Pat Buchanan Comments on Why George W. Bush Really Invaded Iraq

[Asian_Catholic]

legeorge:

Actually, if you can get through all the verbal vomit

What do you mean?

There are a lot of “claims this” and “reportedly” thats. Just because they are compiled in a reasonable order doesn’t make them “data”.

“Data” means information. MacDonald provides lots of information. Whether the information is correct or not is a different story.

It’s just a bunch of speculation and windbag.

So you believe that the research is faulty? That’s fine if you do, but can you tell me if you believe the faultyness is the result of poor research, or the result of intentional fabrications by MacDonald for political reasons?

There might be valid points, I don’t know for sure. I don’t personally know the qualifications of all the persons quoted, or the context they were originally given in.

So you are agnostic regarding the validity of MaDonald’s sources and how he quoted them.

Thanks for your time, I appreciate you providing a more critical response to MacDonald’s data

 

[legeorge]

What do you mean?

I mean verbal vomit. Anyone can write a long tiring deluge of big words to come to a point. That does not necessarily make the person smart. Just long-winded.

“Data” means information. MacDonald provides lots of information. Whether the information is correct or not is a different story.

OK. That’s what you consider data. That’s what I wanted to know. I usually think of concrete facts and figures as “data”. Not a collection of quotes. I just wanted to know your definition of the word. Obviously it differs from mine.

but can you tell me if you believe the faultyness is the result of poor research, or the result of intentional fabrications by MacDonald for political reasons?

I think that everyone has their own motives for things. Perhaps it is politically bent. I tend to read things with a religious bent. We all put our own spin on the information we read. Bringing us round from Iraq to Israel was probably honestly what your researchers did. They began with a theory in mind and then scouted out things to support their theory. It’s not “wrong” or “intentional fabrication” per se, but that doesn’t make it hard core fact, either.

So you are agnostic regarding the validity of MaDonald’s sources and how he quoted them.

agnostic? Again with the definition problem. My definition of *agnostic: n. disbeliever in god. * I believe I just meant that I could not fully assess the “data” as I do not completely know the sources and context of said “data”. And with such long articles, I simply do not have the time to research it myself.

Now, do you think that the authors are anti-semitic, or just perceived to be so by others who are squeamish with the whole topic? In the climate of this country, where a movie portraying the last hours of Jesus’ life as recounted in the Bible is condemned as being anti-semitic, you may have a point! Just don’t make it so exhausting to get there! But seriously, people are so afraid of being labeled ‘racist’ or ‘predjudiced’ or ‘anti-semitic’, we can hardly have an honest talk about anything anymore.

 

[Asian_Catholic]

legeorge:

agnostic? Again with the definition problem.

dictionary.reference.com/search?q=agnostic

ag·nos·tic

One who is doubtful or noncommittal about something.

Doubtful or noncommittal: “Though I am agnostic on what terms to use, I have no doubt that human infants come with an enormous ‘acquisitiveness’ for discovering patterns” (William H. Calvin).

Now, do you think that the authors are anti-semitic, or just perceived to be so by others who are squeamish with the whole topic?

I believe that it is irrelavant whether they like Jews or not; it’s only the quality of their data that I believe is important. This belief also confirms with academic standards of logic and debating.

Same with Mel Gibson: I believe it is irrelevant whether he likes Jews or not: what is important to me is whether “The Passion” confirms to the Biblical story of what happened.

 

[John_19_59]

I believe Asian Catholic is making a good point here.

Any critical discussion of Israel and it politics is automatically considered anti-semitic or sometimes even “nazi”.

Which is crazy.

Anyone who points out some basic truths is immediately labeled “anti-semite” at which point people breath a sigh of relief and turn away confident that they can safely ignore them. They suddenly have visions of the critic shoving Jews into gas chambers, because thats what anti-semites want - everyone knows that.

Its rubbish.

The mess in the middle east has come about because of America, Britain and the founding of the state of Israel.

Does “The Project For The New American Century” have any jewish backing?

That would be interesting.

 

[John_19_59]

Well there does appear to be a certain influence in the White House in recent years?

rense.com/general36/zinf.htm

 

[jjwilkman]

gilliam:

Buchanan’s article is from 2003. Are you saying that neocons (aka Jews) are running Washington today? Can you name them? Who on the cabinet is Jewish? Most of the people who write for National Review, for example, are Roman Catholics. Maybe we have taken over the government? Is that a possibility?

i’m stupid, to be interjecting a comment. if i had to be in a trench(i’m a sailor, i don’t like mud) i couldn’t think of anybody i would better like to have at my side.

 

[legeorge]

dictionary.reference.com/search?q=agnostic

I believe that it is irrelavant whether they like Jews or not; it’s only the quality of their data that I believe is important. This belief also confirms with academic standards of logic and debating.

Same with Mel Gibson: I believe it is irrelevant whether he likes Jews or not: what is important to me is whether “The Passion” confirms to the Biblical story of what happened.

I have never heard the word agnostic used in that way. Thanks for the definition. See, I told you I read with a religious bent!
I also just found this article on Catholic Exchange this morning regarding the objectivity of scientific research. I think it applies to Political Science as well.

I followed a no-flour/no-sugar diet for the past eight months and lost 20 pounds, dropping from 192 to 172. I was ecstatic — until last week.

Then I learned that federal government scientists had grossly exaggerated the effects of being overweight. For years, the government said 300,000 to 400,000 lives are lost annually to obesity. The real number? About 26,000, meaning the government has been telling us obesity is fourteen times the threat it actually is.

Oh well, the women still dig my new look, and I’m enjoying walking around the yard in my Speedo with Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy” blaring out of my boom box.

But still, what would prompt the scientific researchers to be so wrong?

I suspect it was a bit of wishful thinking, or what might be called a built-in presumption against fat people driving the results.

You see, there’s a problem with science that a lot of people don’t understand: It’s not objective.

Ever since modern science burst on the scene with Francis Bacon’s drooling enthusiasm for it, it has purported to be objective. Science, we have been told, looks at things detachedly, with no self-interest. In this, science is different than religion and philosophy, disciplines supposedly filled with emotion and distortion.

This belief still stands strong in our culture’s mental landscape.

But it’s hokum.

Scientists themselves have made impressive efforts to show that science isn’t really objective. The research and analysis of the brilliant chemist-turned-philosopher Michael Polanyi, for instance, “deconstructed” the modern objective/subjective approach to truth and said it’s simply not possible to eliminate “passionate, personal, human appraisals or theories” from scientist’s efforts.

continued…

 

[legeorge]

continued from previous post…

We also know from biographical facts that scientists let their presumptions color their research. Alfred Kinsey’s “sex research,” for instance, was little more than a desire to legitimize his own odd sexual ideas, and his famous Kinsey Institute put forth dishonest and hopelessly flawed research in efforts to normalize Kinsey’s leanings.

Perhaps one of the more humorous instances of the subjectivity of scientific research comes from the life of Eugene Dubois. He’s the guy who “discovered” Pithecanthropus (a/k/a “Java Man” and “Peking Man”).

Born in 1858, he came of age at a time when European scientists were eager to show that man evolved from apes. The idea inflamed Dubois. A man of immense self-esteem, he abandoned his career and dragged his family to distant Dutch colonies where for five years he endured jungles, dangerous animals, and malaria to search for the missing link. He finally found it — in a skullcap, a molar, a femur, and the imaginary man he constructed with them.

When he triumphantly returned to Europe with Pithecanthropus and the solution to human origins on a leash, he grew angry when other scientists questioned his methods and, worse, his conclusions. Some questioned whether the bones were from the same person (the femur, after all was found ten months after and forty feet away from the skullcap). Some thought the skullcap was a gibbon’s. Many disagreed with the spin he put on the bones.

He relentlessly defended his results. When Europe’s leading scientists didn’t fall into line, he became hypersensitive, paranoid, suspicious, and a little pathological. Frustrated by the academic battles over Pithecanthropus, he hid the ape man’s bones from other researchers for over twenty years. In the end, he was a bitter and lonely man. Pithecanthropus had destroyed his family and friendships.

Dubois is a good snapshot of the problem with science in general. Scientists think they’re objective, but they’re not. Society thinks science gives objective findings, when it doesn’t.

And it’s not just an issue with science’s wrongful pronunciations on things like obesity. Science for hundreds of years has purported to substitute its judgments for that of philosophy and religion. The result has been horrible: an intellectual void in which people trained in things physical (scientists) try their untrained hand at things metaphysical, and the rest of us give credence to their conclusions.

It’s time we regained this fundamental truth at the root of St. Thomas Aquinas’s thought: “The slenderest knowledge that may be obtained of the highest things is more desirable than the most certain knowledge obtained of lesser things.” Philosophy and religion: highest. Science: lesser.

In other words, scientists shouldn’t dictate philosophy and religion. Rather, philosophy and religion should apply the results of science.

If we combine that principle with a little humility, we’d make great strides in reducing science’s obese distortions.

© Copyright 2005 Catholic Exchange

 

[legeorge]

dictionary.reference.com/search?q=agnostic

I believe that it is irrelavant whether they like Jews or not; it’s only the quality of their data that I believe is important. This belief also confirms with academic standards of logic and debating.

Same with Mel Gibson: I believe it is irrelevant whether he likes Jews or not: what is important to me is whether “The Passion” confirms to the Biblical story of what happened.

I have never heard the word agnostic used in that way. Thanks for the definition. See, I told you I read with a religious bent!
I also just found this article on Catholic Exchange this morning regarding the objectivity of scientific research. I think it applies to Political Science as well.

catholicexchange.com/vm/index.asp?vm_id=1&art_id=28311

 

[legeorge]

John_19_59:

Well there does appear to be a certain influence in the White House in recent years?

rense.com/general36/zinf.htm

Now, I find this much more telling than the original articles posted. I think there were several factors that lead to the Iraq war, and now I can include this possible motive to that list. Of course, we will probably never know all the “real” reasons why we are there. A politician by any other name would be “liar”.