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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (14018)	11/9/1998 11:54:00 AM
From: DMaA	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67261

Moral relativism comes with the liberal package because you need a "flexible" set of principles to justify enslaving most in order to "help" some.

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (14018)	11/9/1998 2:27:00 PM
From: Johannes Pilch	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 67261

>I don't believe they "equate" liberalism with moral relativism, my take on their views is that liberalism (and I'm using that term as it is commonly used in the vernacular, not your narrow, but perhaps more accurate definition) has a tendency to draw "moral relativists" as adherents.< Precisely. Jbe is attempting to rescue the word "liberal" by disassociating the term from the moral relativism that is almost universally accepted by those who now call themselves “liberals”. She tries to rescue the press by claiming the press is not essentially liberal, this, by referring to a virtually defunct meaning of the word. The press is flatly liberal, especially with regard to morality and religion, and this is beyond debate. The arguments for homosexuality, child murdering, rabid feminism and all manner of leftist filth find clear voice in today's mainstream press while those for traditional morality are largely ignored. The press will cover a homosexual parade, with topless womyn and male perverts running down the street in garter belts, bras and high heels, and report it as a “celebration of triumph,” giving little or no voice to those who criticize homosexual ideology. If the critics are referred to at all, it is typically to exploit the less articulate amongst them to further marginalize them into insignificance. In contradistinction to this when the mainstream press covers an event such as a Promise Keepers rally, it virtually breaks its leftist neck to give voice to crusty mouthed liberal womyn such as Eleanor Smeal, who then incessantly attacks the Promise Keeper position on marriage, this, based upon Promise Keeper statements the intended meanings of which she has completely destroyed. The leftists in the media do not often themselves flatly do the most disgusting parts of liberal dirty work, though their reporting is almost always slanted leftward. Liberal journalists give voice to those with which they identify and then shut out those with which they do not identify. We have seen the method employed here by jbe. Jbe came jingling along here with her smiling ditsy liberal voice, and by use of someone else called religious conservatives paranoid. The less perceptive readers here apparently missed the thing, being ostensibly carried away by an appearance of reason when there was nothing but ridicule in the post. When she was slapped around for it, she claimed not to understand the problem, and now even screams “STOP IT!!!!” like some hysterical nitwit, when she herself has done the same thing she complains against. Her liberal method is but a tool to master the resources of this niche. She does not want to understand any more than Smeal wants to understand. She has attempted to redefine what liberalism has become by referring to a meaning of the word that simply is no longer applicable. She has done the same thing with regard to the word “feminist”. Both these words denote misery, oppression, death, intolerance and enslavement of others while appearing to desire good. >Modern conservatism is anathema to moral relativists, because at it's root is personal responsibility< Yes. The liberal always desires to place blame on anyone but himself. It is why the very liberal Bill Clinton will never say “I lied”. The words require principle and courage because they place blame firmly on the perpetrator. Bill Clinton has no principle and he certainly has no courage. He is the "Kenny G" of presidents, a comprehensive lightweight-- milquetoast -- a twinkie where courage is concerned. It is why he will always say “She came on to me, didn't she?”, or “Starr made me speak in a way that was misleading.” To liberals, the problem always rests with others, and this is why conservatism is anathema to them.

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (14018)	11/9/1998 3:03:00 PM
From: jbe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67261

On Bork, and the 1968 Columbia University strike Betty, you inspired me to take another look at Bork"s "Slouching Towards Gomorrah" (the sub-title of which, may I remind you, is "Modern Liberalism and American Decline"). Unfortunately, the book has a lousy index, so it is not easy to find succinct quotes linking "modern" liberalism with moral relativism. But the intro gives a sort of over-all framework. Bork begins by definining "the enemy within" as "modern liberalism, a corrosive agent carrying a very different mood and agenda than that of classical or traditional liberalism." According to Bork, the defining characteristics of "modern liberalism" are "radical egalitarianism" and "radical individualism", both of which are supposedly "antagonistic to society's traditional morality." “Radical individualism”, in particular, is said to lead to “rootless hedonism” (and that, in turn, of course, to “moral relativism” --”anything goes”). But my major problem with Bork's analysis of “modern liberalism” is that he selects, as its symbol, the 1968 Yale University student strike that he had the misfortune to live through. Let me share a few moments from my own experience of the 1968 Columbia University student strike (which I experienced as a graduate student, rather than a professor). Well, it was led by largely Marxist radicals, not liberals. In fact, it was specifically, and deliberately, anti-liberal. Some of the leaders came from one of my graduate seminars, which dealt with the Russian “pre-revolution”, 1900-1917. All but three of us enrolled in the seminar were Marxists, who were taking the course apparently in order to learn how to “make” a revolution. They were fairly evenly divided among Stalinists, Maoists, and Trotskyites. (Post-scriptum: those I have kept up with are now Republicans. So it goes.) I remember vividly one “informational meeting” I attended, to find out just what was going on. One student, a young fellow, got up to protest something or other. Well, immediately a crowd of young thugs began stamping their feet to drown him out, bellowing: “Liberal! Liberal! Liberal! Liberal!” After struggling to make himself heard, the young man finally retreated to his seat, red-faced, and almost crying. I was so shocked and angry I got up and left. I never took the strike -- or much of the 60's radicalism -- very seriously. Too “media-eventish” (Remember “The whole world is watching”?) How could you take seriously a movement that proceeded under the slogan “Never trust anyone over thirty”?? Too much adolescent acting-out there. jbe

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (14018)	11/9/1998 3:59:00 PM
From: jbe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67261

P.S. on Bork and "modern liberalism" Betty, I accidentally left out another Bork qualification of the term "modern liberalism", namely: "Modern liberalism is very different in content from the liberalism of, say, the 1940's and the 1950's, and certainly different from the liberalism of the last century." Whew! That should let an old lady like me off the hook! But not really, I guess, because many of Bork's followers drop the modifier "modern", which means that I still have to take these periodic "floggings"! <VBG> jbe