Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site loral.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdcc6!loral!simard
From: simard@loral.UUCP (Ray Simard)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Napoleon on religion and politics
Message-ID: <661@loral.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 18-Nov-84 18:54:50 EST
Article-I.D.: loral.661
Posted: Sun Nov 18 18:54:50 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 20-Nov-84 06:50:58 EST
References: <410@uwmacc.UUCP> <614@loral.UUCP> <638@ames.UUCP>
Reply-To: simard@loral.UUCP (Ray Simard)
Distribution: net
Organization: Loral Instrumentation, San Diego, CA
Lines: 47
Summary: 

In article <638@ames.UUCP> barry@ames.UUCP (Kenn Barry) writes:
>From Ray Simard:
>>>(Original quote from Napoleon Bonaparte:) "...Society  cannot
>>>exist  without  the  inequality  of fortunes, which cannot endure apart from
>>>religion.
>>      It is more than a little misleading and unfair to drag a quote  from  a
>> bygone  era,  in a different location and culture, and use it in this way to
>> promote a position. One must recall that, in the time  and  place  in  which
>> Napoleon  said  this, the caste system was formally recognized and enforced,
>> and believed good (as the quote  suggests).  Religion,  in  this  case,  was
>> looked upon as a salve for the oppressed, a source of comfort and relief.
>
>	Guess again, Ray. Napoleon comes *after* the French Revolution,
>remember? "Liberte, egalite, fraternite". No official caste system. A
>lot of social inequality, to be sure, but that's true in the US today,
>also. So what's unfair?
=====================================
     The condonation of inequality to  which  I  referred  is  exactly  that
expressed  in  the  quote of Napoleon's which began this discussion.  I have
editied it down to show that particular part.  Even if not contained in law,
class distinction shows clearly in these words.

     The point that was suggested in the original article was that  possibly
Ronald Reagan finds support for deliberately maintaining "inequality of for-
tune" in Christian belief, and that his efforts to reduce the welfare  state
are  based  on such belief.   I suggest that Napoleon's societal context and
Reagan's are so different that the association suggested  in  that  original
quote is quite without validity.  Neither Christian faith nor Reagan promote
an externally enforced limitation on anyone's prosperity.

     Whether or not one agrees with Reagan and other  conservatives  on  the
appropriate  handling of the welfare state (and other matters), it is a use-
less muddying of waters to strive to impute  attitudes  and  motivations  to
him/them  that  are  not  there,  just  to make him/them look bad.  If one's
objective refutations of such positions are not persuasive enough  to  stand
on their own merit, perhaps they, and the political position from which they
spring, are not worth keeping.
-- 

[     I am not a stranger, but a friend you haven't met yet     ]

Ray Simard
Loral Instrumentation, San Diego
{ucbvax, ittvax!dcdwest}!sdcsvax!sdcc6!loral!simard

...Though we may sometimes disagree,
   You are still a friend to me!