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

To: Neocon who wrote (59236)	9/20/2002 3:47:57 PM
From: one_less	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Nice nutshell. But, what political human endeavor in the history of the world has not been composed at least in part by these elements? This seems a good general definition for the negative side of groupism. "It was a relief to find the enemy and plot against him. It is the irresponsibility and willingness to rush to judgment that is evil; the resistance to acknowledging complexity or considering what you might be culpable for if wrong; the eagerness to surrender responsibility and merge with the group, or to consider how much of one's lot might be one's own fault, or no more than bad luck; "

To: Neocon who wrote (59236)	9/20/2002 4:21:50 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

I think murderous fanaticism is always with us in everything. What you see as particularly evil is (IMO) the critical mass necessary for mass murders to take place. There are any number of political/racial/religious groups which contain members who would probably be happy to engage in such murders (of course the groups don't see them as murders- they see them as retribution, or justified executions, or something like that.) But most groups just don't have enough energized members. It takes some sort of social dislocation to really get a lot of people heated up for mass murder. I am reading about the Scottsboro trials and a lot of other companion material to those cases. We have had real evil mass murder in this country, and murderous fanaticism. The threat of it is always with us. Just my opinion.