Quoting "James A. Donald" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> At 03:37 PM 4/27/2001 -0400, Faustine wrote:
> > We should hold ourselves and our friends to HIGHER standards if we
> > want to get somewhere in the long run.
>
> You could start by holding yourself to the standard of actually having
> some
> faint glimmering of knowledge about the research areas of those you
> confidently proclaim are of insufficiently high standard.
I do. Which is why, when William Vogt was kind enough to actually point me to
some Friedman articles he finds valuable, I'm going to read them and try to
learn something from them. I respect Vogt's work and therefore value his
opinion: so if he says there's something to Friedman I know I probably ought to
start thinking about whether or not I need to reconsider.
Far too many people take the view that "people I agree with = good; people I
disagree with = bad". What really matters is whether or not I can respect how
you got there. And that has to do with bias: if someone points out my factual
or logical errors, or relevant information I've missed, I sure want to know
about it. I respect that as a vital part of the process. And it sure beats
relying on ad-hominem attacks to get your point across anyday.
Someone once said policy analysts are like surgeons: they don't last long if
they ignore what they see when they cut an issue open.
So that's basically where I'm coming from.
~Faustine.
****
'We live in a century in which obscurity protects better than the law--and
reassures more than innocence can.' Antoine Rivarol (1753-1801).
