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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill who wrote (38614)	7/29/2005 9:58:21 AM
From: Constant Reader	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 90947

Does this mean that those people who attended the demonstrations against the Iraq War organized in San Francisco and other places by that anti-Semitic Stalinist group are terrorists, too?

To: Bill who wrote (38614)	7/29/2005 10:01:27 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 90947

I don't think so Bill. While it's just an argument, and I don't really care very much about it, the Weathermen of the 60's blew up a statue to begin with, and destroyed property (and planned very carefully not to kill people). I think if you think the Weathermen were terrorists, then you can make a fairly good analogy to the Boston Tea Party. Is it 100%? No. Could I make a better argument for vandalism? Yes. But for me it's interesting to see how things fit together, and compare and contrast. Because I'm a relativist I can see things all sorts of different ways. I don't think that is "insane". That's interesting that you see it as non-violent. I would not have argued that. You could argue it is like protestors who begin to smash windows and destroy store property in a political protest- but I think we would generally call that violence, rather than non-violence.( I think most people consider sit down strikes, or peaceful assemblies of protestors who are doing no harm to people or property as "non-violent"). I find your idea that it was a non-violent protest very provocative. "The Boston Tea Party was a non-violent protest with vandalism at its core." Perhaps the basic problem with what you see when you read my remarks is you read them as if you had written them (not in terms of POV, of course, but in terms of vehemence- and I say only perhaps, because I really can't know). When I write things I'm often just working with history, making various analogies, fitting things together in new ways. I'm not pronouncing what is "right" and what it "wrong". Even when I use those words I don't mean them in an absolute sense- not even about the things I believe strongly. I think (perhaps) you could treat me with a little more respect if you realized that much of what I write is just intellectual exercise (or maybe you couldn't, I don't know). I'm not stating a manifesto. I have thoughts about something, and I post them. Sometimes they are a bit more provocative than I realize, but if they weren't provocative at all, what would we talk about?