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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (12563)	4/28/2001 3:43:18 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

When your whole society is turning in a certain way it takes remarkable individualists to resist. People who identify with groups and people who have a high need to belong to groups are simply not going to have the tools to stand apart from the group. And that should not be accepted as an excuse at the time or a defense later. If a situation is murky, maybe it is reasonable to say that the average individual gets a pass because of that- -as long as they did not engage in behaviour that is clearly wrong. But if the government has decided that extermination of some group is in order? No. If your neighbors have decided that courts take too long or are too uncertain and a lynching is needed? No. If MT decides birth control and knowledge of it is to be denied in a country of 1 billion, most of whom are in poverty and many of whom are starving or one bad crop from it? No.

To: epicure who wrote (12563)	4/28/2001 4:50:20 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

When your whole society is turning in a certain way it takes remarkable individualists to resist. Very true. In the 1850s it would have been a rare Georgian planter who invited blacks to share Sunday dinner in his home. In the 1940s there were few active pacifists in England, or for that matter in Germany or France. In 1944 there were few people on the West coast who defended Japanese-Americans and argued that they were entitled to the same rights as British-Americans. In the 1950s there were few people with the courage to say that choosing to be a communist was a basic civil right and that a Communist should be treated no differently from a Republican or Democrat. In 2000 it is a rare college professor who is prepared to argue that Black Studies courses are inherently racist and Womens Studies departments inherently sexist, and that both should be abolished immediately.