tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7464708.post109278349214006847..comments2024-03-22T06:05:36.544-04:00Comments on Kids Prefer Cheese: Flapping the Taliban WingMungowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02340064320347875601noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7464708.post-1093096162120795272004-08-21T09:49:00.000-04:002004-08-21T09:49:00.000-04:00You have put your finger on the core of the proble...You have put your finger on the core of the problem, of course.<br /><br />But it would be a mistake to think that K. Grease believes in democracy of ANY kind. It is precisely fundamentalists of the left (marxist Taliban) and the right (Christian Taliban) who terrify me.<br /><br />A lot of people have tried to weasel out of the problem. Rawls tried to conjure a genie, called "reasonable"ness. As Walter Hinsch put it in his review of the Cambridge Companion to Rawls:<br /><br />"Political liberalism may be characterized as the attempt to justify principles of political justice and legitimacy solely on the basis of premises that cannot be reasonably rejected. It is an exercise of accommodation aimed at finding a shared basis of values and principles for public political argument and decision making that proves to be acceptable at least to all reasonable people in a free society irrespective of whether their more specific views are liberal or non-liberal, religious or nonreligious, the only constraint being that certain minimal standards of ’reasonableness’ be fulfilled. The aim is to identify what Rawls has called the ’public reason’ of a liberal and democratic society."<br /><br />To which I say: piffle.<br /><br />We cannot rely on the forebearance of ANY extremist group. The only answer is to limit the power of government to do harm in the first place. Since this also limits the power of government to do good, neither liberal nor conservative fundamentalists will ever accept it.Mungowitzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02340064320347875601noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7464708.post-1092866843082205412004-08-18T18:07:00.000-04:002004-08-18T18:07:00.000-04:00I think that your original comment made more sense...I think that your original comment made more sense than your defense of it.<br /><br />Had I heard your radio comments as you report them I would have interpreted your use of the modifier "Taliban" as a reference to the fundamentalist leanings of the particular Republicans you were talking about. I would not have inferred that you thought they were antidemocratic but rather that a coalition that includes them may not be able to hold on to people with a more libertarian bent.<br /><br />However, you now seem to argue that political views deriving from fundamentalist Christian views on morality are incompatible with democracy. This is incorrect both as a historical assertion and as an exercise in logic. <br /><br />Consider the issue of criminal law. If a majority of citizens believes that murder should be a felony, why does it matter whether they derive this belief from Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, or the Playboy Philosophy? What about environmental policy? If fundamentalists determined that Christian stewardship had clear implications for the regulation of air and water quality, would that invalidate said policy? I think not. Unless you're proposing that we extend the mind-reading techniques of Palm Beach vote counters to the entire nation, I cannot imagine how it would be possible to determine why certain voters held their particular policy views. Nor would I welcome the prospect of determining which bases were the acceptable ones in a proper democracy.<br /><br />I think communism is an immoral, repressive, fundamentally antidemocratic politcal system. I think you probably agree with me on that. Do you therefore believe that it is somehow improper for marxist English professors to vote for candidates who will move the country to the left?<br /><br />Come to think of it, I may actually be in favor of a system in which neither fundamentalists of any kind nor marxists of any type were allowed to vote at all. In fact, why not drop all pretense and admit the truth: I really don't want anyone voting except me!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com