Letters to the Editor
Paul Rosenberg
Published Letters: 994 Editor's Choice: 16
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Narcissistic Delusions
[Read the article: Brit Hume is a "journalist"; Keith Olbermann is "partisan"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Paul Dirks:
I always enjoy when libertarianism is discussed...
Because it usually causes everyone to examine their core assumptions.
In my experience, not so much. This may be true for libertarians whose core beliefs revolve around their inner 12-year old. For the rest of us, it causes us to examine how much time we have to waste arguing with 12-year olds.
During the Viet Nam era, I was too young to be subject to the draft, but it certainly profoundly affected my attitude toward the coercive power of the state. When you peel away all the pretty words, what remains are people with blue uniforms and guns who reserve the right to shoot you if you don't come quietly. The rest is simply arguing over who deserves to be on the receiving end of such treatment.
Setting side the hyperbole (unless, of course you were black, and for issues much older than the Vietnam War), this simply claims that folks get imprinted with political experiences of the time when they come of age. This is, in a certain sense, both natural and expectable. But believing that your particular experiences necessarily constitute some sort of eternal and fundamental truth is something else again--more along the line of narcissistic delusion.
Look back 30 years earlier, and people's coming-of-age experience was the Great Depression, and after that WWII. Both those experiences would have left a very different fundamental experience, quite at odds with your fantasy about "people with blue uniforms and guns" coming to shoot you. It's the nature of political and intellectual maturation to develop perspective on such formative experiences. (In your case, what has developed instead is a fantasy, but we'll let that slide for present purposes.)
We've already seen the danger of failing to reflect critically on WWII--everyone we don't like is suddenly "Hitler" and anyone who doesn't think he has to be eliminated immediately is Neville Chamberlin.
OTOH, folks have generally done a much better job of reflecting critically on the Great Depression. The institutions created then have been modified, augmented, and re-eveluated repeatedly over the years since then. The libertarians stand out in particular for their failure to do this. Instead, they simply wish the whole experience away.
But real political maturity comes from being able to reflect on a wide variety of such formative experiences, and to mediate between them, rather than trying to reduce them all to one single formula, reducing everything else to second place, at best.
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More Lame Troll Lies
[Read the article: Brit Hume is a "journalist"; Keith Olbermann is "partisan"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Debonair73:
It's like Ann Coulter said if the Democrats are to scare to take on Brit Hume how can they take on the terrorist calling for people to kill us.
So what does this say about Commander Codpiece, who has, for years, used the combined police power of the US, state and local authorities to keep protesters away from his public appearances?
If he's afriad to meet with Cindy Sheehan, how can Bush "take on the terrorist calling for people to kill us"?
In days of yore, Afrika Bambaataa went "Looking for the Perfect Beat."
Would that we had half his luck in looking not for perfect, but merely better trolls!
NEXT!