriatrics, as opposed to one. Clio the Muse 02:39, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Bolivia and Venezuela have popular, populist leaders currently. The stability of that oil revenue and the like brought was insufficient for an indigenous population convinced that the oligarchic structure of power would not change. I have no idea what things would have been like in Cuba if Che had survived, but it doesn't really matter, because he almost certainly would not have been there. South America, now: I cannot imagine it being unchanged if Che had survived into the 1980s. Hornplease 05:52, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

The Che-led 'Union of South and Central American Socialist Republics (USCASR)'? Regan wouldn't have liked that much, would he? On the other hand, maybe Che would have eventually grown up to become just another pompous, corrupt, power-hungry, self-serving leader of exactly the same type that had oppressed him in his youth and first turned him into an 'angry young man'. This seems to happen to most of them, despite the best of intentions before and immediately following the revolution, when the ideology and the reality finally collide. --Kurt Shaped Box 17:02, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] US Coins

Why do US coins have the word "Liberty" on them? Belinda12.207.111.70 23:52, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Have you looked at Liberty? Liberty is really what America is (soem may argue was) about. It's jsut too much to put in an answer. Read History of the United States, Liberty, Lady Liberty, and Statue of Liberty. If you still have any questions after that, ask again and a little more elaborately. schyler 00:08, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Could also take a look at Give me liberty or give me death, Liberty Bell, and Liberty pole. A key phrase from the Declaration of Independence, Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, is also in the earlier Virginia Declaration of Rights. The United States Constitution uses the word in its first sentence: We the People of the United States, in Order to ... secure the Blessing of Liberty .... There are numerous other uses of liberty as, in modern lingo, a "buzzword" during the founding era of the US. Pfly 19:15, 24 August 2007 (UTC)