Re: Re:(OT) Outsourcing developer to India and China - As an Oracle developer I am miffed

Noons wrote:

> "Howard J. Rogers" <hjr_at_dizwell.com> wrote in message
> news:3f8881e7$0$6526$afc38c87_at_news.optusnet.com.au...
>> >
>> > 6 is the key.
>>
>> To what? Are you now claiming that 'going on from age to age' means the
>> same thing as absolutist monarchy??
>
> Please cease to attribute words and claims to me that I did not make.
> What I said is in google as I don't use X-Archive:No. Go check.
> It's got nothing to do with what you claim above.

You said definition 6 was the key. I'm merely asking why and to what?  

>> It's a popular concept because it's a valid reality: secular government,
>> as opposed to theocratic government. Government without God. Perfectly
>> sound idea. Not a big feature of the 18th century, though. And nothing to
>> do with absolutism, rigidity or similar concepts.
>
> You claimed I was using an expression that didn't exist.
> I proved it does indeed exist and is widely used in English
> speaking environments. What else can I say?

You said the 18th century was full of secular government. I said it wasn't, because religion was a big part of the mindset of those governments: the divine right of Kings was not yet a dead idea. You said the word didn't mean religious, but rigid, absolutist and monarchical. I said the word had no such connotation. The word secular is in wide use, and I never suggested otherwise. It's the use to which you put it that was and is in dispute.

>
>
>> Yup, because there was nothing remotely secularist about government in
>> the 18th century, and Nixon wasn't impeached.
>
> Shall I run a search on the first phrase?

Why? Who doubts or ever doubted the phrase exists? The question is merely whether you were right to use it to describe 18th century government. And, as I originally said, it is rather hard to find a secular government in the 18th Century.

>As for the 2nd
> quite frankly, the distinction between "about to get the boot"
> or "getting the boot" is hair thin.
>
>
>> Do you actually read the web sites you suggest before suggesting them??
>
> You miss the point. You claimed that I used phrases that only
> exist in my "neck of the woods". I showed you thousands of uses
> of the phrase totally outside of that place. I don't even need to
> go into the details.

You need to re-read the thread, Noons. Here's what I actually said:

"but I would hardly call
the 18th century a 'secular' age"

To which you replied

"It most definitely was. Most of the societies back then were absolutist monarchies. With a fairly structured and rigid social caste system. That is hardly the case nowadays in downtown SF."

And the discussion has therefore been about your leap from the word 'secular' to the phrase 'absolutist monarchies' with 'structured and rigid' social classes.

Of course I don't (and never have) disputed the existence of the phrase 'secular government', or secular anything else. Just that it always means 'non-religious', and not 'absolutist, structured, rigid'.

>
> You may disagree with my interpretation of any historical claim
> or economic theory, but that does not authorize you to claim what
> I said doesn't exist.

I have done no such thing. You appeared to be saying that, since definition 6 was the key, that 'lasting from age to age' justifies your asertion that secular means 'absolutist, rigid, structured'. You will also note not one, but TWO, question marks against the phrase which you seem to think put words in your mouth: I was asking why or whether you thought "lasting from age to age' could possibly imply 'absolutist, monarchical, rigid, structured'.

>I proved already that it does.

You've proved something which didn't need to be proved: that the phrase exists. You needed to prove that the phrase means what you originally said it meant.

>Any further
> interpretation is of necessity subjective, to which you are of
> course entitled and I fully respect. Just don't claim I use phrases
> that don't exist.

I never said it didn't exist!!! Read the thread again. It's your *use* of the word "secular" that is in dispute. You have invested it with a *meaning* that doesn't exist!

>And that's the end of it as far as I'm concerned.

Whatever.

Regards
HJR

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