[ExI] Yet another health care debate.

[Fred C. Moulton]

On Tue, 2008-09-23 at 11:11 -0500, Damien Broderick wrote:
> At 08:50 AM 9/23/2008 -0700, Fred  wrote:
> 
> >Then you would have no objection if the phrase was re-written as
> >"Extreme Socialists"?
> 
> Why the hell should I care? But is it valid? Are there any "Extreme 
> Socialists" around who are also ideological social darwinists? Was 
> Stalin, for extreme example, or was he just a psychopathic tribal 
> power-hungry son of a bitch?
> 

Hmm.  Well. Jumping from case of "Extreme libertarians" and saying that
at most there is a "mocking rhetorical gesture" to the case of "Extreme
Socialists" and asking "But is it valid?"; I will have to consider that
jump for a while before I can develop a response.

But I notice that you brought up Stalin.  I specifically did not bring
up Stalin or Stalinist policies because as far as I know (and I am very
confident on this) that no person (of any political label) participating
on this email list supports Stalinist policies.  Also as far as I know
(and I am very confident on this) that no person (of any political
label) participating on this email list holds the position of letting
all the poor, mentally disabled, physically disabled, etc. fall by the
wayside.

So let us make sure that we do not inadvertently engage in little
misdirections, false accusations and attempts at guilt by association.
Scouring the web to find the worst statements of someone claiming to be
affiliated with some group such as the Greens, conservatives,
Republicans, Democrats, etc and then bringing them up as if they had
relevance to the ideas of the list participants is unseemly.  I have
seen other forums where this sort of thing was done and the results are
not pretty.  How about we strife for an improved list?  

So my request is that we attempt to maintain this list at a higher
standard of discourse.  I do not think my request is out of line and is
not meant to imply that any person or persons were deliberately telling
falsehoods or were deliberately attempting to mislead the other list
participants.

Fred