> [Platt] > I appreciate the compliment, Ham, but you have the knack of getting to > the root of today's political problems with a few succinct words, as in > your insights here. > > [Krimel] > So you are actually stating, unequivocally, that you support Ham's > blatantly racist rhetoric?
[Platt] Typical leftist ploy. You don't like what someone says so you try to intimidate into silence by a personal attack. [Krimel] I asked you if you support unequivocally support Ham's statements. I withdraw all suggestion of racism. Do you endorse this statement from Ham: "Our nation has allowed itself to be intimidated by an alien culture on the premise that discrimination is a bad word." What alien culture is he talking about? What forms of discrimination do you and he support? "Children today are taught that Democracy means "social equality" rather than individual freedom." What does this mean? Should we teach children social inequality? How is social equality at odds with individual freedom? Where is it mandated that "third-world cultural values as equal to those of the Free World?" What "third-world cultural values" are you two talking about? He says, "welfare programs that will transform entrepreneurial capitalism into collective socialism." Name a single politician in the history of this country who has called for the state to take over the means of production in this country. Are you saying that "entitlements and welfare programs" do not refer to poor blacks? Who are they directed towards? Please feel free to offer up some intellectual defense of any of this. [Platt] Not tribes, but some of social concepts held by some Indians. Your romantic notions are typically wacko. "Primitive tribes such as the American Indians have no record of sweetness and cooperation with other tribes. They ambushed them, tortured them, dashed their children's brains out on rocks." (Lila, 24) [Krimel] Pirsig does not glorify Indians but he does not repudiate their tribal and collectivist culture either: "But even though Indians were never given proper credit for their contribution to the American frontier personality values, it's certain that these values couldn't have come from anyone else. One often hears 'frontier values' spoken of as though they came from the rocks, the rivers or the trees of the frontier, but trees, rocks and rivers do not by themselves confer social values. They've got trees, rocks and rivers in Europe." Pirsig says this: "Out West among the Indians it's a standing joke that the chief is the poorest man in the tribe. Every time somebody needs something he's the one they go to, and by the Indian code, 'the generosity of the frontier,' he has to help them. Phaedrus didn't think you'd see much of that along this river. He could just imagine some strange riverboat man pulling up at Astor's mansion and saying, 'I just saw a light on and thought I'd stop in and say "hello".' He wouldn't get past the butler. They'd be horrified at his impertinence. Yet in the West they'd probably feel obliged to invite him in." Where would you say his sympathies lie; with the collectivist chief or the individualist Astor? Or perhaps you could provide a reasoned Randian analysis of this: "The old Indians knew how to handle it. They just got rid of anything anybody wanted. They didn't own property, they dressed in rags, some of them. They kept it down, laid low, and let the aristocrats and egalitarians and sycophants and assassins all look on them as worthless. That way they got a lot accomplished without all the celebrity grief." [Platt] Again, a personal attack without intellectual substance. But, expected since you have no rational argument. [Krimel] Please show me that I have misrepresented Ham's views here. Please elaborate, comment, give a reasoned argument. I have no wish to sling slander. Tell me how much you endorse if not "social equality" then equality under the law. 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/
