Reed Konsler wrote:
> >Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 11:51:14 -0500
> >From: "Sodom" <sodom@ma.ultranet.com>
> >Subject: RE: virus: Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.
> >
> >I am not a People person either, but I would say that ideas are more
> >important than people. "Freedom" as an idea is worth dying and killing for.
> >I dont care how many people die so that "freedom" exists for the others -
> >including nuclear oblivion.
>
> Yikes, dude! You sound a fundamentalist...a real born again "Son of
> Liberty". "Give US liberty or give US ALL death?" Umm...do I get
> a vote, Dr. Strangelove...or do we have a special definition of
> democracy?
I did love that movie too - I own it. It's not democracy I love, I like the US but it's not the US either. It's the ideal - and yes - I am quite sure that individual Freedom is at that level.
> > So is "Individuality" and several others.
>
> I agree. But you should recognize those as articles of faith so that
> when the time for reflection comes you can question them:
I do question them, and my strong feelings about them. Where they stand, and what I consider so vital have changed a lot over the years. The only three that have really stood up so far are: Freedom, Privacy and Individuality.
> "Let us bathe our hands in...blodd up to the elbows, and besmear
> our swords. Then we will walk forth, even to the marketplace,
> and waving our red weapons over our heads let us all cry
> 'peace, freedom, and liberty!'" -Shakespeare (Julius Ceasar)
>
> >People, though essential to ideas, are disposable on the grand scale easily
> >demonstratable when we look at our history and remember perhaps .0001% of
> >those that have lived. Many of us Americans would see many articles in the
> >Bill of Rights as Ideas more valuable than peoples lives. Freedom of
> >expresion, religion, carry fire arms, privacy - all worth killing or dying
> >for in my opinion.
>
> I agree. But, again, things we hold higher than people...things we are
> willing to kill for...these are articles of faith. The fact is that, when
> faced with the moment of truth, the majority of people who are not
> properly conditioned cannot kill another person, even in war. We
> have a natural resistance to violence.
I would disagree here and would point to this work. _Demonic Males: Apes and the origins of human violence_ Richard Wrangham and Dale PetersonI would say that under the right circumstances every one of us could kill, without training, without destroying our lives. Could you kill in defense of another, or your child, or even yourself? The children in Rawanda had no truoble picking up the machetes and chopping up their neighbors. If this "fact" of yours is wrong, what else based on that assumption that must also be wrong?
I spose it being an article of faith would imply that people are very important. I do not think they are important as a whole. I choose not to kill because I think life is amazing, not because I think people are special.
> You have good rhetoric and
> it may be needed someday to whip us into a furvor...to make us
> taste symbolic blood before me must shed real blood in service of
> our ideals. But don't pretend that this isn't an emotional and spiritual
> experience. Warlike people know a brutal God. If you invoke one
> using all the same memetic tools, is neglecting a taboo word going
> to make it different? No...memetics is about process, not content.
Yes, I agree here, and I do not wish to incite furvor. I have no wish to be a martyr and a great desire not to be a killer, but to say that there is no idea worthy of such battle, is to make less of the greatest accomplishments we have to show for a few thousand years of work.
> You should check out Howard Bloom's _Lucifer Principle_,
> from whence I extracted the quote...the chapter is entiled
> "The Secret Meaning of 'Freedom,' 'Peace,' and 'Justice'"
> Reed
I do own, but have not yet read it. I will soon.
Bill Roh