Radicals are unaccountable for their actions
The Sanity Inspector
critically. But they are only sometimes the same thing -- and they are never the
same thing when the criticism is reflexive rather than reflective.
-- Glenn Reynolds, www.instapundit.com, Posted 1/4/2002 10:01:03 PM
--
bruce
The dignified don't even enter in the game.
-- The Jam
The Sanity Inspector
destroyed a dangerous tyranny; it has saved the people of Afghanistan
from the horror of starvation. Now, I look forward to Noam Chomsky’s
next speech, in which he will undoubtedly - as an academic scholar
committed to change his views when confronted with actual facts that
prove his previous theories to have been wrong - candidly acknowledge
his errors and praise the United States government and the Bush
administration for its leadership and good works.
-- Ronald Radosh, "The Last Word on the Afghan "Genocide",
FrontPageMagazine.com, January 4, 2002
Frank Lynch
Inspector<chollanam...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>Too many people, especially academics, confuse being critical with thinking
>critically. But they are only sometimes the same thing -- and they are never the
>same thing when the criticism is reflexive rather than reflective.
>-- Glenn Reynolds, www.instapundit.com, Posted 1/4/2002 10:01:03 PM
The interesting thing about this quotation is that it is politically
neutral, and could very easily be applied to those who see
conspiracies surrounding the death of Vincent Foster, or a host of
radio talk jocks... So I found it odd to find this item in this
thread. Was I alone?
ObQuote:
"Let us not imagine evils which we do not feel, nor injure life
by misrepresentations. I cannot bear that querulous eloquence
which threatens every city with a siege like Jerusalem, that
makes famine attend on every flight of locusts, and suspends
pestilence on the wing of every blast that issues from the
south."
- Samuel Johnson: Rasselas [the character Rasselas]
Frank Lynch
The Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page is at:
http://www.samueljohnson.com/
The Sanity Inspector
<frank....@verizon.net> shared with usenet this thought:
>The interesting thing about this quotation is that it is politically
>neutral, and could very easily be applied to those who see
>conspiracies surrounding the death of Vincent Foster, or a host of
>radio talk jocks... So I found it odd to find this item in this
>thread. Was I alone?
I took it out of context. It's part of the framer for this link:
which article is unfortunately for me not especially pithy.
The Sanity Inspector
concentration of economic and political power in a few hands has
created a fundamental instability in many nations - an instability
that echoes around the world in the form of large-scale human
migration, illegal drug exports, and, increasingly, terrorism. If the
lofty social and ecological goals of the Rio Earth Summit had been
achieved, it is possible that the crisis of the last year would not
have occurred.
-- Christopher Flavin, _State of the World, 2002_
So, according to Flavin, if the world's governments had capitulated to
the environmental movement's demands at the 1992 Earth Summit, Osama
bin Laden wouldn't have killed 3,000 people in New York nine years
later.
In a way, he sounds similar to Jerry Falwell, though Falwell's take on
the Sept. 11th attacks was more direct: "I really believe that the
pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and
lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative
lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way - all of them who
have tried to secularize America - I point the finger in their face
and say 'you helped this happen.'"
In other words, thousands are dead because America isn't run exactly
the way Falwell thinks it should be. Flavin's claim is even grander.
Thousands are dead because the entire world isn't run the way Flavin
thinks it should be.
While it's hard to tell whose comments are worse, it's easy telling
which one will get everything that's coming to him. In the days after
Falwell revealed the full extent of his dementia, right-wingers of all
stripes rushed to denounce him. He was lambasted by the triumvirate of
conservative opinion leaders - National Review, The Weekly Standard
and the Wall Street Journal. It's doubtful he'll ever recover any
credibility.
But Flavin won't need to recover his credibility, because he'll never
lose any. His goofy comments will be largely ignored in the major
media and by next week, he'll be back to being quoted as a serious
environmental leader.
-- David Mastio, "Sinners in the Hand of an Angry Gaia",
http://www.techcentralstation.com/1051/envirowrapper.jsp?PID=1051-450&CID=1051-011002D
--
bruce
The dignified don't even enter in the game
--The Jam
Flash
> While it's hard to tell whose comments are worse, it's easy telling
> which one will get everything that's coming to him. In the days after
> Falwell revealed the full extent of his dementia, right-wingers of all
> stripes rushed to denounce him. He was lambasted by the triumvirate of
> conservative opinion leaders - National Review, The Weekly Standard
> and the Wall Street Journal. It's doubtful he'll ever recover any
> credibility.
"We're in a fight for our principles, and our first responsibility is
to live by them. No one should be singled out for unfair treatment or
unkind words because of their ethnic background or religious faith."
George W Bush, September 20, 2001
Not to disparage the masterfully written and delivered speech, but
this well-spun segment is just ambiguous enough to imply : "Don't
worry 'bout Pat and Jerry, they're just being their old religious
selves," especially if you omit the words "ethnic background."
Flash
"The earth is God's golf ball" -Don Van Vliet
Ted Clayton
A nice example of right-wing propaganda. The first sentence from Flavin
which is quoted here is a plausible, though far from certain, claim
about the causes of terrorism. Changing the circumstances that he
claims create terrorism would, if he's right, reduce terrorism. Those
are "lofty social and ecological goals." One place where those goals
were stated was at the Earth Summit, but Flavin is not saying, despite
Mastio's claim, that the success of the Earth Summit *in particular* was
necessary or sufficient for the achievement of those goals. He also
does not say that the success of the Earth Summit *in particular* would
have meant the end of terrorism. He also says "it is possible" that the
achievement of these goals would have prevented Sept. 11th; again, this
is plausible, though far from certain.
We then have two examples of false equivalence. First, Flavin says that
the failure to achieve certain _goals_ _might have_ led to Sept. 11;
Falwell and Robertson said that they are _certain_ that _particular
individuals_ (gays, atheists, etc.) are directly to blame. If they had
said "If only we had achieved the lofty social goals of Christianity, we
might not have had the tragedy of Sept. 11," *then* there would be a
parallel. And, incidentally, I would have regarded that claim too as
plausible, though far from certain.
Second, Falwell and Robertson are key players in the (so-called)
Christian conservative movement in the U.S.; this movement is crucial to
the electoral success of the Republican Party, because there aren't
enough rich people in the country to elect Republicans on their own.
(Cf. George W. Bush's visit to Bob Jones University when he needed to
win the South Carolina primary). Falwell and Robertson are extremely
powerful politically, and very well known, with many followers, and at
least in Robertson's case a lot of money. They have access to an
international media network, through programs like the 700 Club. On the
other hand, I doubt more than about 1% of Americans could even tell you
who Christopher Flavin is, and if it weren't for the academic market I
doubt the "State of the World" series would sell enough copies to stay
in print. (Thus proving that academics are radical lefties, out of
touch with the real world, yadda yadda yadda).
Finally, it's worth mentioning that as far as I know, Robertson never
apologized for his comments (if he did and I missed it, someone please
let me know), and while Falwell eventually issued a real apology, his
son has turned the whole thing into a fundraising opportunity.
Sorry for the lengthy discourse. Most of the time I resist these
opportunities, since I'm sure you're all able to reach the same
conclusions about this kind of stuff, but every once in a while.....
ObQuote:
"The truth is people are right back where they were before. And although
there's a small remnant who are really praying and seeking God and
turning from sin, there hasn't been a sense of national repentance. We
just haven't had that. We had a day of reconciliation, whatever that
means, but we didn't have a day of repentance. Here's a few other things
that the Lord said, and I think this is important, if I'm hearing from
him, and again, I put that out with a caveat. "A time certain is set for
God's judgment on the Earth" -- and this is the first person - "I will
punish men and women for" -- get these things - "idolatry, sorcery,
immorality, murder, violence, blasphemy, and indifference to me. What is
coming will be too horrible for you to contemplate. Know that the Day of
Judgment is very near, and warn people to be ready". And that was the
message over and over the Lord spoke to me is that tell people to turn
from the way they're going and turn to God and warn them, warn them over
and over again to get ready for what's happening....
Take this for what it's worth and no more than that, but I do believe
that San Francisco is going to be a target of these people, and I think
that Detroit is going to be a target. We had one person at a prayer
meeting say that he had a dream so vivid about Dallas, that he woke up
and turned the TV on because he thought he was seeing a newscast."
--Pat Robertson, January 2, 2002 "700 Club" broadcast.
http://www.pfaw.org/issues/right/rwwo/rwwo.020104.shtml#1-2trans
I'm sure the conservatives will start criticizing him for this any day now.
Ted
> --
> bruce
> The dignified don't even enter in the game
> --The Jam
>
--
Any opinions expressed in this message are my own and not necessarily
those of CMU.
Altogether, I think we ought to read only books that bite and sting us.
If the book does not shake us awake like a blow to the skull, why
bother reading it in the first place? -- Franz Kafka, letter to Oskar
Pollak, January 27, 1904
The Sanity Inspector
pressured the U.S. into a bombing pause: many more Afghans would have
starved to death, the Taliban would have been secured in power at
least for
another few months and perhaps indefinitely, but [NGO officials] would
have enjoyed the stage-heroic frisson of bouncing along in the truck
to
Jalalabad. That seems a high price for the Afghan people to pay. One
expects
a certain amount of reflexive anti-Americanism from these
"humanitarian"
types, but in the brutal Afghan fall they went too far: They ought at
least
to be big enough to admit they were wrong and be grateful the Pentagon
ignored their bleatings.[...]
Instead, they seem a little touchy about the fact that among the first
food
supplies to get through was a fresh supply of egg on their faces. When
...self-proclaimed "humanitarians" start droning on next month about
starving children in Iraq, always remember the lesson of Afghanistan:
A bombing pause is not as "humanitarian" as a bomb. The quickest way
to end a "humanitarian" crisis is to remove the idiot government
responsible for it. Conversely, the best way to keep people starving
is to cook up new wheezes to maintain the thugs in power, as Christian
Aid, Oxfam, Conscience International and all the rest did in their
petitions through the gullible Western media.
-- Mark Steyn, "Bombarded by brutal rhetoric: Whatever became of the
'brutal Afghan winter'?", _National Post_,
http://www.nationalpost.com/commentary/columnists/story.html?f=/stories/2002
0107/1053525.html
--
bruce
The dignified don't even enter in the game.
-- The Jam
The Sanity Inspector
roundelay, a vast Schnitzlerian carousel where every abstract noun is
carrying on like Anthony Quinn on Viagra. Instability breeds
resentment, resentment breeds inertia, inertia breeds generalities,
generalities breed clichés, clichés breed lame metaphors, until we
reach the pitiful state of the peacenik opinion columns where, to
modify the old Eyewitness News formula, if it breeds it leads. If I
were to say "Mr. Scroggins breeds racing pigeons," it would be
reasonable to assume that I'd been round to the Scroggins house or at
least made a phone call. But the "injustice breeds anger" routine
requires no such
mooring to humdrum reality, though it's generally offered as a
uniquely
shrewd insight, reflecting a vastly superior understanding of the
complexities of the situation than we nuke-crazy warmongers have.
"What you
have to look at is the underlying reasons," an Ivy League student said
to me
the other day. "Poverty breeds resentment and resentment breeds
anger."
"Really?" I said. "And what's the capital of Saudi Arabia?"
-- Mark Steyn, "Pacifists' ill-breeding scorns actual people", _Nation
Post_ October 4, 2001,
http://www.nationalpost.com/commentary/columnists/story.html?f=/stories/2001
1004/719349.html
Why do some people look at a smoking ruin and see lives lost -- the
secretary standing by the photocopier -- and others see only
confirmation of
their thesis on Kyoto? Any real insight into the "root causes" has to
begin
with an acknowledgement of the human toll, if only because that speaks
more
eloquently than anything else to the vast cultural gulf between the
victims
and perpetrators. To deny them their humanity, to reduce them to an
impersonal abstraction is Stalinist. Bill Clinton at least claimed to
"feel
your pain." The creepy, totalitarian boilerplate slogans of the peace
movement can't even go through the motions.
--ibid
...the interesting thing, to those of us used to being reviled as
right-wing haters, is how sterile the vocabulary of those who profess
to "love" and "care" is. In some weird Orwellian boomerang, the
degradation of language required to advance the left's agenda has
rendered its proponents utterly desiccated. The President gets teary
in the Oval Office, the Queen chokes up at St. Paul's, David Letterman
and Dan Rather sob on CBS, New Yorkers weep openly for their slain
fireman, but the dead-eyed zombies of the peace movement who claim to
love
everyone parade through the streets unmoved, a breed apart.
-- ibid
--
bruce
The dignified don't even enter in the game.
-- The jam
The Sanity Inspector
are all too fragile to endure the open and frank debate that democracy
demands; it assumes that offense is the greatest sin; it brings us all
to a lowest common denominator of gagged silence. I hate how this came
to become a prerequisite to being liberal; it's not. Political
correctness is a form of political fundamentalism, an attempt to
impose an orthodoxy without open debate, an attempt to legislate
civilized behavior according to a list of rules handed down by the
political priesthood -- telling you all the things you can't say --
rather than according to intelligence and maturity just common sense
of all of us. It is possible to be liberal without being politically
correct and it's time for sensible liberals to stand up to this
fundamentalism -- just as it's time for sensible religious believers
of any brand to stand up to religious fundamentalism.
-- Jeff Jarvis, "Why I Like the Post PC Era",
http://www.crisis.blogspot.com/#pc2
Flash
> pressured the U.S. into a bombing pause: many more Afghans would have
> starved to death, the Taliban would have been secured in power at
> least for
> another few months and perhaps indefinitely, but [NGO officials] would
> have enjoyed the stage-heroic frisson of bouncing along in the truck
> to
> Jalalabad. That seems a high price for the Afghan people to pay.
----
The Nuclear Option
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told The London Telegraph last
week that Britain and the United States should expect a large-scale
chemical and biological weapons assault on civilian targets by Osama
bin Laden's terrorist group. The objective, said Wolfowitz, is to
cause tens
of thousands of casualties.
If such a forecast is based on sound intelligence, President Bush
should
consider emulating his predecessor, Harry Truman, and employ the use
of
at least tactical nuclear weapons against the Taliban should it be
concluded that such a weapon might produce better results than the
current bombing campaign. If this is war, why pull any punches?
There are similarities between Japan in 1945 - the first and only time
any nation has employed nuclear weapons in warfare - and Afghanistan
now. Then, Japanese troops frequently hid in caves and pillboxes and
fought with a religious fervor inspired by their Emperor in whom they
vested divine power. Now, the Taliban use caves as protective cover
and
are inspired by religious zeal......
"Remember Pearl Harbor" served as a rallying cry for a previous
generation that taught warmongers the consequences of attacking the
United States. "Remember the World Trade Center and the Pentagon"
should
serve as a contemporary rallying cry. The Taliban fight with the
weapons
of terror, determined to kill every man, woman and child they can. The
United States should spare no effort in wiping out the Taliban and all
terrorists who would follow in their sandal-steps. If there is
collateral civilian damage, that's war.
America's willingness to use nuclear weapons during World War II
preserved the peace and struck fear into the hearts of our
adversaries.
It's time for another demonstration of our resolve. Perhaps nothing
short of nuclear weapons will deter for another generation the enemies
of freedom. Like the fanatical Japanese of Truman's day, the fanatical
Taliban will not be dissuaded from murdering as many Americans as they
can. This is not a time for diplomatic or political niceties. It is a
time to wipe them out before they wipe any more of us out.....
There is a psychological and political downside to deploying even
tactical nuclear weapons. But there's a bigger downside should
Wolfowitz's forecast come true. Americans and Britons who would die in
such a terrorist attack - and their loved ones - deserve to know that
their countries are doing all they can to defend
them.
Cal Thomas
-----
Why screw around? Lives are at stake.
Flash
"If your children ever find out how lame you really are, they'll
murder you in your sleep." -Frank Zappa (closing message at the
Hollywood Whiskey A-Go-Go, December 1965
The Sanity Inspector
things, not the other way around.
-- Dr. Jon Opsahl, son of Myrna Opsahl, who was murdered during a bank
robbery in 1975 by recently-indicted members of the Symbionese
Liberation Army
It doesn't really matter. She [Mrs Opsahl] was a bourgeois pig anyway.
-- SLA soldier Emily Harris, quoted in Patty Hearst's _Every Secret
Thing_, 1982
The Sanity Inspector
Boy Scouts from public facilities] stems from a fundamental change in
the gay rights movement. It began by arguing that adults should be
free to do what they choose in the privacy of their own bedrooms,
without government interference. But today, the movement advocates the
very different proposition that the power of government should be used
to force everyone to approve of homosexual conduct, morally and
socially. That cannot be achieved by liberal means, because it is not
a liberal goal.
-- George Mason U. law professor Peter Ferrara
Frank Lynch
Inspector) wrote:
First, I'm not sure why this falls in this thread. Does "are
unaccountable" now go beyond the connotation of accepting ownership
and responsibility, to the connotation of merely exhibiting
unfathomable behavior? If so, this will be a very long thread,
indeed. It could be endless, depending on the imagination of he who
attempts the fathoming.
Second, if the latter hypothesis is true, whoever these liberals are
that are urging government to exclude the BSA from public facilities
seem to be doing so in a long line of tradition. Perhaps Dr Ferrara's
disagreement is not so much with the method as much as the target.
Third, it is possible that Dr Ferrara has gone too far and is
overstating the goal... Is it a quest for approval or merely
tolerance? I tolerate some conservatives, and would not want them to
be discriminated against by the BSA. That is a far cry from saying I
approve of them.
Fourth, (and perhaps this is merely a rhetorical trick on my part) it
is sad that some (perhaps not Dr Ferrara) decry efforts to limit
donations to the BSA - - at my ex-company, employee-donoation
opportunities were expanded beyond the United Way for a number of
reasons, but it only happened after the BSA were allowed to maintain
their ban of homosexuals. Too often efforts to focus donations away
from the BSA have been cast as "un-Amurrican," but that is someone's
economic right, and as such is very Amurrican.
ObQuote:
How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
- Bob Dylan, "Blowin' In The Wind"
Flash
"....How can we pay attention to this spoiled, affluent, bored,
rock-throwing generation who only want to tear down America without
offering any solutions? Sometimes I have just spent 40 minutes in a
taxi trying to get through the 15 blocks to the TV host who has asked
the question. I wonder from whom we should expect the solutions to the
problems of the war, the racial strife, the inflation, the
bureaucracy, the unemployment, the pollution, and the rest, when no
one seems able to untangle a simple thing like traffic.
But, persists the interviewers, are you defending spoiled, bored,
rock-throwing kids? I always wonder on these programs if we were
talking instead about Italian students going on strike, say, at the
time when Mussolini was invading Ethiopia, would we cluck our tongues
over how permissively they had been raised in Italy, or how any excuse
would send them skylarking out of classes, or where were the Roman
doctors and lawyers to come from if they didn't attend school? Or
would we try to analyze instead the issues of the day that lead to
such disorder?
The hardest time.... will be for those who equate dissent with
disloyalty...."
Ethel Grodzins Romm (1970)
-----
- Flash
"There goes the neighborhood"
-old conservative saying
alohacyberian
tearing hair, in 'voice of doom-prophet mode> , "Don't go in there!!!!
Gasoline and fuel prices will go UP!!!!"
Shortly after America invaded Afghanistan, gasoline and fuel prices began
to, and continue to fall, over 20%, the lowest they've been in years in
some areas.
Economists: "_Eventually_.... we meant _eventually_.... you people just
don't understand, it's all very complicated....."
Corollary: "Don't eat that peanut butter sandwich!!!! You'll _DIE_!!!!" 90
years later: "See? I told you that would happen, but you didn't listen!!!"
~ Douglas D. Anderson
--
(-:alohacyberian:-) At my website there are 3000 live cameras or
visit NASA, play games, read jokes, send greeting cards & connect
to CNN news, NBA, the White House, Academy Awards or learn all
about Hawaii, Israel and more: http://keith.martin.home.att.net/
The Sanity Inspector <choll...@mindspring.com> wrote in article
<3c37cda...@news.mindspring.com>...
William C Waterhouse
syna...@hotmail.com (The Sanity Inspector) writes:
> All of this illiberalism [of the campaigns to defund and exclude the
> -- George Mason U. law professor Peter Ferrara
Caveat lector
10 September 1998
Clinton ploy for a federal shutdown?
Peter Ferrara, The Washington Times,9/9/98
...[T]his piece by Peter Ferrara caught our eye in the Times this
week--because Ferrara had a quote where Clinton flat-out said he was
planning to shut down the government! Maybe the Republicans had been
right all along! Here's how Ferrara's piece limned it:
FERRARA: Republicans are already rightly sounding the alarm to alert the
public to Mr. Clinton's cynical strategy...Moreover, the Republicans are
already planning to pass a continuing resolution that will keep the
government funded while Congress and Mr. Clinton work out the details of
next year's budget. Mr. Clinton has said he would veto such a resolution
as "a bare bones budget." [Our emphasis]
It was that last sentence that caught our eye, and made us think we'd
been totally wrong....
We were frankly amazed that other newspapers had failed to report this
important development. Truth is, we hadn't seen a word about Clinton's
statement--anywhere except in the Times! So we got on the phone and we
called up Ferrara to find out where Clinton had made his rash statement.
We were already picturing the next day's DAILY HOWLER--you know, the one
in which we'd simply assail the press corps for failing to report
Clinton's threat.
Well, wouldn't you know it, when Ferrara came on the phone, the story
wasn't quite what we'd pictured. We asked where Clinton had made his
statement; hemming and hawing came back over the line! According to
Ferrara, Clinton might well have said this in some speech or other, but
Ferrara was unable to call one to mind. It turned out that some aide of
Clinton's had said this to someone in some sort of budget meeting or
other. You know, some sort of a meeting where someone had said this to
someone else, at some point in time?
We'll admit that, just for a moment or two, we were surprised at the
approach to attribution. Someone had said this to someone, in some
meeting; so Ferrara went ahead, and he put it in quotes, and he said that
Bill Clinton had said it! And the Washington Times had gone right ahead,
and they'd published it right there in their op-ed pages! You know--right
in the paper where you're constantly reading how you can't believe a word
Clinton says? ...
--- "The Daily Howler," by Bob Somerby
<http://www.dailyhowler.com/h091098_1.shtml>
The Sanity Inspector
Inspector) shared with usenet this thought:
Twenty-six years after a bank robbery that left a mother of
four dead from a shotgun blast, five former members of the terrorist
Symbionese Liberation Army of the '70s are finally going to court for
their implication in the crime. As the victim's son said, it's about
time.
In fact, this should be just the beginning of the accounting
owed by all the ex-"radicals" and "activists" and fellow-traveling
apologists for murder and terror. For years now people who
rationalized and championed everything from torture to genocide, as
long as these crimes were perfumed with leftist idealism, have enjoyed
the good life created by the culture they once wanted to destroy.
Indeed, in the university some have been rewarded for those activities
and beliefs, which to this day still have adherents in the
looking-glass world of the academy. [...]
Yet how many have acknowledged their errors, recanted their
lies, and owned up to their complicity in terror? Why should they?
They pay no price for failing to take responsibility for their
stupidity and moral idiocy. Indeed, they are rewarded and considered
morally superior to so-called "conservatives" and "reactionaries."
Chairman Mao has more fans in the university today than does Ronald
Reagan. The mystery is why the rest of the nation lets them get away
with it.
-- Cal State-Fresno Prof. Bruce Thornton [who isn't me],
http://frontpagemag.com/guestcolumnists2002/thornton01-21-02p.htm
Flash
> On 19 Jan 2002 10:45:11 -0800, syna...@hotmail.com (The Sanity
> Inspector) shared with usenet this thought:
> ......In fact, this should be just the beginning of the accounting
> owed by all the ex-"radicals" and "activists" and fellow-traveling
> apologists for murder and terror.
> Yet how many have acknowledged their errors, recanted their
> lies, and owned up to their complicity in terror? Why should they?
> They pay no price for failing to take responsibility for their
> stupidity and moral idiocy.... -- Bruce Thornton
"I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this
guilty land will never be purged away but with blood." (December 2,
1859)
-----
Have You Got Your Gun Yet?
Events in the city of Detroit since the assassination of Dr. Martin
Luther King have demonstrated more clearly the absolute necessity for
black people to arm themselves and prepare for a war for survival...We
cannot tolerate the rapid drift of this country towards a fascist
state. It is only a matter of a few short steps from turning the city
into a concentration camp to turning the local incinerators into
crematoriums. The time to act is NOW. We must continue to prepare for
what is more and more obviously an inevitable war developing between
the white rulers of this country and the black semi-slaves in it. It
may soon become illegal for you to purchase a weapon in this
town....Have you got yours yet?
"Inner City Voice"
-----
Some things just take a little time.
Flash
The Sanity Inspector
about how Soliah needs to be exonerated because she did what she did
during "different times." Mmm-hmm. The 1930s were different times too,
and Hitler gassed six million Jews during those times because he
wanted a racial utopia. Do we excuse him because he existed during
"different times?" Or do we excuse radicals like Soliah because they
kill for class hatred and not racial hatred?
What the Left really means about the "different times" is that people
like Soliah perpetrated their crimes during the 1960s and 1970s
–- a time during which the counter-culture hoped to destroy
capitalism for the sake of building their vision of a better and
fairer world. In other words, if you kill human beings in the name of
social justice, you should be forgiven; if you perpetrate crimes
against humanity because you assert you are doing it for the poor, the
oppressed and the downtrodden, there will always be a Leftist milieu
to defend you.
-- Jamie Glazov, http://www.frontpagemag.com/columnists/glazov/2002/glazov01-24-02.htm
Flash
-----
"I don't think I have grinned with such ecstatic glee for a long time.
To be sure, Olson's laughable agony brought particular joy and warmth
to my heart.
I just hope that her suffering in incarceration will be particularly
acute."
Maybe you can arrange to visit her, Jamie. Get an S&M thing
going.
"I don't know how many times washed-up Leftists have lectured me about
how Soliah needs to be exonerated because she did what she did during
'different times.'"
Probably equal to the number of Tim McVeigh fans I've run into.
"That's why I have a dream that one day the verbal articulation of
class hatred will be criminalized - just as racist hate speech is
criminalized now. But in that context we have a long way to go, since
the Left clearly controls our society's political language."
You are joking, I hope?
"My last hope in connection to this saga is that a form of human
justice, and not just criminal justice, will prevail. I am referring
to the inspiring unwritten law that exists in prison populations,
where inmates who have transgressed sacred ethical rules confront
their justified fates. For instance, if child molesters and rapists do
not sign themselves into protective custody, their stay in prison
begins to consist of ingredients that I need not illustrate here.
Suffice it to say that severe beatings are a starting point."
Jamie Glazov holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in Soviet
Studies. Born in the U.S.S.R., Jamie is the son of prominent Soviet
dissidents, and now resides in Vancouver, Canada.
Soviet dissidents? He sounds more like ex-KGB.
Socialist Canada? It figures.
-----
Flash
"Our nation's politics are dominated by two fueding dinosaurs that
have outlived the world in which they evolved."
-From "The Radical Center," by Halstead and Lind
The Sanity Inspector
imitates it; there is the psychological need to be dedicated to a
cause, which is what makes the profession more than a profession, a
vocation; there is the appeal of comradeship in the cause, the
intoxication of marching in step with others, open hand or clenched
fist upraised; there is the satisfaction of having an enemy in the
form of a monstrous abstraction to whose image one can attach all the
evils of our common life. Finally, there is the appeal of being free
to indulge as a virtue the destructive impulse we all know.
--Louis J. Halle, _The Ideological Imagination_, 1972
Flash
>>Bruce --
>>Who exactly is being described here? It reminded me of Ralph Reed,
>>Jerry Fallwell, Pat Robertson, et al....
--Ted Clayton
" I don't have the original & so cannot provide context, sorry.To me
it suggests Black Panthers, Earth Firsters, Hezbollah, and thelike.
Eye of the beholder, I suppose..."
--bruce
Yeah, what you said.
The Sanity Inspector
existed in countries where intellectuals faced no danger and were free
to write as they pleased? What possibly could have induced them to
justify the actions of modern tyrants, or, as was more common, to deny
any essential difference between tyranny and the free societies of the
West? . . . .The facts were rarely in dispute; they were apparent to
anyone who read the newspapers and had a sense of moral proportion.
No, something deeper was at work in the minds of these European
intellectuals, something reckless. How do such minds operate? we
wonder. And what are they seeking in politics?
-- Mark Lilla, _The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics_, 2001
--
bruce
The dignified don't even enter in the game
-- The Jam
The Sanity Inspector
Event Type: Other
Topic / Issue: Fascism & Imperialism
City & State: New York, New Jersey
Sponsor: The Coalition to Ignore Reality
The Coalition to Ignore Reality calls on all sentient beings to join
hands, paws, and other appendages in symbolic resistance to the wealth
creation in the developing world while safely living the good life in
the First World. We call for immediate suspension of the laws of
mathematics to allow people of mediocrity, inability and foolishness
to earn as much as all those who did their homework while the rest of
us listened to forgettable music and masturbated late into the
afternoon.
-- an unknown someone having fun with the message board at
www.protest.net, as found at
http://www.protest.net/NYC/calendrome.cgi?span=event&ID=251219&day=28&month=February&year=2002&state_values=
-- bruce
The dignified don't even enter in the game
-- The Jam
Flash
-----
...where tyrannical regimes have replaced democratic regimes,
invariably the chief agents have not been the new welfare state
agencies, but the "old," premodern security organs- the military and
the police. The Weimar Republic was overthrown, not by social-security
bureaucrats, but by the German military and police, in collaboration
with the Nazi party. If Soviet tyranny had rested solely on socialist
economic institutions like collective farms, instead of military and
police forces, the Soviet government would have been overthrown long
before it was. If ever there were a proposition in social science that
has been disproven, it is the conservative claim that the welfare
state and civil rights enforcement lead to totalitarian tyranny all
the time- or for that matter at any time.
Michael Lind
-----
-----
The only liberty that the conservative movement has consistently
and ardently defended, in the past half century, is "economic liberty"
(defined narrowly as the privileges of property owners and employers
and landlords, rather than broadly as the rights of neighbors and
workers and renters). The consistency with which conservative
intellectuals have supported regimes like Chile under Pinochet and
Singapore which have combined police-state repression in the area of
politics and civil rights with market economics is further evidence
for the contention that conservatives are libertarians when it comes
to the marketplace- and authoritarian statists with respect to
practically everything else.
Ibid.
-----
In March 1998 Pinochet retired from the army and assumed a seat
in the Chilean senate. Chile's constitution, which was written by
Pinochet's former government, allows past presidents to become
senators for life and protects Pinochet from being prosecuted for
crimes carried out during his dictatorship. When Pinochet assumed his
senate seat, thousands of Chileans protested outside the congress
building, while leftist senators and deputies protested within.
"Pinochet Ugarte, Augusto," Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 99.
-----
Flash
"Get ready,...ready,...ready,... stormtroopers comin'..."
--Ted Nugent
Flash
> Title: Communal Howling at the Moon
> Event Type: Other
> Topic / Issue: Fascism & Imperialism
> City & State: New York, New Jersey
> Sponsor: The Coalition to Ignore Reality
>
> The Coalition to Ignore Reality calls on all sentient beings to join
> hands, paws, and other appendages in symbolic resistance to the wealth
> creation in the developing world while safely living the good life in
> the First World. We call for immediate suspension of the laws of
> mathematics to allow people of mediocrity, inability and foolishness
> to earn as much as all those who did their homework while the rest of
> us listened to forgettable music and masturbated late into the
> afternoon.
"What conservatives do behind closed doors is their business, but
I draw the line at giving them special rights such as where they live,
where they can work and being allowed to marry or adopt children."
--Rack Jite
http://rackjite.com/quotes.htm
Flash
"It is too late to rescue American conservatism from the radical
right. But it is not too late to rescue America from conservatism."
--Michael Lind
The Sanity Inspector
> "What conservatives do behind closed doors is their business, but
> I draw the line at giving them special rights such as where they live,
> where they can work and being allowed to marry or adopt children."
> --Rack Jite
> http://rackjite.com/quotes.htm
<G> I exchanged emails with Mr. Jite in December, in which he
volunteered that I am a psychotic, hypocritical rightwing crazy
radical. He put them up on his website, at
http://www.rackjite.com/mail.htm, just Find "chollanamdo".
Caution: there's obscene stuff elsewhere on the same page.
Obquote:
It is only the mad who think the rest of the world insane.
-- An issue of _Batman_ from the mid-Seventies
--
bruce
The dignified don't even enter in the game.
-- The Jam
The Sanity Inspector
with usenet this thought:
> ...where tyrannical regimes have replaced democratic regimes,
>invariably the chief agents have not been the new welfare state
>agencies, but the "old," premodern security organs- the military and
>the police. The Weimar Republic was overthrown, not by social-security
>bureaucrats, but by the German military and police, in collaboration
>with the Nazi party. If Soviet tyranny had rested solely on socialist
>economic institutions like collective farms, instead of military and
>police forces, the Soviet government would have been overthrown long
>before it was. If ever there were a proposition in social science that
>has been disproven, it is the conservative claim that the welfare
>state and civil rights enforcement lead to totalitarian tyranny all
>the time- or for that matter at any time.
> Michael Lind
*snort* Lind has allowed his falling out with his former
colleagues on the Right to weaken his grasp of some basic facts.
_All_ goverment is at bottom grounded in force. _No_ government has
ever "rested solely" in the hand holding the carrot. Those Soviet
peasants were herded onto those collective farms with confiscatory
taxes, or with guns; same tactic as were used for the peasants herded
off to extermination settlements above the arctic circle.
The Environmental Protection Agency may have the most
dedicated, knowledgeable, effective staff and programs in the
world--more so than the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, or anyone. But the
Sierra Club and Greenpeace will merely shower me with junk mail and
call me during dinner, whereas the EPA can use the powers of
government to confiscate my land, shutter my business, or imprison me,
if that's what they decide is best. One of the differences between
democratic government and totalitarian government is whether or not
the right to use that force is ceded to the government by the people,
or imposed on the people by the faction that has seized the
government.
Obquote:
Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia,
Communist China and dozens of other places around the
world did indeed create just such leviathan
government engines of "good." And the dreadful
history of the 20th century is in large part a
history of the terrible results of these collectivist
endeavors. Once respect for the individual is lost,
then what do a few million dead individuals matter?
Especially if their deaths were for the collective
good? Fifty million were killed in the war the Nazis
started. Soviet purges and persecutions killed 20
million more. As many as 30 million died in Chinese
famines caused by forced communization of
agriculture. That's 100 million dead from
collectivism, not counting Korea, Indochina, Angola,
Cuba, Nicaragua and so on.
Of course, a liberal would say that a sharing and
caring government doesn't have to turn out this way.
It could be something like Sweden. And there you
have it. The downside: 100 million dead. The
upside: Ace of Base, Volvos and suicide.
-- P. J. O'Rourke, "What I Believe"
--
bruce
The dignified don't even enter in the game.
--The Jam
Flash
> CLEARL...@aol.com (Flash) wrote in message news:<e808c4a5.02020...@posting.google.com>...
>
> > "What conservatives do behind closed doors is their business, but
> > I draw the line at giving them special rights such as where they live,
> > where they can work and being allowed to marry or adopt children."
> > --Rack Jite
> > http://rackjite.com/quotes.htm
>
> <G> I exchanged emails with Mr. Jite in December, in which he
> volunteered that I am a psychotic, hypocritical rightwing crazy
> radical. He put them up on his website, at
> http://www.rackjite.com/mail.htm, just Find "chollanamdo".
> Caution: there's obscene stuff elsewhere on the same page.
Well (as Groucho said to Harpo), now we're getting somewhere....
After 9 replies to your postings, I am finally "dignified" with a
direct response. And you say the Leftist intellectuals are elitist
snobs! No, you never answered directly, but buried in the FAQ thread
were posts that :
(1) said I was trying to "hitch [my] wagon to a star," and would be a
fool not to quit.
( Well let me stand back out of your shadow so I can get a better
look at you, a Titan of the Usenet.)
(2) used the word "queer(er)" twice in two lines, and
(3) took a stab at feminists.
But as soon as I posted a quote by Rackjite, not only does the
debate open up, it turns a shade nastier- you must really hate the
guy.
The "obscene" parts of the "Hatemail" page were mostly from
right-wing radicals, and since you think some of your readers can't
handle it, I'll post your exchange here :
-----
I see you've found nothing to write about for your website since
mid-October. I hope you're not dead or anything--I'm sure all those
waving flags and patriotic displays are a strain on the ol' ticker. Be
sure to elaborate on your initial claims about how crafty bin Laden
is, how Donald Rumsfield ought to resign, how we are marching into a
quagmire, and etc. It'll make good grist for my own internet
offerings. Just go to groups.google.com and type keywords "sanity
inspector radicals are
unaccountable for their actions" I'd love to add you to the thread.
--bruce
Reply: Wave dat flag, thump that bible and everything will be okay.
After a couple threats from NON radicals like you, I did stick flags
all over my yard. Now everything is fine.
I do wonder sometimes about this psychotic hypocrisy of you people,
the most rightwing crazy radicals around pointing fingers at everyone
else claiming they are the radicals. Is it that you are unable to see
it, or that you see it and just dont care?
--Rackjite
-----
"Psychotic" and "crazy" are a bit too strong, but come on, bruce,
443 posts, about half by you, and with the sole intent of pushing a
political agenda- this is not radical? And the thread is back where it
started 3 years ago.
This "war" thing has been a Republican windfall, and even as our
nation's fortunes get flushed down the toilet along with liberties,
corporate pigs get fatter.
My main gripe, though, is not so much your politics as it is the
pleasure you take in trying to rub someone's nose in it while gloating
about your new-found political fortune. That is almost as callous as
the (few) Arabs who celebrated after the 9-11 attack.
--Flash
The Sanity Inspector
with usenet this thought:
> Well (as Groucho said to Harpo), now we're getting somewhere....
>After 9 replies to your postings, I am finally "dignified" with a
>direct response. And you say the Leftist intellectuals are elitist
>snobs! No, you never answered directly, but buried in the FAQ thread
>were posts that :
>(1) said I was trying to "hitch [my] wagon to a star," and would be a
>fool not to quit.
> ( Well let me stand back out of your shadow so I can get a better
>look at you, a Titan of the Usenet.)
>(2) used the word "queer(er)" twice in two lines, and
>(3) took a stab at feminists.
> But as soon as I posted a quote by Rackjite, not only does the
>debate open up, it turns a shade nastier- you must really hate the
>guy.
"Hmm! I think it's trying to c-c-c-communicate!"
-- Jim Carrey as The Mask in _Mask_
I don't know how long you've been lurking before posting, but let me
bring you up to speed on a few customs here on a.q.
1) The FAQ thread is often enlivened with bogus quotes,
conglomerations of elements of different well-known aphorisms. Frank
Lynch does the bulk of them, in no small part because his are much
wittier than mine.
1.a) The "queer" usage is taken from a familiar quote by the
geneticist and children's author J. B. S. Haldane,
(http://pup.princeton.edu/titles/4618.html)
and in its original context had nothing to do with homosexuality. The
other part is from another familiar quote by Robert Brustein, which
does.
1.b.) The quotes I post to the FAQ thread are not "aimed" at anyone.
2. I have bumped into rackjite elsewhere on usenet, and even crossed
cursors with him a time or two. But hate? C'mon! It's only usenet;
why should I hate anyone here?
[...]
> "Psychotic" and "crazy" are a bit too strong, but come on, bruce,
>443 posts, about half by you, and with the sole intent of pushing a
>political agenda- this is not radical? And the thread is back where it
>started 3 years ago.
3. I keep most of my political posts segregated to two or three
threads, my little corners of the ng, in deference to anyone who may
not care to have the ng wallpapered with them. People can easily
access or killfile them, as those threads are known qualities.
> This "war" thing has been a Republican windfall, and even as our
>nation's fortunes get flushed down the toilet along with liberties,
>corporate pigs get fatter.
Those that didn't get dead in the attacks, you mean. And I _want_
Raytheon, Colt, Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and General Dynamics to get
fatter nowadays.
> My main gripe, though, is not so much your politics as it is the
>pleasure you take in trying to rub someone's nose in it while gloating
>about your new-found political fortune. That is almost as callous as
>the (few) Arabs who celebrated after the 9-11 attack.
> --Flash
I've little or no idea what you're talking about here, sorry. As
you've already noticed, I was posting this sort of stuff well before
the terrorist attacks.
As for the "few" (televised) celebrating Arabs, see here:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=95001194
Lurk or google a while longer, and I'm sure you'll find a thread of
mine with more rewarding content.
Obquote:
The very best have had their calumniators, the very worst
their panegyrists.
-- Charles Caleb Colton, _Lacon_, 1825
Flash
>
> I don't know how long you've been lurking before posting.....
Just long enough to see how the game was played: the basic idea
(in this thread) is to one-up the other guy with an apt, or
little-known quote, and if that fails dump a ton of political rhetoric
on 'em.
> 1) The FAQ thread is often enlivened with bogus quotes,
> conglomerations of elements of different well-known aphorisms. Frank
> Lynch does the bulk of them, in no small part because his are much
> wittier than mine.
Agreed.
> 1.a) The "queer" usage is taken from a familiar quote by the
> geneticist and children's author J. B. S. Haldane,
> (http://pup.princeton.edu/titles/4618.html)
> and in its original context had nothing to do with homosexuality. The
> other part is from another familiar quote by Robert Brustein, which
> does.
Yeah, I think I see what you did there- I'm sure Haldane would
like it.
> 1.b.) The quotes I post to the FAQ thread are not "aimed" at anyone.
Except queers, feminists, and possible detractors, and timing is
only coincidental.
> 2. I have bumped into rackjite elsewhere on usenet, and even crossed
> cursors with him a time or two. But hate? C'mon! It's only usenet;
> why should I hate anyone here?
Fair enough; how about "a condescending dislike" (of liberals)?
> > "Psychotic" and "crazy" are a bit too strong, but come on, bruce,
> >443 posts, about half by you, and with the sole intent of pushing a
> >political agenda- this is not radical? And the thread is back where it
> >started 3 years ago.
>
> 3. I keep most of my political posts segregated to two or three
> threads, my little corners of the ng, in deference to anyone who may
> not care to have the ng wallpapered with them. People can easily
> access or killfile them, as those threads are known qualities.
Yes, known for the _radicals_ that post there, and vent on the
other _radicals_. Tell you what: if you admit you are a radical, I'll
stop posting here. But you have to include a quote which determinately
and eloquently lays bare the epiphany (sheesh).
> > This "war" thing has been a Republican windfall, and even as our
> >nation's fortunes get flushed down the toilet along with liberties,
> >corporate pigs get fatter.
> Those that didn't get dead in the attacks, you mean. And I _want_
> Raytheon, Colt, Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and General Dynamics to get
> fatter nowadays.
I wouldn't worry about them, unless you own stock in them. If
they get in trouble, I'm sure the government will bail them out,
national security and all that.
> > My main gripe, though, is not so much your politics as it is the
> >pleasure you take in trying to rub someone's nose in it while gloating
> >about your new-found political fortune. That is almost as callous as
> >the (few) Arabs who celebrated after the 9-11 attack.
> > --Flash
>
> I've little or no idea what you're talking about here, sorry. As
> you've already noticed, I was posting this sort of stuff well before
> the terrorist attacks.
Another one of those "eye of the beholder" things, huh?
> Lurk or google a while longer, and I'm sure you'll find a thread of
> mine with more rewarding content.
Yeah, but not as much fun.
Obquote:
"If you insist too long that you're right, you're wrong."
--?
Obstinate quote:
"To sell something you have to someone who wants it-- that is not
business.
But to sell something you don't have to someone who doesn't want it--
_that_ is business.
--?
Frank Lynch
> Obquote:
> "If you insist too long that you're right, you're wrong."
>--?
Well, there is that line from Shakespeare about protesting too much...
SteveMR200
(The Sanity Inspector) wrote:
> "Hmm! I think it's trying to c-c-c-communicate!"
> -- Jim Carrey as The Mask in _Mask_
Demosthenes overcame and rendered more distinct his
inarticulate and stammering pronunciation by
speaking with pebbles in his mouth.
--Plutarch (46-120)
_Lives_, "Demosthenes"
--
Steve
The Sanity Inspector
shared with usenet this thought:
>On Tue, 05 Feb 2002 03:07:30 GMT, choll...@mindspring.com
Why don't you all just f-f-f-fade away?
And don't try to dig what we all s-s-s-say.
-- The Who, "My Generation"
The Sanity Inspector
aloof from the war, a desertion of France, a humble submission to the
will of Potsdam in the matter of Belgium's neutrality, one wishes to
speak fairly. Many of them are men who have gloatingly threatened us
with class warfare in this country--warfare in which rifles and
machine guns should be used to settle industrial disputes; they have
seemed to take a ghoulish pleasure in predicting a not-far distant
moment when Britons shall range themselves in organized combat, not
against an aggressive foreign enemy, but against their own kith and
kin. Never have they been more fluent with these hints and
incitements than during the present sessions; if a crop of violent
armed outbreaks does not spring up one of these days in this country
it will not be for lack of sowing of seed. Now these men read us
moral lectures on the wickedness of war. One is sometimes assured
that every man has at least two sides to his character; so one may
charitably assume that an honest quaker-like detestation of war and
bloodshed is really the motive which influences at the present moment
some of the men who have harped so assiduously on the idea--one might
almost say the ideal--of armed collision between the classes. There
are other men in the anti-war party who seemed to be obsessed with the
idea of snatching commerical advantages out of the situation,
regardless of other considerations which usually influence men of
honor.
-- Saki, of 1914, in Peter Vansittart's _Voices of the Great War_,
1981
Kevin G. Barkes
it.~Unknown
--
Regards,
KGB
-----
Kevin G. Barkes
Email: k...@kgb.com | Web: www.kgb.com
1512 Annette Avenue | South Park, Pennsylvania | 15129-9735
Phone: 312-925-9627
DCL Dialogue on line:
http://www.kgb.com/dcl.html
KGB Report http://www.kgb.com/kgbrep.shtml
Random Quotations Generator:
http://www.goodquotations.com
Over 7,000 quotations, with search capability.
blimp~
-- Andre Gide
Have a nice day!
* Kevin G. Barkes Sun, 10 Feb 2002 at 22:48 GMT :
> Associate with those who seek the truth; avoid those who have found
> it.~Unknown
--
/blimp~/ +++blimp+...@arbornet.org+++
ps. No personal replies please. Use the usenet.
Kevin G. Barkes
found
> > it.~Unknown
"blimp~" <blimp+...@arbornet.org> wrote in message
news:blimp.2002021...@arbornet.org...
> Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.
> -- Andre Gide
Thank you! I had that in my database, but was quoting from memory.
"I have a mind like a steel trap. Things wander in and get
mangled."~Unknown (of course)
Flash
> That's 100 million dead from
> collectivism, not counting Korea, Indochina, Angola,
> Cuba, Nicaragua and so on.
>
> Of course, a liberal would say that a sharing and
> caring government doesn't have to turn out this way.
> It could be something like Sweden. And there you
> have it. The downside: 100 million dead. The
> upside: Ace of Base, Volvos and suicide.
> -- P. J. O'Rourke, "What I Believe"
-----
Of the countries in Europe which have moved into the Socialist
camp, the two which concern us most are Russia and Great Britain. Each
adopted Socialism by a different route; each organized its Socialist
society upon a different model. But both are Socialist. Russia was
conquered overnight by a sudden, violent revolutionary convulsion.
Great Britain moved into Socialism a little at a time, without
bloodshed, in a journey that took almost 40 years.
We are following in the footsteps of Great Britain. We are much
further along the road than we suspect. If we do not clearly recognize
that fact and abandon that fatal road, we shall inevitably, perhaps in
less than a decade, be in the condition the British now find
themselves in.
--John T. Flynn (from _The Road Ahead_, 1950)
-----
"Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, life goes on..."
--The Beatles
--Flash
Flash
> *snort* Lind has allowed his falling out with his former
> colleagues on the Right to weaken his grasp of some basic facts.
[....]
-----
.....why have the mainstream conservatives who broke with the
conspiracy-mongering leader of the John Birch Society in the 1960s
apologized for the even more extremist leader of the Christian
Coalition in the 1990s? The difference, it seems, is numbers....
Shortly after I published my first criticism of Robertson in _The
New Republic_ in 1992, when I was still a conservative in good
standing, I received a call from a leading conservative editor with
whom I was then on cordial terms. He wanted to know why I was so
critical of the religious right. I told him that its leader was a
crackpot who claimed that Jews and Freemasons were secretly running
the world. What more reason did anybody need?.....this editor
proceeded to explain that the 12 percent of the electorate who
identified with the religious right had to be courted if the
Republican party were to build "the natural conservative majority in
this country."
--Michael Lind, (_Up From Conservatism_, 1996)
-----
"The Gospel train is coming....
now don't you want to go?
And leave this world of sorrow...
and trouble here below."
--trad. hymn
-- Flash
The Sanity Inspector
with usenet this thought:
>choll...@mindspring.com (The Sanity Inspector) wrote in message news:<3c5ca17b...@news.mindspring.com>...
>
>> *snort* Lind has allowed his falling out with his former
>> colleagues on the Right to weaken his grasp of some basic facts.
>[....]
>
>-----
> .....why have the mainstream conservatives who broke with the
>conspiracy-mongering leader of the John Birch Society in the 1960s
>apologized for the even more extremist leader of the Christian
>Coalition in the 1990s? The difference, it seems, is numbers....
[...]
The upshot is that if from time to time you express a mild
distaste for slave-labour camps or one-candidate elections, you are
either insane or actuated by the worst motives. In the same way, when
Henry Wallace is asked by a newspaper interviewer why he issues
falsified versions of his speeches to the press, he replies: "So you
are one of these people who are clamouring for war with Russia."
--George Orwell
Nathanael Thompson
strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks." Milton's words
perfectly describe America today. After the horror of September 11 the world has
seen America gather its strength, summon its allies and proceed to wage war
halfway across the globe against its enemy - and ours."
--Margaret Thatcher
"Islamism is the new bolshevism"
The New York Times (2/11/2002)
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/11/opinion/11THAT.html
The Guardian (2/12/2002)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,648833,00.html
"Hirohito, 'long with Hitler, will be ridin' on a rail
Mussolini'll beg for mercy; as a leader he has failed
There'll be no time for pity when the screamin' eagles flies
It will be the end of Axis, they must answer with their lives."
--Red Foley
"Smoke on the Water" (1944)
-+-
Nate Thompson
"When in Rome, do as you done in Milledgeville."
--Flannery O'Conner
The Sanity Inspector
whose primary author is the United States is, in fact, an organizing
theme of the contemporary political left. "Where is the acknowledgment
that this was not a ‘cowardly’ attack on ‘civilization’ or ‘liberty’
or ‘humanity’ or ‘the free world’"—declared the writer Susan Sontag,
speaking for this faction—"but an attack on the world’s
self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific
American alliances and actions? How many citizens are aware of the
ongoing American bombing of Iraq?" (Was Susan Sontag unaware that Iraq
was behind the first World Trade Center attack? That Iraq had
attempted to swallow Kuwait and was a regional aggressor and sponsor
of terror? That Iraq had expelled UN arms inspectors—in violation of
the terms of its peace—who were there to prevent it from developing
chemical, biological and nuclear weapons? Was she unaware that Iraq
was a sponsor of international terror and posed an ongoing threat to
others, including the country in which she lived?) [...]
The reason no one invoked "root causes" to explain the
Oklahoma City bombing was simply because Timothy McVeigh was not a
leftist. Nor did he claim to be acting in behalf of "social
justice"—the historical code for totalitarian causes. In an address to
Congress that defined America’s response to September 11, President
Bush sagaciously observed, "We have seen their kind before. They are
the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By
sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions, by abandoning
every value except the will to power, they follow in the path of
fascism, Nazism and totalitarianism."
-- David Horowitz, "How The Left Undermined America’s
Security", FrontPageMagazine.com, February 18, 2002
The Sanity Inspector
idealistic. He wanted to be on the side of right. But in his
experience and reading, the United States was rarely in the right. It
was the oppressor, the enslaver and the imperialist. Victims were in
the right. Victims had all the prestige. Theirs was the team to
belong to. [...]
Though it is rarely admitted openly, most mosques in America
are deeply political and bitterly anti-American. For a boy from a
super liberal family, that would be no barrier. Many liberals despise
patriotism as ignorant and xenophobic. As Katha Pollitt of the Nation
magazine memorably put it when her daughter asked to display a flag
after September 11: "Definitely not. The flag stands for jingoism, and
vengeance, and war." [...]
On what grounds could the Lindhs have objected? Could they
have argued that Christianity had a superior spiritual message? That
would be ethnocentrism. Could they object that Arab nations are
notoriously anti-American? They weren't wild about America themselves.
Could they maintain that parents have authority over minor children
because they are parents? Not the Lindhs. Their highest value was
"choice."
-- Mona Charen,
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20020218-18088176.htm
Frank Lynch
Sanity Inspector) wrote:
> The reason no one invoked "root causes" to explain the
>Oklahoma City bombing was simply because Timothy McVeigh was not a
>leftist. Nor did he claim to be acting in behalf of "social
>justice"—the historical code for totalitarian causes. In an address to
>Congress that defined America’s response to September 11, President
>Bush sagaciously observed, "We have seen their kind before. They are
>the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By
>sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions, by abandoning
>every value except the will to power, they follow in the path of
>fascism, Nazism and totalitarianism."
> -- David Horowitz, "How The Left Undermined America’s
>Security", FrontPageMagazine.com, February 18, 2002
Methiks Horowitz is being disingenuous by saying no one invoked root
causes for the Oklahoma City bombing. There was widespread discussion
of Waco, "jack booted thugs" etc. and their impact on McVeigh's
thinking. It may have been at low levels, and the vast majority of
Americans rejected these as an excuse, but they were there.
Bruce, I think you bear responsibility when you post quotations like
this. If you don't provide a balancing opinion, or weigh is evidence
as you post, it appears as if you agree with this.
Ted Clayton
Fortunately some are willing to act in a pro-American way: "We should
invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to
Christianity." -- Ann Coulter
Ted
Ted Clayton
>
> On Mon, 18 Feb 2002 14:35:23 GMT, choll...@mindspring.com (The
> Sanity Inspector) wrote:
>
> > The reason no one invoked "root causes" to explain the
> >Oklahoma City bombing was simply because Timothy McVeigh was not a
> >leftist. Nor did he claim to be acting in behalf of "social
> >justice"—the historical code for totalitarian causes. In an address to
> >Congress that defined America’s response to September 11, President
> >Bush sagaciously observed, "We have seen their kind before. They are
> >the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By
> >sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions, by abandoning
> >every value except the will to power, they follow in the path of
> >fascism, Nazism and totalitarianism."
> > -- David Horowitz, "How The Left Undermined America’s
> >Security", FrontPageMagazine.com, February 18, 2002
>
> Methiks Horowitz is being disingenuous by saying no one invoked root
> causes for the Oklahoma City bombing. There was widespread discussion
> of Waco, "jack booted thugs" etc. and their impact on McVeigh's
> thinking. It may have been at low levels, and the vast majority of
> Americans rejected these as an excuse, but they were there.
It's actually even worse than this - it was the *left* that invoked root
causes like talk radio, conservative hatred of government, Newt Gingrich
and Rush Limbaugh's propaganda, etc. and the *right* that denied that
there were any connections between McVeigh and anything else.
I've actually been waiting for someone on the right to explain to me why
McVeigh was a lone individual not connected to any deeper causes or
ideologies while Lindh is clearly the result of liberal thinking who
could hardly have done anything else but betray his country.
ObQuote:
"As a war veteran and foot soldier in the army of white supremacy,
Timothy McVeigh attached himself to the militia movement, selling
weapons, exchanging information, and gaining reassurance that a massive
confrontation was indeed brewing between "patriotic Americans" and an
illegitimate state. [If this isn't anti-American, what is it?]
What does all of this obsessive madness have to do with today's
triumphant conservatism? Absolutely nothing, to judge by responses to
Clinton's timid suggestion that "purveyors of hatred and division"
fostered a climate that helped facilitate the Oklahoma bombing. George
Will found the president's words "contemptible." William Safire said
that Clinton was indulging in a "form of extremism." Rush Limbaugh
blamed liberals for whipping up "national hysteria." Gingrich, for his
part, said that efforts to link his self-proclaimed "revolution" with
the Oklahoma bombing were "grotesque and offensive." For these critics,
the perpetrators of the Oklahoma attack are merely lawbreakers.
"Responsibility rests on the criminals themselves," intoned Safire, "not
on chosen motivators or root causes.'"
http://www.wpunj.edu/newpol/issue19/worces19.htm (from 1995)
Ted
alohacyberian
<mh927u8a3vc4lr1cc...@4ax.com>...
post a "balancing" quote and it's vouchsafe had he only posted Susan
Sontag's quote, you wouldn't have responded in kind. KM
OBQ:
There's not the least thing can be said or done, but people will talk and
find fault.
~ Miguel de Cervantes
alohacyberian
internationalism."
~ George Orwell
--
(-:alohacyberian:-) At my website there are 3000 live cameras or
visit NASA, play games, read jokes, send greeting cards & connect
to CNN news, NBA, the White House, Academy Awards or learn all
about Hawaii, Israel and more: http://keith.martin.home.att.net/
The Sanity Inspector <choll...@mindspring.com> wrote in article
<3c711758...@news.mindspring.com>...
The Sanity Inspector
wants a word that pays more tribute to the complexity of its mistakes.
Even if they now see their early values as flawed, they want them
recognised as being morally complex. None of them, including pacifists
and sentimentalists, wants former dreams or present misconceptions
trampled by the unambiguous phrase "axis of evil".
-- Barbara Amiel, "America's war on terrorism is a fight for all
democracies", http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2002/02/18/do1801.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2002/02/18/ixopinion.html
Frank Lynch
<alohac...@att.net> wrote:
>Frank Lynch <frank.lync...@verizon.net> wrote in article
><mh927u8a3vc4lr1cc...@4ax.com>...
>> On Mon, 18 Feb 2002 14:35:23 GMT, choll...@mindspring.com (The
>> Sanity Inspector) wrote:
>>
>> Bruce, I think you bear responsibility when you post quotations like
>> this. If you don't provide a balancing opinion, or weigh is evidence
>> as you post, it appears as if you agree with this.
>>
>Give me a break. You don't request that anyone else who posts a quote also
>post a "balancing" quote and it's vouchsafe had he only posted Susan
>Sontag's quote, you wouldn't have responded in kind. KM
Oh, it's not the position Horowitz takes that I object to, it's the
absence of rigor in his reasoning. If someone posts ridiculous
comments of others, it would be helpful if they indicated they
recognize how ridiculous it is. Otherwise I'm inclined to lump the
poster and the source together as fools. I think more higfhly of TSI
than that.
ObQuote:
Nothing is more common than to find men, whose works are now totally
neglected, mentioned with praises by their contemporaries as the
oracles of their age, and the legislators of science.
-- Samuel Johnson: Rambler #106
Graham J Weeks
<frank.lync...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> ObQuote:
> Nothing is more common than to find men, whose works are now totally
> neglected, mentioned with praises by their contemporaries as the
> oracles of their age, and the legislators of science.
> -- Samuel Johnson: Rambler #106
>
Does SJ give any examples?
It strikes me that this quote fits well under the thread on change.
I also noe that some who are still rightly regarded as "oracles of their
age, and the legislators of science" got it wrong sometines.
`X-rays will prove to be a hoax.
Lord Kelvin (1824-1907) in Robert Youngson, Scientific Blunders: A brief
history of how wrong scientists can sometimes be, Robinson,1998
I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than
ballooning, or of the expectation of good results from any of the trials
we hear of.'' Lord Kelvin (1824-1907), writing to Baden-Powell in 1896 in
Robert Youngson, Scientific Blunders: A brief history of how wrong
scientists can sometimes be, Robinson,1998
Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. Lord Kelvin,1895.
Radio has no future. -- Lord Kelvin, 1897, on Marconi's experiments.
Trust you will avoid the gigantic mistake of alternating current.'- Lord
Kelvin (1824-1907), writing to Niagara Falls Power Company.
War is a relic of babarism probably destined to become as obsolete as
duelling.-- Lord Kelvin (1824-1907).
--
Graham J Weeks M.R.Pharm.S.
http://www.weeks-g.dircon.co.uk/ My homepage of quotations
http://www.grace.org.uk/churches/ealing.html Our church
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Sanctify yourself and you will sanctify society. - Francis of Assisi
--------------------------------------------------------------------
JT Abar
<frank.lync...@verizon.net> wrote:
>Oh, it's not the position Horowitz takes that I object to, it's the
>absence of rigor in his reasoning. If someone posts ridiculous
>comments of others, it would be helpful if they indicated they
>recognize how ridiculous it is. Otherwise I'm inclined to lump the
>poster and the source together as fools. I think more higfhly of TSI
>than that.
Why is it that you fail to realize how ridiculous your reasoning is?
You are voicing your opinion of Horowitz as if you expect the world to
agree with you and you actually think somebody cares what you think of
TSI. That makes as much sense as your caring about what I think of
you or you think of me.
ObQuote:
Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are
shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.
- William F. Buckley-
JT Abar
OFS
Frank Lynch
Weeks) wrote:
>In article <v1s27u887ph59jmb1...@4ax.com>, Frank Lynch
><frank.lync...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> ObQuote:
>> Nothing is more common than to find men, whose works are now totally
>> neglected, mentioned with praises by their contemporaries as the
>> oracles of their age, and the legislators of science.
>> -- Samuel Johnson: Rambler #106
>>
>
>Does SJ give any examples?
>
>It strikes me that this quote fits well under the thread on change.
>
>I also noe that some who are still rightly regarded as "oracles of their
>age, and the legislators of science" got it wrong sometines.
>
Johnosn's essays usually don't name examples unless he is doing
detailed literary criticism. This essay as a whole doesn't do that,
but discusses the fleetingness of literary fame and why libraries are
stuffed with so much "who cares?" content.
SFAIK Rambler 106 is not available in its entirety on the web. You
can find a number of snippets from it if you go to my site and search
on 'rambler 106'
Here's another - -
"Among those whose reputation is exhausted in a short time by its own
luxuriance are the writers who take advantage of present incidents or
characters which strongly interest the passions, and engage universal
attention. It is not difficult to obtain readers, when we discuss a
question which every one is desirous to understand, which is debated
in every assembly, and has divided the nation into parties; or when
we display the faults or virtues of him whose public conduct has made
almost every man his enemy or his friend."
-- Samuel Johnson: Rambler #106
Frank Lynch
Frank Lynch
>On Mon, 18 Feb 2002 21:25:19 GMT, Frank Lynch
><frank.lync...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>>Oh, it's not the position Horowitz takes that I object to, it's the
>>absence of rigor in his reasoning. If someone posts ridiculous
>>comments of others, it would be helpful if they indicated they
>>recognize how ridiculous it is. Otherwise I'm inclined to lump the
>>poster and the source together as fools. I think more higfhly of TSI
>>than that.
>
>Why is it that you fail to realize how ridiculous your reasoning is?
>You are voicing your opinion of Horowitz as if you expect the world to
>agree with you and you actually think somebody cares what you think of
>TSI. That makes as much sense as your caring about what I think of
>you or you think of me.
>
It's actually simpler than that. I am willing to make a distinction
between Horowitz' opinions and TSI's opinons, provided TSI delivers
the tools. I don't particularly care what *you* think I think of TSI.
I also don't care what you think of me. The positions are not
inconsistent.
As for Horowitz, his opinions are frequently indefensible because he
shoots from the hip, without rigor. I am more than happy to provide
the counterarguments to his knee-jerk drivel. I am sorry that it is
necessary, because it appears as if his commentary is being posted
with little thought.
ObQuote:
"It is indeed the fate of controvertists, even when they contend for
philosophical or theological truth, to be soon laid aside and
slighted. Either the question is decided, and there is no more place
for doubt and opposition; or mankind despair of understanding it, and
grow weary of disturbance, content themselves with quiet ignorance,
and refuse to be harassed with labours which they have no hope of
recompensing with knowledge."
The Sanity Inspector
<frank.lync...@verizon.net> shared with usenet this thought:
>Bruce, I think you bear responsibility when you post quotations like
>this. If you don't provide a balancing opinion, or weigh is evidence
>as you post, it appears as if you agree with this.
Just call me Dr. Sanity and Mr. Hyde!
Obquote:
Sometimes we're exchanging ideas, and sometimes we're just
spraymarking.
-- Yr Obt Svt
Frank Lynch
Sanity Inspector) wrote:
> Just call me Dr. Sanity and Mr. Hyde!
Well, then Dr...
Physician, heal thyself
-- Luke 4:23
>
>Obquote:
> Sometimes we're exchanging ideas, and sometimes we're just
>spraymarking.
> -- Yr Obt Svt
ObQuote:
Servant of God, well done! well hast thou fought
The better fight, who single hast maintained
Against revolted multitudes the cause of truth.
John Milton, 1608-1674, Paradise Lost., 6
(found that in an old post of Graham's, in a 1998 thread concerning
balance in the group... BTW, thread starts at
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl1503983503d&hl=en&selm=6k292m%24lnv%241%40bertrand.ccs.carleton.ca
alohacyberian
liberal?
OBQ:
Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if
she had laid an asteroid.
~ Mark Twain
--
(-:alohacyberian:-) At my website there are 3000 live cameras or
visit NASA, play games, read jokes, send greeting cards & connect
to CNN news, NBA, the White House, Academy Awards or learn all
about Hawaii, Israel and more: http://keith.martin.home.att.net/
Frank Lynch <frank.lync...@verizon.net> wrote in article
<egj47usnd7fvfa3fv...@4ax.com>...
alohacyberian
discovered I already had it! ;-) KM
OBQ:
It is a general error to imagine the loudest complainers for the public to
be the most anxious for its welfare.
~ Edmund Burke
--
(-:alohacyberian:-) At my website there are 3000 live cameras or
visit NASA, play games, read jokes, send greeting cards & connect
to CNN news, NBA, the White House, Academy Awards or learn all
about Hawaii, Israel and more: http://keith.martin.home.att.net/
JT Abar <jta...@lucent.com> wrote in article
<3c7232fa...@nntp.cb.lucent.com>...
alohacyberian
yourself don't post opposing quotes to "balance" opinions. As I stated,
had he only posted the Susan Sontag part of the quote, you'd have remained
silent. (And possibly gloated) The person who posts the quote doesn't
necessarily condemn or condone its words, but merely offers it as something
to consider or think about. I certainly don't agree with every quote I
post, in fact sometimes I violently disagree with them. Apologies to those
who would stereotype Bruce or anyone who posts quotes that offend their
sensitivities and/or prejudices. KM
OBQ:
Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.
~ George Santayana
--
(-:alohacyberian:-) At my website there are 3000 live cameras or
visit NASA, play games, read jokes, send greeting cards & connect
to CNN news, NBA, the White House, Academy Awards or learn all
about Hawaii, Israel and more: http://keith.martin.home.att.net/
Frank Lynch <frank.lync...@verizon.net> wrote in article
<v1s27u887ph59jmb1...@4ax.com>...
> On Mon, 18 Feb 2002 20:08:26 GMT, "alohacyberian"
> <alohac...@att.net> wrote:
>
> >Frank Lynch <frank.lync...@verizon.net> wrote in article
> ><mh927u8a3vc4lr1cc...@4ax.com>...
> >> On Mon, 18 Feb 2002 14:35:23 GMT, choll...@mindspring.com (The
> >> Sanity Inspector) wrote:
> >>
> >> Bruce, I think you bear responsibility when you post quotations like
> >> this. If you don't provide a balancing opinion, or weigh is evidence
> >> as you post, it appears as if you agree with this.
> >>
> >Give me a break. You don't request that anyone else who posts a quote
to also
alohacyberian
<weeks-g-1902...@bh-cw31-006.pool.dircon.co.uk>...
see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocating its crew and
floundering at
sea."
~ H. G. Wells, _Anticipations_, 1901
"And for the rest, those swarms of black, and brown, and dirty-white, and
yellow people, who do not come into the new needs of efficiency? Well, the
world is a world, not a charitable institution, and I take it they will
have to go. The whole tenor and meaning of the world, as I see it, is that
they have to go. So far as they fail to develop sane, vigrous, and
distinctive personalities for the great world of the future, it is their
portion to die out and disappear."
~ H. G. Wells, _Anticipations_, 1901
"You mean people are going to sit at home and watch little pictures in a
box? I don't believe so."
~ Don Hewitt, 1948, of television. He later produced "60 Minutes" for
CBS
"The motor-car will help solve the congestion of traffic."
~ A. J. Balfour, c.1910
"In Europe, the epoch of conquest is over, and save in the Balkans and
perhaps on the fringes of the Austrian and Russian empires, it is as
certain as anything in politics that the frontiers of our national states
are finally drawn. My own belief is that there will be no more wars among
the six Great Powers."
~ H. N. Brailsford, 1913
There's talk of war. It will never happen. The Germans haven't the credit.
~ The Governor of the Bank of England, 1914
"Nobody fears that a Japanese fleet could deal an unexpected blow on our
Pacific possession...Radio makes surprise impossible."
~ Josephus Daniels, (1922) Former U.S. secretary of the navy, 19 years
before Japan surprised the U.S. at Pearl Harbor.
JT Abar
<frank.lync...@verizon.net> wrote:
>As for Horowitz, his opinions are frequently indefensible because he
>shoots from the hip, without rigor. I am more than happy to provide
>the counterarguments to his knee-jerk drivel. I am sorry that it is
>necessary, because it appears as if his commentary is being posted
>with little thought.
You seem to have this confused with a political discussion group. We
post quotations that inspire us, that's really the only thought that
need go into it. As for your opinions on Horowitz (or any other
political commentator) your reaction reminds me of a famous quote
(how appropriate, hehe):
"Those who can, do. Those who can't become teachers, theatre critics
or post on alt.quotations."
ObQuote:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the
strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done
better.The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena;
whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives
valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the
great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy
cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high
achievement; and who at the worst,if he fails, at least fails while
daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and
timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
-- Teddy Roosevelt
>
>ObQuote:
>"It is indeed the fate of controvertists, even when they contend for
>philosophical or theological truth, to be soon laid aside and
>slighted. Either the question is decided, and there is no more place
>for doubt and opposition; or mankind despair of understanding it, and
>grow weary of disturbance, content themselves with quiet ignorance,
>and refuse to be harassed with labours which they have no hope of
>recompensing with knowledge."
> -- Samuel Johnson: Rambler #106
>
>Frank Lynch
>The Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page is at:
>http://www.samueljohnson.com/
JT Abar
OFS
Ted Clayton
>
> Isn't Johnson doing a splendid job of describing the modern political
> liberal?
> OBQ:
> Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if
> she had laid an asteroid.
> ~ Mark Twain
> > ObQuote:
> > "It is indeed the fate of controvertists, even when they contend for
> > philosophical or theological truth, to be soon laid aside and
> > slighted. Either the question is decided, and there is no more place
> > for doubt and opposition; or mankind despair of understanding it, and
> > grow weary of disturbance, content themselves with quiet ignorance,
> > and refuse to be harassed with labours which they have no hope of
> > recompensing with knowledge."
> > -- Samuel Johnson: Rambler #106
This does indeed describe the modern liberal, who is interested in
raising arguments about things and who is ignored or slighted. A
willingness to content oneself with quiet ignorance seems to describe
the modern conservative. Consider the responses to September 11: it is
liberals who are interested in learning why this event happened, to what
extent American foreign policy might have contributed to it, and how it
might be prevented in the future, and conservatives who are interested
in simply labelling terrorists as evil and being done with it, and
branding those who think it might be worth looking at deeper causes as
at best fools and at worst traitors. It is those in academia who (as
conservatives tirelessly point out) tend to be liberal and who have a
particular interest in finding truth and the root causes for events who
have been particularly targeted for abuse. (It shouldn't have to be
pointed out that one can believe that terrorists are evil and still be
interested in root causes, but apparently it does).
There is a parallel in domestic issues as well: which group is
interested in discussing why some people commit crimes, or why some
people are poor, and which group says it's because they're evil and lazy
and is content to leave it at that?
A really sound Burkean conservatism (and I have a lot of respect for
Burke) would be one that allows that there are root causes for things
and figures out what they are (in the _Reflections_ Burke analyzes
France's financial condition in some detail, using statistical data and
economic theory), but reminds us that those causes don't necessarily
respond to human intervention and that we should only change things
slowly and with great deliberation beforehand.
I freely acknowledge that there are plenty of liberals who are content
with quiet ignorance, and that there are many conservatives who ask
questions that need to be asked. But in general it seems to me that
it's conservatism that is comfortable with not asking questions, and
indeed prefers that, since asking questions inevitably leads to the
possibility of change. (Note that this distinguishes them from
reactionaries).
ObQuote:
Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are
conservatives. - John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
(Quote chosen for appropriateness to thread and not out of sympathy with
the position expressed or a desire to label any individual on this NG or
elsewhere as stupid)
Ted
Frank Lynch
<alohac...@att.net> wrote:
>Isn't Johnson doing a splendid job of describing the modern political
>liberal?
>OBQ:
>Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if
>she had laid an asteroid.
> ~ Mark Twain
Fairly put - - it would seem that many of the issues raised by
traditional liberals have been decided. However, let's add an
emoticon - - :-) The wall is down, of course, but so much remains
to be done before anyone can be content that all the questions have
been decided.
ObQuote:
"Life is not long, and too much of it should not be spent in idle
deliberation how it shall be spent: deliberation, which those who
begin it by prudence, and continue it with subtilty, must, after long
expence of thought, conclude by chance. To prefer one future mode of
life to another, upon just reasons, requires faculties which it has
not pleased our Creator to give us."
-- Samuel Johnson (Boswell: Life of Johnson)
Frank Lynch
>You seem to have this confused with a political discussion group. We
>post quotations that inspire us, that's really the only thought that
>need go into it. As for your opinions on Horowitz (or any other
>political commentator) your reaction reminds me of a famous quote
>(how appropriate, hehe):
>
>"Those who can, do. Those who can't become teachers, theatre critics
>or post on alt.quotations."
>
So, I guess you were -really-, heavy duty inspired by that Thomas
Sowell quotation you posted, which was so inconsistent?
BTW, you happen to be reading a thread which is pretty given to
politics. The quotes in this thread are rarely, if ever, inspiring.
ObQuote:
"...But the greater, far the greater number of those who rave and rail
[against the government], and inquire and accuse, neither suspect nor
fear, nor care for the publick; but hope to force their way to
riches, by virulence and invective, and are vehement and clamorous,
only that they may be sooner hired to be silent."
-- Samuel Johnson: The Patriot
Frank Lynch
<alohac...@att.net> wrote:
>You didn't take issue with Horowitz, you took issue with Bruce, while you,
>yourself don't post opposing quotes to "balance" opinions. As I stated,
>had he only posted the Susan Sontag part of the quote, you'd have remained
>silent. (And possibly gloated) The person who posts the quote doesn't
>necessarily condemn or condone its words, but merely offers it as something
>to consider or think about. I certainly don't agree with every quote I
>post, in fact sometimes I violently disagree with them. Apologies to those
>who would stereotype Bruce or anyone who posts quotes that offend their
>sensitivities and/or prejudices. KM
I could be wrong, but your response makes me think you think I agree
with Sontag, or side with her. Otherwise, I'm not sure why you think
I would be silent.
But I will confess that I read some quotations TSI posts with greater
attention than others.
I feel I don't need to ask Bruce to clarify his feelings re Sontag's
opinions because that's usually indicative by the thread in which he
posts them. For instance, if Bruce puts a Sontag quote in this
thread, it suggests (to me) that he considers her a radical with
unaccountable actions. It's less clear (to me) with a quote from
Horowitz when placed in this thread - - is Bruce putting it here as a
demonstration that others also find some radicals unaccountable? Is
Bruce saying, this is how I feel?
I was merely asking for clarity because Horowitz' thinking needs to be
challenged on occasion. Simply putting it in this thread doesn't
challenge it - - but putting a Sontag quote in this thread implicitly
challenges its validity.
If Bruce sees no problems with Horowitz' thinking, then I also have to
challenge Bruce. Hence, my request that he try to be more clear.
As for my failure to put balancing quotes in my threads, call me on it
when it happens, if the context of the thread isn't apparent. But I
would hope that if I put Falwell's post Sep 11 comments in a thread
called "Conservatives Are Unaccountable For Their Actions," that you
wouldn't need a roadmap.
ObQuote:
"Perhaps the excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the
expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension
of some obvious and useful truth in a few words. We frequently fall
into error and folly, not because the true principles of action are
not known, but because, for a time, they are not remembered; and he
may therefore be justly numbered among the benefactors of mankind who
contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may be
easily impressed on the memory, and taught by frequent recollection to
recur habitually to the mind."
-- Samuel Johnson: Rambler #175
Nathanael Thompson
If you wish to challenge Horowitz's thinking, he welcomes it:
http://letters.frontpagemag.com/cgi-bin/inyourface.pl?f=comment
"If all pulled in one direction, the world would keel over."
--Yiddish proverb
-+-
Nate Thompson
"When in Rome, do as you done in Milledgeville."
--Flannery O'Conner
"I feel ill at ease with that little word 'We.'
No man is at one with another, you see.
Behind all agreement lies something amiss.
All seeming accord cloaks a lurking abyss."
--Albert Einstein
quoted in _The New Yorker_, 6/20/94, p.93
Frank Lynch
Thompson<amer...@VnewsVrangerV.com> wrote:
>Hi Frank,
>
>If you wish to challenge Horowitz's thinking, he welcomes it:
>http://letters.frontpagemag.com/cgi-bin/inyourface.pl?f=comment
>
bookmarked. Thanks!
Nathanael Thompson
On Sept. 11, Wurtzel, who usually gets up at the crack of noon, was asleep when
her mother called to say a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center.
"My main thought was: What a pain in the ass."
Her apartment was at ground zero, on Greenwich Street, south of Chambers. She
could see the twin towers from her window. Or she could have, if she had
bothered to get out of bed.
Then the second plane hit, and more people called. Wurtzel finally hauled
herself up in time to watch one tower collapse. "I had not the slightest
emotional reaction," she recalls. "I thought: 'This is a really strange art
project.' "
Wurtzel takes a tiny bite of monkfish and ponders the worst terrorist attack in
New York's history. "It was a most amazing sight in terms of sheer elegance. It
fell like water. It just slid, like a turtleneck going over someone's head."
She takes another bite of monkfish. "It was just beautiful. You can't tell
people this. I'm talking to you because you're Canadian."
Then her windows blew in. Airplane chunks landed on her roof. Wurtzel crawled
into the basement and was later removed from the building. To this day, she
can't understand why everyone else was so upset. "I just felt, like, everyone
was overreacting. People were going on about it. That part really annoyed me."
Wurtzel became hysterical only when she realized she wouldn't be allowed back to
fetch her cat. She used her psychiatrist's husband, who is head of the New York
City hospital association, to get her past police lines.
"I cried about all the animals left there in the neighbourhood," Wurtzel says.
But she has remained dry-eyed about all the human victims. "I think I have some
kind of emotional block. I think I should join some support group for people who
were there."
Asked if she has written about her eyewitness account of the World Trade Center
attack, Wurtzel tosses her blond mane. "You know what was really funny? After
the fact, like, all these different writers were writing these things about what
it was like, and nobody bothered to call me."
--Elizabeth Wurtzel, (author of _Prozac Nation_)
Canada's Globe & Mail
Saturday, February 16, 2002 – Page F2
Flash
Unless one recognizes that Americanism is a political creed, much
like Socialism, Communism, or Fascism, much of what is currently
happening in this country must remain unintelligible. Our national
rituals are largely identified with reiterating the accepted values of
a political value system, not solely or even primarily of national
patriotism. For example, Washington's Birthday, Lincoln's Birthday,
and the fourth of July are ideological celebrations comparable to May
Day or Lenin's Birthday in the Communist world. Only Memorial day and
Veteran's Day may be placed in the category of purely patriotic, as
distinct from ideological, celebrations. Consequently, more than any
other democratic country, the United States makes ideological
conformity one of the conditions for good citizenship. And it is this
emphasis on ideological conformity to presumably common political
values that legitimatizes the hunt for "un-Americans" in our midst.
-----
--Semour Martin Lipset (1955)
"And so you ask, 'What about the innocent bystanders?' But we are
in a time of revolution. If you are a bystander, you are not
innocent."
--Abbie Hoffman
".....Every nation in every region now has a decision to make:
Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.
--George W. Bush
( Just a comparison, not an equation! )
--Flash
Frank Lynch
> "And so you ask, 'What about the innocent bystanders?' But we are
>in a time of revolution. If you are a bystander, you are not
>innocent."
>--Abbie Hoffman
>
> ".....Every nation in every region now has a decision to make:
>Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.
>--George W. Bush
>
> ( Just a comparison, not an equation! )
>--Flash
"But there are some who lament the state of the poor Bostonians,
because they cannot all be supposed to have committed acts of
rebellion, yet all are involved in the penalty imposed. [...] That the
innocent should be confounded with the guilty, is, undoubtedly, an
evil; but it is an evil which no care or caution can prevent.
National crimes require national punishments, of which many must
necessarily have their part, who have not incurred them by personal
guilt. If rebels should fortify a town, the cannon of lawful authority
will endanger, equally, the harmless burghers and the criminal
garrison. [...] This infliction of promiscuous evil may, therefore, be
lamented, but cannot be blamed. The power of lawful government must
be maintained; and the miseries which rebellion produces, can be
charged only on the rebels."
-- Samuel Johnson: The Patriot
"That the same vengeance involves the innocent and guilty, is an evil
to be lamented; but human caution cannot prevent it, nor human power
always redress it. To bring misery on those who have not deserved it,
is part of the aggregated guilt of rebellion."
-- Samuel Johnson: Taxation No Tyranny
The Sanity Inspector
shared with usenet this thought:
[...]
[Lots of discussion follows, with a coupla fairly pithy quotes at the
end.]
>This does indeed describe the modern liberal, who is interested in
>raising arguments about things and who is ignored or slighted. A
>willingness to content oneself with quiet ignorance seems to describe
>the modern conservative. Consider the responses to September 11: it is
>liberals who are interested in learning why this event happened, to what
>extent American foreign policy might have contributed to it, and how it
>might be prevented in the future, and conservatives who are interested
>in simply labelling terrorists as evil and being done with it, and
>branding those who think it might be worth looking at deeper causes as
>at best fools and at worst traitors. It is those in academia who (as
>conservatives tirelessly point out) tend to be liberal and who have a
>particular interest in finding truth and the root causes for events who
>have been particularly targeted for abuse. (It shouldn't have to be
>pointed out that one can believe that terrorists are evil and still be
>interested in root causes, but apparently it does).
Gotta say I don't trust the "root-cause"-ist approach, for a
couple of reasons. One is its too-frequent disingenuousness. So much
of the time the "root cause" for this or that is found in what turns
out to be the expounders' favorite hobby horse. War, crime and social
ills were rooted in, to pick a few, the stultifying effects of
conformity in the Fifties, racism and the military-industrial
overclass in the Sixties, all kinds of psychobabble in the Seventies,
"greed" in the Eighties, and American supremacy in the Nineties. I
don't begrudge people their opinions, but neither am I inclined to
immediately accept this year's cognoscenti consensus as The Answer.
There's just so much bad thinking out there that wasn't conceivable
thirty years ago, and won't be worth knowing thirty years from now.
Two is the root-causers' exclusion of the moral sense from
their inquiries. What materialistic explanation of societal
conditions could be "root"-ier than good and evil, after all? They
are irreducible facts of human nature. Most people's idea of right
and wrong is inchoate, even pre-verbal, but it's real nonetheless.
It's a serious misreading of human nature--and hence the nature of
society, and hence the nature of politics--to deny the existence of
the moral sense, or to dismiss it as always and everywhere a bundle of
bigotries. We were reminded how serious recently upon the suicide of
Jack Abbott. Norman Mailer had argued that Abbott was not evil, but a
victim of his upbringing--apparently not realizing that he was both.
Or simply take the sight of various well-known pop philosophers trying
to ratiocinate their way into a moral outrage at the terrorist
attacks, an outrage that most Americans felt implicitly and
immediately. That's the fruit of being a deracinated relativist, and
mistaking it for clearmindedness.
It should not be assumed that a clear-cut conception of good
and evil predisposes one to apathy--look at the Salvation Army's inner
city work over the years. Just as it should not be supposed that
being a right-thinking (meaning of course "left-thinking") academic is
automatically a sign of greater probity--look at the ongoing Michael
Bellesiles mess, after all the uncritical adulation he received from
his peers.
>There is a parallel in domestic issues as well: which group is
>interested in discussing why some people commit crimes, or why some
>people are poor, and which group says it's because they're evil and lazy
>and is content to leave it at that?
[...]
Obquotes:
Good is a principle of totality, of coherence, of meaning;
evil is a principle of fragmentariness, of incoherence, of mockery.
Hence there is no immanent logic in evil; evil is the Satan that
laughs at logic.
-- Edgar S. Brightman, _A Philosophy of Religion_, 1940
If evil is merely called finite error, this finite error
remains none the less, as a fact of human experience, an evil. One
has only changed the name. The reality remains what it was.
-- Josiah Royce, _The World and the Individual_, 1899
David C Kifer
>
> -----
> Unless one recognizes that Americanism is a political creed, much
> like Socialism, Communism, or Fascism, much of what is currently
> happening in this country must remain unintelligible. Our national
> rituals are largely identified with reiterating the accepted values of
> a political value system, not solely or even primarily of national
> patriotism. For example, Washington's Birthday, Lincoln's Birthday,
> and the fourth of July are ideological celebrations comparable to May
> Day or Lenin's Birthday in the Communist world. Only Memorial day and
> Veteran's Day may be placed in the category of purely patriotic, as
> distinct from ideological, celebrations. Consequently, more than any
> other democratic country, the United States makes ideological
> conformity one of the conditions for good citizenship. And it is this
> emphasis on ideological conformity to presumably common political
> values that legitimatizes the hunt for "un-Americans" in our midst.
> -----
> --Semour Martin Lipset (1955)
There was a quote I saw once, but can't find, and can't remember the author,
that pointed out that while other countries are based on ancient ethnic
groups or ancient conquests, the USA was very specifically and deliberately
based on an idea, an ideology, and one becomes an American by adopting the
ideology. Thus our patriotism is to an ideology rather than to an ethnic
group or the memory of an ancient king, and our enemies are indeed the
"un-Americans"...
ObQ:
I got a letter from a man the other day, and I'll share it with you.
This man said you can go to live in Turkey, but you can't become a Turk.
You can go to live in Japan, but you cannot become Japanese -- or Germany
or France -- and named all the others. But he said anyone from any corner
of the world can come to America and become American.
--Ronald Reagan Remarks and Questions and Answer Session with students
at Suitland High School, Suitland Md. 1/20/88
[p&e]
--
Dave
"Tam multi libri, tam breve tempus!"
(Et brevis pecunia.) [Et breve spatium.]
Flash
> --Flannery O'Conner
-----
.....By 1970, the United States, thanks to the global do-gooders,
has become part of a World Authority dominated by the
Soviet-Asian-African bloc, and this Authority suspends the country's
right to govern itself because of the "historic psychological
genocide" against the Negro race. United Nations administrators,
mostly Red Chinese, are sent in to rule. Harlem, triumphant, arises
and loots the liquor stores. The city proletariat, its sense of
decency destroyed by public housing, begins to raid the suburbs. In
short order, twenty million Americans are "done away with," while the
people are subjected to torture by blow-torch and rock-'n'-roll-- the
latter on television.
Meanwhile, the good American begins to fight back. As far back as
1967, John Franklin and his friends had been stockpiling rifles. And
now they act. Franklin describes in gory detail a total of fourteen
patriotic murders.....These brave actions are sufficient to turn the
tide-- despite the atom bomb, a huge invasion army, and absolute
terror. By 1976, the people all over the world go into the streets,
and everywhere Communism falls.....All that is necessary is the
courage of a few determined men, practicing the "simple virtues," to
overthrow this clumsy Moloch.
-----
--Daniel Bell ( 1962, discussing _The John Franklin Letters_ )
-----
This, of course, is the Bircher's dream. America slides
unresistingly into Communism; a few Mike Hammers find their rifles;
and in five years the world is free. The Birch mind is the Mickey
Spillane mind. There is that lingering over and savoring of pure
physical violence, the daydream of the disarmed. Reading the _John
Franklin Letters_ we can recognize Robert Welch's voice. He is Charles
Atlas saying to us again that we need only mail the letter and back
will come the muscles which we will use to throw the bully off the
beach and have the girl turn to us with eyes shining with the sudden
knowledge of how special we are.
-----
--Murray Kempton
"Responsible Dialogue"
.....We do not speak the words
but flames that we have lit
crackle like dragons, _ burn, burn, burn_.
_Child, when the napalm clutches your flesh
with fingers of agony
and your life runs out of the blisters
and everything that is your body is blazing
-but the spark of life is gone
from your eyes- listen listen
how polite men speak; their brains inviolable,
their words immaculate :_ Responsible Dialogue.
--E.C. Village
--Flash
alohacyberian
didn't quote Sontag, Horowitz did. It isn't Bruce's place to clarify
Horowitz, this is a quotations newsgroup where people may post whatever
strikes their fancy and there is no implication that they must explain or
elucidate the words of the authors. I don't know of anyone who thinks or
suggests you should remain silent. Your response seems to fall more into
the category of mental masterbation than the purpose of a quotations
newsgroup.
OBQ:
Real misanthropes are not found in solitude, but in the world; since it is
experience of life, and not philosophy, which produces real hatred of
mankind.
~ Count Giacomo Leopardi
--
(-:alohacyberian:-) At my website there are 3000 live cameras or
visit NASA, play games, read jokes, send greeting cards & connect
to CNN news, NBA, the White House, Academy Awards or learn all
about Hawaii, Israel and more: http://keith.martin.home.att.net/
Frank Lynch <frank.lync...@verizon.net> wrote in article
<kqk77ukdaiqh844nj...@4ax.com>...
Finagler
>Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.
>--George W. Bush
I have never cared for this "for or against" insanity mouthed by our
laser-bombing President. It's like saying you either 'fess up to being a
witch or we'll burn you for being one whether it's true or not. Grey zones
of life, Mr. Bush, cannot be erased with steely words or factored out with
idle threats. Define terrorist and terrorism without your likes being among
them before asking me and the world living outside of the American incubator
to join this hypocritical crusade against Muslims and evil empires.
~The Finagler~
"There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats:
For I am arm'd so strong in honesty
That they pass me by as the idle wind,
Which I respect not."
--Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar"
ObQuote:
"Flash" <CLEARL...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:e808c4a5.02022...@posting.google.com...
> -----
> Unless one recognizes that Americanism is a political creed, much
> like Socialism, Communism, or Fascism, much of what is currently
> happening in this country must remain unintelligible. Our national
> rituals are largely identified with reiterating the accepted values of
> a political value system, not solely or even primarily of national
> patriotism. For example, Washington's Birthday, Lincoln's Birthday,
> and the fourth of July are ideological celebrations comparable to May
> Day or Lenin's Birthday in the Communist world. Only Memorial day and
> Veteran's Day may be placed in the category of purely patriotic, as
> distinct from ideological, celebrations. Consequently, more than any
> other democratic country, the United States makes ideological
> conformity one of the conditions for good citizenship. And it is this
> emphasis on ideological conformity to presumably common political
> values that legitimatizes the hunt for "un-Americans" in our midst.
> -----
> --Semour Martin Lipset (1955)
>
JT Abar
<frank.lync...@verizon.net> wrote:
>So, I guess you were -really-, heavy duty inspired by that Thomas
>Sowell quotation you posted, which was so inconsistent?
I post quotes that I find to be inspiring, or unusual, or interesting,
or amusing, or just to piss people off, depending upon my mood.
Hopefully some of the others in the NG will also find them to be worth
reading, others undoubtedly won't. I don't try to read anything more
into it as you apparently do.
>BTW, you happen to be reading a thread which is pretty given to
>politics. The quotes in this thread are rarely, if ever, inspiring.
How nice of you to decide for the group what is inspiring and what
isn't. I have followed this thread for a long time, bookmarking
quotes that I liked. The earliest I have is from 6/19/2000:
The true fanatic is a theocrat, someone who sees himself as
acting on behalf of some superpersonal force: the Race, the Party,
History, the proletariat, the Poor, and so on. These absolve him from
evil, hence he may safely do anything in their service.
--Lloyd Billingsley, "Religion's Rebel Son: Fanaticism in Our Time"
Perhaps the quote isn't up to your standards but it did inspire me to
at least see who Lloyd Billingsley was.
ObQuote:
"The vast majority of those who fought in Vietnam as frontline combat
troops - two thirds of whom were not drafted but volunteered - were
disproportionately lower-income whites from southern and rural states.
These were young men of a vastly different socioeconomic cosmos from
the largely middle- and upper-class journalists who misrepresented
them, the antiwar activists and academics who castigated them, and the
generals of the military high command who led them so poorly."
-Victor Davis Hanson "Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles
in the Rise of Western Power"-
JT Abar
OFS
Nathanael Thompson
<e808c4a5.02022...@posting.google.com>, Flash posted this to a.q.:
>
>> "When in Rome, do as you done in Milledgeville."
>> --Flannery O'Conner
[snip]
I'm not sure how those 2 quotes relate to my sig. Those (far-fetched) scenarios
could only be attractive in fiction. The .sig reflects my preference for rural
life and dissent (NOT Bircher conspiracy theories). I suppose it is open for
interpretation...
"The more we intervene machinery between us and the naked forces the more we
numb and atrophy our own senses. Every time we turn on a tap to have water,
every time we turn a handle to have fire or light, we deny ourselves and annul
our being. The great elements, the earth, air, fire, water, are there like some
great mistress whom we woo and struggle with, whom we heave and wrestle with.
And all our appliances do but deny us these fine embraces, take the miracle of
life away from us. The machine is the great neuter. It is the eunuch of eunuchs.
In the end it emasculates us all. When we balance the sticks and kindle a fire,
we partake of the mysteries. But when we turn on an electric tap there is, as it
were, a wad between us and the dynamic universe. We do not know what we lose by
all our labour-saving appliances."
--D.H. Lawrence,
_Studies in Classic American Literature_ (1923)
Ch. 9 Dana's "Two Years Before The Mast"
"In the modern technoindustrial culture, it is possible to proceed from
infancy into senility without ever knowing manhood."
--Edward Abbey
"High technology has done us one great service: It has retaught us the delight
of performing simple and primordial tasks--chopping wood, building a fire,
drawing water from a spring...."
--Edward Abbey
-+-
Nate Thompson
"When in Rome, do as you done in Milledgeville."
--Flannery O'Conner
"Many human beings say that they enjoy the winter, but what they
really enjoy is feeling proof against it."
--Richard Adams
Frank Lynch
<alohac...@att.net> wrote:
>I trust you're trying to be humorous or at least tongue in cheek. Bruce
>didn't quote Sontag, Horowitz did. It isn't Bruce's place to clarify
>Horowitz, this is a quotations newsgroup where people may post whatever
>strikes their fancy and there is no implication that they must explain or
>elucidate the words of the authors. I don't know of anyone who thinks or
>suggests you should remain silent. Your response seems to fall more into
>the category of mental masterbation than the purpose of a quotations
>newsgroup.
The answer ot speech is more speech. If Horowitz has written
something that is unsupportable, it should be responded to. (First
they came for the jews, etc.) If Bruce is posting something he
disagrees with, he should responsibly say something to contrast it,
IMO.
I think you will find very few instances of me posting the Johnson
dog-walking-on-hind legs quote, for instance. Or "the woman is fit
for a brothel".
Just because the group is about quotations doesn't mean that
discussing them is improper.
ObQuote:
"Is getting a hundred thousand pounds a proof of excellence? That has
been done by a scoundrel commissary."
-- Samuel Johnson (Boswell: Life of Johnson)
Joe
"Finagler" wrote
>
> I have never cared for this "for or against" insanity mouthed by our
> laser-bombing President. It's like saying you either 'fess up to being a
> witch or we'll burn you for being one whether it's true or not. Grey
zones
> of life, Mr. Bush, cannot be erased with steely words or factored out with
> idle threats. Define terrorist and terrorism without your likes being
among
> them
Terrorists do violence against randomly chosen citizens for the purpose of
terrifying and intimidating the larger population. Now what's your point?
Ted Clayton
Agreed. Both liberals and conservatives are guilty of this. Are you
suggesting that there are no causes? That's the position I have
problems with.
> War, crime and social
> ills were rooted in, to pick a few, the stultifying effects of
> conformity in the Fifties, racism and the military-industrial
> overclass in the Sixties, all kinds of psychobabble in the Seventies,
> "greed" in the Eighties, and American supremacy in the Nineties. I
> don't begrudge people their opinions, but neither am I inclined to
> immediately accept this year's cognoscenti consensus as The Answer.
Agreed. What I'm objecting to is the idea that there is *no* answer,
and that looking for one is a form of treachery. If someone asserts
that terrorism happens for reasons, they are not saying that they agree
with those reasons, nor are they saying that terrorism isn't evil. I
may be overreacting here - I get most of my knowledge of what the
conservatives are thinking from the _Wall Street Journal_ and they have
been absolutely obsessive about this point. One might suggest that it's
because a lot of the money terrorists have is provided not by the drug
trade but by the oil trade and they don't want anyone thinking about
that. Conservation, after all, is merely a 'personal virtue'.
> There's just so much bad thinking out there that wasn't conceivable
> thirty years ago, and won't be worth knowing thirty years from now.
Also true. All we can do is the best we can.
> Two is the root-causers' exclusion of the moral sense from
> their inquiries.
This does not automatically follow. See above and below.
> What materialistic explanation of societal
> conditions could be "root"-ier than good and evil, after all? They
> are irreducible facts of human nature.
This I don't agree with. I'll just use it as a chance to include my
ObQuote:
"But whatsoever is the object of any man's appetite or desire, that is
it which he for his part calleth good; and the object of his hate and
aversion, evil; and of his contempt, vile and inconsiderable. For these
words of good, evil, and contemptible are ever used with relation to the
person that useth them: there being nothing simply and absolutely so;
nor any common rule of good and evil to be taken from the nature of the
objects themselves; but from the person of the man, where there is no
Commonwealth; or, in a Commonwealth, from the person that representeth
it; or from an arbitrator or judge, whom men disagreeing shall by
consent set up and make his sentence the rule thereof." -- Thomas
Hobbes, _Leviathan_ http://www.uoregon.edu/~rbear/hobbes/leviathan.html
> Most people's idea of right
> and wrong is inchoate, even pre-verbal, but it's real nonetheless.
Also agreed. My objection is with stopping at that point. So
terrorists are evil, that's fine. But they are clearly acting with
intent. They have a goal, and reasons for pursuing it (unless you want
to say that they're insane, which I don't buy, or that they're
robotically following orders and lack free will, which didn't work at
Nuremburg and which I also don't buy). I believe it's in our interest
to understand that goal (or those goals) and their reason (or reasons)
for pursuing them, so that perhaps we could prevent future attacks,
rather than waiting to deal with the consequences. Saying that they
have goals and reasons does not mean endorsing those goals or those
reasons. Indeed if you add the idea of evil, then it becomes not just a
matter of public policy to try to prevent future attacks but a moral
imperative to do so.
> It's a serious misreading of human nature--and hence the nature of
> society, and hence the nature of politics--to deny the existence of
> the moral sense, or to dismiss it as always and everywhere a bundle of
> bigotries. We were reminded how serious recently upon the suicide of
> Jack Abbott. Norman Mailer had argued that Abbott was not evil, but a
> victim of his upbringing--apparently not realizing that he was both.
Again, I agree. But the latter was at least partially a cause of the
former, and understanding the latter might enable us to do something
about the former, and if it was too late for Abbott, then it might not
be for others who are at risk of having similar upbringings. I do not
say that evil can be eliminated, but I believe it can be reduced, and
that it's worth trying.
> Or simply take the sight of various well-known pop philosophers trying
> to ratiocinate their way into a moral outrage at the terrorist
> attacks, an outrage that most Americans felt implicitly and
> immediately. That's the fruit of being a deracinated relativist, and
> mistaking it for clearmindedness.
I'm not sure what you have in mind here.
> It should not be assumed that a clear-cut conception of good
> and evil predisposes one to apathy--look at the Salvation Army's inner
> city work over the years. Just as it should not be supposed that
> being a right-thinking (meaning of course "left-thinking") academic is
> automatically a sign of greater probity--look at the ongoing Michael
> Bellesiles mess, after all the uncritical adulation he received from
> his peers.
I could say the same thing about capitalism and Kenneth Lay, or politics
and Ronald Reagan (cf. the Walsh report), or religion and the pedophile
priests in Boston, or law enforcement and Rampart. Every profession has
its dishonest and immoral practitioners and its failures to live up to
its standards. If I thought that Bellesiles (assuming he's guilty; I'm
following the controversy but not that closely) was typical of academics
I'd resign tomorrow.
I hope these exchanges don't bother other members of the group. If this
level of discussion existed on any of the alt.politics groups, I'd
suggest taking it there....
Ted
Finagler
What other meaning can laser-guided missiles have on innocents other than
"Get under the table. They're trying to kill us!" Bombs have no feelings
nor do they communicate with their victims before detonating.
~The Finagler~
Consider if our country's position may appear to those who live elsewhere as
something like the following:
"There is only one proper way for a nation (or ethnic or religious group) to
defend itself, or to attack another for that matter, that we find acceptable
and within our view of international law. And that is to do it with
resources similar to the overt and covert technology and professionals we
use (not incidentally, using weapons that we are more than happy to sell to
virtually any nation on earth). The fact that few if any other nations have
those resources (we have more than the next seven largest nations, don't
we?) is irrelevant. That's the way war should be fought. If another nation
or group does not have resources of that nature we believe that they should
be forbidden from attacking in any other way (e.g., rocks from Palestinians;
hijacked U.S. civilian airplanes by Bin Laden). In other words, while we
have the right to use our military personnel and CIA agents and their
technology (e.g., ships, planes, etc.) against others, they have no right to
use the only weapons at their command against us. Anything they do we will
characterize as "terrorism," condemn as beyond the norms of civilization,
and punish with the _proper_ weapons of war in an effort to impress the
lesson upon them."
~Nicholas Johnson, Western Behavioral Science Institute
"Joe" <jdgi...@deletethis.charter.net> wrote in message
news:u79uu9n...@corp.supernews.com...
alohacyberian
OBQ:
Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself.
~ William Shakespeare
--
(-:alohacyberian:-) At my website there are 3000 live cameras or
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JT Abar <jta...@lucent.com> wrote in article
<3c74e47b....@nntp.cb.lucent.com>...
> On Wed, 20 Feb 2002 16:28:51 GMT, Frank Lynch
> <frank.lync...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> I post quotes that I find to be inspiring, or unusual, or interesting,
> or amusing, or just to piss people off, depending upon my mood.
> Hopefully some of the others in the NG will also find them to be worth
> reading, others undoubtedly won't. I don't try to read anything more
> into it as you apparently do.
>
alohacyberian
a figment of our imaginations. KM
OBQ:
"Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you don't
have a leg to stand on."
~ Savita in "Very Punny".
--
(-:alohacyberian:-) At my website there are 3000 live cameras or
visit NASA, play games, read jokes, send greeting cards & connect
to CNN news, NBA, the White House, Academy Awards or learn all
about Hawaii, Israel and more: http://keith.martin.home.att.net/
Joe <jdgi...@deletethis.charter.net> wrote in article
<u79uu9n...@corp.supernews.com>...
> "Finagler" wrote
> >
> > I have never cared for this "for or against" insanity mouthed by our
> > laser-bombing President. It's like saying you either 'fess up to being
a
> > witch or we'll burn you for being one whether it's true or not.
>
Frank Lynch
>How nice of you to decide for the group what is inspiring and what
>isn't. I have followed this thread for a long time, bookmarking
>quotes that I liked. The earliest I have is from 6/19/2000:
>
> The true fanatic is a theocrat, someone who sees himself as
>acting on behalf of some superpersonal force: the Race, the Party,
>History, the proletariat, the Poor, and so on. These absolve him from
>evil, hence he may safely do anything in their service.
>--Lloyd Billingsley, "Religion's Rebel Son: Fanaticism in Our Time"
>
>Perhaps the quote isn't up to your standards but it did inspire me to
>at least see who Lloyd Billingsley was.
>
Oh, it was inspirational alright... Sorry if you thought I was
speaking for the group when I characterized the quotes in this thread.
ObQuote:
"He that finds his knowledge narrow, and his arguments weak, and by
consequence his suffrage not much regarded, is sometimes in hope of
gaining that attention by his clamours which he cannot otherwise
obtain, and is pleased with remembering that at last he made himself
heard, that he had the power to interrupt those whom he could not
confute, and suspend the decision which he could not guide."
-- Samuel Johnson: Rambler #11
alohacyberian
not Horowitz or (God forbid) Susan Sontag. KM
--
(-:alohacyberian:-) At my website there are 3000 live cameras or
visit NASA, play games, read jokes, send greeting cards & connect
to CNN news, NBA, the White House, Academy Awards or learn all
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Frank Lynch <frank.lync...@verizon.net> wrote in article
<afs97ug7ai5mj7p9b...@4ax.com>...
alohacyberian
justifying or condoning the words of the original authors is not only
unnecessary, it's like demanding that those who post jokes in humor
newsgroups must also offer explanations of their jokes. You are applying a
different yardstick to Bruce than to others who post in this newsgroup. To
suggest that Horowitz (or anyone else) has uttered words that are
"unsupportable" is to say, "I refuse to consider his rationale, because my
mind's made up:
"I don't believe it. Prove it to me and I still won't believe it."
~ Douglas Adams - KM
OBQs:
"We want the facts to fit our preconceptions. When they don't, it is easier
to ignore the facts than to change the preconceptions.
~ Jassamyn West
"A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely
rearranging their prejudices."
~ William James
--
(-:alohacyberian:-) At my website there are 3000 live cameras or
visit NASA, play games, read jokes, send greeting cards & connect
to CNN news, NBA, the White House, Academy Awards or learn all
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Frank Lynch <frank.lync...@verizon.net> wrote in article
<afs97ug7ai5mj7p9b...@4ax.com>...
> On Thu, 21 Feb 2002 09:17:57 GMT, "alohacyberian"
> <alohac...@att.net> wrote:
>
> >I trust you're trying to be humorous or at least tongue in cheek. Bruce
> >didn't quote Sontag, Horowitz did. It isn't Bruce's place to clarify
> >Horowitz, this is a quotations newsgroup where people may post whatever
> >strikes their fancy and there is no implication that they must explain
or
> >elucidate the words of the authors. I don't know of anyone who thinks
or
> >suggests you should remain silent. Your response seems to fall more
into
> >the category of mental masterbation than the purpose of a quotations
> >newsgroup.
>
Frank Lynch
<aw5r...@asahi-net.or.jp> wrote:
>Whether meaning to intimidate larger populations or not is an irrelevancy.
>What other meaning can laser-guided missiles have on innocents other than
>"Get under the table. They're trying to kill us!" Bombs have no feelings
>nor do they communicate with their victims before detonating.
>~The Finagler~
I wouldn't go so far as to label our operations in Afghanistan as an
act of terror, but there is some support for your point. The American
Heritage Dictionary leaves out Joe's stipulation re random victims
(and I wouldn't say that the flight passengers and building workers
were randomly chosen - - they were chosen, but without anyone knowing
their names in advance). But that is perhaps a quibble.
The AHD defines terrorism thusly:
"The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person
or an organized group against people or property with the intention of
intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for
ideological or political reasons."
Now, in support of your point, the bombing etc followed on an explicit
threat that if the Taliban did not turn over Osama Bin Laden, well...
So it certainly meets the criteria of 'use or threatened use of
force', and 'intention of intimidating or coercing societies or
governments'.
A question would be whether or not the force needs to be unlawful in
order to be considered terrorism... As well as, is this a good
definition?
ObQuote:
"Novelty captivates the superficial and thoughtless; vehemence
delights the discontented and turbulent. He that contradicts
acknowledged truth will always have an audience; he that vilifies
established authority will always find abettors."
-- Samuel Johnson: Thoughts on the Late Transactions Respecting
Falkland's Islands
Frank Lynch
<alohac...@att.net> wrote:
>If you want to take Horowitz to task, fine. But, you were assailing Bruce,
>not Horowitz or (God forbid) Susan Sontag. KM
No, I actually hadn't started in on Bruce. I was giving Bruce an
opportunity to distance himself before I got rillllly het up.
ObQuote:
Don't get me staaarted!
-- "Buddy Young Jr." in Mr Saturday Night (Billy Crystal, Lowell
Ganz, Babaloo Mandel)
Frank Lynch
<alohac...@att.net> wrote:
>Agreed, discussing quotations in this newsgroup isn't improper, but
>justifying or condoning the words of the original authors is not only
>unnecessary, it's like demanding that those who post jokes in humor
>newsgroups must also offer explanations of their jokes. You are applying a
>different yardstick to Bruce than to others who post in this newsgroup. To
>suggest that Horowitz (or anyone else) has uttered words that are
>"unsupportable" is to say, "I refuse to consider his rationale, because my
>mind's made up:
I feel we all have a moral obligation to not blindly post quotations
we don't believe in. Otherwise we are propagating what we believe are
lies. All that is necessary etc
Erica
> comments of others, it would be helpful if they indicated they
> recognize how ridiculous it is. Otherwise I'm inclined to lump the
> poster and the source together as fools. I think more higfhly of TSI
> than that.
__________
As a general comment only Frank, and not presuming anything about the
intentions of any posts in this particular thread , I would feel your
stand gives little scope for those posters with a strong sense of irony.
OBQ
Whether Americans have through television become more receptive to other
kinds of humour, or whether they have found, as some might suggest, a sense
of irony at last, who knows?
~ David Leser, Hook, Line and Sinker ( The Australian October 2001)-
commenting on the success of Australian Barry Humphries (Dame Edna Everage)
in the USA after many years of *failure*
If I was in a debate with Edna, I would disagree with Edna Everage on
almost every point - moral, ethical or metaphysical
~ Barry Humphries (interview)
Erica
_____________
alohacyberian
persuasive propaganda designed to stir the melodramatic emotions of the
ignorant. Most Muslims abhor the actions of terrorists, the objectives of
the Taliban and the goals of Osama bin Ladin & company. KM
"Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance is the death of knowledge."
~ Alfred North Whitehead
--
(-:alohacyberian:-) At my website there are 3000 live cameras or
visit NASA, play games, read jokes, send greeting cards & connect
to CNN news, NBA, the White House, Academy Awards or learn all
about Hawaii, Israel and more: http://keith.martin.home.att.net/
Finagler <aw5r...@asahi-net.or.jp> wrote in article
<3c74c423$0$27611$44c9...@news3.asahi-net.or.jp>...
> >".....Every nation in every region now has a decision to >make:
> >Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.
> >--George W. Bush
>
Frank Lynch
wrote:
> If someone posts ridiculous
>> comments of others, it would be helpful if they indicated they
>> recognize how ridiculous it is. Otherwise I'm inclined to lump the
>> poster and the source together as fools. I think more higfhly of TSI
>> than that.
>__________
>
> As a general comment only Frank, and not presuming anything about the
>intentions of any posts in this particular thread , I would feel your
>stand gives little scope for those posters with a strong sense of irony.
>
Valid point. Maybe I'm the dullard at times.
ObQuote:
An apt quotation is like a lamp which flings its light over the whole
sentence.
-- Letitia Landon
William C Waterhouse
In article <01c1bab9$e473e080$32015f0c@KeithMartin>,
"alohacyberian" <alohac...@att.net> writes:
>...Your response seems to fall more into the category of
> mental masterbation ...
It's not perhaps the most natural approach, but it can
sometimes succeed, as we see in the following quotation:
I, lying down close in my boat, and there, without use
of my hand, had great pleasure, and the first time I did
make trial of my strength of fancy of that kind without any
hand, and had it complete avec la fille qui I did see
au-jour-dhui in Westminster hall.
-- Samuel Pepys, _Diary_, 16 December 1665.
William C. Waterhouse
Penn State
PS. I assume the spelling -tur- was intended. The urge to
master Bation can be satisfied only by mountain climbers
in Kenya.
Flash
> On 20 Feb 2002 23:49:48 -0800, in article
> <e808c4a5.02022...@posting.google.com>, Flash posted this to a.q.:
> >
> >> "When in Rome, do as you done in Milledgeville."
> >> --Flannery O'Conner
>
> [snip]
>
> I'm not sure how those 2 quotes relate to my sig. Those (far-fetched) scenarios
> could only be attractive in fiction. The .sig reflects my preference for rural
> life and dissent (NOT Bircher conspiracy theories). I suppose it is open for
> interpretation...
The 2 quotes I posted were not directed at your sig, but rather
at the article quoted by you, which I thought needed a counterpoint. I
intended to use the sig quote to intro. the idea that I was using your
tactic against you, i.e. holding a _radical_ of the other camp up to
ridicule (a perfectly good and proper tactic). I now realize that
posting it that way was unclear and bad form, and I apologize.
However, I also consider it _bad form_ to post an article that
was originally and only intended as a character assasination of
author Wurtzel(not much effort there), and which, if it proved
anything at all, was that the poor woman _does_ need help.
Further, _my_ cleverly selected quotes showed what right-wing
radical authors (in their _right_ minds) can conjure up, and be deadly
serious about it, fiction or not.
Perhaps if you guys (or gals) took some pokes at moderates or the
_Radical Center_.....naw, forget it, things are complicated enough as
it is!
--Flash
Obquote :
"Truth is a river that is always splitting up into arms that
reunite. Islanded between the arms, the inhabitants argue for a
lifetime as to which is the main river."
--Cyril Connolly
alohacyberian
which we find distasteful or unpleasant. We cannot hope understand our
perceived adversaries if we ignore what they say. For example the people
who were the strongest and most effect opponents of Leninism had an
intimate understanding of Lenin's writings. Like any good literature, it's
incumbent on readers to be able to think and sort things out for
themselves. By taking quotes out of context, people could paint Mark Twain
as a racist in _Huckleberry Finn_ - but, ultimately we must all make our
own decisions. KM
OBQ:
Just being a Negro doesn't qualify you to understand the race situation any
more than being sick makes you an expert on medicine.
~ Dick Gregory
Frank Lynch
<alohac...@att.net> wrote:
>Frank Lynch <frank.lync...@verizon.net> wrote in article
><sita7uoc0e9m18hiq...@4ax.com>...
>> I feel we all have a moral obligation to not blindly post quotations
>> we don't believe in. Otherwise we are propagating what we believe are
>> lies. All that is necessary etc
>>
>I strongly disagree. Such ideas stifle thought and ask us to ignore that
>which we find distasteful or unpleasant. We cannot hope understand our
>perceived adversaries if we ignore what they say. For example the people
>who were the strongest and most effect opponents of Leninism had an
>intimate understanding of Lenin's writings. Like any good literature, it's
>incumbent on readers to be able to think and sort things out for
>themselves. By taking quotes out of context, people could paint Mark Twain
>as a racist in _Huckleberry Finn_ - but, ultimately we must all make our
>own decisions. KM
Not for a moment am I suggesting we stifle. In fact, it's good to
-raise- them. I only suggest that when we raise them, we point out
the problems with what we post. Otherwise we propagate.
Digiti Separatim Edendi
>
> "And so you ask, 'What about the innocent bystanders?' But we are
> in a time of revolution. If you are a bystander, you are not
> innocent."
> --Abbie Hoffman
>
> Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.
> --George W. Bush
"Anyone who opposes me will be destroyed."
--M. Bison
--
Col. G. L. Sicherman
home: col...@mail.monmouth.com
work: gsic...@elity.com
web: <http://www.monmouth.com/~colonel/>
Grace McGarvie
quotes I agree with, some I think are nonsense. Sometimes these quotes
are posted with a sense of irony. I leave it to the individual mind out
there who reads the quote to run it through their own sieve of
understanding. We must trust others to think for themselves, even
though at times we despair. The problem is not that others interpret
things differently. The problem as I see it, is often people have
limited the input to their mind so that they interpret things from a
limited base of knowledge. That is why this group is so good - here we
can all gain more knowledge - i.e. expand our base of understanding.
Most people read little, then take logically defensible stands based
upon their small base, problem - they need to expand their base to
really think more logically. For instance I, as an atheist have
actually read the Bible. Most Christians I know, have not. - We do not
need to explain each quote - we all need to read many and more quotes to
get in touch with the collective wisdom of the ages.
ObQ
All that is necessary, as it seems to me, to convince any reasonable
person that the Bible is simply and purely of human invention - of
barbarian invention - is to read it. Read it as you would any other
book; think of it as you would of any other; get the bandage of
reverence from your eyes; drive from your heart the phantom of fear;
push from the throne of your brain the coiled form of superstition -
then read the Holy Bible, and you will be amazed that you ever, for one
moment, supposed a being of infinite wisdom, goodness and purity, to be
the author of such ignorance and of such atrocity. Robert Green Ingersoll
--
"Reason, Observation and Experience - the Holy Trinity of Science - have
taught us that happiness is the only good; that the time to be happy is
now, the place to be happy is here, and the way to be happy is to make
others so." Robert G. Ingersoll
_____________________________
0 0 . . Grace McGarvie . .
J . . . .
{___} . . Plymouth,Mn. 55447 . .
. . gem...@attbi.com . .