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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (48208)	9/30/2002 8:05:10 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Here is a quote I have stayed out of the way of that "Food Fight", CB. I could not figure where they were going either. You can prove just about anything with quotes, if you look hard enough. And from the strangest sources. Here is an example of this that I ran into yesterday. Some people know that Lincoln is the source of this quote: "With malice toward none; with charity for all." But would you believe that this quote is also from Lincoln, that he loved it, and used it many times. Sure fits what we are doing now. "Let us have faith that right makes might." americanheritage.com

To: Ilaine who wrote (48208)	9/30/2002 9:26:06 AM
From: spiral3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I do think it's ironic that you would accuse Campus Watch of attempting to stifle free speech. From my perspective, their opinions bring new light and fresh voices to the debate in the marketplace of ideas. undeniably true, but the problem is the tipping point. There is a great danger in this sort of thing and it can quickly turn nasty, depending on how quickly one approaches the tipping point. The problem is that you cannot locate the tipping point scientifically, which is why you just have to trust people when it comes to these sorts of things, it's a vision thing. I mean how the hell am supposed to feel about #43 for example. I may be an idiot for trusting him given the evidence, and in fact that’s what I am, but I prefer my idiocy to Saddams.

To: Ilaine who wrote (48208)	9/30/2002 10:20:49 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

their ideas have consequences. Campus Watch pulled in their horns over the weekend, CB. They eliminated the "Dossier" section on Profs. Good idea. The name, "Dossier" has a negative sound to it. The Left won the Historical battle on exposing what people are advocating with the "McCarthyism" charge. It is now accepted "Gospel" that Sen McCarthy and everybody else in the country that tried to investigate Communists in the '40s and '50s were scoundrels. "These wonderful people were attacked by the Vicious Right," seems to come out as a Movie or Novel every other year. It makes it difficult to call anyone on the left, "to account," in the media today. That is why you have Congressmen going to Baghdad, badmouthing the President, and getting applauded for it. I was browsing a History Book last week at Borders called, "What If?" It was a series of articles on History written about various events and supposing that they ended differently. One article that I slowed down and read was, "What if Wallace had been re-nominated by Roosevelt as VP in '44 and had become President instead of Truman?" Henry Wallace was a decent man, a Populist from the prairie, who is considered to be the best Secretary of Agriculture we have ever had. As VP he went far left, and the Party Bosses kicked him out and put Pendergast's "Boy," Harry Truman in. The Article points out that if Wallace had become President, two of his friends who would have been in his cabinet were identified later, by our Intelligence operation "Verona," as Soviet Agents. That is how high up Russian spies were in our Government. There were many more. Most of them are now known today, with the collapse of the Soviet Union. But there is still denial by some of the left today of what went on back then. In any case, the excesses of McCarthy has put the left in the "Drivers Seat" on this issue, and made it very difficult to confront them.

To: Ilaine who wrote (48208)	9/30/2002 11:19:14 AM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I still haven't figured out what you and Derek are arguing about. Mill was certainly a supporter of free speech, although he did not use that term. He used the term "opinion." I don't think he said "the way to deal with offensive speech is more speech," but he certainly believed that mistaken, even false, opinions should be expressed, not suppressed. When you find out what we are arguing about, please let me know. I'm not certain either. And I hardly think it's worth all the pinging and ponging, wear and tear on my typing fingers. Perhaps it's social function is to keep Derek awake at work. ;-) Depending on what Derek does, that might be a good thing and it might be a bad thing. Thanks for that Mills quote. To be a bit more serious about all this than I have been, I have no doubt your rendition of Mills which I quote above is as good as any. It supports the thought I offered. If it were important to me, I would have checked with a philosopher friend of mine who uses the quote readily in faculty debates about speech codes. But I have simply not been serious. do think it's ironic that you would accuse Campus Watch of attempting to stifle free speech. From my perspective, their opinions bring new light and fresh voices to the debate in the marketplace of ideas. We are quite simply at different places on this one, CB. Perhaps there is no middle ground. I see the Campus Watch website as suppressing academic freedom by threatening, with potential physical violence, the teaching of faculty members. If one wishes to make the case that this field is too monolithic, there are a great many ways to make that case, short of encouraging spying in classes, etc. Pipes, rightly or wrongly, believes that the academic study of the Middle East is now dominated by one point of view. He is not alone in that idea. Foreign Affairs magazine recently reviewed a book by Martin Kramer who also has that point of view. Pipes and Kramer appear to be running buddies so it's not surprising they share the same views here.