tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post7968277740393643722..comments2024-03-18T17:09:55.964-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Giving through Proxy Power…and a New Science Fiction MuseumDavid Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger49125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-79310653500061508612014-01-23T03:07:19.166-08:002014-01-23T03:07:19.166-08:00As an added incentive, you can receive a private t...As an added incentive, you can receive a private tour of the museum, a lecture and signed hardcover from Greg Bear..........<br /><a href="http://johnphanchalad.com" rel="nofollow">John Phanchalad</a> at JP Digital Tech have a very good track record in digital media marketing. To follow John you can visit on http://www.facebook.com/pages/John-Phanchalad-Reviews-Ratings-Complaints-Queries/1412585392313333Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07784363620122382328noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-28988177336505805892013-12-02T12:51:30.388-08:002013-12-02T12:51:30.388-08:00onwardonwardDavid Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-89626900559094863822013-12-01T19:35:51.450-08:002013-12-01T19:35:51.450-08:00Institution beyond reproach = preferred refuge for...Institution beyond reproach = preferred refuge for scoundrels.Tony Fiskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14578160528746657971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-2097652248955110042013-12-01T13:31:42.486-08:002013-12-01T13:31:42.486-08:00This is a great discussion worth reading.
It got m...This is a great discussion worth reading.<br />It got me thinking about the hiding strategies of psychopaths. Some hide in capitalism, others hide in church, others in socialism.Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-77372102839855795932013-12-01T11:35:03.390-08:002013-12-01T11:35:03.390-08:00"I can see the reasons people might consider ..."I can see the reasons people might consider democracy to be "not working","<br /><br />Churchill's famous dictum: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."<br /><br />The timing of this famous remark is significant. Churchill won the war, but in the election of July 1945, he was defeated. At the time I thought the public showed gross ingratitude, but I am willing to accept the interpretation that Churchill was not the man to organize the peace.<br /><br />When the news came out, Churchill was taking a bath (was there ever a statesman who spent more time in the bath?) He remarked "They have a perfect right to kick me out. That is democracy". When he was offered the Order of the Garter, he asked "Why should I accept the Order of the Garter, when the British people have just given me the Order of the Boot?".<br /><br />He returned to power in 1951. The remark about democracy was made when he had lost power and had every reason to be bitter. Fortunately he kept his sense of humor even in the most trying circumstances. <br />FROM<br />http://wais.stanford.edu/Democracy/democracy_DemocracyAndChurchill%28090503%29.htmldnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-69054046741568139262013-12-01T09:23:41.610-08:002013-12-01T09:23:41.610-08:00Robert:
Claims that the people can just "ev...Robert:<br /><br /><i><br />Claims that the people can just "evict" a leader who abuses his or her power are fallacious because history currently has an example proving this claim to be false: <br /></i><br /><br />The process of "evicting" a monarch is by its nature extra-legal. There is <b>no</b> systemic way to dethrone a monarchy. What has to happen is that the systtem becomes so intolerable that the populace rises up to overthrow it. And unless the monarch is extremely lenient and humane, the process of getting from point A to point B requires bloodshed, torture, and death on both sides.<br /><br />Not only that, but the necessity of overthrow is so great at that point that no thought is given to "what comes next".<br /><br />The idea that this is an acceptable and in fact <b>preferable</b> alternative to the peaceful transition of power in post-WWII industrialized democracies is incredible.<br /><br /><i><br />A return to aristocracy and authoritarian governments is a step backward. Ultimately it is a dead end for humanity. We need to move forward, not back.<br /></i><br /><br />I can see the reasons people might consider democracy to be "not working", but the rationale for going back to the forms of government which "didn't work" such that they had to be overthworn <b>by</b> democracy...well, sorry, but it's the "vote for Sideshow Bob" thing again.<br /><br />Isaac Asimov points out that theories about the shape of the earth have always been "wrong" to some extent. It was thought to be flat, then spherical, then sperical with a bulge in the middle, then spherical with an asymmetric bulge on one side, etc etc. The unenlightened way of looking at this is "All of the previous theories have been wrong, so the likelihood is that the current theory is wrong as well." A more accurate view is "Each theory got some of the elements correct, and each one is getting <b>closer</b> to the truth than the previous theories."<br /><br />Something similar seems to be going on in human history (or psychohistory, if one prefers). We're certainly not perfect yet, but we're gradually ruling out bad choices in favor of better ones. Going back to feudalism is equivalent to going back to flat-earth theory because modern models have some flaws in them.<br /><br />Then again, the fact that many Republican congressmen believe in flat-earth theory might have been a clue.LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-40867088112196979162013-12-01T08:01:18.871-08:002013-12-01T08:01:18.871-08:00Try telling the expectant mother that change comes...Try telling the expectant mother that change comes all at once. You're talking around nine months of gradual change as an infant grows and several hours to days worth of pain while the results of that change are birthed. It's not "all at once." Though it does speak metaphorically of events leading up to riots and revolution. Months or years of suffering and gradual decline in the quality of life... and then several days of intense suffering as people finally say "enough is enough." <br /><br />Sadly, in this metaphor what often happens is the newborn child is killed along with the mother. Or even worse, both are so weakened that their continued survival is in doubt.<br /><br />Man, I'm starting to sound like Locum. *rolls eyes*<br /><br />And this is of course the problem with metaphoric speech. It leads you to "forecasts" which may in fact not be related. For instance, the Syrian civil war does not match any childbirth metaphor. What it does match, however, is history: several decades back another Assad dealt with a civil war by slaughtering his people. It is much more that history repeats itself because certain parties did not learn from their past mistakes rather than any half-fast metaphors using conception and childbirth. <br /><br />This is also something that the neoreactionaries have failed to do: look at history. They claim to have. But they ignore the massive amount of death and mayhem that happened under the authoritarianism autocracies of feudal and post-feudal periods. In fact, all the military actions that the U.S. have been involved in in the 21st century could have been avoided if Congress was the body that acted on if we were to use military force.<br /><br />Wait, what's that? Am I actually saying an authoritarian aspect of the U.S. government (the Executive Branch) is responsible for the armed conflicts we're in, and that by having a democratic discourse we could have prevented our use of military force?<br /><br />Yes. I am.<br /><br />Does this then perhaps suggest that democracies are less likely to declare war due to the need to answer to their constituents? <br /><br />Yes. I am.<br /><br />While it is fallacious logic to claim that authoritarian governments in turn are more likely to declare war or use armed conflicts instead of diplomacy... historically authoritarian governments are shown to be more likely to go to war. Hitler was not a democratically-elected leader but instead was given his power through emergency powers. Stalin gained power through strength of arms, not any democratic governance. The North Korean government invaded South Korea... because of an authoritarian government choosing to invade. Many bush wars in Africa were the result of dictators deciding to seize resources and the like.<br /><br />Democracies are not perfect. But they are by their very nature (in that they have to answer to the populace) less likely to wage war. A return to authoritarian governments of aristocrats and kings and the like will in turn result in an increase in war because the people who truly suffer in these wars, the people, do not have a say in this. <br /><br />Claims that the people can just "evict" a leader who abuses his or her power are fallacious because history currently has an example proving this claim to be false: the current Syrian civil war. For that matter, the only reason the Libyan civil war was won by the rebels is outside interference. And the Egyptian revolution has ultimately failed when the democratically-elected leader failed to consider that democratic governments need to consider minorities as well as majorities... and was only allowed to rule because the military was being lenient. <br /><br />A return to aristocracy and authoritarian governments is a step backward. Ultimately it is a dead end for humanity. We need to move forward, not back.<br /><br />Rob H.Acacia H.https://www.blogger.com/profile/07678539067303911329noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-291398811700921212013-12-01T05:58:08.529-08:002013-12-01T05:58:08.529-08:00Whereas most men gestate for 40 weeks only to be b...Whereas most men gestate for 40 weeks only to be born in a moment, there are those who argue that change is best achieved in an incremental, stepwise or conservative fashion, so much so that they emerge stepwise from their mother's wombs, coming forth breech as fully cognizant adults who have their heads lodged firmly in someone else's perineum: <br /><br />Change is always sudden, never incremental; only preparation takes time; and don't let any conservative ever tell you any different. <br /><br /><br />Best.locumranchnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-13593803484102966782013-12-01T02:47:31.813-08:002013-12-01T02:47:31.813-08:00Like unto squirrel poo, and nothing 'neo' ...Like unto squirrel poo, and nothing 'neo' about it!<br />(I wonder if Evola's attitude to mountain climbing was what inspired Alastair Crowley?)Tony Fiskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14578160528746657971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-60872116486535330862013-12-01T02:31:00.821-08:002013-12-01T02:31:00.821-08:00What are you trying to accomplish by responding to...What are you trying to accomplish by responding to their foolishness?<br /><br />1. Are people with power to make decisions acting upon what they say?<br />2. Is their meme spreading?<br />3. Are those who counter this meme ineffective?<br /><br />I ask because I've learned that talking about a bad idea often draws attention to it better that the proponents of the bad idea. When I've tried it, it is all to often the case that I've created more support for the bad meme than the one I think is better. I've learned instead to demonstrate my meme through action and let the story tell itself. Perhaps with a bit more practice I could do better, but I'm wary of learning on important issues. <br /><br />I've signed far too many ballot initiative petitions to think it is a good idea anymore to put some ideas out there for people to contemplate when the majority can overrule. I'm not an anti-democrat, but there are times when I think an opponent is already their own worst enemy and they don't need any help from me to go down in flames.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-64127757234385518312013-11-30T22:53:19.281-08:002013-11-30T22:53:19.281-08:00See this amazing example of where neoreaction can ...See this amazing example of where neoreaction can go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_EvolaDavid Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-9995057778001914982013-11-30T20:54:23.799-08:002013-11-30T20:54:23.799-08:00There are days when I wonder if the biological hum...There are days when I wonder if the biological human has also changed, but I'm probably wearing my rosy glasses then or high on something. 8)<br /><br />There is an argument for a small biological change. The people most inclined to this violence are a little more inclined to participate in it. We might be out populating them. I don't know of a way to detect that, though. Since the same argument can be made for survival of our social institutions that enable non-violent processes, there is probably too much overlap to every know. In this case, our cultural evolution might be slowly encoded at the genetic level and we won't know because we aren't running any controls in this experiment.<br /><br />My all time favorite, though, is our inclination to wipe out diseases or at least try. Small Pox is gone and we are trying to eradicate Polio. Not only are we unwilling to accept our own inclination to violence, we aren't even willing to accept it when the Universe treats us 'unfairly.'Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-88478537913225338232013-11-30T20:11:21.283-08:002013-11-30T20:11:21.283-08:00"It is stunning just how inclined humanity is..."It is stunning just how inclined humanity is to wipe cultures out down to the last man, woman, and child. The most stunning thing about it, though, is that WE find it stunning. Our ancestors obviously didn't. That's how much we have changed recently."<br /><br />Another example<br />Until relatively recently burning cats in baskets was a popular spectator event<br /><br />The biological human has not changed in that time BUT our cultures have changed so that the old norm is now amazingly unacceptableDuncan Cairncrossnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-80747444220860711902013-11-30T20:04:04.080-08:002013-11-30T20:04:04.080-08:00For an interesting story regarding atrocities at t...For an interesting story regarding atrocities at the genocide level, track the Assyrians through history up to modern times. See where they've gone through ups and downs and what is left of them.<br /><br />It is stunning just how inclined humanity is to wipe cultures out down to the last man, woman, and child. The most stunning thing about it, though, is that WE find it stunning. Our ancestors obviously didn't. That's how much we have changed recently.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-89413667405520640552013-11-30T19:54:16.180-08:002013-11-30T19:54:16.180-08:00locumranch has a point to argue, but I think it is...locumranch has a point to argue, but I think it is easily defeated. The help we offer through charity usually does NOT address the underlying causes of misery beyond the bottom levels of Maslow's pyramid, but I think it is an error to think that is the real objective of charity. We ARE addressing the bottom levels of the pyramid and waiting for our markets to address the rest it. Higher levels require different solutions, but we don't know what those are yet... and can't possibly know except through experimentation and discovery. Enlightenment institutions make their inexorable progress on these issues, but they need time. Charity buys that time.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-51197170545900539772013-11-30T17:04:54.542-08:002013-11-30T17:04:54.542-08:00Ah, I see. So, since we cannot cure all of the ill...Ah, I see. So, since we cannot cure all of the ills of this world in one swell foop, we should sit and do nothing at all.<br /><br />This is what we call "making the perfect the enemy of the good" - if our actions cannot be <i>perfect</i>, so the "reasoning" goes, then we would be better off not even trying.<br /><br />I don't even know what to say at this point. I have read of a phenomenon called "rupture", in which one is deep into a conversation when one abruptly realizes that absolutely no communication has taken place at any level during it. The basic world-assumptions of both parties are so extremely different that neither party is capable of saying anything that the other will understand. That phenomenon seems to have reared its head here.Jonathan S.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-35164298153463087432013-11-30T15:44:20.713-08:002013-11-30T15:44:20.713-08:00Randy seems to be missing the point. I'm not a...Randy seems to be missing the point. I'm not arguing that social programs are unnecessary, I'm arguing that they are INADEQUATE.<br /><br />SNAP & associated relief programs are not solutions to poverty. They are a pittance, an appeasement, an accommodation to poverty and a social mollification that covers over some of the consequence of economic inequality without treating its underlying cause. They are 'relief programs' that 'relieve' nothing in actuality.<br /><br />To extend LarryH's medical analogy, SNAP is the equivalent of hiding diabetes medication in Twinkies, cupcakes & sweet meats in an effort to ameliorate the effects of over-eating & obesity.<br /><br />So grow up. already. Your help harms; your assistance infantilizes; and your kindnesses devalue the bitter pill that is experience. It is one thing to become Superman & it is quite another to accept his assistance.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Best. locumranchnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-37207084860598860782013-11-30T14:35:13.264-08:002013-11-30T14:35:13.264-08:00+`````````` I GOT NOTHING. Locum has jumped fro...+`````````` I GOT NOTHING. Locum has jumped from cranky 16 year old to cranky grandpa. I am awed by such consistency while leaping across a lifespan.<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-42114140504108588082013-11-30T12:27:51.744-08:002013-11-30T12:27:51.744-08:00Nicholas MacDonald
I don't know you and it'...<i> Nicholas MacDonald</i><br />I don't know you and it's unlikely we'll ever meet. If you want to hate on Mao, well, he certainly earned that. Etc.<br /><br />But are you seriously suggesting that today's rightwingers are nicer than today's leftwingers - less violent, less threatening, less insulting?<br /><br />If that's your personal experience, well, that's your personal experience: one cannot tell someone he has not had the experience that he has had. But in a world where the most popular media figures on the Right and the Left are (probably) Rush Limbaugh and Jon Stewart; when the Right agitates daily for bombing yet another batch of Asian peasants while the Left blows hot and cold on the subject; when you cannot win the leadership of the GOP if you state plainly and fearlessly that evolution is a fact, AGW is a danger, and Obama was born in the USA ... are the factions really equivalent in their nastiness?rewinnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14008105385364113371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-4797224972397573932013-11-30T12:26:50.432-08:002013-11-30T12:26:50.432-08:00@locumranch,
By that logic, medical care is a bad...@locumranch,<br /><br />By that logic, medical care is a bad thing because it minimizes the consequences of sickness, allowing the succeptible to survive and breed instead of encouraging the evolution of the Superman.<br /><br />Heck, speaking of Superman, he's doing harm to the good citizens of Metropolis every time he minimizes the consequences of crime or disasters. Ultimately, the same can be said for police and fire departments. And don't forget "Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" who perpetrated upon Egypt the harm of minimizing the consequences of famine.<br /><br />Sorry, I do get what you're saying, and might even agree as an abstract and philosophical exercise. But as a real-life imperative for human society? I have to go with "alleviate sufferning first and ask questions later."LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-61094816481745918752013-11-30T12:11:44.115-08:002013-11-30T12:11:44.115-08:00"...never learning ...."
Speak for your...<b>"...never learning ...."</b><br /><br />Speak for yourself, sir.<br /><br />In the real world, people who develop SNAP and hurricane relief and so forth ... this may come as a shock to one as wise as you ... think about this stuff.<br /><br />Yes, it's true. Concern about the harm we do to people by helping them has been a part of program design since ... hmmmm ... forever, basically. So in the real world, food stamps are supplemented by educational opportunities; disaster relief is supplemented by development programs.<br /><br />Perhaps if one were to actually study these subjects, instead of knowing all about them already, one would be able to talk about them in an interesting way.<br /><br />But perhaps not.rewinnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14008105385364113371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-38242927961168669792013-11-30T11:52:32.451-08:002013-11-30T11:52:32.451-08:00Being an offshoot of Smithian (Adam) economic theo...Being an offshoot of Smithian (Adam) economic theory, 'time preference', 'time discounting', 'discounted utility' and 'habit formation models' have little or nothing to do with monarchies or political preference: <br /><br />http://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/sds/docs/loewenstein/TimeDiscounting.pdf<br /><br />Suffice it to say that we're not doing what we think we're doing by helping others. We're making a moral intertemporal choice, alleviating immediate suffering at the expense of deferred or anticipatory utility.<br /><br />In the case of Typhoon Haiyan relief, we're reconstructing a defunct urban social model, analogous to a tumor that has outgrown its blood supply, in an attempt to minimize human suffering.<br /><br />In the case of the federal food stamp program (SNAP), we're supporting economic inequality in an inadvertent fashion by minimizing the consequence of that self-same economic inequality, creating the environmental requirements necessary for inequality juggernauts like Walmart.<br /><br />And, like an incautious gambler who doubles down or the child who gives a moose a muffin, we underestimate deferred risk & commit reckless acts of kindness that will to only lead to a deferred reckoning of ever greater proportions, committing the same goodhearted 'ring around the rosie' mistakes over & over, never learning from either our history or discounted temporal utility.<br /><br /><br />Best.locumranchnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-79475878108632153682013-11-30T10:36:34.577-08:002013-11-30T10:36:34.577-08:00To suggest that aristocracies were more future-ves...To suggest that aristocracies were more future-vested or interested in forward generations is yet another example of stunning,, counter-factual just-so storytelling. <br /><br />SOme investments were impressive, like establishing universities (e.g. Oxford) but only in the context of benighted eras of wretched sameness and misery and social immobility.<br /><br />To extoll an occasional queen's bequest to Oxford is very nice and quaint, compared to the investment that common people of California made into a 10 campus University for a quarter of a million undergraduates and as many faculty, staff and graduate students…<br /><br />…followed by STATE University of California, in which close to half a MILLION students enroll on 22 campuses… followed by more than a hundred community colleges where any earnest and hard-working person, of any age and means, can get started on an upward path, no matter what his or her background or past mistakes.<br /><br />Yes, great men were involved in making that vision real. The real aristocracy of self-made, savvy, competitive/cooperative women and men, who earned their status through competitive/cooperative interplay and the perpetual testing of their merit, till the people trusted them to enact this vision… and then invest in it again… and again…<br /><br />The monarchists can point to nothing like that. Nothing even remotely like that. Or like the Jet Propulsion Lab, which took the people's robotic envoys to explore the planets and moons and beyond.Or ten million other examples in which the Tytler Calumny has been proved -- over and over again -- to be an outright fable, concocted by deeply jealous and inferior minds.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-56410281340935161972013-11-30T07:18:03.031-08:002013-11-30T07:18:03.031-08:00@Dr Brin,
What locumranch advocates seems to boil...@Dr Brin,<br /><br />What locumranch advocates seems to boil down to:<br /><br />"If you extrapolate far enough into the future, it all ends in heat death of the universe. Therefore, anything we do is futile. Have a nice day."<br /><br />This is actually on topic of the neo-reactionary complaint that democracies are not "time-preferenced" (I looked it up) enough toward the future. There's a danger in being <b>too</b> future-oriented at the expense of the present. Krugman mentions this regularly about the field of economics--it's not sufficient to say "It will all work itself out in twenty years or so." The journey is as important as the destination.LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-52631828435057113612013-11-30T07:11:46.294-08:002013-11-30T07:11:46.294-08:00Dr Brin:
BTW… I blame campus lefty flakes for som...Dr Brin:<br /><i><br />BTW… I blame campus lefty flakes for some of today's stunning insanity on the right. By trashing the offices of professors Wolfowitz, Nitze, Adelman etc and driving them off campus, they only wound up fleeing into the arms of faux "academies" like Heritage, where they became intellectual "neoconservative" whores for the Bushites, concocting rationalizations for any and every crime.<br /></i><br /><br />Agreed.<br /><br />I was on campus in the late 70s and early 80s, a bit late for the height of "campus radicalism", but there was still an obvious lefty bias among undergraduates back then. And this is what I keep telling Tacitus: back then I sounded like the token conservative of my group, not because I was espousing right-wing policy, but because I was the one going "You know, they <b>do</b> have an occasional point, and we don't want to be the bad guys here."<br /><br />See, I actaully <b>believe</b> in the concepts of the marketplace of ideas, or that the best antidote to ridiculous ideas is to let them air so everyone can see how ridiculous they are. I've never thought shouting down the opposition was a winning tactic.<br /><br />Now where the lines blur, I suppose, is when "speech" overlaps with "threatening shows of force". When neo-Nazis march in Skokie, for example, is that an example of protected free speech which should be allowed its fair place in the marketplace of ideas, or an impllicit threat to the residence which needs to be met with a show of counter-force? I suppose it somewhat depends on your pre-conceived notions. We're not all going to agree.<br /><br />Damn those gray areas!<br /><br />And this is the problem that Nicholas MacDonald is running into. Currently, it's considered bad form in polite society to be outwardly mean to the bullied. It's more allowable to...not exactly "be mean to", but to poke back at...the bullies. Thus Jews, blacks, gays and such are not fair game whereas white males and Christians can be. Let me say right here that I'm not describing my own philosophy here, just trying to explain what I see. I <b>am</b> fine with siding with the bullied against the bullies. I am <b>not</b> in agreement with relegating classes of people (white males, or Christians, or the wealthy, for example) <b>to</b> the ranks of "the bullies" by classification alone.<br /><br />Now where it gets dicey is when you mention classifications that describe what certain people <b>do to others</b> rather than just what certain people <b>are</b>. Mr MacDonald complains that it's not acceptable to air pro-KKK views in public. Is that an example of bullying directed at the KKK, or is it a reaction to the fact that the KKK <b>are</b> bullies? I know where I stand on that question, but again, your personal answer depends on where you're coming from.<br /><br />The most extreme example goes back to the French Revolution. The aristocrats were the bullies until the revolution itself. After 1789, one could make a case that one was persecuted "for being an aristocrat". Is that the same thing as the peasants having been persecuted before? Again, it depends where you're coming from.<br /><br />I'd ask Mr MacDonald to examine whether the persecution for being a capitalist he has experienced first hand looks (to the persecuters, I mean) more like "persecution for being black" or "persecution for being an aristocrat". Not that he should excuse it, but just because he asked the question why the one is different (to polite society) from the other.<br /><br />I'm not claiming to have a final answer to this one. Just trying to ask the right questions.<br /><br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.com