Dog Cock and y'all:
Roger said:
Now, let me address David's attempt to equate
conservatism with anti-intellect. First, let me start
that there is a good reason to make this mistake. A
very good reason actually. Conservatism is indeed the
position (which exists in both parties btw) of
defending established social patterns of quality from
destruction. The threat can come from social,
biological or intellectual patterns.
If I thought conservatism was all about defending social patterns from
destruction, I'd be a conservative. This definition is far too generous and
is very much at odds with what's actually happening before our eyes. I mean,
just think about the Bush administration in terms of rights and
intellectually directed societies as Pirsig describes it. They rarely miss
an opportunity to diminish our rights at home, or to refuse an international
agreement abroad. They rarely miss an opportunity to cozy up with right-wing
dictators. They're the first one's to question the patriotism and loyalty of
those who question these policies. (As Ann Coulter said, "Its breaks my
heart to think what Joseph McCarthy could have accomplished with Google and
NexisLexis".) Its obvious! These guys assert social values uber all and
their people love it. They never miss a chance to use fear, anger and
patriotism to sell these violations. Pirsig says Rights serve as a kind of
code to help us distinquish between the two levels, and in this form of
accounting today's conservatives are deep in the red. They're not defending
social values from some attack, they're trampling all over intellectual
values in pursuit of saftey and votes.
By the way, does all the fuss about Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction"
strike anyone else as outrageously and conspicuously hypocritical? It kills
me when the news is reporting the FBI's search of an American biomedical
engineer in connection with the anthrax mailings one minute and reporting on
Saddam's evil pursuit of biological weapons the next. We have more nuclear,
chemical and biological weapons that Saddam could ever dream of having. A
great number of the world's nations have "weapons of mass destruction". Its
usually called an army. And if the level of danger in the world were
measured by the sheer weight of arms, the US should be the first to allow UN
inspectors to take a look.
Empire and democracy are at odds with each other. We can't be both. Empire
is at odds with intellectual values. Its an ancient, social level impulse to
dominance and exploitation, even if its defended with modern high-tech
weapons. The Bush doctrine is one of empire. Its about power and wealth. And
these policies are very likely to make America's enemies even more angry. It
reminds of that Monty Python skit where the American General orders the army
to "surround everybody!"
DMB
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 25 2002 - 16:06:36 BST