Zero Powers wrote:
>
> >From: "Alex F. Bokov" <alexboko@umich.edu>
>
> >Okay, here is a rephrased an simplified version of my question:
> >
> >Given that intolerant and absolutist memes can by definition exist
> >within a tolerant and relativist society, but not vice versa, what
> >strategies can the tolerant and relativist society use to survive?
> >Will these strategies require it to relinquish some of its tolerance
> >and relativism?
>
> Here's an even simpler version of the trick question you are asking:
>
> Can a tolerant person/society not tolerate intolerance and still be
> considered tolerant? I think the obvious answer is "yes."
>
> What strategies will it take? I think that's a simple one too. You simply
> live and let live, until the intolerant person/society uses their liberty to
> try to relieve you of yours. At that point you respond with something like,
> oh say, operation "Enduring Freedom."
]
You must be joking. This "war" is not about freedom, enduring
or otherwise. It is about vengeance, incredible hypocrisy and
dishonesty about our own "terrorism" and grabbing more power in
a region where we have been attempting to get rights to pipe oil
across to growing Southeast Asian market for sometime. Our
response has nothing to do with being tolerant or even remotely
rational. At the current rate millions of Afghanis will die
this winter from hunger. Do we honestly belief that is the
result of our tolerance and fair action and that it is
justified? If so then I submit that we have become so monstrous
we do not even comprehend what we are any longer or what our
ideals are or what we wish they are. We will have become only a
self-justifying blind King of Tyrants.
>
> I think our aim is to wipe out intolerance, but only by means that will not
> unnecessarily agitate the intolerant. Think Chinese handcuffs again.
>
Millions more deaths damn well should agitate any caring
people. Being kept in the dark by our own government and having
our civil liberties auctioned off wholesale to the the very
instrument of so much that is wrong in the world, the CIA,
should agitate us. But we munch away happily on the McNews fed
to us by media largely controlled by the same corporations that
made our President and VP rich men and that have manipulate the
region into its current mess over decades. But go on as you
are. Go on wrapping the tattered rags of your
self-rigtheousness about your threadbare true lack support for
freedom, sovereignity, human rights and justice in much of the
world. Enjoy your pretense but don't imagine for a second that
your hatred for those who do not share this game of pretend is
the just behavior of the "tolerant".
- samantha
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat May 11 2002 - 17:44:15 MDT