Mark, Carmen, David B., Drose, Bob, & everyone else who's still reading
this thread,
Thanks Mark, Carmen, and David B. for holding the fort in my absence. I
was away engaging in subversive liberal activities this weekend. I've
read all of Saturday's posts and decided to respond now before going on
to Sunday's, so I may have to eat my words once I've caught up on the
mail.
drose wrote on Saturday at 9:58am, a quote from Robert Heinlein where
Heinlein elevates duty and loyalty as the highest creations of the human
mind.
Mary: Obviously, Heinlein is not an MOQer. As I think David B. also
pointed out, duty and loyalty are social level values, not intellectual
level values. So, Heinlein is behind the 8 ball right from the start,
poor guy.
As far as the essay written by John Doggett, I would like to know who
he is. I've never heard of him. You, Drose, mention that this was
lifted from a conservative website, but you don't give the address.
It's kind of hard to check references that way. Nevertheless, I would
say that Doggett's thesis is indeed skewed toward conservatives. Is
seems designed to push all the usual conservative hot buttons. Hillary
Clinton is maligned for stating that we need to take a control over what
our children are watching and doing, while failing to mention God,
church, or nationalism. I suppose Doggett has never heard of separation
of Church and State. I found her quoted comments to be completely
appropriate and Doggett's to be completely inappropriate on this score.
Doggett did, however, go on to state several things that all of us can,
no doubt, agree on. > All we have to do is place parenting ahead of
> everything else. All we have to do is to make our
> children our number one priorities. All we have to do is
> to know who they are, what they are learning and love
> them and work with them.
Doggett did not mention God, church, or nationalism once during this
quote, yet it is a true and valuable statement, just as Hillary's was.
Drose asks: Ever read Brave New World?
Mary: Yes, and 1984, Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies, and On the Beach.
I've also read ZMM and Lila, and thus have this to say:
Conservatism can be equated with the Social level. The ultimate goal of
any conservative regime is to maintain the status quo. Remember
Pirsig's long dissertation on the Victorians? Conservatives are not
really interested in the betterment of mankind as a whole, but the
betterment of those like themselves. Conservatives would turn America
into a church state if given the power to do so. Fortunately, they have
been thwarted in the Supreme Court by the Bill of Rights and the
Constitution. Conservatives like to believe that they personally own
and, have the only right viewpoint on, such things as virtue, honesty,
hard work, and morals. What they fail to understand is that this belief
only demonstrates a lack of virtue, morality, and intellectual honesty.
It seems that most of the ideas lauded by conservatives in political
life today are based on fear and a fundamental belief that human beings
are bad. The underlying premise seems to be that people are born in sin
(this unfortunate idea was promoted in the bible as Original Sin), and
if not controlled by society will always choose the most selfish and
sinful action. What a sad, terrible way to live. Conservatives don't
know how to relax, because if they are not forever vigilant, they or
someone else might cease to feel guilty for 5 minutes.
While reading through posts from you, Drose, and you, Bob, I couldn't
help but think that the goals of both conservatives and liberals are
ultimately exactly alike - it's only in the particulars of
implementation that we disagree. No one wants to see our children turn
out badly. WE ALL RECOGNIZE QUALITY WHEN WE SEE IT. It's just that
conservatives think our every belief has to be legislated, that children
won't learn how to pray if not required to do so in public school, that
teaching Darwinian evolution in science class will somehow threaten
their belief system, that abortion is a sin but owning guns and capital
punishment is not. THAT A WOMAN'S PLACE IS IN THE HOME - and Hillary
better shutup and get back there.
Yeah, liberals have gone too far too, sometimes. I'm sure I'll get many
examples of this in tomorrow night's mail. But saying that liberals
want to legislate your life is ridiculous! Most liberal legislation is
designed to allow freedom TO, while most conservative legislation is
designed to enforce freedom FROM. Bob and Drose, you need to learn the
difference, or someday it will bite you in the a**.
Wishing you freedom TO,
Mary
PS: Carmen, Mark, and David B. attempted to explain my thinking on the
parenting/military thing, and I thank them very much. I would only
restate that I am NOT advocating military style schools, enforced family
size, or welfare mothers. What I DID say was that it should be possible
to construct a system in this country whereby raising a family was
considered equally important to maintaining our national defense. For
example, as I stated before, we 'hire' people to serve a 2 year TDY in
the military. While they are in the service, they receive a paycheck,
free medical care, housing, subsidized food, entertainment, free travel
to return home for a visit, etc. If you've ever served in the American
military, you will know just how far they bend over backwards to make
the experience tolerable. Now I'm not advocating all those same tax
subsidized benefits for parents, but wouldn't it be possible to make
sure that a family attempting to raise one or more children has the
resources and protections afforded to military personnel during that
crucial first 2 years of life for the child? What's wrong with
supplying free medical care for young children? What's wrong with
making sure a previously working parent has some income to see them
through that crucial period in their child's development? What's wrong
with guaranteeing that their job will still be there when they do return
to work? These are all benefits that are guaranteed by the full weight
and power of the US Government to veterans of military service. They
should also be guaranteed by the full weight and power of the US
Government for PARENTS.
MOQ Online Homepage - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Unsubscribe - http://www.moq.org/md/index.html
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:03:05 BST