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Politics : Actual left/right wing discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: TimF who wrote (78)9/6/2006 3:14:32 PM
From: Lane3  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 10087
 
I think we adopt the McGuffin Delusion for political debates as a form of political euphemism to keep us from having to baldly address the rude truth that problems are caused by human beings, and that a political solution means coercing and dominating those human beings.

The suggestion in that article is that this is an unintentional confusion but it seems to me to be intentional. Advocates know that we can't directly control people for a variety of reasons so they focus on the technology as an unstated plan B.



To: TimF who wrote (78)9/6/2006 4:04:41 PM
From: one_less  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 10087
 
Nice article. I had never heard of 'The McGuffin Delusion'.

"I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves, and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education."

-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to William C. Jarvis, September 28, 1820