🚀 go-pugleaf

Thus Spake klaatu <klaatu@clark.net>:


%Um excessive presupposition from misconstrued context leads to
%inflexible mindset that happens to be deluded in nature. That's how some
%of the conspiracy guys got so "conspiritated" - relax that tendency to
%presuppositions based on context and that "conspiritation" will clear
%right up. Better than Milk of Magnesia.

Dammit, if I can't presuppose on context, that takes all the fun out of it. :P

%I didn't say anything like that - it is you who are attempting to apply
%reductio-ad-absurdam, and inappropriately I might add.

It's almost always applied inappropriately when issues of value are under
discussion.

%I do say that some might be willing to label you as a wacko. If the FBI
%or whoever decided to burn your family (because you were a wacko),
%wouldn't you think your "ghost" might want to see justice done? and if
%the agency responsible for justice was the one that committed the crime,
%what hope would there be for justice, unless some force could compel
%that agency to revise its standard and replace personnel, until that
%justice was done! 

However, as any major newspaper will tell you, the BATF has undergone some
serious internal scrutiny as a result of Waco, thus that specific instance, as
it was not part of a farreaching policy but an accumulation of small errors with
catastrophic but unintended consequences, is not a just basis for armed revolt.

%Straw-man argument. I didn't call you a racist, I just said that
%acceptance of elimination of anyone _because they are perceived as
%different_ leads inevitably to genocide, if this acceptance becomes

I disagree.  Depends on what you base your differences on.  Discrimination based
on behavior is one thing-I'm in favor of eliminating murderers, rapists, sex
offenders, and arsonists.  But to make distinctions based on benign
characteristics such as pigmentation is ludicrous.

%For you, evidently, a Wacko from Waco is a perfectly acceptable "witch"
%to burn. I argue that no "witch" is a good "witch" to burn, and argue

Did I say that the Branch Davidian case was handled in an ideal manner?  No,
just that it is nowhere near grounds for armed revolt.

%>  Scale does make a difference. 
%
%Yes. You nip it in the bud. First time every time.

Yes-but nipping it in the bud is best done through the press, the courts, and
the legislature.  Not through armed revolt.

%> If we resorted to shooting up the local
%> law enforcement every time someone made a mistake, or got too excited, or
just
%> came up with a phemomenally stupid policy, we'd be in a constant state of
%> anarchy.
%
%I have proposed this nowhere.

A number of posts on this thread seem to have done so.


John M. Atkinson
jatkinso@gmu.edu
"A nation which despises its soldiers will all too soon 
have a despicable army
                 --Jerry Pournelle