Re: would you vote for this man?

From: Robbie Lindauer (robblin@thetip.org)
Date: Mon Sep 01 2003 - 14:56:07 MDT

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    On Monday, September 1, 2003, at 02:30 AM, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:

    > I think this goes to the heart of why Greg said that
    > it seemed pointless to engage in political debates

    Do you think that the "pointlessness of engaging in political debates"
    is rooted in the basically violent nature of politics?

    I mean, debate is meant to have a changing effect. If people don't
    want to change, they don't want to have debates.

    Only the "active but weak" side of an issue wants to have a debate
    about it. The strong side doesn't debate, they use weapons and force.
      The "passive" side just wants things to stay as they are, and so any
    debate about it is undesirable.

    It is therefore left to the progressives, the ones who want to see
    change for the positive but who are unwilling to use force to get it to
    actually carry out the detailed and often painful business of carrying
    on debates.

    But as Samantha so eloquently pointed out, Extropians SHOULD be
    interested in peaceful resolutions of conflicts, for which as far as I
    know, the only methods in existence are civil disobedience and debate.

    > -- they are rooted
    > in personal experiences and you cannot simply wave a magic wand and
    > make those "disappear".

    While I agree - people only know what they know - and they only know
    what they know by paying attention to the things that they can pay
    attention to, etc. , I don't draw the same conclusion. The conclusion
    I draw is that it's interesting to find out what the experiences of the
    other person are that root their political positions.

    Still waiting to hear from Mr. Burch in a civil manner what experiences
    back the use of the term "Forced" in relation to why the US went to war
    with Iraq as in "The US was 'forced' to go to war with Iraq".

    I would say that particular branch had taken a turn for the better,
    wouldn't you? We'd gotten quickly to the heart of the matter and were
    even civil about it.

    Best,

    Robbie Lindauer
    thetip.org

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