Florian Deltgen – Page 5

March 10, 2023 Culture and Religion / Political Ideologies

Ad Hominem vs. Ad Rem (Hairdo or Country)

Politics, I said, is a pig-wrestling event and if you wrestle with pigs you may get dirty. And what is more important – that a president accomplishes the right things for his country or that he speaks in mild-mannered and polished ways while inflicting disaster upon his country – like Mr. Obama, for example?

I reminded him to consider how Trump was treated by his political opponents. Two impeachment attempts, the freely invented Russian Collusion hoax, investigation after investigation, false accusation after false accusation. The entire deep-state government was weaponized against him, never mind the Constitution or the rule of law.

Falsehood after falsehood. And then you condemn the man if he uses a cussword? Seems to me like accusing a rabbit of running against the one-way street while trying to escape a wolfpack.

March 3, 2023 Culture and Religion / Political Ideologies

Brown Bomber vs Nazi Superman – a lesson in humanity

Both Louis and Schmeling became political figures when the Nazis came to power in Germany. Hitler tried to placate Schmeling as proof of the superiority of the Arian race, while Joe Louis was seen, by black and white Americans alike at the time, as the litmus test that a democracy was better than fascism.

On June 19, 1936, Joe Louis and Max Schmeling faced off against each other in New York’s Madison Square Garden. The fight had to be postponed for a day due to bad weather and the New York Times wrote: “Schmeling’s execution was delayed.”

February 25, 2023 Science and Philosophy

The Water Dipole — Basis of all Life on earth

The direct effect of dipole interaction is called cohesion, the property of molecules to stick together. Cohesion is the cause of surface tension of water surfaces, which allows the surface of liquids, in particular of water, to contract to the smallest possible surface area.

The strong cohesion between water molecules is responsible for the ability of water to form drops like raindrops or drops on leaves. It is also the cause of the strong adhesion of water to other substances, which enables water to “climb” upward against gravity in capillary tubes.

February 13, 2023 Science and Philosophy / World

About Climate Change

Believers of the MMCC (Man-Made Climate Change) religion like Greta Thunberg, AOC, Al Gore and many others want to save “the” climate. One has to wonder, which climate they mean. Do they really believe that today’s or yesterday’s climate is “the” climate, i.e. the one and only climate that is supposed to exist on earth in order to accommodate a specific form of human civilization? Do these people not know that the only thing that is constant about the climate of this planet is that it has been constantly changing for 4.5 billion years?

They claim that recent comparatively minor changes in earth’s climate are caused by human activities. Do they not know that there have been far more dramatic changes in earth’s climate while people did not even exist?

February 4, 2023 World

The Coming Water War between Turkey, Iraq and Syria

The river Tigris is the lifeline connecting the cities of Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra. In recent years, it has been choked by numerous dams, most of them upstream in Turkey, and by lack of rainfall.
The Tigris has its source in Turkey and its course through Iraq begins in the mountains of northern Iraq’s Kurdish region, near the borders of Turkey and Syria, where local people raise sheep and grow potatoes.
Iraq’s government and Kurdish farmers accuse Turkey of withholding water in its dams, dramatically reducing the flow into Iraq, in particular, the Ilisu dam on the Tigris near the village of Ilisu and along the border of the Mardin and Şirnak provinces in Turkey.

January 14, 2023 Political Ideologies

Tolerance, Bigotry, Freedom of Speech, and the Pursuit of Liberty

As we see our freedom of speech and First Amendment trampled upon, we also hear the word “bigot” with greater frequency. The word has become a favored pejorative of ideologically radical collectivists and leftists. They use it mainly to bash conservatives or anybody whose views they do not condone.
The term is derived from the German or Nordic ‘Bei Gott’ meaning ‘by god’. French Normans pronounced it ‘bee got’. The French wrote it ‘bigot’, pronounced it (‘bee go’) and made it into a negative term to refer to self-righteous Christian Normans or Germans, who would start every sentence with “Bei Gott, ….” calling on God as the witness to their self-righteousness and virtue. Bigotry then is a form of sanctimony, which is defined in the American Heritage Dictionary as “Righteousness accompanied by an unwarranted attitude of moral or social superiority; smug or hypocritical righteousness.”

January 7, 2023 Political Ideologies

If I could, what would I change about the US political/social system?

Let me first say that I consider the US Constitution a superb piece of political craftsmanship. Its language is partly a bit antiquated but the issues with which it deals are the eternal problems of how to organize human life in a just and free manner.
These problems do not change, and the number of available solutions is limited. The US Constitution emphasizes individual liberty and aims to limit and reign in the power of the governing in wise recognition of the eternal temptation to abuse power. It is based on the idea that we are all “created equal” but not on the idea that we are all equal.

December 31, 2022 Culture and Religion / Political Ideologies

Putin is right — right full of it

Recently, I have been involved in repeated discussions about whether or not Russia (Putin) is justified in invading Ukraine. The main arguments (mostly propagated by Tik Tok, CTV, and RTV for obvious reasons) why Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine is justified are. . .
The Ukrainians are actually Russians and they speak a Russian dialect!

The Ukrainian government is corrupt!

Putin is fighting globalism!

Below, I will discuss the validity or lack thereof of these arguments.

December 17, 2022 Political Ideologies

How to Become an International Communist Terrorist!

In 1977, I performed anthropological field research among the Yebámasa Indians, who live along the Piraparaná River in the Comisaría del Vaupés of Colombia, South America. I had two co-researchers, one German, one Colombian. My German co-researcher’s name was Karl, but in Colombia, everybody called him Carlos and I ended up calling him Carlos, as well.
We were planning on arranging an ethnographic exhibition after our return to Germany at the Rauthenstrauch-Joest Museum, Cologne’s main ethnological museum. So, we were always collecting artifacts. The utensils and tools the Indians use in their daily life, their weapons, their canoes, their adornments, their musical instruments. After a while of living with the Indians, we managed to put together a representative collection, which was to show German Museum visitors how the Yebámasa Indians live.

December 10, 2022 Culture and Religion / Political Ideologies

How the means can discredit the ends

Napoleon Bonaparte was certainly a very intelligent, creative, and energetic personality, a great statesman, and an ingenious military leader. He did much good for many people in Europe. My wife’s grandma Anna grew up in a part of Germany that later became the “Département Ruhr”, the administrative unit of the Eastern Ruhr region under French occupation from 1806 through 1813. Anna and all her siblings never learned much of anything until the French came. They started a public-school system and taught all children to read and write – French, of course.

Napoleon also personally participated in writing a new civil code for France, which was a huge step toward civil liberty and public safety. His “Code Napoleon” is still today France’s civil law. It also became the model for the civil code of many other nations. And it is still amazingly “modern” today.