THE BLOGGER�S BLOG

UK blogger, Andrew Ian Dodge, tell me that he positions his blog Dodgeblog as �The Bloggers blog�. He certainly has a lot of links -- and a sense of humour. It would be a good place to go if you are looking for new sites.


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PROTESTANTS TOLERANT?

My recent posts on Protestant/Catholic differences (differences which in my view are only marginal these days) have certainly got me a few emails.

One misunderstanding that has arisen is that I somehow seem to be seen as claiming that Protestantism is inherently more tolerant than Catholicism. Anybody who knows his history knows that to be not at all true, of course. Calvin burnt Servetus at the stake etc. I think it is fairly obvious that ALL Judaic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) are inherently IN-tolerant. Jews believe that only they are �chosen�; Christ said that �He who is not for me is against me�; and Islam discriminates (to put it mildly) against �infidels�. And Protestantism is certainly Judeo-Christian, whatever else it is.

No. What I claim is that Protestantism arose out of the traditional Germanic dislike of centralized authority -- but that reduced or decentralized authority has to be tolerant in spirit or in practice is no part of my claim.

On the other hand, at least in England, Protestantism did PRODUCE tolerance despite itself. The origin of Protestantism in a spirit of independence meant that Protestants were so fractious and unable to agree with one-another that in the end religious tolerance was the only practicable way they could get on with their lives. But it took a lot of wars and waves of persecution before they got to that point.

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THE �GERMANIC� USA

My thesis tracing both conservatism and Protestantism to an originally Germanic spirit of independence and dislike of centralized power or authority is of course well exemplified in the early history of the USA. At the time of independence, the USA was not only �Germanic� (in the sense of having a largely Anglo-Saxon population) but it was also literally German in that German ancestry was nearly as common among Americans at that time as was British ancestry. And what was the American revolution if not a rebellion against the centralized and remote authority of King George III? And what did the architects of the new American constitution set up if it was not a decentralized system -- with the Federal government at that time being little more than an appendage to the various State governments?

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BUFFOONS?

One of the classic tactics that Leftists use to attack people they disagree with is to do their best to portray their opponents as dumb buffoons. Almost any Republican President gets so labelled. President G.W. Bush gained a Master's degree from Harvard but even he gets portrayed as an airhead. And Republican Presidents are not alone in getting this treatment.

The people Leftists hate most are not in fact conservatives but rival Leftists. And guess how Leftists describe Benito Mussolini, the founder of the Fascist variant of Leftism? You guessed it. "Buffoon" is by far the most used word. Yet Mussolini read poetry and philosophy voraciously, including Socrates and Plato. He spoke several foreign languages, was always interested in discussing political and philosophical ideas with almost anyone, had considerable acceptance in his early days as a leading Marxist theoretician, wrote over 40 books, and was a tree-lover and environmentalist 50 years before Greenies were thought of. Dumb buffoon!

What this common Leftist tactic really shows, then, is that it is they who are the airheads with nothing constructive to say.

Tim Blair has a good comment on it too:

�Thus far, the reputed idiot Bush has graduated from Yale and Harvard, made a stack of cash in the oil industry, become the first consecutive-term governor of Texas, defeated a dual-term VP for the Presidency, and led his party to yesterday's extraordinary triumphs. Let his opponents keep calling him stupid.�

To be a little parochial about it, something similar used to happen in my home State of Queensland (Australia). Queensland was run for many years by the very conservative Sir Johannes Bjelke-Petersen (�Joh� for short) who was routinely derided by media commentators and the Leftist opposition as an inarticulate country bumpkin -- even though he had been an innovative and successful businessman before he entered politics.

But the ordinary people of Queensland did not think he was a buffoon. At one stage (in 1974) they gave his government 59% of the popular vote -- an almost unheard of majority in a Westminster democracy. And the fact that he ran Queensland for nearly 20 years gave him the last laugh too. I am proud to say that I was a member of his Party at that time.

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