[Peace-discuss] Left and right

[Chas. 'Mark' Bee]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu>
To: "Chas. 'Mark' Bee" <c-bee1 at itg.uiuc.edu>
Cc: <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2007 6:43 AM
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Left and right


> Mark is so afraid

k00k-a-d00dle-d0000!

 that the Democrats will be tarred with the criminality
> of this war (a fate they richly deserve) that he makes up assertions to 
> refute.  "The wicked flee when no pursues," say the scriptures.

lol  Poor Carl - he lies, and lies, and lies, and lies.


>
> Who has argued that "the Democrats are an arm of the administration"?

  You, live on the air - just one of your endless parade of fallacies and 
redefinitions.  'The Democratic party is the arm of the Administration 
responsible for defusing the antiwar effort' or some such nonsense.




> In fact it's partly their desire to euchre the other faction that leads 
> them into unconscionably continuing the war, in order to blame it on the 
> Republicans, now that the country is largely opposed to the war.  --CGE
>
>
> Chas. 'Mark' Bee wrote:
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu>
>> To: "John W." <jbw292002 at gmail.com>
>> Cc: <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
>> Sent: Monday, July 16, 2007 3:53 PM
>> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Left and right
>>
>>
>>> Dear Roughly the Same as Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and the Dalai Lama:
>>>
>>> If "ultimately labels are relatively unhelpful in political discussion," 
>>> why do you bother with your "tests"?
>>>
>>> I suggested a consistent usage for the terms "Right" and "Left" in order 
>>> to try to make clearer what we're talking about in politics.  There are 
>>> a lot of attempts to make that unclear -- e.g., Barack Obama has risen 
>>> to prominence on his ability to obfuscate.
>>>
>>> Such a usage might lead us to see why the Democratic party is not on the 
>>> Left, since they've worked vigorously since last November to frustrate 
>>> the democratic demand for an end to the war.  That raises the questions, 
>>> Why did they do that?  Whose interests are they in fact serving, if they 
>>> aren't serving the expressed will of the voters? An inquiring nation 
>>> wants to know, and the answers are being kept from them, in part by the 
>>> form of the discussion.
>>>
>>> The proposed usage also makes it plain how the political Right can 
>>> occasionally act for justice.  Authoritarians can see the need for 
>>> social peace.  E.g., social security was invented by Bismarck, who was 
>>> no democrat.
>>>
>>> Many discussions of "the Left" and "the Right" make the logical error 
>>> called "undistributed middle," in which true premises lead to a false 
>>> conclusion, e.g.,
>>>
>>> 1. All men are mortal;
>>> 2. Socrates (my dog) is mortal
>>> 3. Therefore my dog is a man.
>>>
>>> The middle term, mortal, is "undistributed" because neither premise, 
>>> though true, refers to all mortal entities.  Similar arguments are quite 
>>> common in politics (hello, Robert?), e.g.,
>>>
>>> 1. Traitors don't support the war;
>>> 2. The Left doesn't support the war;
>>> 3. Therefore the Left are traitors.
>>
>>  Or:
>>
>>  1.  The Administration doesn't want to do what you want them to in order 
>> to end the war.
>>  2.  The Democrats don't want to do what you want them to in order to end 
>> the war.
>>  3.  The Democrats are an arm of the Administration.
>>
>>  While it's admirable in a way to see you deride your own tactics when 
>> others use them, Carl, it might be seen as more ethical if you were to 
>> forswear them yourself.  However, you'd lose almost your entire schtick. 
>> ;)
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