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The entire concept is a cipher, like the female lead in Twilight. And empty vassal that vaguely looks to have substance that people can pour their own viewpoints into. So vague it is devoid specific traits, but evocative enough to make people think it represents their beliefs.
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Wait, okay, someone walk me back through this discussion...
So ideologies dating back to Ancient Greece are under attack and won't survive present day cultural shifts?
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Im am still waiting for proof that they are under attack as well.
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On July 26 2017 11:35 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 11:20 IgnE wrote:On July 26 2017 11:11 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 11:06 IgnE wrote:On July 26 2017 10:53 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 10:44 mozoku wrote:On July 26 2017 10:29 KwarK wrote:
mozuku, that's mostly a foundation myth from the 18th and 19th century who knew very little about the classics but knew that an old idea rediscovered sounded way more legitimate than a new idea. For example Greek democracy is a misnomer, a poor understanding of the citizen-soldier dynamic of the polis city state structure, specifically that found in just one polis which was an unusual example of a fundamentally oligarchic system. I can go into more detail if you wish.
The ideas that were subsequently assigned to the classical world would have been unthinkable to them. Even within the classical world these concepts don't have a stable basis. For example Roman citizenship as Marius would have understood it had absolutely no relationship with the Roman citizenship of the Roman Empire, and far more in common with, say, Theban citizenship. What it meant to be a citizen, what rights one had within the state and so forth are not ideas that one can easily pin on the classical world and declare continuity because they lack even internal consistency within their own frame of reference. The question of whether the Socii were Roman was controversial, the Constitutio Antoniniana unthinkable.
The culture that emerged in western Europe was pretty much new. It took the word senate from Rome in the same way the Russian Tsars took the word Caesar, and with about as much understanding of what it meant. It's all rather absurd. Fetishism of classics from a time before historians had learned how to do real history. If the Greeks and Romans (with huge contributions from Enlightenment thinkers) didn't inspire the Founding Fathers, why didn't China or India even consider establishing anything resembling a democracy until the imperial powers colonized them? Or any other Eastern culture that I'm aware of? Why did democracy, rule of law, and individualism only rise in the West? I'm talking about the time before imperial powers arrived in Asia. Socioeconomic factors. You have to understand that no democrat would have been inspired by the extremely narrow oligarchies of the classical Mediterranean polis structures. The idea of Greek democracy is a misunderstanding of a three decade period in a single Greek city where constant naval warfare made the landless urban rower the foundation of military force. And even then it was simply a wider oligarchy than usual, and indeed was at the head of a repressive empire. The founding fathers had their own ideas which were spawned by their own unique place and time in history. They made the fundamental mistake of reading history backwards and projected their ideas onto the past and as a result I'm here two centuries later trying to correct that. Also it's interesting that you mention India. Significant parts of the near East, going as far as Afghanistan and the Indian subcontinent were Hellenistic kingdoms. If your premise was correct then they would be prime candidates for becoming democracies. Definitely Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean. Places like the Netherlands and England were extremely remote, essentially barbarian backwaters, in the classical era and yet it is these places who insist upon their classical roots. If we accept the argument that the classical world spawned the modern world then we have to address the issue of the modern world appearing in the areas least impacted by the classical world. Imagine if in two thousand years time organized criminals were insisting that they had their roots in the ancient United States, a land founded by Italians wielding tommy guns, fighting the ruthless untouchables in an endless war for control of society and the right to drive fast cars in a circle. That's "Greek democracy". It's possible, just possible, that when someone like xDaunt says "Greeks" he means Plato and Aristotle, and possibly some pre-Socratics. I don't think anyone here believes that the Greek peninsula was a democratic paradise with inalienable rights. Augustine and Aquinas and every Enlightenment thinker were reading Homer, Plato, and Aristotle, not going on archaelogical digs to reconstruct daily life in Boeotia. And yet you've gone on a multi-page rant about how heterogeneous "the Greeks" really were. I just don't think that was an issue until you decided to try and embarrass someone who wasn't really even talking about that. Wouldn't that be making my point, not his, then? That if Augustine, Aquinas, and xDaunt are all fundamentally failing to understand the context and content of what they're reading then we surely cannot conclude that their ideas are Greek, rather than their own. No more than we would conclude that the ideas of someone in two millennia built on the struggle between the matha and the untouchables were a continuation of American culture. But I don't think that's what is happening either way. I don't think that xDaunt is referring to an incredibly specific section. I think xDaunt has simply fallen victim to the myth and genuinely doesn't know that he's repeating nonsense. Uhhhh what? Do you think Homer really means only one thing? Something that can be reconstructed with enough historical digging? What kind of idiotic statement would it be to say that the US Constitution is identical with Greek democracy? Are not flowering interpretations connected to their root? And are the root and stem not "Greek?" If your whole point is to say, "No, Aquinas really misinterpreted Aristotle there. The real Aristotle is in no way connected to his thought," you have completely ahistoricized Western culture. Every moment in time is radically different from that which came before and which came after. That might be the stupidest thing I've ever read by you, which is a high bar. You can't claim that western culture is a product of classical cultures and then, when challenged to demonstrate the links, insist that the reason the two look nothing alike and have no direct links is because one is a "flowering interpretation" of the other. If I were to claim to a child that a butterfly is a flowering interpretation of a caterpillar they'd demand to see a chrysalis. Show me the chrysalis or go home.
Ditto. Flowers aren't "products" of seeds. Got it.
fwiw I think this was your best post in the chain:
On July 26 2017 07:11 KwarK wrote:
The US is a huge mixing pot, which in itself is different from say aggressive French Gallicization. It's heterogeneous, the fundie LDS folks are basically the Taliban but that doesn't mean the whole US is obviously.
I'm a fan of the broad ideas of western culture, basic human rights, fundamental freedoms, separation of church and state, democracy and so forth. But those ideas certainly don't need crusaders for them. They speak for themselves, their merit is self evident. Capitalism didn't need war to beat communism, it beat communism simply by making its people happier and wealthier.
The crusaders who decide that western civilization needs saving are very often the people who are most blind to the virtues of western civilization. While they focus their fears on the idea of an external enemy is it generally western culture itself that they fear. Tolerance for immigrants, for example, is a product of humanism and the idea that all men are born equal. The self appointed crusaders of western culture are not afraid that we'll lose the idea of men being born equal, they're afraid that their own cultural superiority is under threat. Same with the conservative approaches on race, gender and so forth.
and I think that history and the stuff you were talking about are good and noble things to consider
but this, "xdaunt said western culture takes it values from the greeks. hes a MORON because he doesnt even know what the greeks were really like" is just totally uncalled for, and moreover, stupid
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i mean are you really claiming that there is no "direct link" between aristotle and jefferson? please tell me that you had a momentary lapse of reason
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On July 26 2017 11:45 IgnE wrote:
i mean are you really claiming that there is no "direct link" between aristotle and jefferson? please tell me that you had a momentary lapse of reason
I couldn't have distilled the source of my frustration over the past several pages any better than this.
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United States43808 Posts
On July 26 2017 11:43 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 11:35 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 11:20 IgnE wrote:On July 26 2017 11:11 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 11:06 IgnE wrote:On July 26 2017 10:53 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 10:44 mozoku wrote:On July 26 2017 10:29 KwarK wrote:
mozuku, that's mostly a foundation myth from the 18th and 19th century who knew very little about the classics but knew that an old idea rediscovered sounded way more legitimate than a new idea. For example Greek democracy is a misnomer, a poor understanding of the citizen-soldier dynamic of the polis city state structure, specifically that found in just one polis which was an unusual example of a fundamentally oligarchic system. I can go into more detail if you wish.
The ideas that were subsequently assigned to the classical world would have been unthinkable to them. Even within the classical world these concepts don't have a stable basis. For example Roman citizenship as Marius would have understood it had absolutely no relationship with the Roman citizenship of the Roman Empire, and far more in common with, say, Theban citizenship. What it meant to be a citizen, what rights one had within the state and so forth are not ideas that one can easily pin on the classical world and declare continuity because they lack even internal consistency within their own frame of reference. The question of whether the Socii were Roman was controversial, the Constitutio Antoniniana unthinkable.
The culture that emerged in western Europe was pretty much new. It took the word senate from Rome in the same way the Russian Tsars took the word Caesar, and with about as much understanding of what it meant. It's all rather absurd. Fetishism of classics from a time before historians had learned how to do real history. If the Greeks and Romans (with huge contributions from Enlightenment thinkers) didn't inspire the Founding Fathers, why didn't China or India even consider establishing anything resembling a democracy until the imperial powers colonized them? Or any other Eastern culture that I'm aware of? Why did democracy, rule of law, and individualism only rise in the West? I'm talking about the time before imperial powers arrived in Asia. Socioeconomic factors. You have to understand that no democrat would have been inspired by the extremely narrow oligarchies of the classical Mediterranean polis structures. The idea of Greek democracy is a misunderstanding of a three decade period in a single Greek city where constant naval warfare made the landless urban rower the foundation of military force. And even then it was simply a wider oligarchy than usual, and indeed was at the head of a repressive empire. The founding fathers had their own ideas which were spawned by their own unique place and time in history. They made the fundamental mistake of reading history backwards and projected their ideas onto the past and as a result I'm here two centuries later trying to correct that. Also it's interesting that you mention India. Significant parts of the near East, going as far as Afghanistan and the Indian subcontinent were Hellenistic kingdoms. If your premise was correct then they would be prime candidates for becoming democracies. Definitely Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean. Places like the Netherlands and England were extremely remote, essentially barbarian backwaters, in the classical era and yet it is these places who insist upon their classical roots. If we accept the argument that the classical world spawned the modern world then we have to address the issue of the modern world appearing in the areas least impacted by the classical world. Imagine if in two thousand years time organized criminals were insisting that they had their roots in the ancient United States, a land founded by Italians wielding tommy guns, fighting the ruthless untouchables in an endless war for control of society and the right to drive fast cars in a circle. That's "Greek democracy". It's possible, just possible, that when someone like xDaunt says "Greeks" he means Plato and Aristotle, and possibly some pre-Socratics. I don't think anyone here believes that the Greek peninsula was a democratic paradise with inalienable rights. Augustine and Aquinas and every Enlightenment thinker were reading Homer, Plato, and Aristotle, not going on archaelogical digs to reconstruct daily life in Boeotia. And yet you've gone on a multi-page rant about how heterogeneous "the Greeks" really were. I just don't think that was an issue until you decided to try and embarrass someone who wasn't really even talking about that. Wouldn't that be making my point, not his, then? That if Augustine, Aquinas, and xDaunt are all fundamentally failing to understand the context and content of what they're reading then we surely cannot conclude that their ideas are Greek, rather than their own. No more than we would conclude that the ideas of someone in two millennia built on the struggle between the matha and the untouchables were a continuation of American culture. But I don't think that's what is happening either way. I don't think that xDaunt is referring to an incredibly specific section. I think xDaunt has simply fallen victim to the myth and genuinely doesn't know that he's repeating nonsense. Uhhhh what? Do you think Homer really means only one thing? Something that can be reconstructed with enough historical digging? What kind of idiotic statement would it be to say that the US Constitution is identical with Greek democracy? Are not flowering interpretations connected to their root? And are the root and stem not "Greek?" If your whole point is to say, "No, Aquinas really misinterpreted Aristotle there. The real Aristotle is in no way connected to his thought," you have completely ahistoricized Western culture. Every moment in time is radically different from that which came before and which came after. That might be the stupidest thing I've ever read by you, which is a high bar. You can't claim that western culture is a product of classical cultures and then, when challenged to demonstrate the links, insist that the reason the two look nothing alike and have no direct links is because one is a "flowering interpretation" of the other. If I were to claim to a child that a butterfly is a flowering interpretation of a caterpillar they'd demand to see a chrysalis. Show me the chrysalis or go home. Ditto. Flowers aren't "products" of seeds. Got it.
Wasn't a complex point but whatever, I'll try and explain it on a level that you'll understand. I know that flowers are products of seeds because I have been shown the mechanism from which you get from one to the other. Absent the showing part all you're doing is waving colourful petals on green stems in one hand and tiny black shells in the other and saying "LOOK, THEY'RE THE SAME, CAN'T YOU SEE!".
So again, show the mechanism.
It's not complex. If western culture is a flower and classical "Greece" is a seed then show me how one grows from the other. If you're feeling really clever then go ahead and explain all the seeds that never sprouted too, given the millennia between the two and the distinct geographic gap.
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On July 26 2017 11:45 IgnE wrote:
i mean are you really claiming that there is no "direct link" between aristotle and jefferson? please tell me that you had a momentary lapse of reason
Jefferson educated. That is factually. Is that was is fundamental to western culture, being part of the founding fathers education? Aristotle is not Greece or all of its culture.
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Were there seriously 4 pages in this thread dedicated to arguing how a "culture" spanning thousands of years and multitudes of civilizations is in danger because of...I dunno, immigrants and regressive liberals or something?
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On July 26 2017 11:51 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 11:43 IgnE wrote:On July 26 2017 11:35 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 11:20 IgnE wrote:On July 26 2017 11:11 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 11:06 IgnE wrote:On July 26 2017 10:53 KwarK wrote:On July 26 2017 10:44 mozoku wrote:On July 26 2017 10:29 KwarK wrote:
mozuku, that's mostly a foundation myth from the 18th and 19th century who knew very little about the classics but knew that an old idea rediscovered sounded way more legitimate than a new idea. For example Greek democracy is a misnomer, a poor understanding of the citizen-soldier dynamic of the polis city state structure, specifically that found in just one polis which was an unusual example of a fundamentally oligarchic system. I can go into more detail if you wish.
The ideas that were subsequently assigned to the classical world would have been unthinkable to them. Even within the classical world these concepts don't have a stable basis. For example Roman citizenship as Marius would have understood it had absolutely no relationship with the Roman citizenship of the Roman Empire, and far more in common with, say, Theban citizenship. What it meant to be a citizen, what rights one had within the state and so forth are not ideas that one can easily pin on the classical world and declare continuity because they lack even internal consistency within their own frame of reference. The question of whether the Socii were Roman was controversial, the Constitutio Antoniniana unthinkable.
The culture that emerged in western Europe was pretty much new. It took the word senate from Rome in the same way the Russian Tsars took the word Caesar, and with about as much understanding of what it meant. It's all rather absurd. Fetishism of classics from a time before historians had learned how to do real history. If the Greeks and Romans (with huge contributions from Enlightenment thinkers) didn't inspire the Founding Fathers, why didn't China or India even consider establishing anything resembling a democracy until the imperial powers colonized them? Or any other Eastern culture that I'm aware of? Why did democracy, rule of law, and individualism only rise in the West? I'm talking about the time before imperial powers arrived in Asia. Socioeconomic factors. You have to understand that no democrat would have been inspired by the extremely narrow oligarchies of the classical Mediterranean polis structures. The idea of Greek democracy is a misunderstanding of a three decade period in a single Greek city where constant naval warfare made the landless urban rower the foundation of military force. And even then it was simply a wider oligarchy than usual, and indeed was at the head of a repressive empire. The founding fathers had their own ideas which were spawned by their own unique place and time in history. They made the fundamental mistake of reading history backwards and projected their ideas onto the past and as a result I'm here two centuries later trying to correct that. Also it's interesting that you mention India. Significant parts of the near East, going as far as Afghanistan and the Indian subcontinent were Hellenistic kingdoms. If your premise was correct then they would be prime candidates for becoming democracies. Definitely Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean. Places like the Netherlands and England were extremely remote, essentially barbarian backwaters, in the classical era and yet it is these places who insist upon their classical roots. If we accept the argument that the classical world spawned the modern world then we have to address the issue of the modern world appearing in the areas least impacted by the classical world. Imagine if in two thousand years time organized criminals were insisting that they had their roots in the ancient United States, a land founded by Italians wielding tommy guns, fighting the ruthless untouchables in an endless war for control of society and the right to drive fast cars in a circle. That's "Greek democracy". It's possible, just possible, that when someone like xDaunt says "Greeks" he means Plato and Aristotle, and possibly some pre-Socratics. I don't think anyone here believes that the Greek peninsula was a democratic paradise with inalienable rights. Augustine and Aquinas and every Enlightenment thinker were reading Homer, Plato, and Aristotle, not going on archaelogical digs to reconstruct daily life in Boeotia. And yet you've gone on a multi-page rant about how heterogeneous "the Greeks" really were. I just don't think that was an issue until you decided to try and embarrass someone who wasn't really even talking about that. Wouldn't that be making my point, not his, then? That if Augustine, Aquinas, and xDaunt are all fundamentally failing to understand the context and content of what they're reading then we surely cannot conclude that their ideas are Greek, rather than their own. No more than we would conclude that the ideas of someone in two millennia built on the struggle between the matha and the untouchables were a continuation of American culture. But I don't think that's what is happening either way. I don't think that xDaunt is referring to an incredibly specific section. I think xDaunt has simply fallen victim to the myth and genuinely doesn't know that he's repeating nonsense. Uhhhh what? Do you think Homer really means only one thing? Something that can be reconstructed with enough historical digging? What kind of idiotic statement would it be to say that the US Constitution is identical with Greek democracy? Are not flowering interpretations connected to their root? And are the root and stem not "Greek?" If your whole point is to say, "No, Aquinas really misinterpreted Aristotle there. The real Aristotle is in no way connected to his thought," you have completely ahistoricized Western culture. Every moment in time is radically different from that which came before and which came after. That might be the stupidest thing I've ever read by you, which is a high bar. You can't claim that western culture is a product of classical cultures and then, when challenged to demonstrate the links, insist that the reason the two look nothing alike and have no direct links is because one is a "flowering interpretation" of the other. If I were to claim to a child that a butterfly is a flowering interpretation of a caterpillar they'd demand to see a chrysalis. Show me the chrysalis or go home. Ditto. Flowers aren't "products" of seeds. Got it. Wasn't a complex point but whatever, I'll try and explain it on a level that you'll understand. I know that flowers are products of seeds because I have been shown the mechanism from which you get from one to the other. Absent the showing part all you're doing is waving colourful petals on green stems in one hand and tiny black shells in the other and saying "LOOK, THEY'RE THE SAME, CAN'T YOU SEE!". So again, show the mechanism. It's not complex. If western culture is a flower and classical "Greece" is a seed then show me how one grows from the other.
When asked once what was the philosophy underlying the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson replied that: “All its authority rests … on the harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or in the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, &c.”
-Jefferson, Letter to Henry Lee, May 8, 1825.
“Why should a few received authors stand up like Hercules’s columns, beyond which there should be no sailing or discovery?” –To Aristotle, more than to any other writer, either ancient or modern, this expostulation is strictly applicable. Hear what the learned Grotius says on this subject. “Among philosophers, Aristotle deservedly holds the chief place, whether you consider his method of treating subjects, or the acuteness of his distinctions, or the weight of his reasons.”
-Wilson, Of the General Principles of Law and Obligation, I.ii.2266.
I DONT READ ANCIENT GREEKS IM GLAD I HVE KWARK TO EXPLAIN BOTANY TO ME
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On July 26 2017 11:54 WolfintheSheep wrote:
Were there seriously 4 pages in this thread dedicated to arguing how a "culture" spanning thousands of years and multitudes of civilizations is in danger because of...I dunno, immigrants and regressive liberals or something?
We regressive liberals gunna out do the Spanish Inquisition and Black Plague. We coming for that rational thought. You heard me Thomas Paine! Common Sense is out the window!
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On July 26 2017 11:52 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 11:45 IgnE wrote:
i mean are you really claiming that there is no "direct link" between aristotle and jefferson? please tell me that you had a momentary lapse of reason Jefferson educated. That is factually. Is that was is fundamental to western culture, being part of the founding fathers education? Aristotle is not Greece or all of its culture.
great post. i haven't met an intelligence as incisive as yours in a long time.
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Yeah, I will say that even by P6 phone standards that one was something special.
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I had to leave for a bit, but I do have one (honest) question for xDaunt that I wish I'd asked earlier: Do you think there are any negative aspects of "Western culture"? Or areas where other cultures are better?
If there aren't, then it seems unfair to compare what you regard as "Western culture"-the idealized best forms of everything with Western origins-with the totality of other cultures. Kind of like if one distilled "Arab culture" down into the ideas and practices of Middle Eastern regions during the Islamic golden age, which was probably the best region in the world to live in at the time regardless of what you believed. Hell, they're part of why we remember Aristotle! I think if we valued acquiring and developing knowledge for its own sake as much as they did, we'd be even better off.
On the other hand, if you do believe Western culture in its totality is basically perfect, it does make perfect sense to oppose any culture miscegenation-after all, perfection can only get worse.
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On July 26 2017 11:57 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 11:52 Plansix wrote:On July 26 2017 11:45 IgnE wrote:
i mean are you really claiming that there is no "direct link" between aristotle and jefferson? please tell me that you had a momentary lapse of reason Jefferson educated. That is factually. Is that was is fundamental to western culture, being part of the founding fathers education? Aristotle is not Greece or all of its culture. great post. i haven't met an intelligence as incisive as yours in a long time.
The founding fathers were shitty historians. They liked the writings of some philosopher in Greece. That does not make Greece culture the root of the birthplace for modern democracy.
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Also, I would like to highlight that if we are defining Western Culture to span the birth of the western philosophers all the way to present day, then we are in fact including within scope a time period where Western cultural heritage was literally under siege by Muslims.
Just felt it was worth pointing out.
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On July 26 2017 11:58 WolfintheSheep wrote:
Yeah, I will say that even by P6 phone standards that one was something special.
I have a hard time taking this discussion serious when the barrier to entry is a founding father cited on a philosopher from that culture. I'm willing to accept Aristotles writings were core of the Declaration of Independence. But we need to keep all comments in context of the era. Jefferson was also a elitist and citing his contemporaries as inspiration was not a thing he did.
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On July 26 2017 12:06 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2017 11:58 WolfintheSheep wrote:
Yeah, I will say that even by P6 phone standards that one was something special. I have a hard time taking this discussion serious when the barrier to entry is a founding father cited on a philosopher from that culture. I'm willing to accept Aristotles writings were core of the Declaration of Independence.
Can't speak for IgnE, but I was personally laughing at the grammar from that post.
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I'm seriously confused. Has anyone other than Igne and me ever taken a college-level introduction to Western philosophy course (and actually paid attention)?
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Of course this is the most powerful Sessions will ever be, the neo-confederate will have to be fired.
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EPT
