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Meet VC's New Commissioner Madeline Luke will work to preserve Valley City's assets
"I would really like to see the city conserve and capitalize its assets," said Valley City's newest commissioner, Madeline Luke. Two of Valley City's biggest assets, Luke says, are the Sheyenne River and a walkable downtown. Luke hopes to use her seat on the city's commission to preserve both.
"I think people are naturally drawn to water," Luke said. She has lived in various communities with rivers, which she says are beneficial to both quality of life and attracting travelers.
The river "turns Valley City from kind of an open prairie area to a nice, protected green, tree-lined area," Luke said.
Preserving the Sheyenne River and maintaining the quality of the water is important to Luke, and as coordinator of Ad Hoc Downstream Group, a group dedicated to find ways to save the Sheyenne River from Devils Lake water, she has plenty of knowledge and experience on the issues facing the river.
While Luke was campaigning for her seat on Valley City's city commission, she saw several locals casting lines in the river by the little dam.
"The nice thing about Valley City is it's small enough so you have everything right outside your door," Luke said, adding that residents here don't have to travel far to see water and its wildlife.
In recent years, the river has reached record spring flood levels and is currently the topic of heated debates by the State Water Commission as well as the communities along Devils Lake and the Sheyenne River.
The State Water Commission would like to drain water from Devils Lake into the Sheyenne River to prevent catastrophic flooding in the future.
"I think it's very important that we do flood control" Luke said, "but I think we need to do it in a fashion that maintains the aesthetic qualities of the town."
Ad Hoc along with another local group, People to Save the Sheyenne, both claim that if the river received Devils Lake water, the quality of the water would reduce greatly.
"Having a really muddy, smelly river doesn't add to anyone's quality of life," Luke continued.
Luke says the river isn't the only asset that adds charm to Valley City; she also enjoys the compact, walkable downtown area. Luke would like to see more shops downtown that make Valley City feel like a destination place.
"We're not going to attract a big box store, and we have them on either side," Luke said, adding that the city should take advantage of what it has and pull in what's unique. One thing that makes Valley City unique, Luke says, is its cross between small town living and having amenities.
She would like to see the downtown amenities be a critical mass that is enough for people to come off the highway to stop in Valley City.
Luke also said that Valley City is a gateway to residents and travelers visiting Lake Ashtabula, which is part of the Sheyenne River that was made by the Baldhill Dam.
To implement these ideas, which Luke acknowledges would take money and expertise, Luke would like to use the committees that are already in place and bring in some new ideas. "I think we have a lot of talent here; it's just a matter of setting some goals and seeing what the interest is," Luke said.
"People, I hope, would feel like they would want to participate in getting the city going again after three years of really difficult times," Luke said.
Luke said having open communication is a great way to get people involved. "Transparency really is pretty important," Luke maintained.
"I know there are a lot of challenges as far as fixing up the city. I think people are probably taxed as much as they can pay. We need to keep this place affordable," Luke said.
"The other way of getting more money in town to take care of services is to grow it," Luke said, adding that she'd like to see it grow with good-paying jobs while keeping Valley City aesthetic as possible.
Luke was elected as city commissioner June 12 along with Mary Lee Nielson. The new commissioners will attend their first regular meeting Monday and will serve four year terms.
Luke has already started preparing for her duties as commissioner. She has made an appointment to review the budget and will review the booklet on meeting rules and regulations.
"I'm not afraid of asking questions," Luke said, and she welcomes comments and suggestions from citizens.
Luke grew up in Providence, R.I., where she also went to medical school after attending college in Boston. She trained in New York City.
She moved to Valley City in 1984 and has been practicing medicine here ever since. She also spent four years in Fargo at the Veterans Affairs.
Luke says traveling to and living in different cities has helped her see issues from an outsider's point-of-view, realizing the positive and negatives of issues.
Luke and her husband, Gary, have two kids, Annie and Christopher. Gary is a North Dakota native, who Luke says has provided her with a lot of the knowledge and appreciation she has of North Dakota.
"Valley City is a good place to raise a family--I did," Luke said.


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Categories: Law Practice Skills Municipal and Local Government Health Law
Instructor(s) McBride, Erin
The Government and Legislative Clinic (GLC) is one of the Law School's newest clinical experiences. Since its inception in 2011, students have taken advantage of a large range of internship opportunities at state, local and municipal government offices. Students earn credits toward graduation in exchange for their hours each week working side-by-side with their agency's legal counsel. Students in the clinic also meet each week for a seminar class which adds context and support to their internship assignments. Seminar discussions review statutory interpretation, legislative drafting, administrative rulemaking, administrative law and the regulatory state. Students take an active role in tracking pending legislation and monitoring current events.
The GLC provides students with the unique opportunity to observe and participate in the many facets of governmental law, policy and the legislative process. Working under the direct supervision of clinical faculty and attorneys in legislative, administrative and judicial settings, students gain first-hand experience working with government agencies on legal issues with policy significance. Students have completed externships as part of the GLC in a wide variety of state and local agencies.

subset: commoncrawl


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Education as Site: Using Architecture to Communicate Nature's Behaviours.
I've finally gotten around to having the energy/desire to post my thesis work online. I'm very proud of the work I did in the amount of time I feel I actually had direction. Without further adieu:
This thesis is an architectural exploration of The Serpentine Fen Wildlife Area in Surrey, British Columbia as a public park and an opportunity for environmental education for children. As public education becomes more environmentally con- scious, there is a need for architecture that sup- ports how the child interacts with and perceives their natural environments.
This thesis proposes the use of a single archi- tectural element as a transition between multiple site conditions to create a dynamic link between earth, air, water which affords the abilitity for a relationship to be developed between the user and their environment. This element will consist- ently be present in the user's journey through the site and serves to encourage interaction with the identified site conditions. The thesis investi- gates how this continous element acts as locus, datum, frame, reference, stage and devise to en- hance the child's experience of nature.
Thesis question:
How can architecture create a connection be- tween children and nature?
I'm definitely not going to post the body of the work here, though I will post a link at the bottom for those of you brave enough to open it.
Instead, I'll just post the images I made!
Site conditions:
I have a series of models that I made that I haven't properly documented yet but I will do in the near future. I also did a lot more mini-renders, 2 for each 'site condition' and another 15 to describe the wood ribbon path throughout the site. After I document how they were presented, I'll do another post about that.
Final pinup:
I'll have my degree in-hand hopefully by mid-June because I won't be attending convocation on May 22nd.


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Four-time Olympic sailing gold medallist Ben Ainslie, from Macclesfield, has announced he will not compete at Rio 2016.
Ainslie, 35, has decided to call time on his glittering Olympic career to focus on his America's Cup campaign.
Ainslie won the Finn class at London 2012 - his fourth gold medal in his fifth Games - but will not defend that title in Rio.
"It fills me with both relief and sadness to write these words but I can now officially confirm that I have donned my Team GB tracksuit for the last time," Ainslie told the Daily Telegraph.
"No more Olympic villages. No more opening or closing ceremonies. After almost 20 years entirely dedicated to the pursuit of gold, taking in five Olympic campaigns, I have decided I will not attempt a sixth at Rio de Janeiro in 2016."
Ainslie won silver at his first Olympics in Atlanta in 1996 in the Laser class and took Laser gold in Sydney four years later. He then moved to the Finn class taking gold in Athens, Beijing and London.
Ainslie did not announce his Olympic retirement immediately after winning in Weymouth. Instead he waited for the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) conference in Dublin to find out which classes would be on the Olympic programme for Rio.
He admits that had the Star two-handed dinghy been reinstated he might have considered "giving that a go" but it was not.
"Because of the wear and tear of a lifetime spent sailing, particularly on my back, which was a real issue this summer, it was always going to be an uphill struggle to do the Finn again in Brazil," he said.
Ainslie will now concentrate on an America's Cup World Series campaign with JP Morgan BAR.
"I feel increasingly confident that we can one day challenge for the America's Cup proper. Not at next year's event in San Francisco - that will be too soon - but perhaps the one after that."
What do you think? Have your say.
Sailing: Macc ace Ben Ainslie rules out Rio 2016
Four-time Olympic sailing gold medallist Ben Ainslie, from Macclesfield, has announced he will not compete at Rio 2016.


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Razer Announces Updated Orochi Mouse For Mobile Gaming
Subject: General Tech | November 27, 2012 - 01:31 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: razer orochi, razer, PC, mouse, mobile, laptop, gaming
Razer has been on an updating kick this month with a number of its gaming mice being refreshed with better hardware and support for Synapse 2.0 (cloud syncing) software. This time, Razer is turning to its mobile lineup and giving the Orochi an upgrade for a 2013 release.
The ambidextrous mouse can be used in a wired or wireless configuration. While the original Orochi featured a 4000 DPI laser sensor, the updated model upgrades the sensor to 6400 DPI. Further, Razer has bumped up the Bluetooth radio to one rated at Bluetooth 3.0 specifications. Powered by two AA batteries, Razer has reportedly improved battery life by a significant margin. The company rates the mobile gaming mouse at up to 30 hours of continuous gaming, and three months of normal use.
The refreshed mouse maintains the traditional LED-lit scroll wheel, mouse buttons, and two side buttons of the original Orochi. Interestingly, it comes in a shinier "chrome" colored variant in addition to the standard black blade addition.
The refreshed Orochi 2013 is available for pre-order now for $69.99. According to the Razer website, the blade edition will ship in 1-2 weeks and the chrome variant will ship in a little over a month.
I hope they correct all the comm issues from the previous model. The one I have is so inconsistent, with connectivity to my bt laptop, I stopped using it.
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Everything is going good so far, LO is gaining weight and diaper output is good. She's 6 months old.
My only issue now is that flow on my right breast is soooooo slow! My baby gets mad sometimes cause the other side is much faster.
I am trying to make her start on the slow side but she gets mad and I have to switch to the fast side and then finish on the slow when she's not that hungry anymore. Also, my pumping sessions used to be 30 min max, and now I have to pump for 45 (or even longer!!) so I can actually empty that slow breast. That's an issue for me cause we are super busy at work and I can't be away from my desk for that long.
Is there something going on?? I don't have pain or any lumps so I'm not sure if my ducts are plugged... I've ha plugged ducts before but I had pain and nods that I could feel.
Any thoughts? Thanks!! And happy Thanksgiving!!


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B&W Releases Part For Ram 2500, 3500 Trucks
June 28, 2013 by RVBusiness · Comments Off on B&W Releases Part For Ram 2500, 3500 Trucks
B&W Trailer Hitches has developed a part for its Companion fifth-wheel hitch that is compatible with 2013 Dodge Ram 2500 and 3500 pickup trucks.
According to a press release, the Companion works in conjunction with the Turnoverball under-bed mounting kit. B&W said that Turnoverball model GNRK1314 is available for the 2013 Ram 3500.
This additional part attaches to the legs of the Companion and fills in the recess in the corrugations of the 2013 Ram 3500 trucks. Some of the 2013 Ram 2500 trucks also have this recess and will require the additional spacers.
"So many fifth-wheel owners have been waiting on a hitch so that they can get on the road and enjoy the season," said Beth Barlow, marketing manager for the Humboldt, Kan.-based supplier. "We are pleased that we have been able to design a solution in short order."
The additional spacer is available free of charge by calling B&W Trailer Hitches directly at (800) 248.6564.


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Web development -- 2
Budget $10-30 USD
I need a new website. I need you to design and build a website for my small business. need internet shop in Russia
19 freelancers are bidding on average $117 for this job
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For the proposed cost we assure you * 90 days free support & maintenance (After sales service) * Unlimited* design revisions * Website with bootstrap resposnive design * Double tested by quality analyst which is b More
Hi - My Name is Nitin Gupta. I've read your project brief and can see that you need a website design and build for your small business. I have 8 years experience in designing and developing websites. I would approach y More
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Dear prospective employer, my name is Brock Lynch. I don't speak Russian, so if that's the language the website is in I might not be the person for you. But if the website is in English I can offer you a custom-built w More


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September 2007
Simplifying forms for parents
Districts can help ease the burden on parents by ensuring that transfer applications and SES enrollment forms are simple and easy to understand.
Ensuring readability. As they should with parent notices, districts should avoid using jargon and "legalese," check readability of public school choice applications and SES enrollment forms using readability indexes, and convert technical terms and complicated language into simpler language wherever appropriate. Districts should also be sure to translate applications and enrollment forms into languages other than English wherever needed.
Districts should also be sure to work with parents in developing these forms and get feedback as to their user-friendliness.
Using enrollment assistance sessions. Districts can further assist parents by providing hands-on explanations of the public school choice application and SES enrollment forms and processes through enrollment assistance sessions or other similar events. These offer parents an opportunity to ask questions and receive assistance in filling out public school choice applications and SES enrollment forms.
Making it work
Sessions such as these can be particularly helpful when staffed by parents who have completed the enrollment process previously for their own children and are, thus, knowledgeable about the areas where parents may need assistance and the questions parents may have. Having translators on hand can further assist parents who speak languages other than English.


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2008-10-15 / Events & Calendar
Luncheon and fashion show to be held Oct. 18
Sisters of Greater Long Island (S.O.G.L.I.), an African American breast cancer support group hosts a luncheon and fashion show, Sat., Oct. 18, 1 to 5 p.m. at Manor East, 201 Jerusalem Ave., Massapequa. The keynote speaker is Alicia Knight-Debrady, M.D., F.A.C.O.G. Learn more about fighting breast cancer and helping the community.
You must be an online subscriber to view this story.


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ACParadise Network: American Cosplay Paradise American Cosplay Experience American Cosplay Snapshots
I'm very new to cosplay but have dabbled in costume making for the past few years. I graduated from the University of Louisville with a Bachelors in Fine Arts and currently work UPS while doing bits of freelance. I am looking forward to learning new techniques and having fun while doing it! :3
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Trophy is a new winter oat variety that was co-developed by the Louisiana State University Agricultural Center (LSUAC) and University of Florida and is released under the Sungrains Cooperative small grain breeding program among five Southeastern universities.
Trophy has considerable potential for grain, forage, conservation-tillage, and wildlife purposes in the Southern U.S. Exclusive marketing rights for Trophy have been licensed to Terral Seed Inc. of Lake Providence, La.
Trophy is a medium height oat with a semi-compact panicle and very large, plump kernels. It has excellent grain yield, a very high test weight, and very good straw strength.
It is resistant to prevalent races of crown and stem rust.
Trophy has performed very well in grain and forage yield trials across the region. It has excellent grain yield and very high test weight.
Trophy should be adapted to the region from North Carolina through Arkansas and down into Texas. It is a dual-purpose oat with large seed, broad leaves, and good crown and stem rust resistance.
For more information on Trophy, please visit http://nfrec.ifas.ufl.edu/trophy.htm.


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Baruch Spinoza
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Benedictus de Spinoza (24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677) was a social and metaphysical philosopher famous for the elaborate development of his monist philosophy, which has become known as Spinozism. Controversy regarding his ideas led to his excommunication from the Jewish community of his native Amsterdam. He was named Baruch ("blessed" in Hebrew) Spinoza by his synagogue elders and known as Bento de Spinoza or Bento d'Espiñoza, but afterwards used the name Benedictus ("blessed" in Latin) de Spinoza.
- See also
- If you find the light of Scripture clearer than the light of reason (which also is given us by divine wisdom), you are doubtless right in your own conscience in making your reason yield. For my part, since I plainly confess that I do not understand the Scriptures, though I have spent many years upon them, and since I know that when once I have a firm proof I cannot by any course of thought come to doubt of it, I rest wholly upon that which my understanding commends to me, without any suspicion that I am deceived therein, or that the Scriptures, even though I do not search them, can speak against it. For one truth cannot conflict with another, as I have already clearly shown in my Appendix to the "Principles of Descartes"...But if in any case I did find error in that which I have collected from my natural understanding, I should count it good fortune, since I enjoy life, and endeavour to pass it not in weeping and sighing, but in peace, joy, and cheerfulness, and from time to time climb thereby a step higher. I know, meanwhile (which is the highest pleasure of all), that all things happen by the power and unchangeable decree of the most perfect Being.
- Letter to William van Blyenbergh (1665) as quoted by Sir Frederick Pollock, Spinoza: His Life and Philosophy (1880) pp. 50-51
- When you say that if I deny, that the operations of seeing, hearing, attending, wishing, &c., can be ascribed to God, or that they exist in him in any eminent fashion, you do not know what sort of God mine is ; I suspect that you believe there is no greater perfection than such as can be explained by the aforesaid attributes. I am not astonished ; for I believe that, if a triangle could speak, it would say, in like manner, that God is eminently triangular, while a circle would say that the divine nature is eminently circular. Thus each would ascribe to God its own attributes, would assume itself to be like God, and look on everything else as ill-shaped.
The briefness of a letter and want of time do not allow me to enter into my opinion on the divine nature, or the questions you have propounded. Besides, suggesting difficulties is not the same as producing reasons. That we do many things in the world from conjecture is true, but that our redactions are based on conjecture is false. In practical life we are compelled to follow what is most probable ; in speculative thought we are compelled to follow truth. A man would perish of hunger and thirst, if he refused to eat or drink, till he had obtained positive proof that food and drink would be good for him. But in philosophic reflection this is not so. On the contrary, we must take care not to admit as true anything, which is only probable. For when one falsity has been let in, infinite others follow.
Again, we cannot infer that because sciences of things divine and human are full of controversies and quarrels, therefore their whole subject-matter is uncertain ; for there have been many persons so enamoured of contradiction, as to turn into ridicule geometrical axioms.
- This impels me, before going into your reasons, to set forth briefly my opinion on the question, whether the world was made by chance. But I answer, that as it is clear that chance and necessity are two contraries, so is it also clear, that he, who asserts the world to be a necessary effect of the divine nature, must utterly deny that the world has been made by chance; whereas, he who affirms that God need not have made the world, confirms, though in different language, the doctrine that it has been made by chance; inasmuch as he maintains that it proceeds from a wish, which might never have been formed. However, as this opinion and theory is on the face of it absurd, it is commonly very unanimously admitted, that God's will is eternal, and has never been indifferent; hence... the world is a necessary effect of the divine nature. Let them call it will, understanding, or any name they like, they come at last to the same conclusion, that under different names they are expressing one and the same thing. If you ask them, whether the divine will does not differ from the human, they answer, that the former has nothing in common with the latter except its name; especially as they generally admit that God's will, understanding, intellect, essence, and nature are all identical; so I... lest I... confound the divine nature with the human, do not assign to God human attributes, such as will, understanding, attention, hearing, &c. I therefore say, as I have said already, that the world is a necessary effect of the divine nature, and that it has not been made by chance. I think this is enough to persuade you, that the opinion of those (if such there be) who say that the world has been made by chance, is entirely contrary to mine; and relying on this hypothesis, I proceed to examine those reasons which lead you to infer the existence of all kinds of ghosts.
- Letter to Hugo Boxel (October 1674) The Chief Works of Benedict de Spinoza (1891) Tr. R. H. M. Elwes, Vol. 2, Letter 58 (54).
- Beauty, my dear Sir, is not so much a quality of the object beheld, as an effect in him who beholds it. If our sight were longer or shorter, or if our constitution were different, what now appears beautiful to us would seem misshapen, and what we now think misshapen we should regard as beautiful. The most beautiful hand seen through the microscope will appear horrible. Some things are beautiful at a distance, but ugly near; thus things regarded in themselves, and in relation to God, are neither ugly nor beautiful. Therefore, he who says that God has created the world, so that it might be beautiful, is bound to adopt one of the two alternatives, either that God created the world for the sake of men's pleasure and eyesight, or else that He created men's pleasure and eyesight for the sake of the world. Now, whether we adopt the former or the latter of these views, how God could have furthered His object by the creation of ghosts, I cannot see. Perfection and imperfection are names which do not differ much from the names beauty and ugliness.
- Letter to Hugo Boxel (October 1674) The Chief Works of Benedict de Spinoza (1891) Tr. R. H. M. Elwes, Vol. 2, Letter 58 (54).
- This I know, that between finite and infinite there is no comparison; so that the difference between God and the greatest and most excellent created thing is no less than the difference between God and the least created thing.
- Letter to Hugo Boxel (October 1674) The Chief Works of Benedict de Spinoza (1891) Tr. R. H. M. Elwes, Vol. 2, Letter 58 (54).
- If I had as clear an idea of ghosts, as I have of a triangle or a circle, I should not in the least hesitate to affirm that they had been created by God; but as the idea I possess of them is just like the ideas, which my imagination forms of harpies, gryphons, hydras, &c., I cannot consider them as anything but dreams, which differ from God as totally as that which is not differs from that which is.
- Letter to Hugo Boxel (October 1674) The Chief Works of Benedict de Spinoza (1891) Tr. R. H. M. Elwes, Vol. 2, Letter 58 (54).
- I had hoped that out of so many stories you would at least have produced one or two, which could hardly be questioned, and which would clearly show that ghosts or spectres exist. The case you relate... seems to me laughable. In like manner it would be tedious here to examine all the stories of people, who have written on these trifles. To be brief, I cite the instance of Julius Caesar, who, as Suetonius testifies, laughed at such things and yet was happy. ...And so should all who reflect on the human imagination, and the effects of the emotions, laugh at such notions; whatever Lavater and others, who have gone dreaming with him in the matter, may produce to the contrary.
- Letter to Hugo Boxel (October 1674) The Chief Works of Benedict de Spinoza (1891) Tr. R. H. M. Elwes, Vol. 2, Letter 58 (54).
- My opinion concerning God differs widely from that which is ordinarily defended by modern Christians. For I hold that God is of all things the cause immanent, as the phrase is, not transient. I say that all things are in God and move in God, thus agreeing with Paul, and, perhaps, with all the ancient philosophers, though the phraseology may be different ; I will even venture to affirm that I agree with all the ancient Hebrews, in so far as one may judge from their traditions, though these are in many ways corrupted. The supposition of some, that I endeavour to prove in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus the unity of God and Nature (meaning by the latter a certain mass or corporeal matter), is wholly erroneous.
As regards miracles, I am of opinion that the revelation of God can only be established by the wisdom of the doctrine, not by miracles, or in other words by ignorance.
- I make this chief distinction between religion and superstition, that the latter is founded on ignorance, the former on knowledge; this, I take it, is the reason why Christians are distinguished from the rest of the world, not by faith, nor by charity, nor by the other fruits of the Holy Spirit, but solely by their opinions, inasmuch as they defend their cause, like everyone else, by miracles, that is by ignorance, which is the source of all malice; thus they turn a faith, which may be true, into superstition.
- Letter 21 (73) to Henry Oldenburg , November (1675)
- I do not think it necessary for salvation to know Christ according to the flesh : but with regard to the Eternal Son of God, that is the Eternal Wisdom of God, which has manifested itself in all things and especially in the human mind, and above all in Christ Jesus, the case is far otherwise. For without this no one can come to a state of blessedness, inasmuch as it alone teaches, what is true or false, good or evil. And, inasmuch as this wisdom was made especially manifest through Jesus Christ, as I have said, his disciples preached it, in so far as it was revealed to them through him, and thus showed that they could rejoice in that spirit of Christ more than the rest of mankind. The doctrines added by certain churches, such as that God took upon himself human nature, I have expressly said that I do not understand; in fact, to speak the truth, they seem to me no less absurd than would a statement, that a circle had taken upon itself the nature of a square. This I think will be sufficient explanation of my opinions concerning the three points mentioned. Whether it will be satisfactory to Christians you will know better than I.
- Letter 21 (73) to Henry Oldenburg, November (1675)
- Variant translation: The eternal wisdom of God … has shown itself forth in all things, but chiefly in the mind of man, and most of all in Jesus Christ.
- You seem to wish to employ reason, and ask me, "How I know that my philosophy is the best among all that have ever been taught in the world, or are being taught, or ever will be taught?" a question which I might with much greater right ask you ; for I do not presume that I have found the best philosophy, I know that I understand the true philosophy. If you ask in what way I know it, I answer: In the same way as you know that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles: that this is sufficient, will be denied by no one whose brain is sound, and who does not go dreaming of evil spirits inspiring us with false ideas like the true. For the truth is the index of itself and of what is false.
But you, who presume that you have at last found the best religion, or rather the best men, on whom you have pinned your credulity, you, "who know that they are the best among all who have taught, do now teach, or shall in future teach other religions. Have you examined all religions, ancient as well as modern, taught here and in India and everywhere throughout the world? And, if you, have duly examined them, how do you know that you have chosen the best" since you can give no reason for the faith that is in you? But you will say, that you acquiesce in the inward testimony of the Spirit of God, while the rest of mankind are ensnared and deceived by the prince of evil spirits. But all those outside the pale of the Romish Church can with equal right proclaim of their own creed what you proclaim of yours.
As to what you add of the common consent of myriads of men and the uninterrupted ecclesiastical succession, this is the very catch-word of the Pharisees. They with no less confidence than the devotees of Rome bring forward their myriad witnesses, who as pertinaciously as the Roman witnesses repeat what they have heard, as though it were their personal experience. Further, they carry back their line to Adam. They boast with equal arrogance, that their Church has continued to this day unmoved and unimpaired in spite of the hatred of Christians and heathen. They more than any other sect are supported by antiquity. They exclaim with one voice, that they have received their traditions from God himself, and that they alone preserve the word of God, both written and unwritten. That all heresies have issued from them, and that they have remained constant through thousands of years under no constraint of temporal dominion, but by the sole efficacy of their superstition, no one can deny. The miracles they tell of would tire a thousand tongues. But their chief boast is that they count a far greater number of martyrs than any other nation, a number which is daily increased by those who suffer with singular constancy for the faith they profess; nor is their boasting false. I myself knew among others of a certain Judah called the faithful, who in the midst of the flames, when he was already thought to be dead, lifted his voice to sing the hymn beginning, "To thee, o God, I offer up my soul", and so singing perished.
- Nature is satisfied with little; and if she is, I am also.
- As quoted in The Story of Philosophy (1933) by Will Durant, p. 176
- Of all the things that are beyond my power, I value nothing more highly than to be allowed the honor of entering into bonds of friendship with people who sincerely love truth. For, of things beyond our power, I believe there is nothing in the world which we can love with tranquility except such men.
- Spinoza, Correspondence, 146, Letter xix
- All the better; they do not force me to do anything that I would not have done of my own accord if I did not dread scandal. But since they want it that way, I enter gladly on the path that is opened to me, with the consolation that my departure will be more innocent than was the exodus of the early Hebrews from Egypt.
- Statement after his excommunication from Jewish society, attributed by Lucas, in The Oldest Biography of Spinoza (1970) by A. Wolf; also in Spinoza: A Life (1999) by Steven Nadler
On the Improvement of the Understanding (1662)[edit]
- Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione [On the Improvement of the Understanding] (1662); full text online
- After experience had taught me that all the usual surroundings of social life are vain and futile; seeing that none of the objects of my fears contained in themselves anything either good or bad, except in so far as the mind is affected by them, I finally resolved to inquire whether there might be some real good having power to communicate itself, which would affect the mind singly, to the exclusion of all else: whether, in fact, there might be anything of which the discovery and attainment would enable me to enjoy continuous, supreme, and unending happiness.
- The ordinary surroundings of life which are esteemed by men (as their actions testify) to be the highest good, may be classed under the three heads — Riches, Fame, and the Pleasures of Sense: with these three the mind is so absorbed that it has little power to reflect on any different good.
- Variant translation: The things which … are esteemed as the greatest good of all … can be reduced to these three headings, to wit : Riches, Fame, and Pleasure. With these three the mind is so engrossed that it cannot scarcely think of any other good.
- Tota felicitas aut infelicitas in hoc solo sita est; videlicet in qualitate obiecti, cui adhaeremus amore.
- All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love.
- I, 9; translation by W. Hale White (Revised by Amelia Hutchison Stirling)
- All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love.
- Sed amor erga rem aeternam et infinitam sola laetitia pascit animum, ipsaque omnis tristitiae est expers; quod valde est desiderandum totisque viribus quaerendum.
- But love for an object eternal and infinite feeds the mind with joy alone, and a joy which is free from all sorrow. This is something greatly to be desired and to be sought with all our strength.
- I, 10; translation by W. Hale White (Revised by Amelia Hutchison Stirling)
- But love for an object eternal and infinite feeds the mind with joy alone, and a joy which is free from all sorrow. This is something greatly to be desired and to be sought with all our strength.
- A definition, if it is to be called perfect, must explain the inmost essence of a thing, and must take care not to substitute for this any of its properties. In order to illustrate my meaning, without taking an example which would seem to show a desire to expose other people's errors, I will choose the case of something abstract, the definition of which is of little moment. Such is a circle. If a circle be defined as a figure, such that all straight lines drawn from the center to the circumference are equal, every one can see that such a definition does not in the least explain the essence of a circle, but solely one of its properties. Though, as I have said, this is of no importance in the case of figures and other abstractions, it is of great importance in the case of physical beings and realities, for the properties of things are not understood so long as their essences are unknown. If the latter be passed over, there is necessarily a perversion of the succession of ideas which should reflect the succession of nature, and we go far astray from our object.
Theological-Political Treatise (1670)[edit]
Ethics (1677)[edit]
- Deus est omnium rerum causa immanens, non vero transiens
- God is the Immanent Cause of all things, never truly transcendent from them
- Part I, Prop. XVIII
- [B]y Natura naturans we must understand what is in itself and is conceived through itself, or such attributes of substance as express an eternal and infinite essence, that is … God, insofar as he is considered as a free cause.
But by Natura naturata I understand whatever follows from the necessity of God's nature, or from God's attributes, that is, all the modes of God's attributes insofar as they are considered as things which are in God, and can neither be nor be conceived without God.
- Part I, Prop. XXIX, Scholium (trans: Edwin Curley, London: Penguin, 1996)
- Ordo et connexio idearum idem est ac ordo et connexio rerum
- The order and connection of the thought is identical to with the order and connection of the things.
- Part II, Prop. VII
- veritas norma sui et falsi est
- Truth is a standard both of itself and of falsity
- Part II, Prop. XLIII, Scholium
- Hic conatus aliquid agendi et etiam omittendi ea sola de causa ut hominibus placeamus, vocatur ambitio præsertim quando adeo impense vulgo placere conamur ut cum nostro aut alterius damno quædam agamus vel omittamus; alias humanitas appellari solet.
- This endeavour to do a thing or leave it undone, solely in order to please men, we call ambition, especially when we so eagerly endeavour to please the vulgar, that we do or omit certain things to our own or another's hurt : in other cases it is generally called kindliness.
- Part III, Prop. XXIX
- Meum institutum non est verborum significationem sed rerum naturam explicare
- My purpose is to explain, not the meaning of words, but the nature of things.
- Part III, Def. XX
- Humanam impotentiam in moderandis et coercendis affectibus servitutem voco; homo enim affectibus obnoxius sui juris non est sed fortunæ in cujus potestate ita est ut sæpe coactus sit quanquam meliora sibi videat, deteriora tamen sequi.
- Human infirmity in moderating and checking the emotions I name bondage: for, when a man is a prey to his emotions, he is not his own master, but lies at the mercy of fortune: so much so, that he is often compelled, while seeing that which is better for him, to follow that which is worse.
- Part IV, Preface; translation by R. H. M. Elwes
- Human infirmity in moderating and checking the emotions I name bondage: for, when a man is a prey to his emotions, he is not his own master, but lies at the mercy of fortune: so much so, that he is often compelled, while seeing that which is better for him, to follow that which is worse.
- Deus seu Natura
- God or Nature
- Part IV, Preface (Deum seu Naturam, Deus seu Natura);
- Maxima superbia vel abjectio est maxima sui ignorantia.
- Extreme pride or dejection indicates extreme ignorance of self.
- Part IV, Prop. LV
- Homo liber de nulla re minus, quam de morte cogitat, et ejus sapientia non mortis, sed vitae meditatio est.
- A free man thinks of death least of all things; and his wisdom is a meditation not of death but of life.
- Part IV, Prop. LXVII
- Sentimus experimurque, nos aeternos esse.
- We feel and know that we are eternal.
- Part V, Prop. XXIII, Scholium
- We feel and know that we are eternal.
- sub specie aeternitatis
- ...from the perspective of the eternal.
- Part V, Prop. XXIII, Scholium
- Et sane arduum debet esse, quod adeo raro reperitur. Qui enim posset fieri, si salus in promptu esset et sine magno labore reperiri posset, ut ab omnibus fere negligeretur? Sed omnia praeclara tam difficilia, quam rara sunt.
- Needs must it be hard, since it is so seldom found. How would it be possible, if salvation were ready to our hand, and could without great labour be found, that it should be by almost all men neglected? But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.
- Part V, Prop. XLII, Scholium
Political Treatise (1677)[edit]
- Tractatus Politicus as translated by A. H. Gosset (1883); full text online; this is an unfinished work, left incomplete by Spinoza's death
- Affectus, quibus conflictamur, concipiunt philosophi veluti vitia, in quae homines sua culpa labuntur; quos propterea ridere, flere, carpere vel (qui sanctiores videri volunt) detestari solent. Sic ergo se rem divinam facere, et sapientiae culmen attingere credunt, quando humanam naturam, quae nullibi est, multis modis laudare et eam, quae revera est, dictis lacessere norunt. Homines namque non ut sunt, sed ut eosdem esse vellent, concipiunt; unde factum est, ut plerumque pro e t h i c a satyram scripserint, et ut nunquam p o l i t i c a m conceperint, quae possit ad usum revocari; sed quae pro chimaera haberetur, vel quae in Utopia vel in illo poëtarum aureo saeculo, ubi scilicet minime necesse erat, institui potuisset. Cum igitur omnium scientiarum, quae usum habent, tum maxime p o l i t i c e s t h e o r i a ab ipsius p r a x i discrepare creditur, et regendae reipublicae nulli minus idonei aestimantur, quam theoretici seu philosophi.
- Philosophers conceive of the passions which harass us as vices into which men fall by their own fault, and, therefore, generally deride, bewail, or blame them, or execrate them, if they wish to seem unusually pious. And so they think they are doing something wonderful, and reaching the pinnacle of learning, when they are clever enough to bestow manifold praise on such human nature, as is nowhere to be found, and to make verbal attacks on that which, in fact, exists. For they conceive of men, not as they are, but as they themselves would like them to be. Whence it has come to pass that, instead of ethics, they have generally written satire, and that they have never conceived a theory of politics, which could be turned to use, but such as might be taken for a chimera, or might have been formed in Utopia, or in that golden age of the poets when, to be sure, there was least need of it. Accordingly, as in all sciences, which have a useful application, so especially in that of politics, theory is supposed to be at variance with practice ; and no men are esteemed less fit to direct public affairs than theorists or philosophers.
- Ch. 1, Introduction; section 1
- Philosophers conceive of the passions which harass us as vices into which men fall by their own fault, and, therefore, generally deride, bewail, or blame them, or execrate them, if they wish to seem unusually pious. And so they think they are doing something wonderful, and reaching the pinnacle of learning, when they are clever enough to bestow manifold praise on such human nature, as is nowhere to be found, and to make verbal attacks on that which, in fact, exists. For they conceive of men, not as they are, but as they themselves would like them to be. Whence it has come to pass that, instead of ethics, they have generally written satire, and that they have never conceived a theory of politics, which could be turned to use, but such as might be taken for a chimera, or might have been formed in Utopia, or in that golden age of the poets when, to be sure, there was least need of it. Accordingly, as in all sciences, which have a useful application, so especially in that of politics, theory is supposed to be at variance with practice ; and no men are esteemed less fit to direct public affairs than theorists or philosophers.
- I have resolved to demonstrate by a certain and undoubted course of argument, or to deduce from the very condition of human nature, not what is new and unheard of, but only such things as agree best with practice.
- Ch. 1, Introduction
- Sedulo curavi, humanas actiones non ridere, non lugere, neque detestari, sed intelligere; atque adeo humanos affectus, ut sunt amor, odium, ira, invidia, gloria, misericordia et reliquae animi commotiones non ut humanae naturae vitia, sed ut proprietates contemplatus sum, quae ad ipsam ita pertinent, ut ad naturam aëris aestus, frigus, tempestas, tonitru et alia huiusmodi, quae, tametsi incommoda sunt, necessaria tamen sunt, certasque habent causas, per quas eorum naturam intelligere conamur, et mens eorum vera contemplatione aeque gaudet, ac earum rerum cognitione, quae sensibus gratae sunt.
- I have laboured carefully, not to mock, lament, or execrate human actions, but to understand them; and, to this end, I have looked upon passions, such as love, hatred, anger, envy, ambition, pity, and the other perturbations of the mind, not in the light of vices of human nature, but as properties, just as pertinent to it, as are heat, cold, storm, thunder, and the like to the nature of the atmosphere, which phenomena, though inconvenient, are yet necessary, and have fixed causes, by means of which we endeavour to understand their nature, and the mind has just as much pleasure in viewing them aright, as in knowing such things as flatter the senses
- Ch. 1, Introduction; section 4
- I have laboured carefully, not to mock, lament, or execrate human actions, but to understand them; and, to this end, I have looked upon passions, such as love, hatred, anger, envy, ambition, pity, and the other perturbations of the mind, not in the light of vices of human nature, but as properties, just as pertinent to it, as are heat, cold, storm, thunder, and the like to the nature of the atmosphere, which phenomena, though inconvenient, are yet necessary, and have fixed causes, by means of which we endeavour to understand their nature, and the mind has just as much pleasure in viewing them aright, as in knowing such things as flatter the senses
- Speaking generally, he holds dominion, to whom are entrusted by common consent affairs of state — such as the laying down, interpretation, and abrogation of laws, the fortification of cities, deciding on war and peace, &c. But if this charge belong to a council, composed of the general multitude, then the dominion is called a democracy; if the council be composed of certain chosen persons, then it is an aristocracy ; and, if, lastly, the care of affairs of state, and, consequently, the dominion rest with one man, then it has the name of monarchy.
- Ch. 2, Of Natural Right
- Man can, indeed, act contrarily to the decrees of God, as far as they have been written like laws in the minds of ourselves or the prophets, but against that eternal decree of God, which is written in universal nature, and has regard to the course of nature as a whole, he can do nothing.
- Ch. 2, Of Natural Right
- In the state of nature, wrong-doing is impossible ; or, if anyone does wrong, it is to himself, not to another. For no one by the law of nature is bound to please another, unless he chooses, nor to hold anything to be good or evil, but what he himself, according to his own temperament, pronounces to be so ; and, to speak generally, nothing is forbidden by the law of nature, except what is beyond everyone's power.
- Ch. 2, Of Natural Right
- Nature offers nothing that can be called this man's rather than another's ; but, under nature, everything belongs to all — that is, they have authority to claim it for themselves. But, under dominion, where it is by common law determined what belongs to this man, and what to that, he is called just who has a constant will to render to every man his own, but he, unjust who strives, on the contrary, to make his own that which belongs to another.
- Ch. 2, Of Natural Right
- Civitas, cuius subditi metu territi arma non capiunt, potius dicenda est, quod sine bello sit, quam quod pacem habeat. Pax enim non belli privatio, sed virtus est, quae ex animi fortitudine oritur; est namque obsequium constans voluntas id exsequendi, quod ex communi civitatis decreto fieri debet. Illa praeterea civitas, cuius pax a subditorum inertia pendet, qui scilicet veluti pecora ducuntur, ut tantum servire discant, rectius solitudo, quam civitas dici potest.
- Of a commonwealth, whose subjects are but hindered by terror from taking arms, it should rather be said, that it is free from war, than that it has peace. For peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that springs from force of character : for obedience is the constant will to execute what, by the general decree of the commonwealth, ought to be done. Besides, that commonwealth, whose peace depends on the sluggishness of its subjects, that are led about like sheep, to learn but slavery, may more properly be called a desert than a commonwealth.
- Ch. 5, Of the Best State of a Dominion
- Liberally rendered in A Natural History of Peace (1996) by Thomas Gregor as:
"Peace is not an absence of war; it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice."
- Of a commonwealth, whose subjects are but hindered by terror from taking arms, it should rather be said, that it is free from war, than that it has peace. For peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that springs from force of character : for obedience is the constant will to execute what, by the general decree of the commonwealth, ought to be done. Besides, that commonwealth, whose peace depends on the sluggishness of its subjects, that are led about like sheep, to learn but slavery, may more properly be called a desert than a commonwealth.
- If slavery, barbarism and desolation are to be called peace, men can have no worse misfortune. No doubt there are usually more and sharper quarrels between parents and children, than between masters and slaves ; yet it advances not the art of household management to change a father's right into a right of property, and count children but as slaves. Slavery, then, and not peace, is furthered by handing the whole authority to one man.
- Ch. 6, On Monarchy
- He who seeks equality between unequals seeks an absurdity.
- Ch. 9, Of Aristocracy, Continuation
- All laws which can be broken without any injury to another, are counted but a laughing-stock, and are so far from bridling the desires and lusts of men, that on the contrary they stimulate them.
- Ch. 10, Of Aristocracy, Conclusion
- Variant translation : Laws which can be broken without any wrong to one's neighbor are but a laughing-stoke ; and, so far from such laws restraining the appetites and lusts of mankind, they rather heighten them.
- Variant: All laws which can be violated without doing any one any injury are laughed at. Nay, so far are they from doing anything to control the desires and passions of men, that, on the contrary, they direct and incite men's thoughts the more toward those very objects, for we always strive toward what is forbidden and desire the things we are not allowed to have. And men of leisure are never deficient in the ingenuity needed to enable them to outwit laws framed to regulate things which cannot be entirely forbidden... He who tries to determine everything by law will foment crime rather than lessen it.
- I pass, at length, to the third and perfectly absolute dominion, which we call democracy.
- Ch. 11, Of Democracy
- We can conceive of various kinds of democracy. But my intention is not to treat of every kind, but of that only, "wherein all, without exception, who owe allegiance to the laws of the country only, and are further independent and of respectable life, have the right of voting in the supreme council and of filling the offices of the dominion."
- Ch. 11, Of Democracy
Quotations regarding Spinoza[edit]
- Alphabetized by author
- I read Spinoza's Ethics for the first time when I was thirteen years old. Of course at school we studied the Bible – which for me is the ultimate philosophical work. However, reading Spinoza opened up a new dimension for me, which is the reason for my continuing dedication to his works. Spinoza's simple principle 'man thinks' has become an existential mindset for me; my copy of his Ethics has become dog-eared and torn. For years I took it with me on my travels and in hotel rooms or intervals in concerts became absorbed by many of its principles. Spinoza's Ethics is the best training ground for the intellect, above all because Spinoza teaches the radical freedom of thought more completely than any other philosopher.
- Daniel Barenboim, in his book Everything is Connected: The Power of Music, edited by Elena Cheah. (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2008, ISBN 9780297855446)
- Every philosopher has two philosophies: his own and Spinoza's.
- It is not possible, I think, to rise from the perusal of the arguments of Clark and Spinoza without a deep conviction of the futility of all endeavors to establish, entirely à priori, the existence of an Infinite Being, His attributes, and His relation to the universe. The fundamental principle of all such speculations, viz. that whatever we can clearly conceive, must exist, fails to accomplish its end, even when its truth is admitted. For how shall the finite comprehend the infinite? Yet must the possibility of such conception be granted, and in something more than the sense of a mere withdrawal of the limits of phænomal existence, before any solid ground can be established for the knowledge, à priori, of things infinite and eternal.
- George Boole, An Investigation of the Laws of Thought (1854) Ch. 13. Clarke and Spinoza, pp. 216-217.
- Ultimately there are but three systems of ethics, three conceptions of the ideal character and the moral life. One is that of Buddha and Jesus, which stresses the feminine virtues, considers all men to be equally precious, resists evil only by returning good, identifies virtue with love, and inclines in politics to unlimited democracy. Another is the ethic of Machiavelli and Nietzsche, which stresses the masculine virtues, accepts the inequality of men, relishes the risks of combat and conquest and rule, identifies virtue with power, and exalts an hereditary aristocracy. A third, the ethic of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, denies the universal applicability of either the feminine or the masculine virtues; considers that only the informed and mature mind can judge, according to diverse circumstance, when love should rule, and when power; identifies virtue, therefore, with intelligence; and advocates a varying mixture of aristocracy and democracy in government. It is the distinction of Spinoza that his ethic unconsciously reconciles these apparently hostile philosophies, weaves them into a harmonious unity, and gives us in consequence a system of morals which is the supreme achievement of modern thought.
- Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy
- Time carries him as the river carries
A leaf in the downstream water.
No matter. The enchanted one insists
And shapes God with delicate geometry.
Since his illness, since his birth,
He goes on constructing God with the word.
The mightiest love was granted him
Love that does not expect to be loved.
- "Baruch Spinoza" by Jorge Luis Borges, as translated in Spinoza and Other Heretics: The Marrano of Reason (1989) by Yirmiyahu Yovel
- Las traslúcidas manos del judío
Labran en la penumbra los cristales
Y la tarde que muere es miedo y frío.
(Las tardes a las tardes son iguales.)
Las manos y el espacio de jacinto
Que palidece en el confín del Ghetto
Casi no existen para el hombre quieto
Que está soñando un claro laberinto.
No lo turba la fama, ese reflejo
De sueños en el sueño de otro espejo,
Ni el temeroso amor de las doncellas.
Libre de la metáfora y del mito
abra un arduo cristal: el infinito
Mapa de Aquél que es todas Sus estrellas.
(Here in the twilight the translucent hands
Of the Jew polishing the crystal glass.
The dying afternoon is cold with bands
Of fear. Each day the afternoons all pass
The same. The hands and space of hyacinth
Paling in the confines of the ghetto walls
Barely exists for the quiet man who stalls
There, dreaming up a brilliant labyrinth.
Fame doesn't trouble him (that reflection of
Dreams in the dream of another mirror), nor love,
The timid love women. Gone the bars,
He's free, from metaphor and myth, to sit
Polishing a stubborn lens: the infinite
Map of the One who now is all His stars.) [Translated from the Spanish by Willis Barnstone]
- "Spinoza" by Jorge Luis Borges, in his Selected Poems, edited by Alexander Coleman. (New York: Penguin Books, 2000)
- Bruma de oro, el occidente alumbra
La ventana. El asiduo manuscrito
Aguarda, ya cargado de infinito.
Alguien construye a Dios en la penumbra.
Un hombre engendra a Dios. Es un judío
De tristes ojos y piel cetrina;
Lo lleva el tiempo como lleva el río
Una hoja en el agua que declina.
No importa. El hechicero insiste y labra
A Dios con geometría delicada;
Desde su enfermedad, desde su nada,
Sigue erigiendo a Dios con la palabra.
El más pródigo amor le fue otorgado,
El amor que no espera ser amado.
(A haze of gold, the Occident lights up
The window. Now, the assiduous manuscript
Is waiting, weighed down with the infinite.
Someone is building God in a dark cup.
A man engenders God. He is a Jew
With saddened eyes and lemon-colored skin;
Time carries him the way a leaf, dropped in
A river, is borne off by waters to
Its end. No matter. The magician moved
Carves out his God with fine geometry;
From his disease, from nothing, he's begun
To construct God, using the word. No one
Is granted such prodigious love as he:
The love that has no hope of being loved.) [Translated from the Spanish by Willis Barnstone]
- "Baruch Spinoza" by Jorge Luis Borges, in his Selected Poems, edited by Alexander Coleman. (New York: Penguin Books, 2000)
- The dominant feature in his character was his devotion to the pursuit of truth
- A. Wolf, from the introduction to Spinoza's Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being (1910)
- When sending his Short Treatise to his Amsterdam friends he begs of them to be sure that nothing but the good of their neighbours will ever induce them to communicate its doctrines to others.
- A. Wolf, from the introduction to Spinoza's Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being (1910)
- Of Bruno, as of Spinoza, it may be said that he was "God-intoxicated." He felt that the Divine Excellence had its abode in the very heart of Nature and within his own body and spirit. Indwelling in every dewdrop as in the innumerable host of heaven, in the humblest flower and in the mind of man, he found the living spirit of God, setting forth the Divine glory, making the Divine perfection and inspiring with the Divine love.
- William Boulting, in Giordano Bruno: His Life, Thought, and Martyrdom (1916) online excerpt
- Spinoza is, for me, the prince of philosophers.
- Gilles Deleuze, Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza (cited in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
- Spinoza: the absolute philosopher, whose Ethics is the foremost book on concepts.
- Gilles Deleuze, Negotiations (cited in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
- Spinoza is the Christ of philosophers, and the greatest philosophers are hardly more than apostles who distance themselves from or draw near to this mystery.
- Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, What is Philosophy? (cited in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
- "Spinoza did not seek to found a sect, and he founded none"; yet all philosophy after him is permeated with his thought.
- Will Durant, beginning with a quote of Sir Frederick Pollock in Life and Philosophy of Spinoza (1899)
- Wie lieb ich diesen edlen Mann
Mehr als ich mit Worten sagen kann.
Doch fürcht' ich, dass er bleibt allein
Mit seinem strahlenen Heiligenschein.
(How much do I love that noble man
More than I could tell with words
I fear though he'll remain alone
With a holy halo of his own.)
- Albert Einstein, first stanza in his poem "Zu Spinozas Ethik" (1920), written in admiration of Spinoza, as quoted in Einstein and Religion (1999) by Max Jammer "Einstein's Poem on Spinoza" (with scans of original German manuscript) at Leiden Institute of Physics, Leiden University
- I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.
- Albert Einstein, in response to the telegrammed question of New York's Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein in (24 April 1929) ; he later expanded on his comments about Spinoza's and his own ideas on religion elsewhere : "I can understand your aversion to the use of the term "religion" to describe an emotional and psychological attitude which shows itself most clearly in Spinoza … I have not found a better expression than "religious" for the trust in the rational nature of reality that is, at least to a certain extent, accessible to human reason." — as quoted in Einstein : Science and Religion by Arnold V. Lesikar
- The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image ; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another.
- My son is taking a course in philosophy, and last night we were looking at something by Spinoza and there was the most childish reasoning! There were all these attributes, and Substances, and all this meaningless chewing around, and we started to laugh. Now how could we do that? Here's this great Dutch philosopher, and we're laughing at him. It's because there's no excuse for it! In the same period there was Newton, there was Harvey studying the circulation of the blood, there were people with methods of analysis by which progress was being made! You can take every one of Spinoza's propositions, and take the contrary propositions, and look at the world and you can't tell which is right.
- Richard Feynman, in The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (1999), Ch. 9. The Smartest Man in the World
- Spinoza formulated the problem of the socially patterned defect very clearly. He says: "Many people are seized by one and the same affect with great consistency. All his senses are so strongly affected by one object that he believes this object to be present even if it is not. If this happens while the person is awake, the person is believed to be insane. … But if the greedy person thinks only of money and possessions, the ambitious one only of fame, one does not think of them as being insane, but only as annoying ; generally one has contempt for them. But factually greediness, ambition, and so forth are forms of insanity, although usually one does not think of them as 'illness.'" These words were written a few hundred years ago ; they still hold true, although the defects have been culturally patterned to such an extent now that they are not even generally thought any more to be annoying or contemptible.
- Erich Fromm, in The Sane Society (1955), Ch. 2: Can A Society be Sick?—The Pathology of Normalcy
- These distinctions make sense only when AR [absolute perfection in some respects, relative perfection in all others] is assumed (hence Spinoza's failure, who assumed mere A). Just as AR is the whole positive content of perfection, so CW, or the conception of the Creator-and-the-Whole-of-what-he-has-created as constituting one life, the super-whole which in its everlasting essence is uncreated (and does not necessitate just the parts which the whole has) but in its de facto concreteness is created — this panentheistic doctrine contains all of deism and pandeism except their arbitrary negations. Thus ARCW, or absolute-relative panentheism, is the one doctrine that really states the whole of what all theists, if not all atheists as/well, are implicitly talking about.
- Charles Hartshorne, in Man's Vision of God and the Logic of Theism (1964) ISBN 020800498X p. 348
- This Idea of Spinoza's we must allow to be in the main true and well-grounded; absolute substance is the truth, but it is not the whole truth ; in order to be this, it must also be thought of as in itself active and living, and by that very means it must determine itself as mind. But substance with Spinoza is only the universal and consequently the abstract determination of mind ; it may undoubtedly be said that this thought is the foundation of all true views — not, however, as their absolutely fixed and permanent basis, but as the abstract unity which mind is in itself. It is therefore worthy of note that thought must begin by placing itself at the standpoint of Spinozism; to be a follower of Spinoza is the essential commencement of all Philosophy. For as we saw above … when man begins to philosophize, the soul must commence by bathing in this ether of the One Substance, in which all that man has held as true has disappeared ; this negation of all that is particular, to which every philosopher must have come, is the liberation of the mind and its absolute foundation.
- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, comparing Spinoza's philosophy to that of the Eleatics, in Lectures on the History of Philosophy (1896), Vol. 3, Ch. I : The Metaphysics of the Understanding, § 2 : Spinoza, p. 257
- The fact is that Spinoza is made a testing-point in modern philosophy, so that it may really be said: You are either a Spinozist or not a philosopher at all.
- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, in Lectures on the History of Philosophy (1896), Vol. 3, Ch. I : The Metaphysics of the Understanding, § 2 : Spinoza, p. 283
- I assert, that the doctrine of the immateriality, simplicity, and indivisibility of a thinking substance is a true atheism, and will serve to justify all those sentiments, for which Spinoza is so universally infamous. From this topic, I hope at least to reap one advantage, that my adversaries will not have any pretext to render the present doctrine odious by their declamations, when they see that they can be so easily retorted on them.
- David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature
- The fundamental principle of the atheism of Spinoza is the doctrine of the simplicity of the universe, and the unity of that substance, in which he supposes both thought and matter to inhere. There is only one substance, says he, in the world; and that substance is perfectly simple and indivisible, and exists every where, without any local presence. Whatever we discover externally by sensation; whatever we feel internally by reflection; all these are nothing but modifications of that one, simple, and necessarily existent being, and are not possest of any separate or distinct existence. Every passion of the soul; every configuration of matter, however different and various, inhere in the same substance, and preserve in themselves their characters of distinction, without communicating them to that subject, in which they inhere.
- David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature
- Spinoza, then, emerged as the supreme philosophical bogeyman of Early Enlightenment Europe. Admittedly, historians have rarely emphasized this. It has been much more common, and still is, to claim that Spinoza was rarely understood and had very little influence, a typical example of an abiding historiographical refrain which appears to be totally untrue but nevertheless, since the nineteenth century, has exerted an enduring appeal for all manner of scholars. In fact, no one else during the century 1650–1750 remotely rivalled Spinoza's notoriety as the chief challenger of the fundamentals of revealed religion, received ideas, tradition, morality, and what was everywhere regarded, in absolutist and non-absolutist states alike, as divinely constituted political authority.
- Jonathan I. Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650–1750 (2001), Ch. 8. Spinoza
- [Spinoza] this pure soul, this great realist, the first human being to attempt to become a citizen of the world. . . this down-to-earth passion.
- Karl Jaspers to Hannah Arendt, 4 August 1949, letter 91 in Hannah Arendt and Karl Jaspers Correspondence, edited by Lotte Kohler and Hans Saner (NewYork: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992)
- What do they think when they hear music? Way to catch rattlesnakes. Night Michael Gunn gave us the box. Tun ing up. Shah of Persia liked that best. Remind him of home sweet home. Wiped his nose in curtain too. Custom his country perhaps. That's music too. Not as bad as it sounds. Tootling. Brasses braying asses through uptrunks. Double basses helpless, gashes in their sides. Woodwinds mooing cows. Semigrand open crocodile music hath jaws. Wood wind like Goodwin's name.
She looked fine. Her crocus dress she wore lowcut, belongings on show. Clove her breath was always in theatre when she bent to ask a question. Told her what Spinoza says in that book of poor papa's. Hypnotised, listening. Eyes like that. She bent. Chap in dresscircle staring down into her with his operaglass for all he was worth. Beauty of music you must hear twice. Nature woman half a look. God made the country man the tune. Met him pike hoses. Philosophy. O rocks!
- James Joyce, Ulysses
- There is really very little of Machiavelli's one can accept or use in the contemporary world. The one thing I find interesting in Machiavelli is his estimate of the prince's will. Interesting, but not such as to influence me. If you want to know who has influenced me most, I'll answer with two philosophers' names: Spinoza and Kant. Which makes it all the more peculiar that you choose to associate me with Machiavelli.
- Henry Kissinger, in interview with Oriana Fallaci, The New Republic (December 16, 1972)
- Through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Bruno's ideas were widely imparted, borrowed, sounded ; almost never, though, with the name Giordano Bruno attached to them. Kepler once chided Galileo for omitting his debt to Bruno ; yet, we can discern Kepler's own indifference … Later generations would evoke Bruno's writings to the phrase, without quoting or acknowledging him. Recent scholarship on Spinoza, for example, cites Bruno's powerful exertion on his thought about infinity and on his style. Never does Spinoza cite Bruno by name.
- Bill Kuhns, on the dangers to Spinoza and others, of citing Giordano Bruno as an influence, after his execution as a heretic, in "Giordano Bruno and Marshall McLuhan" in McLuhan Studies Issue 2 (1996)
- Regarding Spinoza, whom M. Arnauld has called the most impious and most dangerous man of this century, he was truly an Atheist, [i.e.,] he allowed absolutely no Providence dispensing rewards and punishments according to justice. ...The God he puts on parade is not like ours; he has no intellect or will. ...He fell well short of mastering the art of demonstration; he had only a mediocre knowledge of analysis and geometry; what he knew best was to make lenses for microscopes.
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, letter to Count Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels (Aug. 14, 1683) in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe (1923-) II.ii. p. 535, as translated by Matthew Stewart, The Courtier and the Heretic (2006) pp. 228-229.
- Descartes... fell back on his original confusion of matter with space—space being, according to him, the only form of substance, and all existing things but affections of space. This error... forms one of the ultimate foundations of the system of Spinoza.
- James Clerk Maxwell, Matter and Motion (1876)
- It was not until the Twelfth Century of our era that the Pentateuch as a whole was subjected to rational scrutiny. The man who undertook the ungrateful task was a learned Spanish rabbi, Abraham ben Meir ibn Esra. He unearthed many absurdities, but... it was not until five hundred years later that anything properly describable as scientific criticism... came into being. Its earliest shining lights were the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes [with his Leviathan], and the Amsterdam Jew, Baruch Spinoza. Spinoza's "Tractatus Theologico-politicus", published in 1670, made the first really formidable onslaught upon the inspired inerrancy of the Pentateuch. It called attention to scores of transparent imbecilities … including a dozen or more palpable geographical and historical impossibilities … The answer of constituted authorities was to suppress the "Tractatus", but enough copies got out to reach the proper persons, and ever since then the Old Testament has been under searching and devastating examination.
- H. L. Mencken, Treatise on the Gods (1930)
- Of all the philosophers of the seventeenth century, perhaps none have more relevance today than Spinoza.
- Steven Nadler, in article Baruch Spinoza, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (First published Jun 29, 2001; substantive revision Jul 4, 2016)
- I am utterly amazed, utterly enchanted! I have a precursor, and what a precursor! I hardly knew Spinoza : that I should have turned to him just now, was inspired by "instinct". Not only is his overtendency like mine — namely, to make all knowledge the most powerful affect — but in five main points of his doctrine I recognize myself ; this most unusual and loneliest thinker is closest to me precisely in these matters : he denies the freedom of the will, teleology, the moral world-order, the unegoistic, and evil. Even though the divergencies are admittedly tremendous, they are due more to the difference in time, culture, and science. In summa: my lonesomeness, which, as on very high mountains, often made it hard for me to breathe and make my blood rush out, is now at least a twosomeness. Strange!
- Friedrich Nietzsche, in a postcard to Franz Overbeck, Sils-Maria (30 July 1881) as translated by Walter Kaufmann in The Portable Nietzsche (1954)
- Lovingly facing the "one is everything"
amor dei, happy from comprehension—
Take off your shoes! That three times holy land—
—Yet secretly beneath this love, devouring,
A fire of revenge was shimmering,
The Jewish God devoured by Jewish hatred . . .
Hermit! Have I recognized you?
- Friedrich Nietzsche, in his poem To Spinoza. Translated from the German by Yirmiyahu Yovel, in his book Spinoza and Other Heretics: The Adventures of Immanence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), p. 132. Original published in Nietzsche, Werke (Leipzig: Kröner, 1919)
- Ein Gottbetrunkener Mensch
- A God-intoxicated man.
- Novalis, as quoted in Novalis (1829) by Thomas Carlyle: "Spinoza is a God-intoxicated man (Gott-trunkenet Mensch)."
- A God-intoxicated man.
- Woe to him who in passing should hurl an insult at this gentle and pensive head. He would be punished, as all vulgar souls are punished, by his very vulgarity, and by his incapacity to conceive what is divine. This man, from his granite pedestal, will point out to all men the way of blessedness which he found; and ages hence, the cultivated traveler, passing by this spot, will say in his heart, "The truest vision ever had of God came, perhaps, here."
- Ernest Renan, at the dedication of a statue to Spinoza in 1882, as quoted in The Story of Philosophy (1962) by Will Durant
- [We] will discuss Soul and Body, the doctrine of God, and Ethics. ...We shall find that Leibniz no longer shows great originality, but tends, with slight alterations of phraseology, to adopt (without acknowledgment) the views of the decried Spinoza. We shall find also many more minor inconsistencies than in the earlier part of [Leibniz's] system, these being due chiefly to the desire to avoid the impieties of the Jewish Atheist, and the still greater impieties to which Leibniz's own logic should have led him.
- Bertrand Russell, A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz (1900) Ch. 1, Leibniz's Premisses, p, 5.
- Spinoza (1634-77) is the noblest and most lovable of the great philosophers. Intellectually, some others have surpassed him, but ethically he is supreme.
- Bertrand Russell, in The History of Western Philosophy (1945) Ch. X.
- My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety toward the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests.
- George Santayana, in "On My Friendly Critics", in Soliloquies in England (1922)
- [From Schopenhauer's assessments of other philosophers] Bruno and Spinoza are to be entirely excepted. Each stands by himself and alone; and they do not belong either to their age or to their part of the globe, which rewarded the one with death, and the other with persecution and ignominy. Their miserable existence and death in this Western world are like that of a tropical plant in Europe. The banks of the Ganges were their spiritual home ; there, they would have led a peaceful and honoured life among men of like mind.
- Arthur Schopenhauer, in The World as Will and Representation (1818; 1844), Vol. I, p. 422, n. 2
- For Spinoza, philosophy originates in the very personal... feeling of emptiness that in the philosophical tradition has earned the distinguished name of contemptu mundi, the contempt for worldly things, or, better, vanitas. ...Spinoza says that... success in life is just a postponement of failure; ...pleasure is just a fleeting respite from pain; and... the objects of our striving are vain illusions. ...
The feeling of vanitas Spinoza describes is... a dire encounter with the prospect of descent into absolute nothingness, a life without significance coming to a meaningless end. ...The experience Spinoza records... establishes... the moment of extreme doubt , fear, and uncertainty that precedes the dawn of revelation. ...the journey ...is one trodden by poets, philosophers, and theologians too numerous to mention, who for millennia have recorded this feeling that life is a useless passion, a wheel of ceaseless striving, a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, and so on.
- Matthew Stewart, The Courtier and the Heretic (2006)
- Like Socrates, Spinoza avers that blessedness comes only from a certain kind of knowledge—specifically, the "knowledge of the union that the mind has with the whole of Nature."
...the life of contemplation is also a life within a certain type of community—specifically, a fellowship of the mind. Like Socrates with his circle of debating partners, or Epicurus in his garden with his intellectual companions, Spinoza imagines a philosophical future... upon achieving blessedness for himself, he announces in his first treatise, his first step is "to form a society... so that as many as possible may attain it as easily and as surely as possible." For, "the highest good," he claims, is to achieve salvation together with other individuals "if possible."
- Matthew Stewart, The Courtier and the Heretic (2006)
- According to the seventeenth-century way of thinking, an atheist was by definition a decadent. If there was no God (or, at least, no providential, rewarding-and-punishing God of the sort worshipped in all the traditional religions), the reasoning went, then everything is permitted. So a non-beliver would be expected to indulge in all manner of sensual stimulation... to lie, cheat, and steal...
Spinoza, according to all seventeenth-century interpreters, rejected all the traditional ideas about God; he was indesputably a heretic. Yet his manner of living was humble and apparently free of vice. Then, as now, the philosopher seemed a living oxymoron: he was an ascetic sensualist, a spiritual materialist, a sociable hermit, a secular saint. How could his life have been so good, the critics asked, when his philosophy was so bad?
- Matthew Stewart, The Courtier and the Heretic (2006)
- Of all heroes, Spinoza was Einstein's greatest. No one expressed more strongly than he a belief in the harmony, the beauty, and, most of all, the ultimate comprehensibility of nature.
- John Archibald Wheeler, in "Albert Einstein in Biographical Memoirs Vol. 51, by the National Academy of Sciences
- With the judgment of the angels and the sentence of the saints, we anathematize, execrate, curse and cast out Baruch de Espinoza, the whole of the sacred community assenting, in presence of the sacred books with the six-hundred-and-thirteen precepts written therein, pronouncing against him the malediction wherewith Elisha cursed the children, and all the maledictions written in the Book of the Law. Let him be accursed by day, and accursed by night; let him be accursed in his lying down, and accursed in his rising up ; accursed in going out and accursed in coming in. May the Lord never more pardon or acknowledge him; may the wrath and displeasure of the Lord burn henceforth against this man, load him with all the curses written in the Book of the Law, and blot out his name from under the sky; may the Lord sever him from all the tribes of Israel, weight him with all the maledictions of the firmament contained in the Book of Law; and may all ye who are obedient to the Lord your God be saved this day.
Hereby then are all admonished that none hold converse with him by word of mouth, none hold communication with him by writing ; that no one do him any service, no one abide under the same roof with him, no one approach within four cubits' length of him, and no one read any document dictated by him, or written by his hand.
- Writ of expulsion from the Jewish community, as translated in Benedict de Spinoza : His Life, Correspondence, and Ethics (1870) by Robert Willis
Spinoza: His Life and Philosophy (1880)[edit]
- In 1663 Spinoza published the only work to which he ever set his name... He had prepared a summary of the second part of Descartes' 'Principles of Philosophy' for the use of a pupil... Certain of Spinoza's friends became curious about this manual and desired him to treat the first part of Descartes' work also in the same manner. This was done within a fortnight and Spinoza was then urged to publish the book, which he readily agreed to do upon condition that one of his friends would revise the language and write a preface explaining that the author did not agree with all the Cartesian doctrine... The contents... [included] an appendix of 'Metaphysical Reflections,' professedly written from a Cartesian point of view, but often giving significant hints of the author's real divergence from Descartes. ...'On this opportunity,' he writes to Oldenburg, 'we may find some persons holding the highest places in my country... who will be anxious to see those other writings which I acknowledge for my own, and will therefore take such order that I can give them to the world without danger of any inconvenience. If it so happens, I doubt not that I shall soon publish something; if not, I will rather hold my peace than thrust my opinions upon men against the will of my country and make enemies of them.' ...The book on Descartes excited considerable attention and interest, but the untoward course of public events in succeeding years was unfavourable to a liberal policy, and deprived Spinoza of the support for which he had looked. ...
If Spinoza had ever been a disciple of Descartes, he had completely ceased to be so... He did not suppose the geometrical form of statement and argument to be an infallible method of arriving at philosophical truth; for in this work he made use of it to set forth opinions with which he himself did not agree, and proofs with which he was not satisfied. We do not know to what extent Spinoza's manual was accepted or taken into use by Cartesians, but its accuracy as an exposition of Descartes is beyond question. One of the many perverse criticisms made on Spinoza by modern writers is that he did not understand the fundamental proposition cogito ergo sum. In fact he gives precisely the same explanation of it that is given by Descartes himself in the Meditations.
- For many years he had suffered from consumption, aggravated perhaps by his work of glass polishing. On Sunday, February 21, 1677, the end came unexpectedly, and almost suddenly. ...
Credit must be given to Colerus [John Kohler]... for his downright contradiction of the tales concerning Spinoza's death-bed which were circulated, it would seem, by persons who thought it would tend to edification to represent Spinoza as the blustering infidel of popular orthodox polemics, who is invariably assailed by doubt and disquietude in his last moments, and as invariably strives to disguise them with feeble bravado. Colerus very honestly says that the people of the house... knew nothing of any such matters, and did not believe a word of them.
See also[edit]
Works about Spinoza
External links[edit]
- Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Spinoza
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
- The Story of Philosophy (1962) by Will Durant, Ch. IV, Spinoza
- Article in The Jewish Encyclopedia
- Article in The Catholic Encyclopedia
- Immortality in Spinoza
- BBC Radio 4 In Our Time - Spinoza
- "Spinoza: Mind of the Modern"
- Refutation of Spinoza by Leibniz
- Spinoza Museum in Rijnsburg
- Works by Baruch Spinoza at Project Gutenberg
- Spinoza - Multilingual texts at BDSweb
- Chief Works of Spinoza at Library of Liberty
- Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione (On the Improvement of the Understanding), English
- A Theologico-Political Treatise - English translation by . H. M. Elwes (1883)
- The Ethics & Treatise on Theology and Politics in PDF form


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Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Good Policy, Bad Timing
To put this issue into context, Ignatieff's pledge comes at the exact time many Quebecers are reviewing their own child-care program, in the face of a relatively smaller deficit. The simple fact of the matter, the federal deficit precludes any big ticket spending initiatives. If Liberals are truly serious about offering new and expensive initiatives, then they must address TAXES. You can't scold Gerard Kennedy, runaway from him as though leper, while simultaneously offering more spending. I'd argue that the notion of balanced budgets without taxes is increasingly unlikely, reaching the level of absurdity when you factor in another 5-6billion for child-care. Yes, yes, I know you can argue the money is augmented by economic benefit, but that's a tough sell from here.
Liberals need to make a choice. We can present ourselves as the party that will deal with the deficit, in a compassionate and prioritized way, or we can try to be everything to everybody(see Paul Martin). Arguing we are in a structural deficit, while arguing we will focus on jobs instead of dealing with it, while arguing that we will greatly increase spending, amounts to GOO- nobody will buy it, it makes no sense on the most basic level, it is ripe for ridicule.
The same kids we want to put in child-care are the ones that will be saddled with this debt, it will be their burden. If you look at the situation in this way, which is simple reality, it nullifies any moral justification. Why not just set up loans for kids so they can go to child-care, because it is essentially what you are doing anyways, when you spend money you don't have.
Having just put two kids through child-care, I can say the Conservative's "check" program amounts to basic nothingness, of so little help to be insulting. Ideally, I would love to have a better program, one that recognizes the needs of modern parents. However, even with my intimate understanding, given the current dire economic situation, I can't justify the need, RIGHT NOW, for a national program- it isn't feasible until we get our house in order.
Politically, the Liberals gain nothing from another child-care commitment, past experience means it won't move votes. If anything, going down this road AGAIN only invokes cyncism and a sense of pandering. Additionally, this proposal presented as our signature "social justice" policy, provokes all kinds of other questions, which we apparently don't want to answer or have no answer. We can pound the table all day long, our emotions might be sincere, but they will always be betrayed by the facts at hand.
Until we are prepared to deal with the TAX side of this equation, there is no room for big promises. It's that simple and my personal want doesn't preclude me from seeing the pure folly. Sorry. Dust off Gerard or stop talking.
10 comments:
- JimBobby said...
Maybe if we quit throwing $1.3 million per day at propping up warlords, opium merchants and torturers, we'd have a little more for the good things. Or, maybe we could stop giving the tar sands $5 billion a year in tax breaks.
You're right about the timing, too. Especially, when this broken record of a promise gets made on Groundhog Day.
- 3:27 PM, February 02, 2010
- Jesse said...
The temptation to do this has to come from the fact that the press and public are probably going to ignore the fact that the Cons will refuse to come up with a real plan. They'll rant about tax increases, and in the end, they'll just pretend the books will balance themselves.
Unless the Liberals can expect that the press will destroy the Cons on this issue, without "playing fair" or getting distracted, and that people will credit them for having a realistic plan...
- 4:20 PM, February 02, 2010
- Steve V said...
Our argument against the Con "non plan" is undercut when we give them big ticket promises to attack. When we criticize them on the deficit, the obvious and effective retort- how will you balance the books, when you have additional 5-6 billion in commitments? We just won't look credible, and by extension we let the Cons off the deficit hook.
- 4:28 PM, February 02, 2010
- Jesse said...
But was the attack on their non-plan going to work if we came out with a responsible plan, including tax increases?
- 4:30 PM, February 02, 2010
- Steve V said...
We can play the delusional game to, but it becomes ridiculous if we also boost big spending initiatives. I think we need to consider a 5 year plan that floats the idea that we will re-examine the books in year 5 and consider all options. That way, you don't hobble the recovery, but you leave a glimmer of realism, that if we are still in structural deficit year 5, we may have to consider raising the GST. That's risky to, but it's also realistic. You don't commit to tax increase, you keep the recovery on track, but you allow for a reassessment when we have a better idea.
For arguments sake, let's say the Libs stick to this jobs first idea, deficit second. You might be able to pull it off, primarily because the Cons are equally in avoidance mode. However, once you start making big commitments, you have now separated yourself from the government, they look fiscally prudent in a relative way. I think this is a major gaffe, which will only embolden the Cons to attack our fiscal credibility.
- 4:38 PM, February 02, 2010
- KC said...
Good post Steve. Regardless of what you think of this policy this is horrible timing and makes the Liberals look less credible as an alternative to the Conservatives. I do wish our politicians would have the honesty to acknowledge that a degree of austerity is going to be necessary over the next few years if we don't want to find ourselves back in the mess we were back in 1993.
- 5:01 PM, February 02, 2010
- Koby said...
Two things: One of the biggest threat to the Canadian economy is private debt. It is now over 150% of income and growing at an astounding pace. Remember that it was private debt crisis in the US that kick startered this whole mess and led to a massive increase in public debt everywhere.
Providing some kind of daycare system helps address this very issue.
That said, the Liberals need to spell out exactly what their program would mean to parents everywhere. A promise to work out separate deals with each province left the public dumbfounded this last time out and it will do so again.
Their proposal needs to be specific and straight forward. They could promise, for example, to provide all day preschool and kindergarten for every 4 and 5 year old in Canada.
Of course, it will be said that the Liberals can not do this; education is under provincial control. It is and so is health care, but never stopped Pearson from introducing Medical Care Act.
As for how to pay for it, cutting military spending is great place to start. I, for one, am loath to have my tax dollars being spent on an Afghan mission that does not improve my bottom line at all and accomplishes nothing well all the while making it more likely that Canada is attacked by homegrown terrorists (see the Toronto 18 for example) or otherwise.
- 5:10 PM, February 02, 2010
- Mark Dowling said...
For me the first question in respect of this is - why is childcare a FEDERAL responsibility?
Blaming Ottawa for lack of childcare takes provinces off the hook they deserve to be on.
- 7:58 PM, February 02, 2010
- Woman at Mile 0 said...
I disagree. The provinces are doing it anyway whether the Fed govt likes it or not (e.g BC, Ontario-all day Kindergarten, 4 year olds, etc Quebec-child care).
Fact is since the Cons got in they do it with a lot less help from the Federal government than they used to get after the Cons cut all the funds. To fund what -we still don't know? It's all just black ink turned red.
- 1:44 AM, February 03, 2010
- Woman at Mile 0 said...
Besides if the Fed Liberal's were not inclined to move in this direction, the NDP would get my vote and my donation money.
- 2:03 AM, February 03, 2010