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Thursday, October 20, 2005 I appreciate you guys  One of the things I enjoy about this blog is that people are passionate about their beliefs and able to defend them intellectually. I remember thinking that Morton Downey, Jr. (remember him?) was the nadir of public discourse. But, as the saying goes, 'We hit rock bottom and started to dig.' Hypocrisy is rampant in so many areas of life (and I am not immune to it) that it's refreshing to not have to deal with it here. I can be infuriated by someone and still consider them a decent person, a friend, even. Plus, the concepts -- Trotskyists (thanks for the education, Renegade), hard-ass liberalism, black conservatism actually extend beyond black and white. My God, there are shades of gray. Take that, George Bush. So many things have sent me googling or on to other parts of the net, searching for references and more information. For instance, I remember Trotsky, but a quick look-see reminded me of how dangerous it can be to be a visionary (Ice pick... yikes!) And, then some things were just plain illuminating -- for me, anyway. When CB differentiated between the Republican Party and conservatism the way he did, it made me think. What sprang to mind was that our economic and political systems are not interchangeable, but our actions suggest that we think they are. Capitalism, if I may use a very rough analogy, is like a dictatorship in that a very few hold the power (some, might argue that it actually a meritocracy, but I'm not using abstractions -- what nation has ever been a true meritocracy?) But, it is overlain over republican (intentionally lower case) principles. The dynamic is one of a tug of war: social principles against financial principles, or put another way: every man for himself versus a collective social effort. Putting aside the racism argument; that might be why African Americans, Hispanics, some Asians and American Indians don't collectively thrive in the system. They are looking to attempt collective social progress in conjunction with collective economic progress. True capitalists don't trust that. The knock on Jewish people is they don't like to spend money with people who aren't Jewish -- they are clique-ish. It's not seen as a good thing. Ann Coulter educated me, too. When I read her defense of Condi Rice, she said it was a defect in the African American community that we feel we have to identify with all elements of our community. She mentioned murderers being put to death and how we agonize over what led them to such heinous acts. She said white people would be happy to flip the switch on a white death row inmate. She doesn't feel particularly attached to her white cohort group. That is of interest to me. I am attached to my perception of a human community and I have a fascination with the motives of people who are "social capitalists" and willing to "throw away" non-valued human beings. ... but, I've got to laugh; I was going to spend two minutes saying, I appreciate your posts and to exhort you to go out and find others to write in, piss us off and get a piece of our minds -- but the lure was too tempting... 3 Comments:
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