-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Fri, 19 Mar 2004, John Klos wrote:

>> Well, there we have it, ladies and gentlemen.  If Mr. Klos, at this
>> presumably stage in his development not only a.) sees no good reason not
>> to hold a mass-murdering dictator up as a source of wisdom in a .sig
>> file, but also b.) considers Bush (whatever his opinion of him may be)
>> to be `like' Hitler and stalin, I feel safe concluding that no
>> reasonable person is likely to take his opinions seriously, nor should
>> they.
>
>I think that anyone who makes such generalisations based on a serious
>question has some issues to work out. I very seriously asked, "why not",
>and all you did was make a dismissive comment.

On the contrary, I'd say some generalizations are not only easy but
correct.  Right up there at the top of the list would be ``mass
murderers make bad role models''.  ``Totalitarian dictators make bad
role models'' is surely a close second, and I'd suggest ``once a
philosophy has been used to justify the murder of tens or hundreds of
millions of people in a single century, it's philosophical leaders and
defenders make poor role models'' is yet a third example of a perfectly
reasonable `generalization'.

Or are you suggesting that such murders are some sort of ``grey area''
which we must be careful never to describe as ``wrong'' or ``evil''?

After all, were someone to post to this list quoting Hitler as a
positive role model in their .sig, no one would be the least bit
surprised were they to be flamed -- even if the quote chosen were in
support of some policy of Hitler's (such as vegetarianism) which he had
not used to justify his murders.  I can see no reason why other
totalitarian mass murderers should get a bye merely because they
committed their crimes in the name of some other ideology.


>Are you one of those people who cannot learn from the mistakes of others?
>Are you completely ignorant of what these people have done because they
>are bad, and therefore whatever information surrounds their existence is
>suspect and useless?

Are you suggesting that Mr. Nordin quoted Mr. Dimitrov, entirely out of
context, so that his readers would tend not to believe the quote chosen?
So that they would learn from Mr. Dimitrov's ``mistakes''?  (Interesting
choice of words, by the way -- I myself would use a word stronger than
``mistakes'' to describe mass murder and the establishment of a brutal
totalitarian state apparatus, but perhaps you can explain why this
`generalization' of mine is a sign that I have `issues'.   :-)

Really, Mr. Klos?

My own suspicion is that Mr. Nordin was not aware of Dimitrov's later
career when he selected a quote which he thought worthy.  I'd be curious
to hear his opinion on why the quote is worth citing, however.


>Don't be such a dramatist.

Yes, yes.  It's only a few tens or hundreds of thousands dead.  And they
were all foreigners at that, and probably deserved it, eh?  No reason at
all to get `dramatic', eh, Mr. Klos?


>> Is that a clear enough expansion of my previous post, Mr. Klos, or do
>> you actually think either a.) or b.) is a sane, rational, or defensible
>> position?
>
>No. I asked, honestly, "why not". You chose to not answer. And here you
>are condecending and dismissive because you are making judgements about
>who I personally think are evil.

You are absolutely correct.  I am utterly dismissive of the opinion that
mass murders and establishment of totalitarian states are some sort of
``grey area'' that we should not `judge' or `make generalizations'
about.  I dare say all reasonable observers are similarly dismissive of
such opinions.  Is that clear enough?


>I was curious because you seemed judgemental about who someone else
>decided to quote, but I was happy to give you the benefit of the doubt.
>But I guess both your reaction to my question and your lack of desire to
>explain why someone might not want to quote certain people just
>illustrates that you are, in fact, judgemental and condecending. And
>unless there's a real reason for posting comments about someone's quote
>aside from being judgemental, don't.

Oh yes, let's hold mass murderers up as examples, and classify Bush with
Hitler and Stalin -- just as long as we're not `judgemental', right?

Heh.

- -- 
				Jim Wise
				jwise@draga.com
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (NetBSD)

iD8DBQFAW25aRxzMSZ/9vAMRAkXQAJ9avHhAQIYGpRFFv1p7MlJTQP1z0wCfek9a
/eTMAaI5v3n0te3vHYRKWXQ=
=cujR
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----