Then, as always

[treegiver]

"The first step in a fascist movement is the combination under an energetic leader of a number of men who possess more than the average share of leisure, brutality, and stupidity. The next step is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent, by emotional excitement on the one hand and terrorism on the other." -- Bertrand Russell

[mdmc]

1. WELCOME

to "merika.
population: us

[treegiver]

2. We be us

Nothing new there. (sigh)

[mdmc]

5. at least we have DU... they haven't taken it away

welcome to DU... by the way..

[racaulk]

3. Great quote!

Thanks for sharing this with us. Welcome to DU! :hi:

[bemildred]

4. Welcome.

Mr. Russell deserves far more attention than he gets these days.
:hi:

[treegiver]

6. No doubt.

Thanks for your welcome. I've been lurking about since the earliest days, but only recently broke my silence. I doubt that I'll be popular here, but time grows short for me and things get worse and worse.

[Dora]

7. Why do you doubt your potential popularity?

if there can be such a thing here, and if such a concept as "popularity" holds any value (which I doubt it does)... but I am curious about why you feel like you say you do.

[treegiver]

8. Because this is the idiot voice of the mob

Reason, facts, evidence have little to do with anything in such a context.

[tjwash]

9. Some of my faves...

"The so-called Christian nations are the most enlightened and progressive...but in spite of their religion, not because of it. The Church has opposed every innovation and discovery from the day of Galileo down to our own time, when the use of anesthetic in childbirth was regarded as a sin because it avoided the biblical curse pronounced against Eve. And every step in astronomy and geology ever taken has been opposed by bigotry and superstition. The Greeks surpassed us in artistic culture and in architecture five hundred years before Christian religion was born."
..........Mark Twain, a Biography


"Man is a Religious Animal. Man is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion -- several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven.... The higher animals have no religion. And we are told that they are going to be left out in the Hereafter. I wonder why? It seems questionable taste."
..........Mark Twain, a Biography


"The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopts them."
..........Mark Twain, a Biography