OT Is anyone really surprised?

On Jan 24, 2:06*am, Howard Kveck wrote:


* *Anyone who approvingly quotes Rand as a source of enlightenment on anything is a
few bricks short of a load.

--
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * tanx,
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Howard

* * * * * * * * * *Now it's raining pitchforks and women,
* * * * * * * * * * *But I've already got a pitchfork...

* * * * * * * * * * *remove YOUR SHOES to reply, ok?- Hide quoted text -

Now there's something we do agree on.
Bill C

On Jan 24, 2:06*am, Howard Kveck wrote:
In article ,
*Bill C wrote:





On Jan 23, 6:03*pm, SLAVE of THE STATE wrote:

Yet they keep repeating that myth of "vast liberal
conspiracy". I guess some methods never get old, eh?

We have new audio trainer/training tapes. *(A "liberal" just ain't
what they once were.)

Goes along with Howard's noone in the US new or supported Mugabe:
http://www.slate.com/id/81386/
Quoted:

It was not supposed to be this way. Mugabe, the last great African
liberator still in power, was supposed to be Southern Africa's savior.
The son of a carpenter, he was radicalized to Marxism while studying
at South Africa's black Fort Hare University, whose alumni include
Nelson Mandela. In the early '60s, Mugabe joined Rhodesia's black
resistance and was almost immediately jailed by the thuggish white
government of Ian Smith. Released in 1975, Mugabe took command of one
of Zimbabwe's two black guerrilla movements

According to Howard I'm wrong and he was a minor player, who had
little to NO support here among the left because noone knew who he
was.

* *I didn't say he was a minor player. He wasn't really in the foreground until after
the Smith govt. had just about folded. Anyway, that article has a few errors. It
states that there were two resistance groups, when there were actually more like 20.
One of the largest and most militant groups was led by Joshua Nkomo, while another
large grouop was put together by other people who were more interested in political
solutions (although they too had a military wing). Mugabe did take over in '75 but
mostly continued the political angle, though the military part of the resistance
still played a big role.

We disagree. There was national coverage to some extent, and plenty of
local support and coverage in the college/independent press here. That
being a similar area I have real doubts that there wasn't coverage,
and weren't rallies in support of him.


* *Anyway (again), my recollection of those times is that people saw the Smith
government as racist and oppressive as hell (people knew that they drafted about
every white male and hired all kinds of mercenaries to fight the blacks and, much
less wellknown until recently, used such tactics as releasing anthrax on innocent
civilians). When they (Smith's govt.) realized that they were surrounded by nations
that had de-colonized (except for South Africa) and that they were outnumbered by
about 100 to 1, they knew that they had better negotiate. When the transitional
government took over, it did seem to be fairly well behaved, hence they did get
approval from many sources (not just "the Left"), including many governments. About
the time that Mugabe started doing stupid **** that got public notice, the situation
in South Africa was kicking into high gear. Media attention on Zimbabwe vaporized.

Yep. They sure as hell weren't going to give a lot of coverage to a
marxist HERO doing what they almost all inevitably do after the
support for him as a "freedom fighter" had been so strong..


* *I don't think the average person here knew who Mugabe is until Zimbabwe started
getting attention for having huge inflation and seizing farms. They just haven't been
on the radar screen, Bill. it's not all that uncommon, especially in Africa. For
example, what do you think is the deadliest conflict since WW II? At least 3.8
million people have died in only six years in the area around the Democratic Republic
of the Congo. How much of that do we hear about in the news?

I see a fair amount, but that's because of the Euro sources. Agreed
here in the US it's not an issue, but it doesn't have a huge "freedom
fighter" to exploit, as Zimbabwe did.

--
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * tanx,
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Howard

* * * * * * * * * *Now it's raining pitchforks and women,
* * * * * * * * * * *But I've already got a pitchfork...

* * * * * * * * * * *remove YOUR SHOES to reply, ok?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -
We're gonna agree to disagree. Neither of us can demonstrate the
level of coverage and support where we were back then, at least
reasonably easily.
Bill C

"Ryan Cousineau" wrote in message
]...

Seriously, Michael, agree or disagree, Ms. Rand's quote up there isn't
that hard to parse, even with the crazy structure.

She means that altruism is evil. She says that Stalinism was the
essential, pure, extreme form of altruism.

STATE SPONSORED altruism is evil. Picking your pocket and handing it to
someone else is evil. If you do not allow them they then put you in jail or
worse. Is that something difficult to understand?

In article ,
"Tom Kunich" cyclintom@yahoo. com wrote:

"Michael Press" wrote in message
...

I could not read Ayn Rand at length. Never got any traction,
and had to quit. And every time somebody kindly offers a
quotation that I take to be a succinct embodiment of one
of her notions I read it closely, scratch my head, read it
closely again, think, puzzle, associate, fit concepts together
as if they are jigsaw pieces, then throw up my hands and
admit that it is beyond my ken.

Are you saying that there's a difference between Hitler murdering Jews and
Stalin murdering the middle class?

Did you read my several articles on the matter recently?
Memory going? Or do you ignore anything that you cannot
immediately use to post a scathing reply?
Use the google groups advanced search page, put in
rec.bicycles.racing
Michael Press
2007
"Stalin" in the message body search.

--
Michael Press

Tom Kunich wrote:
Are you saying that there's a difference between Hitler murdering Jews
and Stalin murdering the middle class?

Michael Press wrote:
Did you read my several articles on the matter recently? Memory going? Or

The Kunich process has a memory leak.

In article
],
Ryan Cousineau wrote:

In article ,
Michael Press wrote:

In article ,
"Tom Kunich" cyclintom@yahoo. com wrote:

"SLAVE of THE STATE" wrote in message
...
On Jan 23, 8:11 am, Woland99 wrote:

This is gibberish.
Why dont you start thinking for yourself instead of perpetuating
FOX bullsite about "liberals". There are maybe 200 people that fit
their idiotic propaganda - in whole of US of A - and most of them
in Berkeley.

http://freedomkeys.com/berkeley.htm

That will likely be so foreign to Woland that he won't understand what
you're getting at.

Certainly the lefties here won't understand a word of it.

The significant quote: "The secret dread of modern intellectuals, liberals
and conservatives alike, the unadmitted terror at the root of their
anxiety,
which all of their current irrationalities are intended to stave off and to
disguise, is the unstated knowledge that Soviet Russia [was] the full,
actual, literal, consistent embodiment of the morality of altruism, that
Stalin did not corrupt a noble ideal, that this is the only way altruism
has
to be or can ever be practiced." -- Ayn Rand

I could not read Ayn Rand at length. Never got any traction,
and had to quit. And every time somebody kindly offers a
quotation that I take to be a succinct embodiment of one
of her notions I read it closely, scratch my head, read it
closely again, think, puzzle, associate, fit concepts together
as if they are jigsaw pieces, then throw up my hands and
admit that it is beyond my ken.

Seriously, Michael, agree or disagree, Ms. Rand's quote up there isn't
that hard to parse, even with the crazy structure.

She means that altruism is evil. She says that Stalinism was the
essential, pure, extreme form of altruism.

The first part says that she feels that subconsciously, modern
intellectuals (of all political ilks) know this, and it makes them
anxious.

I, as a good Catholic boy (albeit one with a weird libertarian bent that
has no business being there) think this is completely wrong: a mad
equivalency of totalitarianism and altruism. But it's not that hard to
understand.

Rand's often knocked as a bad writer, but I don't think she's peculiarly
incomprehensible, at least not here.

I can see that the paragraph may be taken that way.
I would have to read extensively to gather any idea
of her proof of her assertions and what she means to
accomplish. I actually have a bad time understanding
her prose. As do you, I find that meaning of the paragraph
to be a poorly thought out assessment of matters.

ObBike:
"Road racing imitates life, the way it would be without the corruptive
influence of civilization. When you seen an enemy lying on the ground,
what's your first reaction? To help him to his feet. In road racing you
kick him to death." - Tim Krabbe, The Rider

--
Michael Press

On Jan 24, 2:17*pm, Donald Munro wrote:
Tom Kunich wrote:
Are you saying that there's a difference between Hitler murdering Jews
and Stalin murdering the middle class?
Michael Press wrote:
Did you read my several articles on the matter recently? Memory going? Or

The Kunich process has a memory leak.

What'ya charge for "bot" tuning? Time for a collection?
Bill C

On Jan 23, 11:49 pm, Howard Kveck wrote:

The 2008 version of this is Jonah Goldberg's recent book that purports to show
that liberals are fascists.

They may just as well be, since "liberals" aren't liberals.

You have swallowed the entire socialist obfuscation of basic
language. You've been had.

============
"As a supreme if unintended compliment, the enemies of the system of
private enterprise have thought it wise to appropriate its label." --
Joseph A. Schumpeter

============
"But 'leftist' was soon expropriated by the authoritarian Jacobins and
came to have an opposite meaning. 'Leftist' became descriptive of
egalitarians and was associated with Marxian socialism: communism,
socialism, Fabianism.

"What, then, of 'rightist'? Where did it fit in this semantic reversal
of 'leftist'? The staff of the Moscow apparatus has taken care of that
for us, and to their advantage: Anything not communist or socialist
they decreed and propagandized as 'fascist.' This is by way of saying
that any ideology that is not communist (left) is now popularly
established as fascist (right).

"Let's take a look at Webster's definition of fascism: 'Any program
for setting up a centralized autocratic national regime with severely
nationalistic policies, exercising regimentation of industry,
commerce, and finance, rigid censorship, and forcible suppression of
opposition.' What, actually, is the difference between communism and
fascism? Both are forms of statism, authoritarianism. The only
difference between Stalin's communism and Mussolini's fascism is an
insignificant detail in organizational
structure. But one is 'left' and the other is 'right'! -- Leonard
Read
http://www.fee.org/pdf/the-freeman/0601Read.pdf

On Jan 19, 8:05*pm, ST wrote:
On 1/18/08 7:47 PM, in article
, "Kurgan





Gringioni" wrote:
On Jan 18, 5:38*pm, ST wrote:
On 1/16/08 5:16 PM, in article
, "Kurgan

Gringioni" wrote:
On Jan 16, 4:44*pm, Bill C wrote:
On Jan 16, 5:41*pm, Kurgan Gringioni wrote:

On Jan 15, 3:46*pm, Bill C wrote:

I STILL have a problem with the people we are currently supporting
over there, even if the methods they use are traditional, common, and
accepted for that region.

Dumbass -

We should not be trying to dictate to other countries what their
values should be. Just as they should not dictate to us.

thanks,

K. Gringioni.

I guess I'm more warm and fuzzy than you. Ramming it down their throat
is useless, and counterproductive.

Dumbass -

We're ramming it down their throat.

thanks,

K. Gringioni.

Same in WWl and WWll. I guess we (and others) were wrong too?

Dumbass -

We were right in those wars. We weren't the agressor and had a real
cause for which to fight.

thanks,

K. Gringioni.

Truth comes out............
We are wrong now?



Dumbass -


First W. Bush said that we were going into Iraq for WMD. Once there
was no WMD, he said we were doing it for democracy.

Democracy doesn't work in the Middle East. It is by definition a grass
roots movement. You can't impose it, especially upon a tribal culture.

So, ya, mistake.


thanks,

K. Gringioni.

On Jan 24, 9:02*am, "Tom Kunich" cyclintom@yahoo. com wrote:
"Ryan Cousineau" wrote in message

]...



Seriously, Michael, agree or disagree, Ms. Rand's quote up there isn't
that hard to parse, even with the crazy structure.

She means that altruism is evil. She says that Stalinism was the
essential, pure, extreme form of altruism.

STATE SPONSORED altruism is evil. Picking your pocket and handing it to
someone else is evil. If you do not allow them they then put you in jail or
worse. Is that something difficult to understand?

Do you consider a state funded rescue mission to be evil? A search for
a lost hiker for example.

Bret