Clouseau

So you're not lost at all.

dog-on

Well, you're the one that said that no one knows where it is.

Clouseau

But there's method in my madness. Now you have to justify how that address agreed exactly with this:

'All Roman emperors, even the most liberal, knew one thing very well- that their survival depended on exploitation of millions. Almost all of their words and actions may be interpreted in the light of that fact. Potentates are never the people to go to for independent, objective advice.'

dog-on

ok...

'All theistic religions, even the most liberal, knew one thing very well- that their survival depended on exploitation of millions. Almost all of their words and actions may be interpreted in the light of that fact. Potentates are never the people to go to for independent, objective advice.'

Work for you?

Clouseau

No. Much too easy.

Try again. Much harder!

dog-on

k, how about this:

'All Sons of God, seated at the right-hand of the Father, even the most liberal, knew one thing very well- that their survival depended on exploitation of millions. Almost all of their words and actions may be interpreted in the light of that fact. Potentates are never the people to go to for independent, objective advice.'

better?

Clouseau

Not really!

Roger Pearse

I hardly think that this is the place for a dissertation on the various sources of power in a society. Suffice to say that you don't seem aware of the power of the permanent establishment.

Can you say "politically correct"?

Little, I would have thought.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Clouseau

[QUOTE=Roger Pearse;4532687]That's because it is a totally irrelevant subject in this context, which is not what you seem to be wanting it to be, a personal wrestling match, but a simple assessment of Julian's intellectual credentials, in particular, his fitness to comment on the Bible.

Julian's censorship was by official diktat, not (just) by surreptitious shenanigans. There is nothing like that in operation in any Western country, so allusion to eminences grise is hopeful, but pointless.

Are you saying that there is not free speech in the West?

One can find literature in the West on everything from neo-Nazism to the dictatorship of the proletariat, pornography of the hardest kind (so I'm told), and a wide range of religious views. Not quite as wide as it should be, do you mean?

There is no official censorship of non-PC material, and there has not been. It has been difficult to find, yes, but even that is changing now.

Chris Weimer

Not all western countries have free speech. Roger lives in Britain - they don't have "freedom of speech" like Americans do. In Germany, you can go to prison for any lauding of Naziism - whether new or antiquated. Convicted felons don't have the right to vote in many states. The internet largely has overridden censorship, but don't fool yourself into thinking that we are utopian.