Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Neocon who wrote (41041)	12/18/2001 11:57:46 AM
From: E	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

sophistication self defined You're right that i didn't look it up, but among the definitions I found when i (just) did was this, so i haven't been understanding the word to mean "worldly wise" gratuitously, i'm relieved to see. I took Latin for four years in high school. Main Entry: so.phis.ti.cat.ed Pronunciation: -t&-"kA-t&d Function: adjective Etymology: Medieval Latin sophisticatus Date: 1601 ... 2 : deprived of native or original simplicity: as a : highly complicated or developed : COMPLEX b : having a refined knowledge of the ways of the world cultivated especially through wide experience 3 : devoid of grossness: as a : finely experienced and aware b : intellectually appealing - so.phis.ti.cat.ed.ly adverb synonyms ...WORLDLY-WISE... What does it mean to say that any citizen should plainly see our mortal danger, at this point, except to wonder at the depth of anti- American sentiment on the part of those who do not, or to have real fear if they achieve power? It can mean those things and other things, too. For example, it can mean that there are sincere people, I call them 'idealists,' who believe that the way they think human beings ought to be is the basis on which they themselves should form positions to advocate, whether their descriptive assumptions bear any relation to reality or not. It's a form of magical thinking. This is my own definition of an idealist, based less on reading than it is on observation at dinner parties with very nice people who say the most foolish things with a look on their faces as though they knew something. Which they don't. But as for your rationalization of calling such well-meaning if politically and socially unsophisticated dissenters traitors, likening them to Hitler, and lying about them because the provocation is so great, I point out that even if that was a respectable justification in America, which it isn't, the fact remains that they don't have power, and won't-- the left has so thoroughly disgraced itself since September 11, imo, it has made itself even more irrelevant than it was previously, and will remain so for a long time, also imo. And I point out that your rationalization of the suppression of dissent in America is a slippery slope and that, in the end, we will be ashamed of this behavior. Well, maybe you won't, and JLA certainly won't, but I will be. I consider the backlisting behavior described in the article below unAmerican. I also, I should mention, do not consider this country perfect and want to feel free to say so when I'm moved to do so, as has always been my wont. www0.mercurycenter.com