Kristen wrote:
>I will not post to ANY
>more threads about this guy. I think he is a traitor. I think he is
>horriubly dangerous with this be-happy attitude and as for the "global
>warming is staving off an ice age" claims....
Kristen, this attitude is exactly why you have made so many people on
this list angry with you.
Let me break your implied logic down for you.
1. Environmental damage is horribly dangerous.
2. People who cause horribly dangerous situations are evil.
3. No intellectually honest person could disagree with you about
environmental issues.
4. People who disagree with you about environmental issues create
environmental damage.
5. Anyone who disagrees with you about environmental issues is evil.
You have essentially immunized yourself from accountability. You feel
you have no need to listen to criticism from intellectually dishonest
people--like people who disagree with you. You have declared that no
one of good will could have an opinion contrary to yours. Therefore
people like John cannot be right, or even mistaken, but must be evil.
And therefore, you feel obligated to hate and despise them.
But this is causing you severe emotional distress since at some level
you realize that people like John are not really evil. And that your
childish actions are wrong. Although your logic tells you that this is
so important that you must treat anyone who disagrees with you as evil,
you know that behavior like this is unacceptable. You cannot continue
to interact with people you believe are evil, yet at some level you
know they really aren't evil.
Claiming that misguided people are evil is not the behavior of someone
who wants to be part of civilization. If you continue with this belief
you are eventually going to support and condone evil actions
yourself...all in the name of the greater good, of course. You will
end up like the extremists from David Brin's Earth who decide to
exterminate humanity, or Ted Kascinzsky sending bombs in the mail to
scientists. All in the name of the greater good. People who believe
their opponents cannot be acting in good faith are capable of any sort
of crime.
Is this the future you see for yourself? Is this how you want to end
up? Do you think that acting this way is, on balance, likely to be
helpful? Or perhaps, *even if you are right*, acting this way is
actually doing more to harm your cause than several dozen misguided
opponents could do.
As I see it, you have a choice. You can either decide to be a part of
our civilization and treat people who disagree with you with a basic
level of intellectual respect, or you can retreat to a cabin and start
mailing bombs to the evil people.
=====
Darryl
Think Galactically -- Act Terrestrially
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