I had to look that up to be sure. No, the Bedouin are not the Kurds. The Bedouin are a nomadic people originating in the Saudi peninsula, but ranging widely throughout the ME.

Jan

Are the Bedouins also the Kurds?

I'll PM you Thurs or Fri with some ideas which we can bounce back and forth. It doesn't matter who actually starts the post.

Probably splitting off a new thread is the first step. And this crew does not stay on the rails - it is not like watching a train toddling down the track, but more like someone in a Jeep, zooming all over the landscape.

This is not necessarily bad.

Would you like to start the new thread, or shall I?

Jan

I also believe that further discussion is greatly warranted. I believe we should limit the debate to the question of "owning land" since land preceded our species appearance on Earth and was not a product proven to be created by a conscious mind. Also we would need to contrast "owning land" with "controlling land". Come to think of it Jan, we're considering covering quite a bit of territory (no pun intended). Any thoughts as to how we could keep such a post on the rails?

you know, blarman, my first philosophy teacher, this kind of strict Russian lady, always said to begin every conversation with defining your terms, so that we all know what we're talking about.

wow stormi.. what state was that in? it used to be that was against the law-one agency sharing information on an individual with another agency. they are getting around that...

You are absolutely right. The sad thing is, the majority of the population have not idea what is coming at them. When a friend tried to refinance at a lower rate, she got the EPA in her yard unannounced, to check a well that the county had already checked - at a hefty fee! Farmers are doing constant battle with restrictions. I wish the national media just once would admit the UN states private property ownership is "unsustainable", along with red meat, A/C and refrigeration - and that the president agrees to work toward eliminating those pesky rights. Cubicle homes for seniors, just what we need, then we will all die from lack of exercise. "Anthem" would have been sci-fi, if Rand had not understood so well what was coming at us.

Yes. The Bedouin are a modern non-territorial nation, for starters. I have heard some interesting stories from people who were involved in making overtures to them...about 20 years ago.

Jan

Yes I just saw an IMAX presentation entitled Jerusalem 3D in which the narrator said it might be the most conquered city in history.or words to that effect.

I think we all see this pattern, Stormi. If the government tried to forcibly herd us into blocks of housing right now, there would be a new revolution. But if they incrementally make us want to move into those blocks of housing (because 'its the right thing to do') and make it difficult/expensive/illegal for us to live outside of the housing blocks - well then, people will just queue up to move in!

'Sustainability' is one of the levers they are using to inch this process along. The fact that Dr Battig is calling this for what it is on WUWT (which ads that it is the worlds most accessed Climate site) is a good sign...but not enough to keep this change from creeping along.

I expect that then next goal in the process will be to offer elegant dense housing 'for free' to and aging population. Kinda like food stamps for homes. This, perhaps in lieu of Social Security payments.

Jan

I agree. Thank you for pointing out that this philosophical loophole is a major fault in our ability to behave with integrity in a functional sense. How does one respect a right when one cannot define it?

This has bearing on our current problem with Federal claims against 'the pond in your back yard' and has been touched on by fracking and aerospace regulations (so that you do not own your land 'down to the center of the earth' and 'up to the farthest reaches of the heavens'.

I think this merits further discussion.

Jan

Well said. I would say that your argument would be particularly appropriate with respect to the Middle East...

Jan pointed this out in her comment above. We need to define or re-define what it means to "own something" that would be acceptable to the other 7 billion residents of planet Earth. The lack of an acceptable definition shows up in the incredible amount of time our species has spent at war in recorded history.

"Sustainability' is just another progressive excuse for the control of your life by an "expert" opinion, with the elites getting to determine who the "experts" are! It's a rigged game from the beginning.

I never let anyone else define for me what things mean. That's why most logical arguments go off in the weeds in the first place: they start with a bad definition.

One minor problem that was delineated quite clearly in Dinesh D'Souza's America was that the American Indians didn't "own" the land either! They were constantly fighting other tribes for hunting grounds, etc. They weren't owning the land (ie improving it) as much as they were exploiting it.

Uh, the actual scripture is quite extensive and extends to "anything that is thy neighbor's".

It should also be noted that in those times, womens' protection was in being married, as then her husband's responsibility was her bodily protection. It's a different world now - for better or worse.

Pre-Columbian, the SW Indians were Neolithic, as were some of the Mississippi Valley Indians. The latter - and some up by Portland - may have been starting to smelt copper. Most of the rest were Mesolithic herders who did scratch farming at long stopovers...except the coastal California Indians who were Paleolithic, I think.

Post Columbian: The Indians up by Portland were reputed to have tamed elk for riding and invented their own written script...from rumors they had heard of these things in the Europeans. (There is one other society that invented its own writing after having seen a sample once - the Easter Islanders rongo-rongo script.)

Jan

Yes, and yes again.

Jan

The goal is for government to control land, and where the people live on it. It has nothing to do with science, just about control. Our oxymoronic Prez tells his black voters they deserve mortgages, and he will stand up for their getting homes. With the other hand, he is signing on to the UN sustainable idea of Agenda 21, which will then strip them of that home ownership. They lose, government wins. The whole idea is to get people herded into urban high rises, no cars, no A/C, no refrigeration, and no red meat. That makes them beholden to government for their existence, slaves of sort. It will destroy the economy, but that also is a goal. Read the Earth Charter or the content of Agenda 21.

Are 2nd president goes and passes a clearly unconstitutional law abridging free speech.

Ergo much less need to be nomadic. Have the American Indians ever switched over to farming?

Well now; if we warp words, we could say that our society has become extremely idiosyncratic because we have so many idiots operating in synchrony. (:-)

Thank you, Peter. I admit to the tendency to warp words just a bit when I am speaking casually or poetically. Scientifically - that is another matter. Then an exact meaning helps communication.

I will try to be a "best mind"!

Jan

In the spirit of Francisco’s “Someday my friend, you will learn that words have exact meanings.”

adjective
1.
pertaining to the nature of idiosyncrasy, or something peculiar to an individual:

"The best minds are idiosyncratic and unpredictable as they follow the course of scientific discovery."