"Gunner" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 16 Dec 2003 03:22:07 GMT, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

"Gunner" wrote in message
.. .

Recent releases of Soviet documents have shown that there were indeed
a great number of clandistine Communist activists among those
blacklisted. Jumping Joe McCarthy was an oportunistic clod..but as it
turns out, he was indeed correct in far more cases than previously
accepted. People who did provide aid, information etc to the
Soviets. Do the websearches on this fascinating topic. Its rather
moot now, as the USSR is kaput..but those individuals in many cases
are still alive.

He was right that there were a lot of communists, the treasonous kind, in
the US government. However, he got almost all of the names wrong. So he
was
on the right scent but he made up the list of names for the most part.


I did critique Joe, did I not?

Yes, you're being so fair and balanced, Gunner, that I'm wondering what got
into your drinking water. g

I also don't think you're one of those who see this as a vindication for
McCarthy so much as a condemnation of the way we dismissed his claims, or
the mainstream did, at least, for 35 years after his humiliation. The big
shock to me is not so much that McCarthy was on to something, but that our
entire range of mechanisms for questioning and investigation failed so
utterly after he was gone. The whole issue just went off the radar screen
until those Yale-supported analyses of the old papers from the USSR,
conducted in the early '90s, uncovered what had been going on among the
communist party members in the US.


You seem to be confusing the emotion with which I defend my position,
with the position itself.

I don't think so. Your emotional tirades against liberals have such a deep
and biting sarcasm and dismissiveness to them that it's hard to imagine that
they're merely "defenses" for your position. On the other hand, any such
demonizing usually is a defense of some kind, with shrillness calibrated to
compensate for the weakness of one's own position.

If some of them represent the "logic" of your conclusions, while others are
representative of emotional defense for your position, maybe you could put
footnotes on them: "This is how I arrived at my position," on one, and "I
don't really believe this one; it's just an emotional defense of my
position," on another.


Btw...the current Governor..while an actor, is making the Libs
livid..LOL and its a glory to behold. While he is not a conservatives
conservative, he is, compared to the fruits and flakes..a Bircher..and
they think he is one..God its refreshing to see Maxine Waters foaming
at the mouth in true, rather than mock rage, knowing it was her
constituints which put him there.

Austrians have a knack for government. It's probably in his genes. They're
big on parades, BTW. I expect the Rose Parade to be one hell of a blowout
next year, with some really surprising floats. g

Probably the most reality oriented political group in the US, is the
libertarians.

AAaaaaah, thud....

hummm looks like a debate on the subject is in the offering. G want
to take a shot at it?

We could start with the Libertarian platform. Can you handle that? Then we
could point out that you, like many who call themselves libertarians, are
actually "None-of-the-Aboves." In other words, the only things you have in
common are the things you dislike -- which is almost everything that most
people call civilized society -- and an idiosyncratic reading of history.

Shall we start with the platform?

Granted..some of the Libertarians (large L) are no less zany than
those on the Left..but they tend to be my kind of zany.

Hmm. I think that discussion just ended before it got started. g


Lets be practical here for a moment..

I thought you were a libertarian.

Im a Republitarian. A pragmatic libertarian (small L) Big difference.
While the Libertarians have reality (most of them) on their side..they
are not realistic about quick change. The inertia of the Left/Right is
a powerful thing to change directions. Im pragmatic enough to know it
will take time, and the change has to be implimented from the bottom.
The Libertarians (large L) want it over night and from the top down.
Never happen.

I don't think "pragmatic" is the word you're reaching for there. A more
accurate word is "strategic." A pragmatist is constitutionally
non-ideological -- a results-oriented type, with no particular plan for
getting there. As the term applies to politics and government, a pragmatist
is focused on one desirable result above all others: a better life, in every
way, for the citizens of that society. He doesn't care how you get there.
It's a pure idea all by itself, like libertarianism is.

What you seem to be after is the implementation of an ideology, tempered by
a realistic understanding of politics, in the broad sense. The difference is
that an ideolologue sees his ideology as the path to the better life. The
pragmatist is skeptical of all ideological "paths," because he believes
they're all crippled by self-imposed blindness and the inherent weaknesses
of ideological consistency.


Now we Republitarians are indeed making progress and are filling the
void for many moderate to conservative Democrats, as the Democratic
party self destructs. We do live in interesting times.

When you consider that libertarianism is a utopian idea, like good time
management or better understanding between nations, it's easy for anyone to
say he's a libertarian. It's like going to church on Sunday to make up for
how you live the rest of the week.

But the policies of the current Republican party are anything but
libertarian. They're aristocratic shading into oligarchic. Unlike a
philosophical libertarian, a contemporary Republican apparachik is devoted
to a core of somewhat authoritarian, aristocratic ideas embodied in the
party leadership.

So melding together libertarianism and contemporary Republicanism produces a
very cranky and dissonant set of beliefs and policies. I attribute your own
dismissiveness and crankiness to your own flailing attempt to reconcile
those contradictions. g

Ed Huntress