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You certainly sound like a citizen of the world to me. Are you sure you wouldn't rather consider yourself a citizen of the world? One of the strange things yo

by moldbug 14y ago

You certainly sound like a citizen of the world to me. Are you sure you wouldn't rather consider yourself a citizen of the world? One of the strange things you might discover, if as an American communist ("liberal" being, of course, a euphemism) you try living abroad, is the number of cultural tropes you share with American fundamentalists and don't share with European communists. (This discovery is forced on all Foreign Service brats by the fact that our embassies, while staffed by State Department communists, still have to be guarded by Marine fundamentalists.) Your sympathy could be quite easily mistaken for contempt. And you don't think NPR is ever manipulative, at all, ever? When you try watching Fox News, you're eating very, very low off the hog. Try reading, say, the Claremont Review of Books. Or here - test your open-mindedness in one step. Read a book by a Confederate: http://archive.org/details/serviceafloatwar00semmrich http://archive.org/details/serviceafloatwar00semmrich Nyah nyah nyah, I dare you.

gfodor 14y ago
You certainly seem to like putting my words in my mouth (assuming that I don't think NPR can be manipulative as well) and also seem to be characturing me based upon a few sentences on an internet message board. First, I'm a well-to-do European who loathes Americans and has no respect for history, now I am surely an arugula-munching socialist/communist sympathizer hippie. It's rather ironic you're painting me as somehow looking down upon people whom I disagree because I'm labeling them as a "conservative" (which, as I've stated, I'm not and I don't) when you are the one so quickly to label others. I use the word "liberal" loosely here, since I do have viewpoints that fall to the right of of mainstream liberalism, but you certainly seemed to jump on the chance to label me as yet another mental stereotype. Projecting much? If you have a problem with my argument as it relates to the original post of this thread, why not address it directly so we can all learn something, instead of us taking us so far afield with these personal attacks on these cartoonish strawmen that you are constructing? It's hard for me to take it personally since you are arguing with a figment of your imagination.
- moldbug 14y ago
  I didn't put the word horrible in your mouth. Nor did I make you suggest that American conservatives are deluded by dark, sinister forces which have cleverly led them to believe the evil things they believe. You were being patronizing, which is an easily recognizable form of contempt. I'm taking the same attitude toward you, in the perhaps vain hope that it might help you see how rude you're being. I'm also quite happy to classify you culturally as a function of your belief system, which is once again good for the gander. As it happens, I don't have a problem with either "torture" or gay marriage. However, because I have been exposed to plenty of perfectly intelligent arguments for waterboarding and against gay marriage, I can tell you haven't been. No, I would not recommend Fox News as an introduction to conservative thought - try Burke. Or better yet Maistre. And have some more arugula, preferably with the chevre. (Also, if you think there's a meaningful difference between American communism and "socialism" or "radicalism" or "progressivism" or "liberalism," I suggest the following exercise - pick an arbitrary NYT obituary of anyone over 80, ie anyone who was an adult in the '40s, and try to classify your subject as "communist," "socialist," "progressive" or "liberal." Unless you say that only a card-carrying CPUSA member can be a "communist," which is an abuse of the English language, you'll find no basis for any such distinction.)
  - gfodor 14y ago
    I chose those two issues for a reason. Certainly there may be intelligent arguments for waterboarding or gay marriage, but they are few and far between those driven by emotions stirred up by the right wing media. And I don't think it's unfair to call these particular issues, as supported by mainstream conservative thought, horrible, since in the realm of torture you are going back against decades of international law and human decency, and in the case of criminalizing gay marriage you are basically carbon copying the discriminatory laws seen before the civil rights movement. Are you suggesting that just because people thought it was OK to ban interracial marriage just a mere few decades ago, it's unfair to claim that those views are horrible now? And yes, I've read Burke and other conservative thinkers of the past. If you think these viewpoints have anything to do with mainstream "conservatism" in America, I don't know what to tell you.
    - 14y ago

by moldbug 14y ago

gfodor 14y ago

You certainly seem to like putting my words in my mouth (assuming that I don't think NPR can be manipulative as well) and also seem to be characturing me based upon a few sentences on an internet message board. First, I'm a well-to-do European who loathes Americans and has no respect for history, now I am surely an arugula-munching socialist/communist sympathizer hippie. It's rather ironic you're painting me as somehow looking down upon people whom I disagree because I'm labeling them as a "conservative" (which, as I've stated, I'm not and I don't) when you are the one so quickly to label others. I use the word "liberal" loosely here, since I do have viewpoints that fall to the right of of mainstream liberalism, but you certainly seemed to jump on the chance to label me as yet another mental stereotype. Projecting much? If you have a problem with my argument as it relates to the original post of this thread, why not address it directly so we can all learn something, instead of us taking us so far afield with these personal attacks on these cartoonish strawmen that you are constructing? It's hard for me to take it personally since you are arguing with a figment of your imagination.

moldbug 14y ago
I didn't put the word horrible in your mouth. Nor did I make you suggest that American conservatives are deluded by dark, sinister forces which have cleverly led them to believe the evil things they believe. You were being patronizing, which is an easily recognizable form of contempt. I'm taking the same attitude toward you, in the perhaps vain hope that it might help you see how rude you're being. I'm also quite happy to classify you culturally as a function of your belief system, which is once again good for the gander. As it happens, I don't have a problem with either "torture" or gay marriage. However, because I have been exposed to plenty of perfectly intelligent arguments for waterboarding and against gay marriage, I can tell you haven't been. No, I would not recommend Fox News as an introduction to conservative thought - try Burke. Or better yet Maistre. And have some more arugula, preferably with the chevre. (Also, if you think there's a meaningful difference between American communism and "socialism" or "radicalism" or "progressivism" or "liberalism," I suggest the following exercise - pick an arbitrary NYT obituary of anyone over 80, ie anyone who was an adult in the '40s, and try to classify your subject as "communist," "socialist," "progressive" or "liberal." Unless you say that only a card-carrying CPUSA member can be a "communist," which is an abuse of the English language, you'll find no basis for any such distinction.)
- gfodor 14y ago
  I chose those two issues for a reason. Certainly there may be intelligent arguments for waterboarding or gay marriage, but they are few and far between those driven by emotions stirred up by the right wing media. And I don't think it's unfair to call these particular issues, as supported by mainstream conservative thought, horrible, since in the realm of torture you are going back against decades of international law and human decency, and in the case of criminalizing gay marriage you are basically carbon copying the discriminatory laws seen before the civil rights movement. Are you suggesting that just because people thought it was OK to ban interracial marriage just a mere few decades ago, it's unfair to claim that those views are horrible now? And yes, I've read Burke and other conservative thinkers of the past. If you think these viewpoints have anything to do with mainstream "conservatism" in America, I don't know what to tell you.
  - 14y ago