Well, if by the "early thinkers" Mistie means Decartes, he's confusing the Dark Ages with the Enlightenment.

An easy mistake to make. The old boy does it all the time. Every time he defends the Enlightenment, he's fantasizing about the return of the Rack and the Stake.

In a sense, it's unfair to blame rulers for their failures. If George Bush had succeeded establishing demokracy in the Middle East, he could be the new Woodrow Wilson. If Nixon had achieved "peace with honour" in Nam, he could be seen as Teddy Roosevelt.

But they didn't. Their plans failed. History was against them.

What did Ronald Reagan do?" For some reason the Amerikans love him. He certainly didn't win the cold war. The Russians lost that one fair and square.

Likewise, what did Queen Victoria do? De Galle? Bismark? JFK?

I'll grant Winston Churchill his success. And Paul Keating. Mind you, they were both excellent at talking up their successes - in Churchill's case, rightly so. In my opinion, Churchill was a much better writer than a speaker.

The owl of Minerva flies only at the dusk. Our legacies are only created when we're gone. The modern media is managing to reverse this axiom, with the fates turning against Gillard right from the start. The Twitterverse has a lot to answer for.

Perhaps history will be kinder to some than gossip.

Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Mar 4^th, 2013 at 3:42pm:


Why then, is Christianity not charged with borrowing or stealing the Greeks?

What ties Christianity and Western Europe to ancient Greece any more than Islam and the Middle East?

I doubt Medieval bishops would have identified with Aristotle or Plithy the Elder anymore than they identified with a Jewish mystic The whole notion of the West is a construct.

The first country since Rome to set up a republic was 18th century France. There was no historical momentum in the West towards liberal democracy. We cut and paste - chop and change. We borrow and steal from the "East" and vice-versa.

What makes Angle, Saxon and Teutonic barbarians - those who sacked Rome - anymore "Roman" than those semitic barbarians who took over the city of Byzantium? What makes old Roman territories (and former empires) like Egypt, Persia and Syria any less Roman, or "Western", than Britain or Gaul?

During the Dark Ages, civilization belonged with the Muselman. After the Dark Ages, it got transferred to the West. Who does it belong with now?

There is no clash of civilizations, it's just one empire seizing trade and shipping routes from another.

i would actually argue karmal that the greatest ruler and greatest influence on "the west" was elizabeth 1.

having seen the bloodshed brought about by the catholic v anglican schism under henry , she seemed a totally secular ruler, preventing the persecution of nearly all faiths.

to separate the religions from the scientists, she pretty well separated the church into the arbiter of moral things and the "royal societies" into the arbiter of scientific things.

so each could get on and do their work , untroubled by the other.

elizabeths setting up of the royal societies and the advancement of oxford and cambridge led to all those fantastic english scientists from newton on.

this was the genius and its still possibly what sets the west apart in terms of advancement.  scientists being able to get on with science .

the religious leaders have lost a lot of their authority on moral matters but i cant really see that the west has found a satisfactory replacement to settle matters moral.

but science has certainly flourished

Adamant wrote on Oct 16^th, 2012 at 7:10pm:
Statistics, statisitcs and damned lies as Mark Twain once said.
Polling shows that Christians and Jews are much more likely to justify killing civlians than Muslims. Thats a fact Jack. Theres plenty of reasons to be argued against Muslim immigration into Australia but this is not one of them.

How about Gillard? She’s led a  period of low unemployment, low interest rates and high real wages.

But she’ll go down as one of our least popular leaders.

I think the public have been slipped some of the old boy’s cheese.

Most Australians get paid about $800 a week and to get your tank filled up is about $50 . People are living week to week and never getting ahead. It's basic subsistence. Do you now understand karnal.