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Source: (consider it) Thread: Of what use is an hereditary BLOODLINE?
Emily Windsor-Cragg
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Inherited skills, gifts and propensities?

Do they have VALUE in civil society?

Would leadership qualities convey? Or not?

For example, the Bach family, in music.

The bloodline of Pharoah.

The Stuarts or the Windsors?

What is the value of a bloodline?


EEWC

[ 22. June 2013, 01:03: Message edited by: tclune ]

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Porridge
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quote:
Originally posted by Emily Windsor-Cragg:

What is the value of a bloodline?


EEWC

Not sure I know what you're on about or looking for, but the short answer I'd offer is: bloodlines mean very little. Allegedly I have an ancestor who came to Massachusetts on the Mayflower. I also have a relative who seems to think this makes her "a cut above" and has rested on this social laurel for much of her adult life.

Why? Don't ask me. It's not as if she were the one cutting jibs or whatever they do on 17th-century sailing vessels.

The other issue is that I'm not at all sure we've really sorted out what's inherited vs. what's learned, though skills, at least among humans, are almost certainly not passed on through bloodlines.

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Emily Windsor-Cragg
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quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
The other issue is that I'm not at all sure we've really sorted out what's inherited vs. what's learned, though skills, at least among humans, are almost certainly not passed on through bloodlines.

Okay, so let's sort it out.

What I know from my experience is that I have ABSOLUTELY nothing in common with the people who reared me, who brought me to maturity.

Nothing. I have everything in common with the father I never met who died when I was 28.

His writings and his contacts mean everything to me, and what happened prior mean nothing.

How can that be, if bloodline has no meaning?

EEWC

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Emily Windsor-Cragg
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Let's just go to WHAT IF.

WHAT IF a Soul is ASSIGNED to a bloodline based on its compatibility with character and skillsets?

AND WHAT IF functions in Leadership are associated with bloodline skillsets?

What would that imply for human and Earthbound Leadership?

Where leadership goes wrong--goes to EGO--what does that say about the Feedback that Leadership happens to get from the People over whom they REIGN?

I guess my question is transforming before my eyes.

What if, HOW the Cosmos administer a Planet is through the skillful leadership of a single bloodline ... rather than by, what is POPULAR OR PREFERRED by a single generation?


EEW

[ 21. June 2013, 00:11: Message edited by: Emily Windsor-Cragg ]

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Evangeline
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I don't believe that there is any use or value in a "bloodline", particularly in the New World we all move around so much nobody is aware of others' ancestry and nobody cares.

With inherited traits, or skills etc they are useful if they serve some purpose and particularly if somebody is prepared to pay you for exercising them. Whether they are inherited, learnt or a gift from God is open for debate and will differ from case to case.

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Emily Windsor-Cragg
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--So, who do you want to administer the planet--

--stupefied bureaucrats?

--the Rich who operate by Preferences?

--the Outcast who operate by Fear?

--the techno-phobe who operate by Not-Seeing suffering?

--the tricky who operate by influence and nepotism?

--the idealistic who opeerate by dogma and doctrine?

Who do you want running this world?

Just asking.


EEWC


quote:
Originally posted by Evangeline:
I don't believe that there is any use or value in a "bloodline", particularly in the New World we all move around so much nobody is aware of others' ancestry and nobody cares.

With inherited traits, or skills etc they are useful if they serve some purpose and particularly if somebody is prepared to pay you for exercising them. Whether they are inherited, learnt or a gift from God is open for debate and will differ from case to case.


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Olaf
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How much of our life is nature, and how much is nurture? The world of psychology certainly has explored and continues to explore this. Genetic science is still trying to sort out the issue, and constantly making gains. We do know that biological parents can and do pass down certain genetic tendencies. I have certainly heard of parents of children who have Asperger having an a-ha moment for themselves later in life, as they learn about their child. I have seen families where a natural aptitude for music seems to be inborn.

When it comes to leadership positions, we have to factor in the 'nurture' aspect as well. Just because a descendent of Bach is applying for a position as organist at St. Peter's Basilica doesn't mean he is automatically more qualified for it than somebody who has been studying organ for fifteen years and has a clearly musical family heritage, but not the Bach ancestry.

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Emily Windsor-Cragg
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what you appear to be saying is that Causes-and-Effects are more powerful than DNA-programming at the outset.

My Life testifies to "knocking nurture completely out of the picture," because as an orphan, a foster child, an adopted child--I completely internalized my hereditary DNA and completely rejected what was being "entrained" in me.

completely and totally, 100%,.

I am so unlike my adopted family, by the time my adopted mother died, I had absolutely nothing to do with any of her relatives nor considered myself a part of their culture.

On the other hand, since the age of 9 I have been studying, integrating and incorporating my father's way of thinking into my own ... even though, I never met him during his life ...

and my offspring, my children, ALL OPERATE the way he did.

"Nurture" equalled ZERO in my case.

EEWC


quote:
Originally posted by Olaf:
How much of our life is nature, and how much is nurture? The world of psychology certainly has explored and continues to explore this. Genetic science is still trying to sort out the issue, and constantly making gains. We do know that biological parents can and do pass down certain genetic tendencies. I have certainly heard of parents of children who have Asperger having an a-ha moment for themselves later in life, as they learn about their child. I have seen families where a natural aptitude for music seems to be inborn.

When it comes to leadership positions, we have to factor in the 'nurture' aspect as well. Just because a descendent of Bach is applying for a position as organist at St. Peter's Basilica doesn't mean he is automatically more qualified for it than somebody who has been studying organ for fifteen years and has a clearly musical family heritage, but not the Bach ancestry.


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Net Spinster
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Actually given all the advantages the Windsors have such as the wealth and social position to get the best education, they are a remarkably middling lot. Apparently not a single top notch scientist, scholar, musician, painter, or writer amongst the lot.

Some families do tend to produce more than the expected number of outstanding people but they also tend to have the wealth to provide the best education and a good start, an expectation of excellence, and the social connections in the relevant field to also help in that start. Ignoring bloodlines and just adopting the most promising unrelated people would probably be even more effective (note for the best run of good Roman Emperors, Nerva through Marcus Aurelius, each adopted his successor [probably because none except the last had sons]; the first son to inherit was a disaster though his bloodlines were impeccable).

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lilBuddha
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Research* and observation seem to concur that nature and nurture combined make us what we are. Not necessarily a 50/50 ratio and not necessarily the same bias for each individual.
As to the royal bloodlines, there might be factors which compete negatively with the inherited advantages of wealth and education.


*In aggregate.

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Palimpsest
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Bloodlines rarely predict talent, only a likelihood for having inherited riches.

The genius founder of a bloodline is usually followed by descendants who revert to the mean. There was an article about college admissions of alumni children in the New York Times a few months ago which discussed this.

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Firenze

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I would have thought European monarchies (I'm looking at you, Hapsburgs) are a good illustration of how trusting to bloodline can all go Terribly Wrong.

I can see temperamental similarities in myself and females of my family going back two generations (before that I don't have the data). But our life outcomes have been very different because of the social circumstances - education, mobility, world wars, technology - that we happened to encounter.

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Penny S
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"Bloodline" is mystical rubbish. The blood carries nothing to be passed on. (I did abstain from an argument with a dear evangelical friend who held to a belief that Jesus had to be the child of a virgin because the blood was inherited from the father, and only thus could His blood be capable of redeeming us.)

We have 46 chromosomes. There's a certain amount of juggling about, but roughly speaking, once one has gone back enough generations that there are more than 46 people involved, there's no guarantee that any one of those people has contributed anything to the descendant. This is six generations, or a couple of centuries or so.

In the case of royal families (which take this thing seriously, and act as if the male dominates the inheritance), with all their inbreeding, it's probably more likely that any particular person further back in the tree has contributed. For the rest of us, it doesn't mean much if we go back to the middle ages and claim that we are probably descended from one king or other.

Bloodline is a meaningless concept.

Though I dare say her Maj might argue differently with regard to her horse, today.

[ 21. June 2013, 07:35: Message edited by: Penny S ]

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Bob Two-Owls
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quote:
Originally posted by Net Spinster:
Actually given all the advantages the Windsors have such as the wealth and social position to get the best education, they are a remarkably middling lot. Apparently not a single top notch scientist, scholar, musician, painter, or writer amongst the lot.

I suspect that success is a combination of opportunity, means and motivation. Brenda's mob have the means but living a life of guaranteed freedom from poverty means that they don't necessarily have the opportunity or much in the way of motivation. Too many distractions, not enough drive.
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Marvin the Martian

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quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
The other issue is that I'm not at all sure we've really sorted out what's inherited vs. what's learned, though skills, at least among humans, are almost certainly not passed on through bloodlines.

This is true. However, there is a kind of value in hereditary positions because the postholder can be taught how to fill the post properly from birth. It's not that there's anything intrinsic to their blood or genes that makes them better at it, it's the simple fact that they've had far better and more extensive training in the role.

For example, someone who has been trained from birth to be a blacksmith is going to be a far better blacksmith than someone who only took it up at the age of 25. It's nothing to do with inherited traits, just education.

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Moo

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quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
I would have thought European monarchies (I'm looking at you, Hapsburgs) are a good illustration of how trusting to bloodline can all go Terribly Wrong.

The Hapsburgs valued their bloodline and power so much that they kept getting dispensations for uncles to marry nieces. There were many bad genes in the bloodline, including genes for insanity. The result was a genetic nightmare.

Moo

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To The Pain
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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
The other issue is that I'm not at all sure we've really sorted out what's inherited vs. what's learned, though skills, at least among humans, are almost certainly not passed on through bloodlines.

This is true. However, there is a kind of value in hereditary positions because the postholder can be taught how to fill the post properly from birth. It's not that there's anything intrinsic to their blood or genes that makes them better at it, it's the simple fact that they've had far better and more extensive training in the role.

For example, someone who has been trained from birth to be a blacksmith is going to be a far better blacksmith than someone who only took it up at the age of 25. It's nothing to do with inherited traits, just education.

And not just education - someone who has been handling the tools from childhood is going to develop the physique to go with them. I remember seeing a documentary about a girl who grew up with a monkey for a best friend in her formative years who has a physique very much adapted to climbing - very lean and metabolically efficient, greater armspan than expected for her height and the ability to do single-finger pull-ups. There was also, I believe, a characteristic triangular torso-shape among English longbowmen that they developed as a result of being trained to use longbows from childhood.

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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
The other issue is that I'm not at all sure we've really sorted out what's inherited vs. what's learned, though skills, at least among humans, are almost certainly not passed on through bloodlines.

This is true. However, there is a kind of value in hereditary positions because the postholder can be taught how to fill the post properly from birth. It's not that there's anything intrinsic to their blood or genes that makes them better at it, it's the simple fact that they've had far better and more extensive training in the role.

For example, someone who has been trained from birth to be a blacksmith is going to be a far better blacksmith than someone who only took it up at the age of 25. It's nothing to do with inherited traits, just education.

Yeah, but if we suggested that a bloke in Whitehall somewhere should blindfold himself and randomly choose a child from a list of birth registrations who would be trained to be head of state in 40 years time based entirely on the random lottery everyone'd think we'd jumped the shark. Overall I prefer democracy.

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Might as well ask the bloody cat.

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Amorya

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quote:
Originally posted by Emily Windsor-Cragg:
What I know from my experience is that I have ABSOLUTELY nothing in common with the people who reared me, who brought me to maturity.

Nothing. I have everything in common with the father I never met who died when I was 28.

His writings and his contacts mean everything to me, and what happened prior mean nothing.

How can that be, if bloodline has no meaning?

It could be by chance. One data point doesn't prove much!
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wishandaprayer
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quote:
Originally posted by Amorya:
quote:
Originally posted by Emily Windsor-Cragg:
What I know from my experience is that I have ABSOLUTELY nothing in common with the people who reared me, who brought me to maturity.

Nothing. I have everything in common with the father I never met who died when I was 28.

His writings and his contacts mean everything to me, and what happened prior mean nothing.

How can that be, if bloodline has no meaning?

It could be by chance. One data point doesn't prove much!
Apart from the fact that she believes with all sincerity that her father is King Edward VIII; by virtue of the fact that he and her mother happened to be around 20 miles from each other at the occasion of her conception.

I don't know if that is a data point at all.

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Hawk

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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
However, there is a kind of value in hereditary positions because the postholder can be taught how to fill the post properly from birth. It's not that there's anything intrinsic to their blood or genes that makes them better at it, it's the simple fact that they've had far better and more extensive training in the role.

Potentially yes, but historically this is not always the case. The best rulers seem to have been ones who have not grown up expecting to rule as a birthright, but had their duties thrust upon them by an abdication or death, or by virtue of their own efforts. I would cite George VI, Elizabeth I and II, Henry VII, (and even VIII if you ignore his personal life), William I and III as examples. All of them got the crown through (ill)fortune or by merit. Whereas those born within an established stable dynasty could often turn out weak, inept, or both.

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Hawk

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quote:
Originally posted by Emily Windsor-Cragg:

and my offspring, my children, ALL OPERATE the way he did.

How do you know that, having never met him once?

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“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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mousethief

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What's "heritary"? Do you mean "hereditary"?

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
"Bloodline" is mystical rubbish. The blood carries nothing to be passed on.

You are mistaking etymology for meaning.

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leo
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I have mental illness and suicide on one side of my 'bloodline' and heart disease on the other.

My sister and i are pleased to have outlived both our parents.

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blackbeard
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quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
.....The best rulers .....William I ...

A.k.a Guillaume le Batarde. And he was, in all senses of the term. In the opinion of many, a disaster for my country.

I don't doubt his ability, though.

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Plique-ŕ-jour
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quote:
Originally posted by wishandaprayer:
Apart from the fact that she believes with all sincerity that her father is King Edward VIII; by virtue of the fact that he and her mother happened to be around 20 miles from each other at the occasion of her conception.

I don't know if that is a data point at all.

Ah. I hadn't made it that far into her writing. That ties everything together.


quote:
Originally posted by Emily Windsor-Cragg:
...Jesus' teachings are still the best, and hardest in the short-term to abide by. But i think His approach is the best, along with Common Laws (against Harm, Deceit, Waste and Undue Cost) which His Father YHVH gave to Israel first, and then to the British.

quote:
Originally posted at http://www.holyconservancy.org/liafailstone.htm:

These two letters are "aleph" and "tau", and in the original Hebrew alphabet aleph appears as a diagonal cross (x) and tau as an upright cross (+). Thus, when combined as a symbol to express the idea of the Eternal God, they would appear like the protective mark referred to above, which is identical with the crossed cross of Britannia's shield (Britannia symbolises the ancient sixth century B.C. "War Queen of Ireland" - queen Teia Tephi holding the Olive from Jerusalem and the Trident she took from Neptune's Porch (Gibraltar) on her way to Ireland); the flags of the Celtic / Israelites in Northern Spain and Christ's flag the Union Jack.

quote:
Originally posted by Emily Windsor-Cragg:

Elites. Bloodlines beginning with Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, Jacob, etc., through the twelve tribes of that racial group ... who utilized crusades to enrich themselves with Babylonian banking practices, namely the Templars ... who then became the founding 300 families of Europe and who today own most of the world (they think). Elites today are industrialists, bankers and coupon-clipping globalists.

quote:
Originally posted at http://www.holyconservancy.org/protocol.pdf:

WORLD CONQUEST THROUGH WORLD
"JEWISH" GOVERNMENT
THE PROTOCOLS
OF THE "LEARNED ELDERS
OF ZION"
THIS IS REAL; IT IS "ALIEN"
HOW ALPHA DRACONIS RUN
MARS
~BY LAW~
This is the New World Order

Space Age British Israelism, of course!

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Doublethink.
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I thought Edward the 8th was an authoritarian facist ?

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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell

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Graven Image
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I think all of us have some things in common with each other. In fact one of the things people often do when meeting is to try and match up how they are alike. "Oh you like lemon flavor, I love lemon pie." So if we are interested in someone we look for ways that we are alike. As to not feeling that one fits in with the family in which they were raised, I think that can be true if a natural or adopted child.

I would guess we are a bit of both. Nature and Nurture as it were. I think twin studies have shown that to be true. Twins raised by two different families share some things in common.

The bottom line is what we do with what we have been given. In the end we are each responsible in how we choose to live our life, if Grandma came over on the Mayflower or in steerage. It does not really matter.

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Callan
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quote:
Originally posted by Emily Windsor-Cragg:
Inherited skills, gifts and propensities?

Do they have VALUE in civil society?

Would leadership qualities convey? Or not?

For example, the Bach family, in music.

The bloodline of Pharoah.

The Stuarts or the Windsors?

What is the value of a bloodline?


EEWC

Over rated. Looking at your examples:

There were quite a few musically talented Bach's. However, it is fair to say that none of them were quite up to the level of Johann Sebastian and it isn't as if there's a present day Bach knocking out Brandenburg Concerti.

There were 31 Dynasties in Ancient Egypt plus the Macedonians and several intermediate periods and within these dynasties there were often shifts between families. There was some cultural continuity between Menes and Cleopatra. Dynastic community there was none.

Finally, James II was deposed in 1688 in favour of his son in law and daughter, then his second daughter. His son was overlooked in favour of the House of Hanover which became the house of Saxe-Coburg Gotha when Victoria married Albert which subsequently changed its name to Windsor during World War I (The Kaiser demonstrated that there is no truth in the rumour that Germans have no sense of humour when he remarked that he looked forward to a production of 'The Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg Gotha'. Subsequently Edward Windsor was deposed for wishing to marry a divorcee in favour of his brother. Part of the stability of the British Crown derives from the Hanoverians/ Saxe-Coburg Goths/ Windsors tending to be dutiful and prepared to leave the major decisions to parliament but there's no reason to suppose that had Queen Anne, poor woman, had better luck in the heredity stakes (11 children, none of whom made it into puberty) that her descendants would have managed worse than the Hanoverians.

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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton

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Plique-ŕ-jour
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# 17717

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quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I thought Edward the 8th was an authoritarian facist ?

Pretty much. Or, as EW-C's website puts it, he 'DISSENTED FROM GLOBAL ZIONISM!'

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Ariston
Insane Unicorn
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Quite frankly, given the fact that my ancestors were mostly a bunch of racist bastards who never missed an opportunity to violently oppress someone who didn't look like them, I'm hoping this whole bloodline stuff is a crock of shit.

On another note, I should mention that there are historical figures I'm rather fond of. Some of them, I even feel an affinity for, and think I might have something in common with. Does this mean I'm descended from them? Of course not! Many of them were celibate anyway, or at least never had children who survived them. I think it's possible to feel a sort of kinship, a recognition of certain traits, across time and space, but without being descended from someone.

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“Therefore, let it be explained that nowhere are the proprieties quite so strictly enforced as in men’s colleges that invite young women guests, especially over-night visitors in the fraternity houses.” Emily Post, 1937.

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comet

Snowball in Hell
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it's all bullshit.

I come from a very "respectable" bloodline - all sorts of important people who did important things and many in this generation doing those important things and it's all very special.

We also have a buttload of genetically-related diseases and are generally pretty much a line of lemons. If my forebears hadn't had some money we'd probably have died off eons ago.

We do have a lot of "traits" that run in the family, but I think it's all nurture. Eccentric people raise eccentric kids. I have a sister who was put up for adoption, whom we just met 6 or so years ago. She's lovely. She looks a lot like my dad. And she's very different from us. She's terribly normal.

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Evil Dragon Lady, Breaker of Men's Constitutions

"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.” -Calvin

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Emily Windsor-Cragg
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# 17687

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quote:
Originally posted by Plique-ŕ-jour:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I thought Edward the 8th was an authoritarian facist ?

Pretty much. Or, as EW-C's website puts it, he 'DISSENTED FROM GLOBAL ZIONISM!'
Yes, beginning in the 20s he saw the heavy hand of bureaucracy as very oppressive.

And he gave up everything he ever had, to get away from it.

His whole life was a testimony to Libertarianism, getting out from under the heavy hand of elitism.

But the reason he got free was not of his own making; his father set up the relationship with Wallis [MI-5 agent in WWI] through Eliz-Bowes-Lyons circle of friends.

Nobody has ever been told the real story. ... Someday I will ... after I get access to his will, medical records and diaries, which I have been requesting for some twenty years now.

EEWC

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ExclamationMark
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# 14715

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quote:
Originally posted by Emily Windsor-Cragg:
quote:
Originally posted by Plique-ŕ-jour:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I thought Edward the 8th was an authoritarian facist ?

Pretty much. Or, as EW-C's website puts it, he 'DISSENTED FROM GLOBAL ZIONISM!'
Yes, beginning in the 20s he saw the heavy hand of bureaucracy as very oppressive.

And he gave up everything he ever had, to get away from it.

His whole life was a testimony to Libertarianism, getting out from under the heavy hand of elitism.

But the reason he got free was not of his own making; his father set up the relationship with Wallis [MI-5 agent in WWI] through Eliz-Bowes-Lyons circle of friends.

Nobody has ever been told the real story. ... Someday I will ... after I get access to his will, medical records and diaries, which I have been requesting for some twenty years now.

EEWC

Is this is a wind up or have you been drinking with MI6 again?
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009  |  IP: Logged
Emily Windsor-Cragg
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# 17687

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When someone makes an affirmative statement about my dad which is fundamentally false, I feel I ought to contribute a rejoinder.

Is that okay with you?

EEWC

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L'organist
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# 17338

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quote:
posted by Emily
...But the reason he got free was not of his own making; his father set up the relationship with Wallis [MI-5 agent in WWI] through Eliz-Bowes-Lyons circle of friends.

FYI: MI5 has been concerned only with domestic and non-military security from before the outbreak of World War I. Wallis Warfield (as she was in 1914) would not have been able to be any kind of agent or operative for MI5 by virtue of the fact that she was a foreign citizen.

Plus Wallis didn't travel outside the USA until the early 1920s. In 1914 and 1915 she did the Baltimore "season" as a debutante - easy to track by looking through the reports of "society" events. In April 1916 she moved to Florida, staying with a distant cousin (Corinne Mustin) and there she met husband #1, Earl Winfield Spencer, a US Navy pilot; they married in November 1916. Spencer wasn't posted oversseas in WWI and after the Armistice he was posted to the Far East. Wallis's period in China is well-documented.

Her first trip to Europe (summer 1927) was made with an aunt. She first came to London in 1928 - to marry Ernest Simpson - and the Duke and Duchess of York had departed on their Empire Tour before she arrived.

As for Wallis Simpson being part of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyons's circle [Ultra confused]

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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet

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L'organist
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# 17338

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quote:
posted by Emily
When someone makes an affirmative statement about my dad which is fundamentally false, I feel I ought to contribute a rejoinder.

And your "dad" is???

Still trying to convince it was Edward VIII? Well, even though the USA was well-away from most of the business end of WWII it was still not that simple for US citizens to travel outside the landmass - and the Bahamas were not then (nor are they now) part of the USA. Civilian air traffic was restricted and heavily monitored.

At the relevant period (June 1943) the Duke of Windsor remained in the islands - his whereabouts are well-documented.

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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet

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Evangeline
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# 7002

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quote:
Originally posted by wishandaprayer:
quote:
Originally posted by Amorya:
quote:
Originally posted by Emily Windsor-Cragg:
What I know from my experience is that I have ABSOLUTELY nothing in common with the people who reared me, who brought me to maturity.

Nothing. I have everything in common with the father I never met who died when I was 28.

His writings and his contacts mean everything to me, and what happened prior mean nothing.

How can that be, if bloodline has no meaning?

It could be by chance. One data point doesn't prove much!
Apart from the fact that she believes with all sincerity that her father is King Edward VIII; by virtue of the fact that he and her mother happened to be around 20 miles from each other at the occasion of her conception.

I don't know if that is a data point at all.

Wow she must be about the only person in the world who wants to claim a Nazi for a father.
Posts: 2871 | From: "A capsule of modernity afloat in a wild sea" | Registered: May 2004  |  IP: Logged
Penny S
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# 14768

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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
What's "heritary"? Do you mean "hereditary"?

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
"Bloodline" is mystical rubbish. The blood carries nothing to be passed on.

You are mistaking etymology for meaning.
But so are others. There's a difference between Emily claiming inheritance of characteristics from one parent, and people arguing significance in inheritance from generations centuries ago, which is what often happens when the word bloodline is used.

e.g. the Dan Brown et al stuff. If there was anything in that, all Europeans would by now have the bloodline of Jesus, not just some girl in France, whereas any inheritance would be in homeopathic quantities.

It may be a relevant expression for racehorses, and the Hapsburgs, but not most of us. It carries meaning (through its etymology) in addition to the realities of inheritance (even bringing epigenetics in) which is not consistence with that reality. In my opinion.

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rugasaw
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# 7315

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Bloodline is mostly just for bragging rights.

I once heard that nature and nurture did not make up the entirety of us. Self choice also makes up part of us. I also think that in this discussion nurture really should mean environmental factors and surroundings.

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Treat the earth well, It was not given to you by your parents. It was loaned to you by your children. -Unknown

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ExclamationMark
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# 14715

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quote:
Originally posted by Emily Windsor-Cragg:
When someone makes an affirmative statement about my dad which is fundamentally false, I feel I ought to contribute a rejoinder.

Is that okay with you?

EEWC

Um, believing something doesn't make it true unless the facts stack up.

[ 22. June 2013, 16:48: Message edited by: ExclamationMark ]

Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009  |  IP: Logged
ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715

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quote:
Originally posted by Evangeline:
quote:
Originally posted by wishandaprayer:
quote:
Originally posted by Amorya:
quote:
Originally posted by Emily Windsor-Cragg:
What I know from my experience is that I have ABSOLUTELY nothing in common with the people who reared me, who brought me to maturity.

Nothing. I have everything in common with the father I never met who died when I was 28.

His writings and his contacts mean everything to me, and what happened prior mean nothing.

How can that be, if bloodline has no meaning?

It could be by chance. One data point doesn't prove much!
Apart from the fact that she believes with all sincerity that her father is King Edward VIII; by virtue of the fact that he and her mother happened to be around 20 miles from each other at the occasion of her conception.

I don't know if that is a data point at all.

Wow she must be about the only person in the world who wants to claim a Nazi for a father.
Perhaps the spermatozoa of members of the royal family can jump further than most - or even swim? In that case, 20 miles is nothing.

I think I'm seeing a big baking tin here to put this inside.

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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460

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quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:

We have 46 chromosomes. There's a certain amount of juggling about, but roughly speaking, once one has gone back enough generations that there are more than 46 people involved, there's no guarantee that any one of those people has contributed anything to the descendant. This is six generations, or a couple of centuries or so. [...]

Bloodline is a meaningless concept.

Hear hear!

Somewhere between 6 and 10 generations there is no reason to expect any individual to have inherited anything at all from any particular one of their ancestors (With the exceptions of mitochondria and Y-chromosomes of course, but put together they make under 1% of our genes) Of course we inherit all our genes from all our ancestors (plus a few new mutations) but there is no way to know which came from who.

It seems that social mixing takes about that long as well, at least in England. So if yo go back 6 or 10 generations pretty much everyone is likely to have both aristocratic or royal ancestors and also ancestors who were labourers or servants.

Go back a bit further - and its not that much further - and everybody is related. The most recent common ancestor of all living humans might have lived as recently as about one or two thousand years ago.

Go back a bit further than that and you get to a time where everybody is descended from everyone else. That is everybody who was alive at that time and lest any descendants at all is an ancestor of everyone now living - almost certainly within the last three or four thousand years maybe less.

Go back far enouygh

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Ken

L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.

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Firenze

Ordinary decent pagan
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We're a' Jock Tamson's bairns.
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Penny S
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# 14768

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I forgot about the Y-chromosome inheritance - there is a Jewish priestly male "blood"line, isn't there? But no-one has kept tabs on the mitochondrial lines - it's hard enough to track down school friends, if you're female.
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Percy B
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# 17238

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One of the complexities around this is that bloodline in some cases is not as specific as it sounds... at least in some families.

I thought years ago hereditary peers. I am not saying I'm strongly in favour of them BUT some owned large portions of land, and employed large numbers of people and had significant influence in different parts of the UK. I could see why some thought it a good idea they were in parliament.

(PLEASE note I say 'some' ...)

Now their heirs were brought up to inherit this and to take on the same role... So maybe there is an argument for hereditary bloodline. But then I wonder if we extend it to the royal family -- does it quite work (as wonderful as HM the Queen is).

A bit of a muddled thought, I know. But I offer it in the hope some may understand me!

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Mary, a priest??

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snowgoose

Silly goose
# 4394

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quote:
Originally posted by comet:
it's all bullshit.

I come from a very "respectable" bloodline - all sorts of important people who did important things and many in this generation doing those important things and it's all very special.

We also have a buttload of genetically-related diseases and are generally pretty much a line of lemons. If my forebears hadn't had some money we'd probably have died off eons ago.

Yup, same here. On my mother's side they are very proud of their aristocratic forebears; however, they tend to avoid discussing the problems that arise when folks marry their cousins for 400 years--quite a few hereditary diseases, including a tendency toward mental instability.

I wish I had inherited the health of my father's (very mixed, not-remotely-aristocratic) side instead of my mother's. As it is I have a large collection of doctors and take a lot of very expensive prescription drugs every day.

So, I guess that's what comes of an hereditary bloodline. I agree with Comet that the rest of it is mostly nurture/experience. Illnesses aside, The 5 of us (I have 3 sisters and a brother) have deliberately gone very different ways and have very different lives. The assorted nieces are all amazingly normal--and so far, fortunately, sane. So thank God the bloodline is being diluted.

The idea that a bloodline can carry with it some sort of hereditary greatness is, as has been stated above, total crap.

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Lord, what can the harvest hope for, if not for the care of the Reaper Man? --Terry Pratchett

Save a Siamese!

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Hawk

Semi-social raptor
# 14289

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quote:
Originally posted by Ariston:
Quite frankly, given the fact that my ancestors were mostly a bunch of racist bastards who never missed an opportunity to violently oppress someone who didn't look like them, I'm hoping this whole bloodline stuff is a crock of shit.

Well racism isn't genetic anyway.

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“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer

See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts

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Evangeline
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# 7002

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quote:
Originally posted by Percy B:
One of the complexities around this is that bloodline in some cases is not as specific as it sounds... at least in some families.
... So maybe there is an argument for hereditary bloodline. But then I wonder if we extend it to the royal family -- does it quite work (as wonderful as HM the Queen is).

A bit of a muddled thought, I know. But I offer it in the hope some may understand me!

I think an hereditary monarchy is perfect-when the role of the monarchy is effectively powerless but acts as a protector of democracy. If you turn the monarchy into some sort of Presidential role you run the risk of dictators, corrupt change in government systems etc etc. When you have a monarchy that is trained and educated from birth to undertake their duties as part of the preservation of a just system of government.

The monarchy don't need any special powers or leadership abilites, in fact it's better if they don't have TOO much in that regard or they might overstep their role. By having the role an accident of birth from which you can't be fired, (EWC's alleged father's situation aside [Biased] ) blackmailed or bought off, it stops the politicking and skullduggery, corruption etc that goes with political office.

I'm an Australian monarchist, not because I love Royalty or think there is anything special about their "breeding" but because they serve their purpose in our Constitution better than any of the alternatives. When we had a referendum on changing, there was too much division about what we'd have instead of our Queen so we stuck with what we had. We're more Constitutional Conservatives than Monarchist.

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Evangeline
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# 7002

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quote:
Originally posted by Evangeline:
quote:
Originally posted by Percy B:
One of the complexities around this is that bloodline in some cases is not as specific as it sounds... at least in some families.
... So maybe there is an argument for hereditary bloodline. But then I wonder if we extend it to the royal family -- does it quite work (as wonderful as HM the Queen is).

A bit of a muddled thought, I know. But I offer it in the hope some may understand me!

I think an hereditary monarchy is perfect-when the role of the monarchy is effectively powerless but acts as a protector of democracy. If you turn the monarchy into some sort of Presidential role you run the risk of dictators, corrupt change in government systems etc etc.

The monarchy don't need any special powers or leadership abilites, in fact it's better if they don't have TOO much in that regard or they might overstep their role. By having the role an accident of birth from which you can't be fired, (EWC's alleged father's situation aside [Biased] ) blackmailed or bought off, it stops the politicking and skullduggery, corruption etc that goes with political office.

I'm an Australian monarchist, not because I love Royalty or think there is anything special about their "breeding" but because they serve their purpose in our Constitution better than any of the alternatives. When we had a referendum on changing, there was too much division about what we'd have instead of our Queen so we stuck with what we had. We're more Constitutional Conservatives than Monarchist.


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