A far-right leader in the Netherlands was shot. Maybe it's just me, but I have seen recently a lot of rabid intolerance for people who have unpopular viewpoints, especially of those on the far right. Hating the ideas is translated to hating the individual who has those ideas. It's fairly sickening, far moreso than the ideas that are the object of the conflict in the first place. My primary hypocrisy is that I am intolerant of intolerance and hypocrisy, and killing those who are intolerant is the ultimate of both.
"If it was politically motivated, this criminal act shows to what extent certain hysterical positions like those shown by the French left over the past 15 days can incite hatred," Bruno Megret, head of France's right-wing National Republican Movement (MNR), told French news agency AFP.He's right, you know. Except for the "left" part. It's a danger with any group that gets "hysterical" over the viewpoints of others, and this certainly is no limited to the left. Democracy is supposed to be about the free exchange of ideas. It's supposed to be a good thing when such bad, illogical, and evil viewpoints are brought to the fore, only to be defeated by popular opinion. That's a wonderful thing. Even better is when there is no clear viewpoint that's right or wrong, and the people get to hear both sides, and make informed choices. That's democracy. It's good. Silence is not. It's bad.
I for one am tired of having racism identified with the right. I'm tired of hearing people tell me I should change parties because my party is right wing and so was Hitler, as if there were any similarities between the two.
I don't think "left" and "right" is adequate to describe the spectrum anymore.
Re:"Right"?!?!?
pudge on 2002-05-06T20:38:02
That's a somewhat different issue, though perhaps no less important. Labels are important for our understanding of the world, but we must recognize that they are only the beginning of understanding. I can say that beer and cognac are both alcoholic beverages, but that is only meaningful at a certain level, and even then not very meaningful.Political Spectrum is a circle
gizmo_mathboy on 2002-05-06T20:40:26
Where I used to work one of my coworkers would say that a graph of political thoughts is more like a circle. Moderates on both sides are very similar and as you go to the extremes the extreme righ and the extreme left thinking individuals have more in common with each other than anyone else.
I thought it was a very interesting way to illustrate political thinking.:-) Re:Political Spectrum is a circle
pudge on 2002-05-06T21:05:02
Well, and in many respects, it's true. A good example are the World Bank protestors, which are mostly far-left and far-right activists. Even in the U.S. Congress, it's not uncommon to see the far-left and far-right come to agreement on certain bills, against the moderates.
Re:Political Spectrum is a circle
jdavidb on 2002-05-06T21:10:15
:) The original second paragraph to my post (which I deleted before posting) mentioned how a high school teacher drew that circle for our class and I never bought it. While there are people shooting each other on both ends (and actually all up and down) the spectrum, I can never see someone becoming so anti-gun-control that they become pro-gun-control, for example.
Re:Political Spectrum is a circle
belg4mit on 2002-05-06T21:35:09
That is not the point though.
I believe there are two.
1. That they have in fact become very much like each other for having entrenched themselves in extreme views and not being open to considering others.
2. People at such extremes find themselves at odds with those in the "middle", and may form "unholy" alliances to fight that fight.Re:Political Spectrum is a circle
jdavidb on 2002-05-06T22:05:33
Yeah, I do see what everyone's saying here, and it's shedding some light on that circle (which has bothered me for seven or eight years). Always before I've felt like people were using it to say, "Viewpoints don't matter, as long as you don't take them strongly. When you take them strongly, you become just like the other side. See? That proves viewpoints don't matter. So since your viewpoints don't matter, you should just drop your point and accept mine."
Seriously, until today, that's how I've heard that circle used.
I think the problem is strength of a viewpoint needs to be measured in more than just one dimension:
- Personal view on the specific issue.
- Strength of certainty of personal viewpoint.
- Willingness to consider other viewpoints.
- Willingness to die for viewpoint.
- Willingness to kill for viewpoint.
With a more finegrained scale, it's easier to say exactly how the "far-left" and "far-right" are like one another.
And yes, it makes more sense once you point out that they do sometimes form alliances to fight the middle. Like some of the people that have teamed up with the ACLU but don't like them because they are (more-or-less) leftist (okay, I guess that's not really an alliance of extremes, but it's sort of an example).
Re:Political Spectrum is a circle
belg4mit on 2002-05-06T21:32:30
There is a Non Sequitur strip which represents exactly this. (p111 of Beastly Things)
Political identification process in the ninteies
Step 1:
Evaluate your life and choose a direction everyone should follow
Step 2:
Emphasize your direction
Step 3:
Exaggerate your position to clarify differences.
(I must admit I am occasionally guilty of this particular conceit, in any realm)
Step 4:
Entrench yourself in the dogma of your chosen side and eliminate the bothersome task of thinking for yourself.
Step 5:
See Step 1
Re:"Right"?!?!?
belg4mit on 2002-05-06T21:37:55
Ranges of political philosophy are
more often (outside of mainstream culture)
represented as a square.
http://www.self-gov.org/wspq.htmlRe:"Right"?!?!?
jdavidb on 2002-05-06T22:09:31
Hmmm. It says I'm a libertarian. No surprise.
Re:"Right"?!?!?
jdavidb on 2002-05-06T22:18:37
Now that I've glanced through the quiz FAQ, I should clarify that remark. One of the FAQ's was, "Isn't this a trick to tell everyone they're libertarian?" I wasn't suggesting anything of the sort; I'm not surprised to hear myself identified as libertarian because I've long been sympathetic to that philosophy.
Re:"Right"?!?!?
darobin on 2002-05-08T01:02:56
I disagree that "left" and "right" are inadequate. They are of course insufficient, and of course there are points of agreement between the two, but the facts show (at least here in France) that those two sides have different agendas and different methods, and that the distinction is mostly consistent. I also think that the circle metaphore is only punctually correct and generally useless, and that the positioning on a square/map is about as relevant as psychological tests in lousy magazines.
However, I would not tell you to change parties because you're on the right. I would certainly not use the Hitler argument, as it's a useless one. If I were to try to get you to change, I'd first find out about your ideas and if I find myself to disagree, try to argue. That sounds a lot more logical to me.
Re:"Right"?!?!?
jdavidb on 2002-05-08T04:30:07
Well, the problem to me is that in general, there is a standard understanding of which position on an issue is "left" and which is "right." Now, in general I'd be "right," but unfortunately some of the points of view that are called right not only don't describe me, but don't describe most conservatives I know. Racism is identified with the "right," but I know very few right-wing American racists. The libertarian site with the quiz I took yesterday said most people on the right were in favor of censorship. I'm a 100% free speech guy, myself (I'm in favor of people being allowed to say all kinds of things I disagree with, and sometimes I even argue in favor of the proverbial shout of "fire" in a crowded theater.) Most people on the right I know value the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (the free speech amendment) more than just about any other written document on the planet. It seems the libertarians say "right" means censorship because supposedly the "right" includes a lot of religious people who want legislation passed to restrict disagreement with their religion. Haven't met many of those people.
So that's all I mean when I say it's inadequate. No one really fits on a spot on that scale.
f I were to try to get you to change, I'd first find out about your ideas and if I find myself to disagree, try to argue.
Can you come over here and teach some Americans how to act like that?
:) Re:"Right"?!?!?
darobin on 2002-05-08T13:19:46
I think that there may be historical reasons for this inadequacy, ie that maybe it is adequate here but not over there.
In France, before the Dreyfus affair, it was possible (and in fact not uncommon) to be on the left and racist. After the Dreyfus affair, it became completely impossible and thus racism became a right thing. That habit hasn't changed since.
In the US there was no Dreyfus affair, and that may have had an influence.
Re:With all due respect...
jdavidb on 2002-05-06T23:49:02
It's quite true, I think, that we Americans literally cannot comprehend some of the racism of Europe's "far right." (Although our minority citizens probably have a better idea than white guys like me.) I made a post under davorg's journal entry about the BNP, asking for help in understanding because we just don't see that kind of attitude taken to that kind of extreme succeeding in politics over here. We have the attitudes, but people who express them are almost never politically successful (haven't been in my lifetime, at least). I was aghast last year to have a Romanian friend who is a member of the Hungarian minority tell me about the racist beliefs of a candidate in their election.
So, yes, it's probably true that pudge doesn't completely know what's going on over there. But I'm sure he, like me, appreciates any information from Europeans that can help us to really sense the magnitude of this situation. And we're likely to trust you guys who post here a lot more than the media.
:) Of course, the question of whether you are willing to kill for a belief or whether someone should be killed for a belief can be independent of how strongly the belief is held or how repulsive the belief is. In other words, just because I despise abortion and Nazis doesn't mean I would go around killing them.
In my post under davorg's journal, I asked someone to "rate the degree of racism" on a scale ranging from "opposes racial quotas that were designed to ensure fairness" to "genocide." I literally don't know where people like LePen, the BNP, and Megret rate on that scale, and seek insight and clarification.
Re:With all due respect...
darobin on 2002-05-08T00:58:25
I've had your comments on the BNP open in another window for a little while, I'll answer there when I get more time.
But to give a first idea, FN (Le Pen) and MNR (Mégret) ideologists can be roughly categorized in two sections, both of which are racists.
One section is for genocide. It comprises very few intellectuals, mostly old nazis or collaborators, or some people that were involved in dirty operations in Algeria.
The other section can be called racialist. What they believe is that races are unequal (europeans are of course superior to the others, except in certain unimportant areas), and that blending them weakens them. They do not think that genocide is advisable, but forbidding cross-racial breeding and keeping everyone "at home" (for their idea of home) is.
Note that the latter, while softer in discourse and comprising more intellectuals, are no less nazis. Most of their ideas revolve around the same myths which include the purity of our race decending from the Celts (and in particular of course, the Aryanic Celts). Their main difference with nazism is that they see genocide as a poor solution that can only be used if there's a genuine crisis, and also in that they've injected more neo-paganism into the ideology (Joan of Arc, Beltaine celebration, etc).
In other words, and in all honesty, those two parties rate very high on the racist scale. If you want to find those that rate lower, you have what we'd call the far right (as opposed to the extreme right). Those are not nazis but still racist in a (large) variety of ways. A good example would be our new Minister of Security and Local Liberties (sounds like 1984?), Sarkozy.
Re:With all due respect...
jdavidb on 2002-05-08T04:42:20
You know those stories you read about the young person who lived the sheltered life and when he finally gets out can't believe how terrible the world is? That's how I feel right now. While we have people like that here in the States, they are almost universally vilified by the public. They would never succeed in politics. Half of the time when there's a charge of racism, it's because someone thinks we shouldn't have affirmative action programs with quotas to guarantee a certain percentage of minorities in certain positions.
I've made the comment for the past few years or so that I don't believe in using the term "race." We're all humans made by God.
I'm ashamed to share the term "right" with these people.
Re:With all due respect...
darobin on 2002-05-08T13:25:51
They were fought strongly (and efficiently) here too for a while. But when the MNR split itself out of the FN, we made the mistake of thinking that we'd won. Unfortunately, Le Pen is a political killer. Since 1998 he softened his public speeches, and pretended to be dead. He made a blitz presidential campaign and that's how he went so far.
I've made the comment for the past few years or so that I don't believe in using the term "race." We're all humans made by God.
Indeed, I very much doubt that there is relevance in the term "race". You could however reach further and simply say "We're all humans", I wouldn't want to be left out
;-) I'm ashamed to share the term "right" with these people.
I'm ashamed to share the term "politics" with them...
Re:With all due respect...
pudge on 2002-05-07T00:01:54
Whatever his ideas are, are not the issue. Whether or not he wishes a free exchange of ideas, is not the issue. Granted, his ideas suck, and would go against everything France is supposed to stand for. So? Do you not trust the people to see that and vote accordingly? If not, what are you doing bothering with democracy for?
And I am not saying there shouldn't be protests, demonstrations, or marches. I am saying that people don't have to get hysterical. I am saying that people don't have to get violent. I am saying people -- you -- don't have to hate them just because they hated first.
If you think I am wrong, then what exactly are you advocating? Using force to quiet someone with ideas you disapprove of? Or to hate those who disagree with you? If so, how far does this policy go? For which ideas is it OK to use force, or hate, in response to? Shall you hate everyone who is for less immigration, or only those whom you believe to being doing so out of racist motivations?
I am not trying to say that I am enlightened American from the Birthplace of Democracy(tm) coming to tell you Europeans how to act. I've seen this in America more often than anywhere else... and I've grown to hate it. I think the best way to destroy hate is to expose it, to look at it closely, to shine light on it from all angles. And I think the best way to govern a people is to have them govern themselves, and that quieting a whole group of people doesn't make them go away, it makes them become secretive, which makes them far more powerful in the long run.
I am just saying that I am favoring less vitriol, less hate, less violence. Maybe I am saying it about "you" and not "them" because I believe that you're capable of it.
Re:With all due respect...
mir on 2002-05-07T15:22:05
My point is that megret's quote should be put in context: it comes from a neo-nazi, after 2 weeks of incredibly pacific demonstrations in the street against what he represents. There were no calls for violence against the national front in France, just calls for people to vote. Hence what he says is just not true. What happened in The Netherlands has no relation to the French situation. This is just the usual rethoric of a paranoid mind that likes to appear as a victim and is quick to use any opportunity to do so.
And I never condone the use of violence in politics.
Is that enough?;--)
As for democracy and the French neo-nazi:
I have seen what democratically elected people can do when they base their power on hate and pitting communities against each other: Milosevic was elected at the head of Yougoslavia. And people who had lived side by side peacefully for ages started killing each other (or, to be more accurate, some serbs started killing muslims). The problem is that the World is increasingly complex and that more and more people just can't understand it any more. So they look for simple answers, like "if we kick the immigrants out everything will be OK", or just "politicians suck". This makes it very difficult to argue against, as neo-nais typically disregard facts and base everything on their twisted vision of the World. The real answers to problems like crime or economic crisis are complex and are hard to explain while someone is yelling "send the Arabs home and there will be no more crime and no more unemployement!" at voters. Hate is dangerous, and hate-mongers must be fought, but that's not easy.
le pen? He is and has always been a nazi: he tortured people in Algeria (and brags about it), owned a publishing house specialized in German war songs and books that denied the Holocaust, got rich by inheriting a whole lotta money from a senile guy who changed his will just before dying, was sentenced to probation for punching a socialist candidate (a woman) during a campaign, said that the holocaust was a detail in WWII, made a pun on national radio on a politician that included the French for gas chamber in his name... there's probably more...
Re:With all due respect...
pudge on 2002-05-07T16:28:06
I didn't mean specifically that the French people in general, or the demonstrators in general, or you in particular, wanted or called for violence. However, I do agree with him that "hysterical" positions do often lead to violence (note that I took that in my original post and generalized it so as to not make it specific to any group), and this is what I am decrying. People were basically going nuts over the viewpoints of this man, hating him, and being filled with vitriol toward him and his party. That's not good.
I have seen what democratically elected people can do when they base their power on hate and pitting communities against each other: Milosevic was elected at the head of Yougoslavia.
Sure, but that's a different issue, isn't it? The problem there is either that Miolsevic was allowed to break their Constitutional law, or that there wasn't a good Constitution to begin with. There must be some standard that no leaders are allowed to easily break that affords certain rights to the citizenry (especially the minorities). I am not in favor of pure democracy. If America had pure democracy, without a Constitution to reign in the government and the majority, America surely would have been a colossal failure. I was speaking of "democracy," in this context, in the general sense, regarding the methods of how we debate, discuss, and, ultimately, elect; that is, that to have any type of reasonable "democracy" -- pure or not -- requires free exchange of ideas that the people might be properly informed and able to vote intelligently.
Hate is dangerous, and hate-mongers must be fought, but that's not easy.
Agreed. And that is my primary point. Hate is dangerous, and should not be fought with more hate. I realize that Le Pen is an evil rat bastard Nazi. But I believe that it has only short-term benefit, if that, to hating him, defeating him and his ideas with hate, to attempting to incite vitriol for him and his party. That will have unfortunate long-term effects, not the least of which is teaching people that to hate other people who disagree with you is OK, even if they are evil rat bastard Nazis, because that is the kind of thing that does lead to violence, intentionally or not.
Re:With all due respect...
mir on 2002-05-07T17:13:22
Actually the anti-le pen demonstrations before the second round of the elections were quite interesting: the right kinda laid low, some of its leaders even said that they thought the demonstrations were counter-productive, making le pen look like a victim. The left embraced the demonstrations but did not overplay its hand. It was mostly people demonstrating as individuals.
The demonstrations were of course about beating le pen but also about being proud to be French, about apologizing for the stupidity of some of ours, and about what France is, a multi-cultural, modern society, not a closed one based on hate.
As it turned out voter turnout increased quite dramatically, especially considering Chirac was all but certain of the win and about 40% of the voters did not have a representant in the second round, and le pen did not gain much votes (54000 over the total of his vote + megret's in the first round in Metropolitan france).
In the end I am quite sure that for a lot of the people who demonstrated, a lot of them for the first time, a renewed sense that voting is useful and a little more will to get involved in the political process.
Re:With all due respect...
Bumppo on 2002-05-07T20:24:56
Hate is dangerous, and should not be fought with more hate. I realize that Le Pen is an evil rat bastard Nazi. But I believe that it has only short-term benefit, if that, to hating him, defeating him and his ideas with hate, to attempting to incite vitriol for him and his party.
Did I miss some news? As I understood it, Le Pen did unexpectedly well in the initial balloting because there were a slew of candidates to split the left. He beat the PM, whom people had assumed was a shoo-in for the runoff, because the PM was assumed to be a shoo-in for the runoff and people on the left felt free to vote for their pet "protest candidates".
The left woke up the next day, realized they'd screwed themselves, and held their noses to vote for Chirac (not exactly a progressive, unless by comparison to Le Pen) by about four to one nationally.
An object lesson in the rarely-stated advantages of a two-party system, yes, but a referendum on Le Pen, no. He was lucky to be in the right place at the right time. With all of France to choose between him and Chirac, he only picked up a couple of percentage points more than he got when the field was splintered.
The country did a lot of public agonizing over its allowing a wee plurality to elevate Le Pen to the runoff, but that isn't hate. I don't know that Le Pen has been a victim of anything other than the inevitable, as soon as France was compelled to focus on him in the runoff. It's no more than Pat Buchanan would have had to take if he ever found himself in a similar position.Re:With all due respect...
pudge on 2002-05-07T21:06:33
Regardless, I thought I had made it perfectly clear several times -- apparently not? -- that I am talking about the overall feeling that I get, not anything in particular done by the French people. The demonstrations were good. I was very pleased to see people come out in force to speak and vote against Le Pen's candidacy. Perhaps the lack of provided context or example confused my intention: whether it is Mir saying he hates Le Pen, or other people I've seen expressing extreme hatred and vitrol toward him, it bothers me. It's the opposite of what should be happening. Statements like this:I felt literally sick going out this morning and knowing that 1 personne out 8 I would see in the street voted for a fascist... amongst which most likely half of the people I buy my bread, groceries, etc... Well, that attitude, which I've seen a lot in recent weeks, sickens me. It is closed-minded, it is not representative of properly working democracy, it is not a love of freedom of ideas. It is villification of people who may have different ideas. It is hatred. Yes, the world is becoming more complex, and some people can't understand it well, and the does drive people to vote for poor candidates sometimes. But it also drives other people to compartmentalize people into specific ideological camps where "they" are bad and "we" are good and we must defeat them. It leads to nothing good. If our world is becoming more complex, we must learn not to villify those whom we disagree with, but to deal with them in some manner that won't just fracture society even more. Whether it's hating them, killing them, or looking upon them with disgust and disdain, it is counterproductive at best, unless more hatred between ideological groups is what you want.
Maybe I am especially sensitive to this because in the US, I am villified because I want to end federal welfare, make abortion illegal, increase military spending, etc. Many people think I am evil scum for my beliefs, and it is sickening. Most of these people purport to love diversity and different ideas, but they lie. They hate what is different, and it is disgusting to me. The rare person I meet who completely disagrees with me but still respects me and accepts that I think differently, that's the person who warms my heart. I could very easily think that people who favor legal abortions are evil people who want to allow us to kill babies. But I realize two things: first, they look at it differently than me, and that doesn't make them evil, even if I think the idea is evil; second, treating them as though they are evil, or even thinking they are evil, or hating them for their beliefs, will not in any way benefit me, them, or society.
Again, I don't mind the hating of the ideas. I hate lots of ideas. I don't even want you to accept my ideas, whatever they are. I want you to accept that I have them, that I have good reason for them, that I am not the same as you are, that you won't change me, and I won't change you, and that our goal is to find a way to peacefully coexist, even if that means peacefully coexisting with people who want to kill babies, or Jews, or Muslims, or blacks. I daresay we should even love all of these people.
Make no mistake: the most important emphasis between peoples now, and for the forseeable future, are ideological. That Arab guy I work with is a "good" Arab because he doesn't hate America. His skin color doesn't matter anymore, it's what he thinks that matters. His beliefs matter. I'd like to see our world as accepting of people who have ideological differences as they are of people with sexual or racial differences. I'd like to see the fake frienship (hey, you gotta start somewhere) we extend to our black neighbor extended to our Jehovah's Witness neighbor, our Republican neighbor, our vegan neighbor. If we want to make society better for the future, the frontier is not in opening or closing our borders to people who look differently than we do. It's the ones who think differently, not look differently, who will make the difference.
Well, I am sure I've said enough at this point. If I continue this last line of thought too much further, I'll begin to sound like Jon Katz.
Re:With all due respect...
darobin on 2002-05-08T01:44:30
I agree with you on a number of points here (and elsewhere), but I think there are a number of nuances to be made.
To begin with, keep in mind that in Europe the WWII trauma is still very much alive. Even a young guy like me (25) knows first hand accounts from the war. My family is not part of any minority that was specifically targetted by nazism, but nevertheless many of my family members were killed or tortured by the nazis. My grandparents and my great-grandparents were part of the first wave of resistants, before the Resistance was truly organized. As a result, at the end of the war, all of their friends save a few had been killed by the Gestapo.
The fact that genuine nazis would make a come-back with some success does, indeed, sicken me. I know it's an emotional reaction more than anything else, but the wounds of WWII run deep.
I'm not especially sick at the people that voted thus. I do understand that the world is a complex and scary place, and that that troubles people. However, I have more trouble understanding how they can be so oblivious. Or so stupid. Or so fascist (depending on voters).
Also, I feel there's one nuance you are failing to make (or that I missed): the difference between hatred and anger. It is customary of me to use strong words when angry, but I do not hate anyone. I think a lot of other French people felt the same (to talk only about the area I know). People are very very angry, and while of course assassination was frequently mentionned as a way out I know for sure that none of those people supported that idea, it was mostly a way to release anger (which is good imho).
I won't weep for someone that propagates hatred and gets bitten by hatred. I won't say that the assassination was deserved -- of course not -- but hatred is not a monster that can be mastered, or not long.
Having the courage to go talk with the people that voted FN is difficult because it means that you have to be ready to face someone supportive -- consciously or not -- of some of the darkest things known to man. But I feel it is necessary to try, and whenever I get a chance I do.
Maybe I am especially sensitive to this because in the US, I am villified because I want to end federal welfare, make abortion illegal, increase military spending
That's something I can understand. I get regularly villified (by a variety of people) because I am supportive of various things such as homosexual marriage, different types of families, increase in military spending (which looks weird to a number of leftists), strongly increased welfare, etc. Few are those from any political side that are ready to discuss their disagreements (especially when it touches sensitive subjects, such as abortion, or irrational topics such as familial politics). People are entrenched on all sides, it just shows less when they agree with you
;-) I will easily agree to discuss the topics you name (as well as those I name), if only because I know that some of them have blurry angles and often amount to a political choice between two evils (eg abortion). I certainly don't enjoy being called a murderer, a pervert, or a threat to the stability of society, and thus I won't use words such as fascist or nazi lightly. Nazism, however, is not something that I will discuss as if I were arguing over the best way to paint the bike shed. I do attempt to muster the courage to talk to people that support it indirectly because I want to hope that there's something they haven't seen due to the indirection. But there's a step beyond which no discussion is possible.
On a different note, I must second Michel in saying that your quote was poorly chosen. You might extract what you want from it to support your point but the quote remains in itself a lie (when read inside its own context) which means that you are in fact not really using that quote in an honest way, making it apply to something else. Tsssss, you damn post-modernist spitting in the face of authorial intent (
* darobin ducks).Re:With all due respect...
pudge on 2002-05-08T02:27:19
No, I did not distinguish between hatred and anger, but I do think I see the difference, and I do think I've seen a lot of the hatred I've mentioned. And I agree with you: I won't weep for "Nazis" who are killed. What I weep for is what that assassination means, what effects it will have on everyone else, how it will shape society. It won't be positive.
And that's the second time this week, in two completely different contexts, that I've been called a postmodernist. Hmmm.;-) Regardless, I just saw the quote, didn't really know the person who spoke it (though I found out more about him later), and there wasn't much context given with the instance of the quote when I found it. If I took it out of context, I'll accept that, and I apologize. I also apologize for appearing to accuse the French protestors/left/etc. for being in favor of violence or somesuch: I know none of you here are, and I hope I've made that much clear.
Re:With all due respect...
mir on 2002-05-08T13:27:02
I felt literally sick going out this morning and knowing that 1 personne out 8 I would see in the street voted for a fascist... amongst which most likely half of the people I buy my bread, groceries, etc... Well, that attitude, which I've seen a lot in recent weeks, sickens me. It is closed-minded, it is not representative of properly working democracy, it is not a love of freedom of ideas. It is villification of people who may have different ideas. It is hatred.It's not hatred, it's just that I felt physically sick at the thought that some people I buy food from, with whom I exchange jokes and who I basically like probably voted for a neo-nazi. I am not sure they did, and I really don't feel like asking, or arguing with them if they did. Voting for le pen is so unconceivable for me that I feel very uneasy discussing with people who did. The reasons not to vote for him are so obvious that I have no idea what I could add to "don't vote for a guy who looks back fondly to the days Adolf Hitler was in power". I don't feel hate for le pen voters, I feel sorry, I feel they are dumb and I feel they are beyond reasoning: I don't feel like talking nice to them and trying to convince them they were wrong. Basically I just don't want to live in the same country as them.
Maybe we should send them all to a reservation somewhere in their beloved French countryside, where they would live together and soon become irrelevant, after their stupid economic policy drives them to bankruptcy, then extinct due to in-breeding
;--) Re:With all due respect...
pudge on 2002-05-08T13:37:04
I don't feel hate for le pen voters, I feel sorry, I feel they are dumb and I feel they are beyond reasoning: I don't feel like talking nice to them and trying to convince them they were wrong. Basically I just don't want to live in the same country as them.
Maybe that's hate, maybe it isn't. I don't know. But in my view, it's unhealthy for society, as per what I wrote about how we need to get along with people who think differently than we do.
Re:With all due respect...
mir on 2002-05-08T14:10:11
we need to get along with people who think differently than we do.
I have no problem getting along with people who actually think. Too bad this does not include people who voted for le pen.
OK, that was a joke. And I'll stop here. I think our difference boils down to the fact that you always want to convince people of your ideas, or at least discuss them (then convince them
;--), while I really prefer to live and let live. The result is that when something like neo-nazi vote comes along you are still ready to discuss with people and to try to convince them, while I feel powerless and unable to argue as they don't respect the minimal "social contract" that I expect from people in a civilized society.
Does this make sense?
Re:With all due respect...
pudge on 2002-05-08T14:31:17
Actually, no, I don't want to convince people of my ideas. I spent some significant time describing that in my lengthy post of last night. I don't even need to discuss it with them, if they are unwilling or unable. I do prefer to live and let live, if that is what it comes down to. You don't appear to want to live and let live, though, you seem to prefer to want to live and let live "away from me." That's not what I think of as "live and let live."
Aside from the fact that you don't know the reasons why someone voted for Le Pen (maybe it was a protest vote for someone they knew would lose anyway, maybe it was because they thought it was "Le Peu" and that little skunk cartoon is so cute, etc.), I agree that people who actually support Le Pen's ideas are favoring violating the "social contract" you speak of.
But I could say the same about people who favor legal abortion, and I can back up that up with damn convincing and reasonable arguments, too (not that I am about to get started on an abortion debate on use.perl... it isn't going to happen; catch me on IRC if anyone really cares to go around on it ;-). Yet I would never treat people who favor legal abortion that way, because it's unreasonable; not because it is significantly different than the case of those who voted for Le Pen, but because nothing at all good comes from it. It fractures society. It pushes us further apart, and only causes more animosity, which will surely lead to more hatred, more violence, more suffering, more problems for everyone.
There will always be people who are like this, and the more isolated you make them, the worse off everyone will be. You don't have to try to convince them they are wrong, or you are right. Just treat them like fellow human beings who are fallible and stupid, just like you and I are. It might not change them, but it won't hurt anything, and surely won't have the negative side effects that our increasingly diverse ideologies could have if we keep ourselves segregated.
Re:With all due respect...
jdavidb on 2002-05-08T15:45:19
Maybe I am especially sensitive to this because in the US, I am villified because I want to end federal welfare, make abortion illegal, increase military spending, etc. Many people think I am evil scum for my beliefs, and it is sickening. Most of these people purport to love diversity and different ideas, but they lie.
Welcome to the club, pudge!
:) They hate what is different, and it is disgusting to me. The rare person I meet who completely disagrees with me but still respects me and accepts that I think differently, that's the person who warms my heart.
If you look at that slashdot discussion on stem cells from liposuction from last week, I had some very amazingly civil conversations with people about embryonic stem cell research. People showed respect for my position while disagreeing in a polite way, and I believe we all learned something from the exchange. I was amazed that such a conversation could take place (especially on the Internet). It warmed my heart, and I'll bet you'd enjoy reading some of it.
Re:With all due respect...
jdavidb on 2002-05-08T15:37:02
It's no more than Pat Buchanan would have had to take if he ever found himself in a similar position.
I think Buchanan advocates closed borders and protective tarrifs, but I don't think he advocates racism like Le Pen. If my understanding is correct, then I would hope Buchanan wouldn't face what Le Pen did if he were in a runoff.
Even in its ideal form (i.e., before corporations start pulling the strings), democracy has little in the way of safeguards to stop the majority from oppressing minorities. Maybe that's the problem that things like assassination mean to fix.
Re:Demotic Democracy
pudge on 2002-05-06T23:51:40
I am not talking about pure democracy. For example, no matter what the majority wants, it is illegal to enslave a people. Good. Does that mean we use force to shut up the people whose views we disagree with, even if they go against the law itself? What good does that do? None at all. It only makes us more likely to use similar force the next time someone says something we don't like, regardless of what it is.
