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In many ways we all see through a glass darkly after September 11. A old world is fading and new world is emerging. We can not yet see the full the full shape of his new world, we see it only darkly though the filter of our expectations. Now that the War for Iraq is about to start, I am launching this board to explore and discuss the brand and brave new world. We all experienced a 'Road to Damscus' transformation on Septembe 11, 2001 so let's being inspired by Paul's words to the Corinthians. ================================================= 1 Corinthians 13 "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part: but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope. Love, these three but the greatest of these is love." ================================================= This replacement for the 'No Political Rants' board and is meant for serious dicussion of Foreign Affairs. No domestic politics allowed. Everything else is on topic. Remember, the point is to learn not to win. We can discuss the quality and results of various Adminstration foreign policy but no blanket character attacks. George Bush is neither God nor Satan and Bill Clinton has policies that worked and policies that didn't work. Let's keep the discussion on that level. There are plenty of places on SI to rant about your particular political beef. I think Jane Galt has a very good set of guidelines we should use on this board: janegalt.net I think that we could benefit from a couple of ground rules: 1) If your idea can't stand on its own now, its popular history won't help it. The fifties and the sixties are over, folks. 2) Stop complaining that the other side is advocating for their ideas. If your ideas can't stand the heat, throw 'em out and get some better ones. 3) Stop calling the other side names. Unless your rhetorical skills are something special, limit your attacks to their ideas. 4) Stop whining about what happened in the past. If politics were nice and perfectly fair every time, it wouldn't be politics, it would be nursery school. If Gore runs against Bush and loses then, you're going to look a little stupid. 5) Can the hypotheticals. I don't know whether Gore would have done all right in office after 9/11 or not. You don't either. 6) If you have to fudge numbers and blur distinctions in order to make a case for your ideas, why do you believe them? 7) People should not be referred to as "Fascists", "Marxists", "Communists", "Nazis", etc. unless they are actually devotees of the schools of political thought 8) Assume, until proven otherwise, that your opponent is a person of goodwill. Accept that some things are value judgements that will not be argued away: between, for example, a higher absolute standard of living for the poor, or less inequality of income. Between economic growth and wilderness preservation. Between great taste and less filling. If you know that your opponent is factually or theoretically wrong, assume that this is ignorance or misinformation, not malice. 9) Do not walk in assuming that you occupy the moral high ground. No one listens to sermons except the converted. 10) If you're wrong, admit it at once. No one will fault you for being mistaken. Everyone will hate you for refusing to admit it. 11) Many people wander into the other half of the Blogosphere having carefully nurtured a plethora of witty responses to the straw man arguments that flourish in the echo chambers of both the liberal and conservative press. They are therefore expecting that as soon as they have shone the cold light of reason on the ridiculous notions of those rubes on the other side, all but the mean-spirited and vicious among them will immediately see the error of their ways. When they find out that those people have real live reasons for believing as they do, often bolstered by real live facts, they are hurt. This is not what they expected. They feel surprised, and somehow betrayed. At this juncture, they often choose to go on the offensive, name calling and writing sarcastic, bombastic screeds which often seem to center around the silliest and most biased material available to their side, yet are shocked to find out that libertarians are, for some reason, unconvinced by the latest publications from the CSPI. Often, defending their initial assertions against angles they hadn't, in their previous hothouse environment, really considered, leads them to take increasingly extreme positions in defense of their original unnuanced view, until having found themselves arguing that in order to, say, prevent abortions we should take down the name and phone number of anyone who ever paused in front of a Planned Parenthood Clinic and then hunt them down and shoot them, they flounce away after declaring that everyone on the site is a bunch of ignorant [expletive deleted] who kill babies for fun. If you find yourself caught in this cycle, I have news for you: they're not the ignorant [expletive deleted] here. 12) If, when someone seems to refute a point you have made, you say "That's not the point", you must then state what the point is. If they then refute that point, you are not allowed to say that that actually wasn't the point either, and the real point was some third thing that hasn't been yet refuted. 13) If you are going to attack someone for citing sources that are biased, do not try to prove this by using sources that are equally biased in the other direction; i.e., do not try to prove that Cato is wrong about something by flashing up a talking points memo from a Nader group. 14) No one is much moved by exhortations to the effect that they're just selfish and mean. First of all, it's rarely true, except in the case of Objectivists, and they don't care. 15) I don't care how mad you are -- I mean it. No name calling.. If they call names first it's polite to fire a warning shot across the bow. 16) Drug testing in schools is not the same thing as jack-booted thugs coming to our house in the middle of the night and making us "disappear". Let's tone it down a little, okay? 17) And fer gosh sakes, will you get out a little more? The sureness of your own ineluctable moral superiority, of the venal stupidity of the other side, of the patent weakness of the opposition's arguments and moral fiber, is a little tiresome. Have fun, learn and teach. | ||||||||||||
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