[extropy-chat] Politics: worthwhile commentary

[Al Brooks]

If you will pardon the question, might it be relevant to ask whether someone named Jeff Davis might possess a Confederate bias? The same question might be asked of anyone named Bob E. Lee or Stoney Jackson. I draw the line at Confederates who are to this day revered in the deep South, there exist numerous public monuments to such traitors.
  White supremacists of course have the right to do whatever they want in raising white families & sending them to white schools-- even supremacist schools. However no-one ought to harbor sympathy for those who have taken up arms such as Confederates, Communists, Nazis, Fascists. Or for that matter plain murderers such as Nat Turner, John Brown, Tim McVeigh... whether they wear uniforms or just loincloths they are nothing but thugs.

>In my view, excepting the Mideast, Friedman's
>analysis/commentary, his bias notwithstanding, is
>quite intelligent. But in Mideastern matters it is
>essential to understand that he is a white, Jewish,
>Zionist advocate/apologist, with the extreme polar
>bias that implies.

I will not elaborate on why this polar bias discredits
his Mideast views, leaving it to you to compare his
positions and underlying premises with the historical
facts. Just one anecdote: In one of his columns,
where he sought to provide some insight into the real
views of real Arabs in the Mideast, he cited a
conversation he chanced to have with an Arab fellow in
the seat next to him on a flight from Bahrain. 
Unsurprisingly not mentioned in the columns was the
credibility issue that immediately occurred to me. 
How does an Arab person who flies first class from
Bahrain figure to be representative of the larger Arab
culture? About the same way a Saudi Prince does. Not
at all.


		
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