Matt Silberstein <RemoveThisPrefixmatts2nospam@ix.netcom.com> wrote in
news:r7rin0hq22q95lv7soqlkagukcpkt322ca@4ax.com:

On Fri, 22 Oct 2004 17:27:10 +0000 (UTC), Fred Stone
<fstone69@earthling.com> wrote:

And yet you don't seem to mind when the Democrats violate the First
Amendment rights of Sinclair Broadcasting. (see my other posts in this
thread).

No such violation occurred. Nor does Sinclair have the First Amendment
rights of an individual. They are restrict both as a business and as a
broadcaster using the public airwaves.

And the FCC finds no reason to so restrict them in this case.

So it's perfectly OK with you that the Democrats have used government
and legal maneuvers to pressure a media outlet about airing a piece
critical of their candidate, while their own affiliates run pieces
critical of the opposition?

On Fri, 22 Oct 2004 00:53:25 +0000 (UTC), Fred Stone
<fstone69@earthling.com> wrote:

Mark Isaak <eciton@earthlinkNOSPAM.next> wrote in
news:45hgn0thvh63o4oul5q325q9jh23nq2c3j@4ax.com:
[...]

And what do we get out of Bush's war for terror? Besides
distraction from important issues, we get to feel righteous.
Because we are devoting all our time and money to rail against
"evildoers," we must be good. We can imprison innocent people for
years, denying them any contact with the outside world, and because
we are fighting evildoers, we must be the good guys. We can suspend
civil liberties, and because we are fighting evildoers, we must be
the good guys. We can torture people, and because we are fighting
evildoers, we must be the good guys. We can kill tens of thousands
of innocent civilians, and because we are fighting evildoers, we
must be the good guys. In other words, we get to use *exactly* the
same argument that the terrorists use to justify their actions.

Your moral equivalence propaganda just doesn't hold water. We have
followed our own laws; the terrorists don't follow any laws at all.

Yes, they do. Fundamentalism is all about treating certain religious
doctrine as law. In fact, I can't think of any society that has or
had stricter laws than the Taliban.

And do you doubt that the people you support, who think like
terrorists, will act like terrorists even more as they consolitate
their power?

We haven't suspended any civil liberties, the Supreme Court still
rules on such cases, in case you weren't paying attention. We have
dealt with the torture accusations, and investigated them, and
punished those who were guilty. (unless you'd like to add your own
proclamation that someone is guilty without a trial?)

So when the Supreme Court declares a law unconstitutional, that means
there was never a problem to begin with. Yeah, that makes sense. And
the people who were tortured and imprisoned had none of their civil
liberties suspended because a few of their victomizers were punished.

And what are you going to do when the Fundamentalists take over the
Supreme Court and make many civil liberties unlawful?

So yes, we are the good guys. And no, the terrorists don't have a
right to use the same argument to justify their own actions, because
they *don't* do the same things we do.

Yet. But then again, your "good guys" don't get everything their way
yet..

And I still want to know how much of a danger terrorism is compared
with other dangers that people don't much worry about. In the last 10
years, there have been 4472 deaths in North America from terrorism,
compared with 7527 deaths from boating accidents in the United States
alone. (Sources: Nov. 2004 _Nat. Geo._, p. 78;
http://www.marinebd.osmb.state.or.us/Safety/Accidents.html) So where
should one's priorities be if they had the best interests of Americans
at heart?

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) earthlink (dot) net
"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding
of
the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they
are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of
patriotism and exposing the country to danger." -- Hermann Goering

And I still want to know how much of a danger terrorism is compared
with other dangers that people don't much worry about. In the last 10
years, there have been 4472 deaths in North America from terrorism,
compared with 7527 deaths from boating accidents in the United States
alone. (Sources: Nov. 2004 _Nat. Geo._, p. 78;
http://www.marinebd.osmb.state.or.us/Safety/Accidents.html) So where
should one's priorities be if they had the best interests of Americans
at heart?

Fundamentalism is all about treating certain religious
doctrine as law. In fact, I can't think of any society that has or
had stricter laws than the Taliban.

Fred Stone wrote:

Rich Mathers <R-Mathers@wiu.edu> wrote in
news:cl17a3$nbc$1@mail1.wiu.edu:

Fred Stone wrote:

AC <mightymartianca@hotmail.com> wrote in
news:slrncn7lrr.7u9.mightymartianca@aaronclausen.alberni.net:

On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 12:20:15 +0000 (UTC),
Fred Stone <fstone69@earthling.com> wrote:

AC <mightymartianca@hotmail.com> wrote in
news:slrncn6gjf.7cb.mightymartianca@aaronclausen.alberni.net:

On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 00:56:19 +0000 (UTC),
Fred Stone <fstone69@earthling.com> wrote:

AC <mightymartianca@hotmail.com> wrote in
news:2tghebF1usplhU1@uni-berlin.de:

Fred Stone wrote:

Matt Silberstein <RemoveThisPrefixmatts2nospam@ix.netcom.com>
wrote in news:9da5n0h59f7a5u7g0ti0ohrfk2s8v5q42u@4ax.com:
Last I noticed this thread is about Affirmative Discrimination
under the current liberal disguise of "diversity". Are you
going to tell me that it is still fair to discriminate against
certain races even after two generations of "leveling the
playing field?"

I dunno Fred. Is the playing field level now? Can a black man
get voted president of the United States? Hell, for that
matter, could a black man even win the nomination of either of
the two major parties?

Would one want to? If they happened to be Republican they could
expect even worse treatment than Condi Rice or Colin Powell gets

from the black leadership, courtesy of Democratic partisans.

Certainly Rice and Powell are not above reproach, are they? They
get no worse than the other Bush yes-men.

Nobody in modern American public service deserves the kind of
vilification that Democrats routinely dish out.

Did Bill Clinton deserve it?

It didn't start with him either.

In these USENET groups
the level of denigration and dehumanizing namecalling is entirely
disgusting. I don't really give a ***** which party started it
either, the Democrats could stop it *unilaterally* and prove what
superior moral beings they are.

In politics, once a line is crossed, I'm afraid it's rarely
retreated back to.

So much for the Democrats ever claiming the moral high ground. Ever.

But I'm not going to hold my breath for that to happen because
they *aren't* above it. They *wallow* in it.

Fred, both sides wallow in it. American politics is poisoned.

And the Democrats are determined to dump *more* poison in.

Fred, read the Republican Noise Machine by an ex Republican.

Is that like some of the "ex-atheists" we get around here?

No. It is very comparable to the ex religionist.

It is a very insightful read.

Where is the Republican moral high ground?

They're not entirely innocent. But that's one of the Democrats'
favorite tactics too, complain even louder about a shovel of mud from
a Republican while throwing bulldozer loads themselves.

Your judgement calls of a shovel to a bulldozer doesn't reflect a an
impartial response. If one can document this 1000 to 1 difference it
would of course carry weight. You are clearly engaging in the kind of
hyperbole that you decry.

Why focus only on the Democrats?

Because they're worse by far.

Documentation is required from impartial sources or by data whose
standards are unimpeachably applied to both arenas to document this
assertion. If you have it produce it. No blogs please.

Ann Coulter as best as I can interpret her calls me a "liberal"
hillbilly a traitor. (Call me a "hillbilly" all you want; I'm proud
of my heritage, but call me a traitor and I'm ready to engage in
physical conflict.)

Where is her high ground? It looks, talks and waddles like
neoMacarthyism.

Coulter, O'Reilly and Limbaugh all rolled up together get nowhere
near the traction of a Moore. McCarthy was small beer compared to
Chomsky.

You mean people have been brought to the House Unamerican Committee
for disagreeing with Chomsky? Have lost jobs and been black listed in
Hollywood for criticism of Chomskyism. You mean Chomsky is a
household name like tale gunner Joe. I'd be willing to bet 90 percent
of Americans don't know what Chomsky stands for. Even as a teenage I
know what McCarthy was generally about.

Moore more Americans will know and an equal number it would appear
disagree with him. So much for his overwhelmng influence.

This regimes* consistent employment of terrorist scare tactics to
pass less than democratic homeland security practices, garner votes
in a national election, and overplay there sword landen hands
internationally - where is the Republican high ground.

Voting is the first step in a democarcy and one all Americans support
whether in Afganistan or the U.S. in principle; but each party, if its
to their advantage, will set up all types of procedural and illegal
road blocks.

Your high ground noted below is shared by Democrats.

But democacry
out of the end of a gun in Iraq is different than in Afganistan.

In
the latter world opinion saw this action as necessary and justifible
and thought it would take a long occupation of UN troops with
significant American military and economic support to insure its
success. Iraq is American adventureism at its worse. Percipatated by
an unclear moral vision of the U.S. role internationally, and an
undeveloped foreign policy orientation that couldn't be shared
internationnally. In this breach jumps the neocoms with a oneeyed view
of foreign policy that saw the mideast as a target of opportunity (for
a variety of reasons that are documented in America Alone, written by
two conservatives.)

Couple this with a myopic scion of priviledge who
saw no need to travel outside of the U.S before becoming President
with no discernable insight into international affairs (as opposed to
his internationally traveled priviledged adversary who at least can
intellectual judge his foreign advisors).

The above is the
ingredients that form the present political, economic, diplomatic, and
military conundrum in Iraq. It is not a pretty picture regardless of
those who have optimism for long range success.

The Republican high ground is right here:

http://www.detnews.com/2004/nation/0410/10/a04-299031.htm

And here:

http://www.afgha.com/?af=article&sid=46477

here:
http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/

Or here:

http://messopotamian.blogspot.com/

A word deliberately employed by conservative (ne reactionary)
Republicans to describe Democratic administrations because it was
mostly used to describe authoritarian governments.

There is a poison in the political air and they feed on each other,
your statement about Democrats above is as you well know not
defensible.

It's defensible enough, though I'll accept your criticism that
Republicans are not innocent of namecalling.

It is your ideological convictions that makes you see more
on one side than the other. I see it on both sides and yes it
severely distorts our understanting of current political issues (and
yes I occasionally employ it with thoughtless uneducateable
ideologues).

I have come to these conclusions after a few years of observation. My
ideological convictions are not hard-line rightist by any means.

Could they be soft-line extreme rightist?

By any
reasonable standard I'm a moderate social liberal with a pragmatic
(Machiavellian) attitude towards politics and international
relations.

I had no idea that pragmatic American attidues toward politics and
international affairs was a Machiavellian corrollary.

This will be
news to most americans I suspect. I have for years (thirty plus)
systematically reviewed ICPSR data on national election studies about
American national and international political attitudes and indeed my
interpretation is that they are dramatically inconsitent with what you
are presenting as normatively pragmatic Machiavellian views. I could
be wrong the survey could all be wrong but I don't think so.

You seem to be reflecting Leo Strauss who was an essentialist, admired
Machiavelli and Plato, read Weber and largely dismissed his ideas,
Most thoughtful scholars find considerably greater erudition in Weber
than Strauss.

Indeed most are troubled by Struss insistance that
elites (a Machiavelli and Plato presciption for stable political
control) exercise the "Noble Lie" when dealing with the public about
policies that they may not understand. They (Straussians ne Neocons)
emphasize the need not to be transparent in particulary the foreign
policy area, but it is also justifiable an the domestic front as well.
Can you trust such a regime with these types of policy values. Well
only if you are an insider elite I would think. If you are on the
outside you may be in for some unwanted, undebated (outside of the
insiders) policies, such as
an attack on Syria or Iran to further the mideast agenda.

My view is that Machiavelli is anythig but pragmatic. But again maybe
I have confused him with the Machiavellians Dewey, Pierce, and
Wittgenstein.

(Reality is difficult to achieve with a self confirming ideology.)

Go to any bookstore and find the "current events" shelf. Ten to one
*at least* will be Bush-bashers vs similar from the right wing.

Five years ago I'd be willing to wager it was overwhelmingly
conservative books bashing Clinton and in many ways they were
obviously correct to detail his numerous personal shortcomings. Do
you think George Bush has an failings that critically affect American
domestic and foreign policy?

Leftist junk

philosophers like Chomsky and Derrida get major space while Rand gets
stuck in a corner if her stuff is there at all.

I'll wager even more that less than two percent of Americans know
Derrida whose intellectual significance is heavily over-rated. Pomo's
be damned, does that help!?

Rand's salience for understand the American experience and as a
philosophy is also highly over rated. She could not in her own life
follow her own philosophy, doen't that tell you something?