tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post5546071297738061634..comments2024-03-28T16:08:29.578-04:00Comments on Sardonicky: "We" Still Torture Some FolksKaren Garciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15612731479365562803noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-41119341809141074722014-12-20T08:49:19.828-05:002014-12-20T08:49:19.828-05:00I read Solzhenitsyn's Gulag in 1973. I have a...I read Solzhenitsyn's Gulag in 1973. I have a poster of his sad face on the wall of my bedroom. He had a difficult life. When he returned from the US to Russia I think he hoped for better. I don't know that he achieved it.<br /><br />I have two teenage daughters. I heard Tom Hartmann say yesterday that his belief is that the future is in Europe, although, as my wife points out, Europe is not a good place for Jews. My 19-year-old daughter's upcoming trip to Amsterdam should make more plain how true that is (or not).<br /><br />Here is what I think of the President's plan to "rate" colleges and universities. I am reasonably certain it is another hike down a blind alley. Here's why:<br /><br />My NYTimes comment:<br /><br />"A university education is mainly about preparing adults to participate in a democracy and choose their vocation wisely. Since America's descent into plutocracy, participation in democracy matters less. Vocations, in large part, depend on governmental priorities. Since our government grants special status to financial institutions and the military (including the CIA and NSA), technical educations that favor computer science (cryptology) and financial transaction engineering are favored. True education will have to look to more progressive places, like Europe, for real world applications. Rating colleges will have no effect on the extant prioritization. Money is god in America it seems, and power is the maidservant of money. No sophistication in moral philosophy, psychology or physics is needed to understand that."Bert Gold, Frederick Marylandnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-70480145183785477782014-12-20T07:49:29.332-05:002014-12-20T07:49:29.332-05:00The very notion of a "torture debate" is...The very notion of a "torture debate" is profoundly distasteful.<br /><br />“When one with honeyed words but evil mind persuades the mob, great woes befall the state.” - Euripides, Orestes<br /><br />Tolerance is a crime when applied to evil. Evil people rely on the acquiescence of naive people to allow them to continue with their evil.<br /><br />“In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.” - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956Denis Nevillenoreply@blogger.com