BevD's rejoinder

It doesn't matter from which source you borrowed your analogy, it is still wrong. It's indicative of the very problem you seem to think is solved by your access to information. Here we have this "great pharaoh" who was made great by his scribes (and even they couldn't hide the truth of the Kadesh battle in their accounts) who fooled so many people for millenium, simply by saying he was great. So there you have it, you were manipulated by Ramses's spin doctors. And why? Because no amount of googling will do for you what years of some poor shlub sifting sand in the deserts for twenty years will do for you - provide you with the truth.

The internet is one of the greatest inventions to date. That doesn't make it though, the source of truth that you seem to think it is, it is only as good as the information that is put on it, by individuals. That is why your dependence on it as the mechanism of truth and wisdom is misplaced - its end product is the result of the fallible individual working from information provided by other fallible individuals, a concept I don't think you grasp. So here we have you, googling information about Ramses, which was provided by, well, Ramses, when revisionists are looking at new discoveries and finding that perhaps Ramses wasn't so great after all. Unfortunately, you can't know that from googling, you have to do the scholarly research, immerse yourself in the history and read the journals, books and historiographies from many disciplines, separate the wheat from the chaff and find a tentative truth that will be revised with the next bit of clay tablet that turns up. The fact that I didn't comment on your other references to history doesn't indicate agreement, that's a conceit of your's which equates silence with agreement, I didn't comment on them because one example of your lack of historical context, seemed to suffice without the necessity of pointing out the other irregularities inside your cynical and jaded opinion of another generation which you dismiss with a remarkable lack empathy and understanding.

The fact that you support Obama has nothing to do with your misplaced trust and dependence on the "Obama Network" which in itself would indicate a biased and slanted source of information. And speaking of bias, what makes you think I am in the least bit cynical and contemptuous of Obama and Obama supporters? I admire Obama and have only objections to him in the same way I have objections to all the candidates - I understand that all the candidates are fallible individuals, who have made mistakes, will make mistakes, have faults and virtues, talents and challenges and live in the same world that I do.

My objections to your blog entry have nothing to do with your support for Obama, it is your dismal world vision where those with money and access to the internet will inflict their will and vision on others, which is as tyrannical in its imposition as any other special interest group which imposes its will and vision on others. My objection is your lack of objectivity, your willingness to replace one form of the tyranny of special interests with another. What I find sad is your contempt and disdain for the individual when it is individuals who input the information you are dependent upon - and you can't see that. The very thing you rail against is the very thing you need most.

You too seem to be an intelligent person, it is your lack of understanding, empathy and compassion for history and your insistence upon the ownership of a particular lease on the truth that makes me think the future will be more of the same. "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss".