False Comparisons

January 22, 2007
7:35 AM CST

For some time, it’s always irritated me that the Left has gotten away with defining Republicans as being the party of Pat Buchanan, David Duke and Jerry Falwell. A commenter at Classical Values makes this excellent point:

Why folks pretend that nutcases like D’Souza, Buchanan and David Duke somehow represent the Republican Party, much less the mainstream baffles me.

On the other hand, folks like Carter, Murtha, and Jefferson are not only elected as Democrats, they are party leaders.

I guess we have to see their leader and raise one of our nutcases just to make things even.

And that’s a fact. Leftist nutcasery is very well-represented in the Democrat leadership (as though they don’t have enough trouble with mainstream Leftism, eg. the Hillary Clinton types). But if you compare Carter, Murtha and Jefferson to Bush (41), Frist and even a very conservative Republican like Tancredo, the differences, in terms of [x-wing] radicalism, are enormous.

Mainstream Republicans (of the elected variety) are moderate to the point of blandness (much to my disgust), and are seldom if ever influenced by doctrinaire Christians like Falwell. “Mainstream” elected Democrats are in thrall to the Berkeley-Massachusetts-Chomsky axis to a far greater degree.

Anyway, I haven’t read Dinesh D’Souza’s latest book, which is what has caused all this fuss of late, so I can’t coment on its content. But D’Souza is a very conservative man, socially speaking, and while many conservatives would nod their head at some of what he says, I doubt very much whether they’d vote his precepts into law.

Unlike Democrats with the writings of, say, Chomsky and Carter.

And that’s the major difference between the parties.

As I’ve said earlier, while in the global context the main schism is between Western civilization and radical Islam, in the United States we have a three-way contest: between Euro-liberal thought, radical Islam and conservatives. Conservatives in the remainder of the Western world are thin on the ground, (except perhaps in Australia), and barely constitute a parliamentary opposition.

The fact that the American Left often and inexplicably chooses to side with radical Islam (eg. over issues like the Guantanamo Bay prison) makes the struggle even more intense.

Comments

Bottom of Comments | Original Post

When faced with rebuttal, the leftist answer is usually,
“That’s different!”

Turnabout is not fair play when it points at them.

Author ID: 89 | 1/22/2007 08:49 AM CST | #79247


The problem lying in the fact that we do not have sufficient true conservatives of the, oh, Reaganesque vein to truly kick butt on the moderates. RRs level of “compassionate conservatism” did not destroy his true functional logic. What must happen is that the hard leftists MUST be removed from positions of influence, and blockage of constitutional ideals. Some liberalism is guaranteed as 1st Amendment right. Fine. I’ve always “preached” that those UNABLE to care for themselves should be cared for. Those able to care for themselves by God WILL. Cost of living? Hey, I know of several low cost food (etc.) places right here in town. Want to spend more for glitzy packages? Go to the snob stores. There are, and will always be, those who care for others. Their needs are not exorbitant, so they take just enough profit to keep themselves afloat. But to continue supporting those who sponge is unacceptable. Those who have ABSOLUTELY NO RIGHT TO ANYTHING PROVIDED BY OUR WELFARE SYSTEM, such as illegal aliens, dead people, etc, who vote hard left in order to continue their “entitlements”. To go country-ish, They ain’t entitled to squat!

Author ID: 6430 | 1/22/2007 09:01 AM CST | #79251


I don’t think it’s that the left chooses to side with radical islamism, it’s that the left opposes any possible victory or anything that makes points for the right. They are in the fight to win, and winning for them is being in power. And that means not allowing the other side to score any points. It is why the left will never acknowledge advancement of conservative blacks/hispanics/jews. It seems we are at a point where the ideological fight is more intense than ever and the country be damned!

Author ID: 8653 | 1/22/2007 09:08 AM CST | #79253


Damn! Good one Rick!

Author ID: 6430 | 1/22/2007 09:42 AM CST | #79263


Drummermanrick is right.  The nihilistic values of the leftists would rather the whole house burn down leaving them all homeless, than have to give any credit to the conservatives for saving them all from marauding Islamists.

Author ID: 2303 | 1/22/2007 10:22 AM CST | #79269


I would hardly put D’Souza in the demagog category. (Caveat:  I haven’t read his latest yet.) He is conservative, but not as divisive as the others.

At 15 years old, his “Illiberal Education” remains a treatise on Political Correctness run amok on our college campuses.  It is not only well written, it is also thoroughly well footnoted.

Author ID: 20 | 1/22/2007 11:32 AM CST | #79278


A couple of “things” come to mind, all of which sort of tie up into one very messy “wooger-knot” at the end and I will point that out when I get there…

1. The Left fancies itself to be intellectually open, intelligent, grounded in reason, educated, and “tolerant”.

2. Patrick Buchanan is not now, nor ever has been a “conservative” in the sense of modern conservatism.  Buchanan is a cheap bully populist with a wide anti-semetic streak.  His principal foreign policy is old time Isolationism.  He panders to the Labor movement like a madam selling her goods; never directly mentioning the name of the product or its true nature, but always highlighting the quality.  His famous Culture War speech of 1992 was (IMHO) when social Conservatives “Jumped the Shark”. 

3. Jerry Falwell isn’t, other than some remaining ties to syndication, even a moving force in any section of conservative thought.  He has fundamentally (no laughs now...) withdrawn from the big picture, and tends to stick to small picture or narrowly focused issues.  He will most often pipe up when the morals and mores of the Secular Statist religion presses in upon Christianity (and Evangelical Christiantiy in particular).  He is a Carter era - early Reagan backer.  Long sense past his political prime.

4. Dinesh D’Souza is without a doubt one of the most frightening and dangerous men of 21st century social thought - TO THE LEFT.  He is everything they purport to be, intelligent, intellecual, educated, tolerant, and above all published.  Men such as D’Souza scare the bejabbers out of the Left because he is capable of engaging them on their own turf.  In addition to engaging them on their own turf, he can win decisively, most of the discussions.

Yes, as Kim noted, he is extremely Conservative.  Even more so than his intellectual soulmate and fellow Indian American Roman Catholic, Ramesh Ponnuru. 

So, the knot comes into all its messy focus.

The Left is, far from what it purports to be, it is intolerant and anti-intellectual.  People of the Left are condescending and more often than not only narrowly educated along only their most favored lines.  Where men like Falwell and D’Souza will readily admit man’s fatal flaws, and note that he is far from perfectable, People of the Left are convinced of the perfectability of man, and certain of just what that perfection is.  They are also completely convinced that THEY, the intellectual Left, have the ultimate answers for how man can be perfect. 

Of course in their formula for perfection they cannot tolerate any sort of dissent be it religious (for which they have offered the State as a balm), intellectual (aguments must be closed once perfection is achieved), and social (the self elevated to the primary priority in life). 

Of course, they must latch onto characatures of their opponents to offer a juxtaposition for their positions.  These strawmen are assembled much as the ancient Sumarians or Pre-Columbian Americans might assemble a fetish doll… with elaborate beading, carful construction… all designed to be destroyed in ceremonial immolation. 

Buchanan is no longer a Republican, and has been offered little solace or cover from the Conservative movment.  Mostly he seems to be placed in front of readers as a counter point from which to internalize where Conservatism must not go.

Their hatred of Falwell is simple.  Falwell finds his socal and moral compass in the teachings of Christianty.  His practice of it might be flawed, but all true Christians admit that their practice of their religion will aways be flawed because we as humans are always flawed.  Falwell has rarely been vitriolic, he has always been measured, and gracious in his public manner.  But he is dogmatic in his beliefs.  That rankles the Left so badly that they paint him as the ultimate evil.  They do really understand where they are likely to be defeated, and by what.  That is for sure.  Falwell is, in reality, individually harmless.  What the Left fears is religious belief, and that his religion is not theirs - in particular their state.

Their characatures are vile, and cruel.  Their hatered for the Reverand Falwell is linked arm and arm with their dismissals and minimalizations for the likes of Ponnoru, D’Souza, Buckley, Sowell, Williams, Will, et al… Conservative people with views that often diverge greatly, participating in a true form of intellectual debate. 

It is not that they cannot win the debates (I happen to think that they are toast, even on their slanted playing fields), they fear the reasoned conservative precisely because they cannot win in a fair contest.

So, the LEFT chooses a boogie man… a rather unpleasant but smart boogie man, and then using its formidable propaganda plant, props him up as the face of all.

There is little that can be done, given the lack of unbiased evidence available to the masses, to prevent the smear.

Sad…

r/TMF

Author ID: 8618 | 1/22/2007 11:36 AM CST | #79279


Oh.. but notice, when religionous groups or sub-groups preach the right things:

Social activism, progressive government, radical egalitarianism, and “feminine” theology, all is hunky dory…

As long as religions abandon the worship of God, and place the needs of the state and eternal self at the fore… all is just fine.

Marx’s famous statement is that religion is the opiate of the people.  Marx was a pretty shrewd if not angry and enviouos critter.  He knew that people were religious because humans have tended to be spiritual/religious since the recognizable dawn of humanity.  Marx didn’t want God or demi-gods to be the opiates of people’s fears.  He wanted the STATE to replace God… not for people to stop believing in a supreme being.

IMHO of course…

r/TMF

Author ID: 8618 | 1/22/2007 11:48 AM CST | #79280


Here was my response to Eric (at Classical Values) who (I should add) is a VERY dear friend of mine (so don’t think for a moment that Eric is a doctrinaire Lefty):

D’Souza has a very valid point… and we DO need to reach out to Muslims, the moderate ones, to educate them about what America is all about.  Lord knows they aren’t going to get it from al Jazeera!

D’Souza’s argument is pretty straightforward.  It suggests that we are a virtuous people because people have the choice to turn away from sin.  In societies in the Middle East, where sin is outlawed because all sinful things are outlawed, you don’t really know if someone is virtuous. In America, we do know, because sin is a choice, and most turn away from that choice.

That’s the argument he thinks we should be making to get the Arab boys on our side.  And, with Iraq the way it is, and the terrorists using anti-Americanism as their rallying cry, “The Great Satan is raping our daughters” it is something to consider.  Here are a few bin Laden quotes (from my very first blog entry):

“God has blessed a group of vanguard Muslims”

“Every Muslim should fight for their religion”

“I seek refuge in God against them and ask Him to let us see them in what they deserve.”

“Every Muslim must rise to defend his religion.”

“I tell them that these events have divided the world into two camps, the camp of the faithful and the camp of infidels.”

You don’t counter that argument with humanist platitudes about the evils of religion and how secularism is the only demonstrative of proper thinking.  You counter it by saying that America IS a very religious and virtuous society, because we have CHOICE to sin or turn away from sin.

What D’Souza is suggesting is that lauding sin is what the Left has been doing, and that feeds the propaganda that America is an evil, sinful place, and it is the duty of all Muslims to kill us all to save our souls, and protect the pious Muslims from our evil ways. 

Now whether the Left should accept the full blame for the debauchery slide our nation has taken is probably an over-reach, but did he really say that?  That they are 100% responsible?  Or, is he saying that the Left enables that kind of thinking with moral equivalence and providing a safety net to the outcome of bad decisions?

And part of all of this doesn’t make any sense at all.  Where was the Left when Muslims were executing women for being raped and young men for engaging in homosexual sex?  I would think the Left would be the first group to want reform in the Middle East, yet they are the least willing to stick their necks out.  It truly doesn’t make any sense.  Where is the virtue of the Left?  Do they care about women being executed for rape, enough to be willing to take a bullet on her behalf to stop it, or do they really want all religions to self-destruct and do prefer that the Middle East become humanist-style, secular entities like their Communist utopias?  Are the victims of Islamist oppression merely pawns in the Left’s attempts to eradicate all piousness and virtue?

I can see how you could come to that conclusion.  Maybe D’Souza presented his case badly, but the premise seems like a good one.

Over on White Peril (and the site owner there is a very, very good friend, too), I had this to say:

It’s too bad D’Souza took this approach. I found the (same) argument quite thought provoking in his “What’s So Great About America.” He seems to have regurgitated it in the latest book, only he took off the gloves.

Now being someone who likes the gloves off…

...Sorry, momentary lapse.

The argument is an interesting one, but it is much deeper than the intentionally agitated packaging.

Question: If all the prohibitions of society are removed, what will that society look like? Does it demonstrate that it is a moral/just society, or does it dissolve into something like Sodom and Gomorrah?

There are sub questions, such as man’s ability to resist temptation, the proper response in a moral/just society to those who are in the business of providing temptation, etc.

D’Souza’s argument is that America is a virtuous society, not because it looks that way from the outside, but because with all of the flavor du jour of debauchery, some folks choose otherwise. That is the true test and demonstrative of virtue: Not the absence of the choice of debauchery (ie, sin) but the ability to turn away from it when it is an option.

I think, when we strip away the incendiaries from D’Souza’s style, it is a valid point. Now what he chose to do in this book was expand on that argument. How did we get to be a society that is perceived as lauding sin?

I think that is a valid question.

Conservatives (like myself) argue for choice, but at the same time demand that bad choices are not lauded or repackaged as something good. All choices are not good, but choice itself is good. Further, that you take the full boat… that is, if you choose badly, you not only get saddled with the consequences, but all of the associated crap. So, do whatever you want, but know that you are responsible for the outcome. There is no safety net.

So conservatives were willing to remove some of the disincentives for making bad choices, but the Left didn’t end their demands. It went from “people SHOULD be able to do whatever they want” to the added suffix, “...and everything people want or do is good, because you can’t make value judgments on behavior… ever.” The Left has never quite gotten the difference between judging people as bad vs judging behavior as bad.

The Left argues FOR safety nets. They see folks like me (or D’Souza) arguing that we should remove choice. That’s not it at all. What we’re saying is that some of those choices are bad… we’ve actually made a value judgment (GASP!) and have history/facts/evidence on our side. We’re not trying to take away choice (by making it illegal). The only thing that we demand of our government is that we don’t provide a safety net for the outcome of bad decisions.

So, get pregnant by the idiot next door. Go right ahead! We’re not going to arrest you or the guy who participated in the conception. But, we’re also not going to chase him down to pay child support, buy the food for the child you decided to conceive, fund through our tax dollars your palimony suit, or put you through college because you now have a mouth to feed and can’t do it on McDonald’s wages. You and your child are going to suffer for the consequences because without those consequences, there is no reason (no carrot) to behaving responsibly.

Further, we’re not going to twist history and the facts to make it appear that it is society’s fault for you deciding to conceive a child you have no ability to support and raise, or that it was some sort of male dominated/oppressive society that created this idea of family, and that’s old fashioned. The new family is the village, and we all have to support that child (and its idiot mother).

D’Souza says (badly) that the Islamic Fundamentalists see our society and see us as depraved and lauding depravity. They think the presence of sin means that we are advocates for sin. And, D’Souza is probably (somewhat) justified in suggesting that the Left (whoever they are) does advocate for sin, under the guise of “do whatever you feel like doing… there are no consequences.”

This is terribly difficult for fundamentalists from the outside to grasp. All they see is the outcome, and they don’t like what they see. (I don’t like it either a lot of the time, but the alternative is worse). Fundamentalists believe that if folks are going to always choose badly, then we have to protect them from themselves and eliminate (through law) the choice to be bad… and we end up at the same thing the Left is trying to do. They, too, want to fiddle with the data and the reality. Unlike the fundies who want to remove choice, the Left wants to change the definitions and make the bad good.

Double unbad.

And why, if this is more pervasive in Europe, do the terrorists attack America instead of Europe? That’s easy. We make better TV and commercials.

As you mind gather, this has been a subject Kim and I have been discussing recently.

0 Author ID: 2 | 1/22/2007 01:49 PM CST | #79291


Once they sign on to relativsm, there’s no right or wrong, so they can dance around on any issue--and even that’s not wrong, cause there is no “wrong”.  Democrats are the ultimate spoiled brat culture--never take responsibility for anything, never any consequences.  Teddy Kennedy--kill a young girl, leave the scene, re-elected for life!  John Kerry--commit treason, lie in testimony to congress, nominated for president!  Amazing, but true!  If you could bottle sh-- that slippery, you could put STP outa bidnez.

Author ID: 7689 | 1/22/2007 03:00 PM CST | #79300


It is a difficult subject, because too often fear overwhelms one or both sides of the debate.

Yup I said fear. 

Liberals fear that they might be wrong (which they often are, but not all the time). They also fear for lots of things that involve what amounts to an almost sociopathic psychosis regarding the “self”.  I was always sort of amused (at least until the incongruity became “expensive") about the irony of the Left’s devotion to helping people and preoccupation with motive… often casting the motives of those who do not share their philosophical bent in the harshest of terms.  When actually cornered into dropping the veil of good intentions that the veil is self-indulgent.  They do “good things” because of the image that doing good things projects about them. 

So with a Liberal.  No good deed is done for purly to be good… of course good is undefinable since as Tech Support has stated… there is no rational definition of good in their vocabulary.  Frankly, it is not even allowed.

I have not read D’Souza’s book.  I have set about a mission of reading Victor Davis Hanson’s books.  And am failing miserably at that…

But what you will find in the difference between Fundamentalism and Orthodoxy is the fine line that you have nicely put out.  Fundamentalists tend to demand a removal of choice from the equation.  Orthodoxy tends to preserve the choice as an ultimate test.

I place Liberalism in the same bucket as Fundamentalism.  Yes, there are differences but those are generally beliefs, and not structures.  Fundamentalists of all stripes worship the “process”, regardless of what the process actually is.

Jesus of Nazareth (from a more social-philosophical perspective instead of overtly regligious) faced the difference between Fundamentalism and Orthodoxy, when he faced the Pharasees and Saducees in regard to his healing of the sick on the Sabbath.  His answer, in paraphrase, is that one should worship God, not the law.  In choosing to do right by healing the sick regardless of the day or the condition of the law is not operating against God.

Even if there is little or no religious belief to give the story some sort of extra moral weight, the ancient wisdom of the lesson is still intact.  Life is about choices in doing good, doing nothing, or doing bad(evil). 

I suppose we all must pay for the flaw.  More often than not, the good thing is more difficult than that which is easier on us.

It is a reality that all fundamentalists of all stripes, religious or non-religious… must either recognize or be tortured to death with their own fears.

So, what do they fear the most?  They fear that someone will choose right, and be not only a better person for it, but that OTHERS will think better of them (they who take the hard decision), than they who want the easy choice.

That is why the Left must assault peole like D’Souza instead of offer reasoned debate.  D’Souza just might be right, and others might choose to follow his lead.  Free, informed choice is not really what the Left, nor other Fundamentalists are all about now, is it?

r/TMF

Author ID: 8618 | 1/22/2007 04:21 PM CST | #79303


Well reasoned indeed.

Author ID: 6430 | 1/22/2007 06:07 PM CST | #79311


Superb, Mr. Mighty Fahvaag.

I had begun a lengthy reply earlier today, but fortunately for everyone it’s mostly obviated, now. I will say that I wasn’t very impressed with what appears to be a bad faith reading of D’Souza by the Classical Values writer. Anyone who gives Andrew Sullivan - who from what I’ve seen has spent his lifetime trying to destroy classical liberalism by first opposing it openly, and then by harming its credibility in putatively embracing similar thoughts and demonstrating his debauchery and dishonesty - serious consideration is wasting my time.

But the CV writer pretends that libertarians, who mostly exist in their own minds, are significant enough, and important enough, that they are always in the mind of critics of the Left. No, that’s the Left. If you self-identify with them, then that’s your problem. For another example, he apparently agrees with those who baselessly assert that there is such a thing as freedom of expression, and that the Constitution of the United States protects it. That’s BS. It protects freedom of speech. Not expression. To illustrate, one could express oneself upon a rubber sex toy. Is doing that in public if the “doll” is made to look like a person in politics suddenly protected? Sheer idiocy. It is morally reprehensible to claim that a vile and corrupt idea pushed upon the American people by a lawless group of jurists on the Supreme Court is actually a Constitutional principle. This is precisely the same thing that perverts are doing to marriage with homosexuals claiming the right to destroy its value and meaning by applying it to their longer-term trysts. By such debasement are all rights made to seem unaffordable.

I realize that Tech Report has warned us of her friendship with the author, and apologize for any hard feelings I may cause with my reaction to his review. But he and others seem purposely to be missing the point, and that is bad faith, and rather dangerous these days. D’Souza seems to be arguing that the alliance the President has been making between moderate Islamics/Muslims and the West against the Islamists is undermined by the Left’s behavior. (I remember when Muslims were called Moslems. I think that was when Turks were the main ones we heard about in the West.) That’s patently obvious to most people who look at such things.

Anyway, libertarians always struck me as lazy Objectivists who didn’t want to consider the consequences of their bad behavior. First it was the cloud of marijuana smoke coming out of their conventions covered on C-SPAN back in the 1980s and early 1990s that gave me that view of them, and later when Virginia Postrel left the editorship at Reason Magazine and the druggie crew took over. But since then, their utter lack of opposition to sexual deviants and their cultural/political agenda has convinced me that they are not in fact the friends of liberty they make themselves out to be.

Having lost more than 2 hours of sleep on this and another subject elsewhere, hopefully I won’t have completely wasted that time and have to spend more of it in apology upon the morrow.

Author ID: 8165 | 1/23/2007 12:57 AM CST | #79329


Whoops. Typo’d Tech Support’s name. Sorry.

Author ID: 8165 | 1/23/2007 01:00 AM CST | #79330


I point out my friendship with the two site owners not so that their arguments are off-limits, but to point out that personal attack of them is off-limits.  But that’s ALWAYS off-limits.

Both are very reasonable people who 99% of the time are on the side of the angels.  If I feel them wrong on something, I will engage them in argument.  They have no hesitation to argue with me on something, if they think I’m wrong.

That’s the way it is supposed to work among friends.  If I thought they were idiots and lost causes, I wouldn’t bother.

0 Author ID: 2 | 1/23/2007 07:57 AM CST | #79352


I come away from this feeling like an intellectual toddler. Sigh.

You guys impress the diaper squeezins out of me.

Author ID: 186 | 1/23/2007 11:55 AM CST | #79379


I do not readily dump on Libertarians… I bluntly refuse all but light comic passes, because despite some differences in policy, they are basically orthodox in temperment.  I have also been aptly branded a “Libertarian Republican"… by my more establishment friends.  So I can hardly bite the hand that feeds me.

I aways said that the nation would work best if it was the Libertarians and the Republicans arguing it out over national policy.  I can dream, can’t I?

A world where government is looked upon at best as a necessary evil.  Where debate and discussion involve actually debating and discussing the topic at hand, and where the winner takes the loser out to the range after the debate… and then for a beer and an good steak at dinner.

That is why, though I sometimes will disagree with Libertarians, and lament that they have too easily slipped into legalized drug advocacy, I will never fundamentally disagree with their premise… only the their policy choices.

AND I am very much a Libertarian when it comes to religion.  Kim and TS know who I am and what I am.  They also know how much I respect their view point, even though I disagree.  That is because I am a believer in Orthodoxy, not Fundamentalism. 

I am a religious man (Roman Catholic - though imperfect I strive to do my best).  I make no bones or apologies about it.  I pray for my friends, believers or not… I will also treat their beliefs or lack thereof with the rule that Christ himself insisted that man must learn. I am also a firm “believer” in science because to me, science is one very important way we explore and learn about God’s creation… which I also have come to understand is immensely old and infinitely more complex than a story told to relative babies.

But that is just me… because ultimately to live with each other, we must learn to do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

Peace,

TMF

Author ID: 8618 | 1/23/2007 03:31 PM CST | #79396


Tech Support, I didn’t mean to imply anything except to say that my reading of the arguments made, and quoted from elsewhere, sound more than just a bit improbable to me. They sound like the writer is purposefully ignoring things D’Souza has written over a fairly long career.

Of course, I’m on very shaky ground without having read the book, but D’Souza has generally struck me as reasonable and usually somewhat to my left from what I can remember. If this book is a major departure for him, then I’d prefer more evidence than I saw on CV and a couple of the sites linked from there.

And even if it’s true, one does not do what is demonstrated in this quote:

Hugh Fitzgerald, in Pajamas Media, pulls no punches with a very thorough fisking of D’Souza, and concludes,

With this book, he should lose any residual respect any one of sense might once have harbored for him. He has lost the right to an audience. He should no longer be given a hearing at National Review or, for that matter, anywhere else that wishes to be taken seriously.

This book is beyond the pale. Beyond all pales.

A little thing like being beyond the pale never stopped anybody from making money and achieving success.

Being beyond the pale is part of our freedom in America.

That really set me off. It is utterly contradictory to any (classical) liberal tradition, and reeks of the sort of “No you may not question me” moral supremacy that one sees in the vast majority of Leftists, who I consider moral self-abusers - though we were forced to learn in the 1990s it was not limited to that.

In a situation where you believe that someone you normally accord due respect has said something you find unacceptable, you respond to him with questioning to verify that you are understanding him correctly. If at length you find that he has produced a thought that you find deeply objectionable, you should seek to mildly rebuke him and show why he is wrong, the consequences of his idea, and why another idea is superior. That is what those who have been natural allies and who would be friends under the right physical circumstances owe one another and their readers.

Author ID: 8165 | 1/23/2007 04:27 PM CST | #79399