What is Digg?310 Comments
- TheKillDoctor, on 07/05/2008, -8/+386Any more I just try to ignore this president. But this bastardization of our historical past just chaps my ass.
- peterlisanti, on 07/06/2008, -4/+286"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes. "
-Thomas Jefferson, 1813
Looks like history still has not furnished such an example, 195 years later... - onyxcoltrane, on 07/06/2008, -5/+282Changing the context of Jefferson's quote is outrageous and despicable.
- mrcoderga, on 07/06/2008, -30/+265"I was in China when a July Harris Poll reported that 50 percent of Americans still believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when Bush invaded that country, and that 64 percent of Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein had strong links with Al Qaeda.
The Chinese leaders and intellectuals with whom I was meeting were incredulous. How could a majority of the population in an allegedly free country with an allegedly free press be so totally misinformed?
The only answer I could give the Chinese is that Americans would have been the perfect population for Mao and the Gang of Four, because Americans believe anything their government tells them.
Americans never check any facts. Who do you know, for example, who has even read the Report of the 9/11 Commission, much less checked the alleged facts reported in that document. I can answer for you. You don’t know anyone who has read the report or checked the facts.
The two co-chairmen of the 9/11 Commission Report, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, have just released a new book, “Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission.” Kean and Hamilton reveal that the commission suppressed the fact that Muslim ire toward the US is due to US support for Israel’s persecution and dispossession of the Palestinians, not to our “freedom and democracy” as Bush propagandistically claims. Kean and Hamilton also reveal that the US military committed perjury and lied about its failure to intercept the hijacked airliners. The commission even debated referring the military’s lies to the Justice Department for criminal investigation. Why should we assume that these admissions are the only coverups and lies in the 9/11 Commission Report?
How do you know that 9/11 was a Muslim terrorist plot? How do you know that three World Trade Center buildings collapsed because two were hit by airliners? You only “know” because the government gave you the explanation of what you saw on TV. (Did you even know that three WTC buildings collapsed?)
I still remember the enlightenment I experienced as a student in Russian Studies when I learned that the Czarist secret police would set off bombs and then blame those whom they wanted to arrest..
When Hitler seized dictatorial power in 1933, he told the Germans that his new powers were made necessary by a communist terrorist attack on the Reichstag. When Hitler started World War II by invading Poland, he told the Germans that Poland had crossed the frontier and attacked Germany.
Governments lie all the time--especially governments staffed by neoconservatives whose intellectual godfather, Leo Strauss, taught them that it is permissible to deceive the public in order to achieve their agenda. "
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14 ... - ChristPissed, on 07/06/2008, -1/+229"Those who embrace the diety of Christ rather than the morals of Christ are not religious...they are pseudo-religious and dangerous to our national interests."- Thomas Jefferson
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782
Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787
Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.
-Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom
The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814
Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814
Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him [Jesus] by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Short, April 13, 1820
It is between fifty and sixty years since I read it [the Apocalypse], and I then considered it merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to General Alexander Smyth, Jan. 17, 1825
"Make the most you can of the Indian Hemp seed and sow it everywhere." -President George Washington, 1794
"Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth & protection of the country." -Thomas Jefferson - Dylan007, on 07/05/2008, -9/+167Excellent story, this should have 6,500 diggs and not 65.
This is what Digg is all about. - inactive, on 07/06/2008, -22/+129Kill Bush. Impeachment is for blow jobs.
- BarbArt, on 07/06/2008, -4/+101This is an example of why I expect the George W. Bush Presidential library at SMU to be full of fiction.
- Dumbledorito, on 07/07/2008, -1/+88"Thomas Jefferson understood that these rights do not belong to Americans alone. They belong to all mankind."
And unspoken was "unless I declare them to be enemy combatants." - greenfyre, on 07/06/2008, -1/+61"What experience and history teach is this - that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it." -
-- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - danfive555, on 07/06/2008, -3/+61Of course Bush's speechwriters edited out "under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves" since monkish ignorance and superstition are the twin engines of current politics.
Besides it would be too ironic for Bush to disparage ignorance and superstition----hell might freeze over. - inactive, on 07/07/2008, -16/+68Theres a difference. The bible is a piece of mythological ***** taken for fact by too many people.. It deserves all the criticism one can throw at it.
- relic180, on 07/07/2008, -3/+52And it never will. A politically religious civil structure is the polar opposite of true freedom, and apparently Jefferson already had that fact figured out a couple centuries ago.
- danfive555, on 07/06/2008, -0/+47Like "My Pet Goat."
- MrBill79, on 07/07/2008, -0/+44Let me know when two very nicely dressed men with earpieces show up at your door.
- BoneheadFarker, on 07/07/2008, -3/+43As opposed to the church leaders with the million dollar mansions, the personal jet, the mega-churches with the built-in Starbucks and McDonalds, the personal prostitutes on call night and day...
- relic180, on 07/07/2008, -3/+39Damn, aren't you just a charming little piece of *****.
- eduren, on 07/06/2008, -4/+39Politicians twisting the words of our founding fathers for their own benefit! Outrageous!
- P8triot1, on 07/06/2008, -2/+37Good sense in these comments, too. I have hope from the fact that we did not actually elect Bush either time; and the crowds showing up in the Dem primaries are fabulous.
- relic180, on 07/07/2008, -6/+39I would be surprised if it doesn't disappear in about 10 seconds, with all the bury trolls who swear up and down that our founding fathers were all Super-Christians.
- Dralha, on 07/07/2008, -1/+32This sort of revisionism is expected in the Theocratic States of America.
- relic180, on 07/07/2008, -0/+31I'm sure there are plenty of greedy Atheists, just as their are plenty of greedy Theists. Greed is not necessarily bound by belief or lack of belief in the supernatural or a deity.
I can say, however, that your comment shows just how narrow minded and team oriented some religious believers have become. I believe it has to do with the jealousy you feel over the Atheist possession of logic. - inactive, on 07/07/2008, -4/+35Jefferson was so smart, why cant "modern" people be that wise.
- InfamousAtheist, on 07/07/2008, -7/+37Your comment really draws interesting parallels between the US today and some really scary times in fairly recent history. I'm constantly saddened by the lack of awareness of the average American... for example, this weekend I helped my Mom celebrate Independence Day by educating her about building seven.
What really bothers me though is the potential end of our way of life if the USA continues down the path it, and we, are on. If we're not careful, this country's going to need a revolution to reestablish it's values, and the American people are NOT collectively up for it.
I hope things change and this nation makes me proud by averting disaster. I'm unfortunately not optimistic about that possibility. - Ricky81682, on 07/06/2008, -0/+31Meanwhile, there's a percentage of the population doing this:
http://www.writeinbush.com/
We are seriously farked. - evil-doer, on 07/07/2008, -3/+33im tired of ignorant americans who assume they are the most free nation on earth. give me a ***** break.
- relic180, on 07/06/2008, -0/+30Holy *****. I'm speechless...
- darkfish, on 07/07/2008, -1/+31@patpl22391
No. The point is not that America lives under a dictatorship. The point is that freedom has a price. That price is constant vigilance, not servile obedience to the government.
It's telling that you mentioned watching the news. The majority of what appears on TV news provides little insight if you are a mere passive observer. Frankly people rarely question what they see on TV news. It's just easier that way, and that's what is so insidious.
Those freedoms now enjoyed by Americans will not be there forever if the majority are not willing to question what they see and hear.
I'm not suggesting that freedom in America will be gone overnight, but the constant chipping away at the constitution - even abridging the words of the forefathers will pave the way. - Ne007, on 07/07/2008, -5/+35Because Bush is ***** this country in the ass without any lube!
- cheezintern, on 07/07/2008, -3/+33well bush is a pretty despicable guy
- InfamousAtheist, on 07/07/2008, -2/+31If you really believe that GWB was thinking "oh that divine right of kings stuff is irrelevant now, so I'll just cut that line..." then you're up in the night.
Stop making excuses for this man. He used them all up right around November, 2000, when he stole the election. - GorfTron, on 07/07/2008, -1/+28So was wiping his ass on the Constitution but who is counting anymore?
- pixelguru, on 07/07/2008, -1/+27Given the current ratio of incredibly pissed-off president-haters to well-dressed men with earpieces, I'd say his/her chance of getting in trouble are QUITE low. The waiting list has to be decades by now.
- synergye, on 07/07/2008, -6/+32Sweden?
- blacklilyninja, on 07/07/2008, -0/+24good god ... why isn't bush in jail yet?
- cjstone, on 07/07/2008, -4/+28Well, at least one study says they're plenty....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_Global_Inequal ...
Hong Kong
South Korea
Japan
Italy
Iceland
Switzerland
Austria
Luxembourg
the Netherlands
Norway
the United Kingdom
Belgium
Canada
Estonia
Finland
Germany
New Zealand
Poland
Sweden
Andorra
Australia
the Czech Republic
Denmark
France
Hungary
Latvia
Spain - mrsteveman1, on 07/07/2008, -1/+25Yea, the Bible isn't a shining example of consistency anyway, it's been altered and "edited" in translation endlessly. And there are a number of historical texts that one could argue should be in the bible because they predate parts of the new testament, but they have been excluded as "heresy". In other words, the bible is ALREADY the result of carefully picking and choosing what was included in it, to fit the religious and world views of specific groups over time.
- Suricou, on 07/07/2008, -0/+23Television.
- Bob042, on 07/07/2008, -0/+22That HAS to be a joke.
...right? - rjhomuth, on 07/07/2008, -3/+25comment dugg for using the phrase "chaps my ass"
- Bennessy, on 07/07/2008, -2/+22No, because then he'll be treated like a hero.
- spookyttws, on 07/07/2008, -2/+21Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.
-Jefferson - mithrasinvictus, on 07/07/2008, -0/+19"When religion and politics ride in the same cart, the whirlwind follows."
- ileftfark, on 07/07/2008, -1/+20Not surprising. Between him and Andrew Jackson, you'd be hard-pressed to find an opinion that wouldn't spark outrage in some ridiculously closed-minded faction somewhere in the States that would supply the 24-hour news networks with non-stop fodder.
- zephyr42, on 07/07/2008, -3/+22Yay Deists!.... Jefferson is the man.
- Loonacy, on 07/07/2008, -0/+18And it wasn't ironic at all for Bush to say "Thomas Jefferson understood that these rights do not belong to Americans alone. They belong to all mankind." after asserting that "enemy combatants" don't have rights.
- hierophantus, on 07/07/2008, -1/+19Unlike cliche-spouting twits like you who muster the balls to INSULT PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET.
(and, yes, like me...) - spriggig, on 07/07/2008, -0/+17George Orwell was far too optimistic, effective doublespeak doesn't require that the government obliterate every shred of dissenting evidence, only that they control the media and that the citizens are too apathetic to fact-check the disinformation.
- greenfyre, on 07/07/2008, -5/+22Literacy? nope ... 21 way tie for 18th place
Beaten out by pretty much the entire former Soviet Bloc, and Barbados
1 Georgia
2 Cuba
2 Estonia
2 Poland
5 Barbados
5 Latvia
5 Slovenia
8 Belarus
8 Lithuania
10 Kazakhstan
10 Tajikistan
12 Armenia
12 Hungary
12 Russia
12 Ukraine
12 Uzbekistan
17 Moldova
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_ ... - zephyr42, on 07/07/2008, -4/+21Hemp is so amazing, we could do so much with it, the propaganda infused culture of the war on drugs has brainwashed a couple generations to think that hemp == marijuana (which will kill you)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f9O4FFQyAE
(Oh and T.Jefferson was the original American badass) -
Show 51 - 100 of 313 discussions
The Digg Toolbar for Firefox lets you Digg, submit content, and keep track of Digg even when you're not on the Digg site. Download the official 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is