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>From: "Jerry Mitchell" <jmitch12@tampabay.rr.com>
>To: <extropians@extropy.org>
>Subject: RE: Extremism, was Re: CULTURE OF GAck! Thpthpthpthpthttt!
>Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 14:26:08 -0500
>Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org
>
>[Non-member submission]
>
>Extremism? Just because a thing is extreme doesn't make it right or wrong. A
>system of extreme dishonestly and extreme honesty are not equal. I for one
>will take extremely good health over extremely bad health. As for political
>systems, I'm still trying to find a system that will not initiate force on
>its members. Try to picture a system like that and you will certainly
>develop what most people would call an "extreme" system, yet what could be
>more moral then the banishment of force from human relations? My point being
>is that 99 times out of 100 that you see the term extremism being used,
>there will shortly be an argument by intimidation behind it and not an
>argument of logic.
>
Extremism cannot be separated from a particular cause; there is no such thing as extremism in general, so appeals to extremist generalities, such as liberty, health, honesty, etc. have no force; of COURSE everyone is for freedom, health and honesty, and NO one is for slavery, illness and duplicity. Extremism manifests when it is tied to the end of a position spectrum in which people also populate the middle and even the other extreme as well; the two most common extremisms in the US, as Aaron Lynch pointed out in his memetic treatise THOUGHT CONTAGION, are the radical anti-abortion and contraception and three-full-trimester pro-choice extremists, and the ban-all-guns-whatsoever-anti-gun-nuts and give-kids-criminals-and-crazies-tommy-guns-pro-gun-nuts; when these two cross-fertilize, we have such logical atrocities as pro-life murders and pressure to deny picketers free-speech rights even when they are not harassing clients or orchestrating clinic invasions. Each swears by th!
eir own camp's statistics, and equally swears that the opposing camps' statistics are propagandistic lies, or that the wrong lesson is being drawn from them. Neither extreme can admit to themselves that they actually ARE extremists, so they portray the vast majority of the people who are middle-of-the-roaders as either deceived and ignorant dupes or malevolent and lying shills, or sometimes, illogical as it may sound, both at once, especially when a pack of extremists is attacking someone who is not extreme. Even when they acknowledge that they are not in the present majority, each extreme will steadfastly maintain that they are the wave of the future, and that when people become more intelligent or enlightened or informed, they will flock to their side in droves. Though hesitant to admit it, they generally find more in common with their doppelganger on the opposite side of their pet issue (as both extremes are ruled by their issues and obsessively and compulsively tend the!
m, as people can be with their pets) than with the apathetic and indifferent 'sheeple' who really don't care that much one way or another. The best way to know when an extremist is about to attack is to listen to them get indignantly defensive, which typically happens whenever someone does not absolutely agree with them concerning their pet issue; some sort of physical intimidation or verbal flame is sure to follow.
>
>We place no reliance on virgin or pigeon;
>our method is science, our aim is religion.
> Aleister Crowley
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-extropians@extropy.org [mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.org]On
>Behalf Of Michael M. Butler
>Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2001 9:21 AM
>To: extropians@extropy.org
>Subject: Extremism, was Re: CULTURE OF GAck! Thpthpthpthpthttt!
>
>Speaking of extremism: I hope you'll explain Morris there, sometime. I
>still can't figure that guy out.
>
>Joe Dees wrote:
> >
> > >Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2001 16:32:24 -0500
> > >From: "Michael S. Lorrey" <mlorrey@datamann.com>
> > >To: extropians@extropy.org
> > >Subject: Re: CULTURE: Interesting Chicago Statistics
> > >Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org
> > >
> > >Wasn't Brian's original post using 1997 stats? Were these actually
> > >murders or just homicides?
> > >
> > >Harvey Newstrom wrote:
> > >>
> > >> >>Brian Williams writes:
> > >> >> 1A) DuPage county has easy access to g**s and no murder/less
> > >> >>crime
> > >>
> > >> Where do these statistics come from? Does anyone have sources?
> > >>
> > >> I finally got around to looking up murder statistics for Dupage
> > >> County. There were 10 murders in 1998 and 13 murders in 1999. I
> > >> can't find 2000 statistics, but it certainly is not zero because
> > >> there are plenty of murders in the news.
> > >> (http://www.dupageco.org/sheriff/Crime%20Stoppers.htm is the first
> > >> example I found with a google search.)
> > >
> > As Mike Lorrey said to me after I posted my short phenomenology of
>extremism: This discussion belongs on EXI-Freedom, not here.
> >
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