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

To: Lane3 who wrote (15723)	6/6/2001 7:35:58 AM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

I am sure you are acquainted with the complaint that democracies in general, and America in particular, are given to litigiousness. How do we solve such a problem? Of course, we can counsel self- restraint, and ask that people bethink themselves, or seek less drastic solutions on their own, before requiring their day in court. But that is too dependent on common sense, and we wouldn't have the problem if that were not in short supply. The other answer is to "vet" complaints for their reasonableness and prima facie credibility, as a summary judgment of a judge or panel. In the same way that we might expect anyone who makes a claim on our time and resources to pass such a preliminary test, I think that it is reasonable for me to list my objections and queries and ask that they be addressed before I will take seriously what are (to me) a novel set of complaints........

To: Lane3 who wrote (15723)	6/6/2001 10:48:22 AM
From: average joe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

There's something there that needs repair" And who decides that? In a free society as soon as you step in to repair you've stepped out of bounds. The Christmas tree person could have been fairly dealt with by putting them on ignore. There are real problems in the world.

To: Lane3 who wrote (15723)	6/6/2001 11:41:47 AM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

Your post is another example of the reasons I like you so much. You're one of the very few people here with whom one can have an intelligent, rational, reasonable, responsible, and insult-free discussion. He said something about when people complain that they're being dissed, in his experience there's something to it. I wanted to support that statement. dis, as I understand it, is short for disrespect. My mother taught me, simplisticly perhaps but Mothers tend to be simplistic at times, that respect is not a right, it must be earned. Our society seems to disagree -- it seems to feel that being respected is a right, and being disrespected is a wrong, sometimes even when disrespect has been well earned. I disagree with the PC notion that the offended parties get to define the problem and the solution. But that doesn't mean that a civilized society should brush off the complaint. I agree with both of those. But society also has to recognize that a) just as there are hypochondriacs (sp) there may be, to coin a word, compaintondriacs. Some people don't seem to be happy unless they are complaining about something. We could spend all our time dealing with complaints and never get anything positive accomplished. So it is wrong to brush off every complaint. But it is also, IMO, wrong to try to address every complaint. Some complaints have no answer -- life is unfair, live with it. Some complaints should are unreasonable. People have the primary obligation to resolve their own problems, and should only look to society to resolve them if a) they have tried their best to resolve them themselves and can't, and b) it is reasonable for society to spend energy and effort and, usually, money resolving their complaint instead of using that energy, effort, and money (all scarce commodities) in other ways which might bring greater benefit to more people. As just one example, I look at our school, which can't afford basic equipment and supplies for the majority pf students, but is required by law to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a few handicapped students. Sure, handicapped students have legitimate complaints. But is this the right use of scarce societal resources? What happens is that teachers wind up spending money out of their own pockets for things the school can't afford to buy. So the teachers are really subsidizing the aides and other special programs for a few students. Is this fair? For a long time, I agree, the majority ignored legitimate complaints of a wide range of minorities (the term not used racially, but society, to include any small subset of society with a common condition or situation). But the pendulum has swung way too far the other direction, to the point that some minorities are diverting far too many scarce resources to their benefit at the expense of the majority and of society as a whole. If I had the time I would work a lot more on this post; there are holes in it and unresolved points which I expect that those whose only desire here is to dis, not to debate, will gleefully point out, while ignoring the main point; but since you have the ability to deal with main points and are not in this just to score debating points, I'm happy to toss this incomplete, thinking-through-level post your way for your consideratin, and will ignore all the cawing ravens of destructivism. .