Hello Krimel. It's depressing, but you are right. This kind of no-arguing, I imagine it makes me understand Lenin somewhat better.
> [Krimel] > It's fun to try but you are wasting you time. What Platt, Craig and Ham do > is called the fundamental attribution error (FAE). Here is a classic > example: > > "What we have found in this country, and maybe we're more aware of it now, > is one problem that we've had, even in the best of times, and that is the > people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless who are homeless, you > might say, by choice." > -Ronald Raygun > > What this does is say that when others mess up it is because they are > defective. But when I mess up I am a victim of circumstance; situations > have > conspired against me. Bill Gates is successful _because_ he is ambitious > and > smart. Joe Gratesleeper is not successful _because_ he is stupid and lazy. > There is a kind of cosmic justice being played out in life and asking > society to step in and interfere is somehow wrong. > > We can ignore the circumstances in Joe's life that lead him into poverty > and > hopelessness because we know that whatever those circumstances were, we > would have risen above them and he is just getting what he deserves in a > karmic sense. > > This is especially tragic when it is applied to children who are held > personally accountable for having been born to parents who don't care, > don't > have resources or are mentally or physically ill. It is the child's duty > to > rise above whatever conditions they are born into and if they can't; well > it's their fault and again justice is served. > > All the Randian Raygun puffery about the immoral use of government force > revolves around this faith in cosmic justice and the FAE. Obviously, it > has > its appeal and Raygun, like Satan had the personal charm to sell it. The > result has been a generation of people who believe that government is evil > and that big money interests are justified in doing whatever it takes to > succeed. > > You cite statistics and simplistic folk like the Gipper and his fans just > write that off as effete intellectuals lying with numbers. You look at > poverty, Platt wants to look at wealth. Any attempt to look below the > surface is just liberal brain washing. If academia is fraught with > liberals > it couldn't be that people who actually think things through arrive at > liberal conclusions. Rather it must be a plot to hold conservatives at > bay. > The agenda must be political not intellectual. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
