From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Jun 03 2004 - 15:22:41 BST
Hi David R, Mark M, Mark H, All
First, David R., welcome to the MOQ discussion group. As you can see, the
discussions go far afield of the MOQ, the rationale being since
metaphysics is about everything, anything goes--a rather specious argument
to say the least..
> Just to say, Platt, that I agree with you completely about what you were
> saying on european ingrates forgetting that America saved Europe from both
> facism and communism in WWII, but: careful not to join in with everyone
> else's hyperbole on Iraq.
>
> When you were told by Mark M that:
>
> >> By the way, Sadham Hussien was also described as a middle Eastern
> >> 'moderate' when it suited the US in the 80's. (About the time he was
> >> being armed with nerve gas by Donald Rumsfeld.)
>
> And you replied
>
> > Another unsubstantiated claim. Next you'll be telling me that Michael
> > Moore is a reliable source.
>
> This was *hasty*. My recollection is that Mark M is factually correct here
> (shame about the inadvertent advert for MM), athough what this has to do
> with the appropriate response to Saddam in 2003 I don't know. It's a shame
> you had to contradict Mark here - the principle 'if it doesn't suit my
> argument it must be false' seems to be getting dangerously popular on all
> sides - though I'll grant it wasn't you who started with this heated and
> unenlightened approach. This accidental hyperbole of yours is a bit of a
> shame, because otherwise you were quite right that what MH says about US
> foreign policy pre WWII is: a load of old balls. As a nation, one can't
> symultaneously be pro-facist and isolationist. You made that point well
> enough, Platt.
Thanks for the compliments. About Rumsfield arming Saddam with nerve gas,
I too recollect that accusation, but have never seen any hard "evidence."
Perhaps the accusation first appeared in the NY Times (whose credibility
these days is practically zilch) and then picked up by leftists and
repeated again and again so as to take on the appearance of "truth," much
like the oft repeated lie that there was no connection between Saddam and
al Qaeda. So I gently disagree with your characterization of my response
to that particular claim as hyperbole.
> But Mark M is right that many 1930's anti-communists in America (OK, read
> 'Big business' if you must, but there were many more concerned groups
> besides), as in England and in western europe as a whole, got side-tracked
> by the falacious principle that mine enemy's enemy is my freind into
> thinking that facism had it's merits. Likewise, many passionate
> anti-facists (most undergraduates in england in the 1930's, for instance)
> got sidetracked by the very same polarised way of thinking into thinking
> that Communism was a good thing. Though a bit luckier than Spain, England
> was no better than USA at avoiding this daft polarisation, and you can
> intelligably argue that in the end we were only saved from the daft 'Facism
> or communism - the only choice' way of thinking by one determined man.
> That in 1940 Churchill managed to overcome the pro-peace
> facist-sympathisers [eg Halifax] within the UK conservative party was a
> damned near run thing (It's widely known that he had to fight with the
> appeasers throughought the 30's and in 1939, but it is not widely known
> that England was still politically devided in the early period of the war -
> this is an uncomfortable memory - and that Churchill had to fight a very
> near run thing in cabinet to be able to continue the war after Dunkirk).
IMO an accurate description of pre-war intellectualism. I'd simply add
that many academics in the U.S. were entranced by Marxism and "Uncle Joe"
Stalin, who incidentally suckered Roosevelt at Yalta into putting eastern
Europe under the Communist boot. The love of Marxism in academe hasn't
changed much today despite its horrendous history.
> George Orwell's essays are good on the intellectual climate of the thirties
> - it worryingly resembles 2004. There was a dangerous and falacious
> bi-polarism abroad then as now. Compare 1930's: the whole world is to be
> devided between Communists and anti-communists [Franco], Facists or
> anti-facists [Stalin], terrorists or anti-terrorists [Bush], imperialists
> or anti-imperialists [Chomsky].
>
> Here propaganda on all sides is crowding out the truth. The truth being:
> one can coherently be anti-communist and not facist, anti facist and not
> communist, anti-terrorist and not pro-war, and anti-imperialist while
> pro-war.
But "leanings" are significant in that they often wind up as national
policy which in turn can lead to good or evil consequences. Morality is,
after all, about the continuum marked at either end by right/wrong,
good/bad, truth/lies, etc. Pirsig says certain things are absolutely good,
like killing deadly germs.
Incidentally, have you noticed that the Chomsky worshippers on this site
have readily adopted the tactic so characteristic of the left of employing
ad hominem attacks? If you disagree with them, you are variously described
as "ideologically and psychologically incapable of understanding," as
having a "closed mind," and "ignorant." Isn't that a lovely way to carry
on a conversation?
But, be not intimidated, as I'm sure you're not. It's simply a sign of the
weakness of their arguments.
Regards,
Platt
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