Master CraftsMon

Friday, March 31, 2006

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 6, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Segment 2

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, March 6, 2006 at about 11pm CST
Segment 2

When I started this program, I had high hopes that people would actually help me out and get involved in the projects I proposed. That has not happened. I am going to try something else.

I do not want to but I will have to issue a challenge for "Grass for Two; Tea for One". I came up with this idea a while back. you see I was reading this book by Bernard Cornwell dealing with the Peninsular Campaign in the Napoleonic War. The main character challenged a British Navy officer to a duel. It was described as Grass for Two; Tea for One. I always loved that phrase because it meant that the two participants would meet at dawn, shots would be fired and one guy would eat the grass and die while the winner would sit down to tea for breakfast.

On the other hand a proper gentleman in the 21st Century does not use violence, he debates. I want to debate a large number of people. I had planned to use the Internet as a means of getting people to help me find groups to debate. Well, that sure as hell didn't work, because no one is listening to this program. The joke in that phrase is that I always have tea after a debate and few others do, so in reality the two participants in my debates will come together, debate and then I have my tea and that is it.

Debate is not what you think it is. Please review the Lincoln-Douglas debate format or rather get my reference to a book that outlines the Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858. The idea is that the first person makes their case, then the second person makes their case, then the first person gets to rebut. A transcript of the remarks of all three segments will be posted on my blog and both sides will take questions.

The original Lincoln-Douglas Debates took place in seven separate Congressional Districts in Illinois in 1858. Their topic was slavery. Douglas, the Democrat, made the case that slavery should be extended into the Western territories. Lincoln, the Republican, made the case that slavery should not be allowed in any of the new territories. Underlying the debate was a Supreme Court decision in the Dred Scott Case. Justice Taney writing for the majority ruled that Blacks could never vote in federal elections, because Blacks were inferior to Whites. Justice Taney's thinking was extremely weird, because Blacks had voted in every federal election up until his decision. Plus Blacks had fought in the American military in every war up until that time, including the Revolution. The Founding Fathers had assumed that slavery would wither away, because they outlawed it in the Ohio Territories. Lincoln wanted to extend that ban to all unincorporated territories in the U.S. at the time and any new territories we might acquire in the future. The Republican Party was worried that sooner or later someone would buy slaves in the South and move them North as a test case. If that had happened and the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the slave owner, then slavery could not be prohibited in ANY state. The debates went forward, but nothing was resolved and Lincoln lost the election for the Illinois Senate.

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates were a massive spectacle. They were a form of entertainment, because each speaker had to be able to think on their feet. What I have decided is that "Grass For Two; Tea For One" should illuminate the topic at hand instead of providing entertainment.

Anyway, the concept that allowing both sides to think about the argument and marshal resources off line is better than simply coming to the debate with what you have at hand. You have to remember that debates where the participants provide entertainment is a test of individual skill, not a real clash of ideals in order to decide which course of action is a good idea. By having a transcript of the debate so that the participants can think about what they are going to say in rebuttal, a more rounded argument can be made for both sides of the debate. In short, it provides a method of shedding light on a topic, not generating heat. Too many talk show hosts wish to grab face time so they try to squash their guests and count coup. Plus, too many guests on talk shows, both TV and radio, want to squash the host and count coup. We at KEOS are supposed to educate. What part of "KEOS is owned by Brazos Educational Radio" do you not understand?

The programs I want to do are many. Let me go over some of them.

The major threat to our society right now is as I have said, the Irreconcilables. The problem in this community right now is that we do not know whether our Muslim neighbors will in fact give aid and comfort to Irreconcilables who might come here to do terrorist acts. I do not honestly believe that local Muslims are plotting to blow up Post Oak Mall, but I do have worries that they might shelter people who would want to do that.

I want to summon a Muslim cleric and before an audience do an interview and then have him give his talk. Then I will look at what he said and produce a CD with my rebuttal and deliver it to him. He will then produce a CD with his rebuttal. Everything will be transcribed and put out on my blog. He and I would then take questions. I am unsure how long the questions would last. They cannot go on forever, but we shall see how long they will last.

The topic of debate is of course the Danish cartoons.

The way I envision it, I shall ask the guy some questions that have been bothering me about the whole War of Terror. And I shall ask Muslims in the audience to chip in their two cents worth. No telling what will happen.

I was thinking that I would not have police there. Doesn't that sound dangerous? The whole point of the exercise is to find out whether Islam locally is dominated by violent people. Of course that is a silly way to approach the problem, but it is my working plan. I mean, anyone can be violent if pushed far enough. The question becomes: what IS that limit? I don't know, but I surely would like to find out.

What that entails is to show some symbols to the Muslims and explain what they really mean. Then get feedback from the audience. That word semiotics comes up here. Semiotics means the study of symbols. What the symbols mean and what the members of Islam see may be two different things.

The biggest problem I have with Islam right now is that the Irreconcilables remind me of the Borg from Star Trek. I mean, the Borg show up and say, "We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated." The Irreconcilables perceive that they must convert everyone to Islam. The Borg on Star Trek are trying to do something great by their standards. Their position in Star Trek is that by having everyone the same, poverty and want can be eliminated. The problem I have with the Irreconcilables is that they want to convert everyone to Islam, but the future they offer is one where you have a tiny, wealthy ruling class, a tiny middle class and everyone else is wretchedly poor.

Since this is such an important topic, I would hope that it would be on multiple programs. The problem I am having is that Islam and the West are not communicating real well.

Another program I want to do is concerning the Living Wage Coalition. Thomas Sowell, a respected economist out at the Hoover Institute, has made the point that the Living Wage is a stupid idea. I want to get Living Wage Coalition in here and have them tell me why they think the way they do. I had to do some research as to why the Living Wage will not work. It turns out that the Living Wage causes unskilled laborers to stay poor and unemployable.

Then there is the program where I get the County chairman of the Democratic Party and ask him some questions about the goals of the Democratic Party. Howard Dean is the head of the national Democratic Party. By the standards of the Right he has lost his mind. It also looks like that the Democratic Party has drifted so far Left that a good portion of the public is starting to get turned off by their rhetoric. With the cartoon jihad, the pacifist tendency of the Democrats has caused a number of people to decide that pacifism and appeasement is not an option.

I really would like to have the chair of Habitat for Humanity come by so we could discuss my project for increasing output of houses. Oh, yeah, you haven't heard of that idea. I think we can build Habitat houses prior to sporting events. I have some ideas on how to involve a large number of fans in building houses for locals.

And let's see. Could I get the chair of the NAACP to come in and discuss race? Wouldn't that be kind of weird? I mean, actually have a debate about why Blacks are poor? I think that would be a really interesting program.

The issue of Communism has pretty well been answered, but I still think that a debate with a Communist about how Communism could be made to work would really interest me. I mean, to me Communism is totally unworkable, because it kills off high tech. I would kind of like to know how a real Communist would handle that problem.

Boy, I would really like to bring in the ACLU and debate their attack on the Boy Scouts. By my standards there is no excuse for that behavior. The cover story appears to be that gays are being barred from Scout Master positions, so the Boy Scouts are bigoted homophobes. At least that's what it looks like to me.

I don't know who to bring in to discuss the Hiring Hall Association. Yeah, yeah, you haven't heard me mention that project either. The idea is to raise the skill level of poor people so they can get a better job. I'm going to have to think on that one.

Whether you know it or not, South Dakota just passed a law that makes it illegal to get an abortion. I would like to get Planned Parenthood in here and debate the issue. I would also like to understand why killing a baby is a good idea. I never have gotten the reasoning for abortion. You have got to realize and so should they that Roe vs Wade will be overturned in as little as three years. Despite whet you have been told, abortion will not be made illegal by overturning Roe vs. Wade. State legislatures will have to grapple with the abortion issue. If Planned Parenthood is not willing to come up with better reasons why abortion should be legal than the ones I have heard so far, then Texas too will outlaw abortions. I am hoping that the person they send will tell me why prenatal adoption is such a bad idea.

The environmentalist have always bothered me. On one hand they want the environment pristine clean, but the tools they want to use to do that do not work. I want to know why environmentalists are so against drilling off shore. If we did drill off shore, then we could lower the price of oil to $6/barrel.

Anyway. Those are my goals. I think some of them are unattainable, BUT goals SHOULD be unattainable at times. Tonight has been a very short night, because I have failed to do show preparation.

That's the way it goes.

Come in here MacKenzie. The microphone is now yours.

MacKenzie Pequa the Third will now take over and serve up an eclectic mix of
music for the rest of the night.

Take it away, Mac.

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