Ha Ha! At Last!

2004-01-10 Thread Gautam Mukunda
no longer the youngest Brin-Ler. It's about time! :-) = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.y

Re: Shrub's Conspiracy to Invade Iraq Revealed by Ex-Admin Official

2004-01-14 Thread Gautam Mukunda
sters have friends, and if the USA > wants > to take them down, probably it would have to take > the allies > down too. Or maybe taking them down would _turn_ > their > allies into new monsters. > > Alberto Monteiro Plus, the argument that "we're not doing the

Re: Double Standards on Regional Bigotry

2004-01-14 Thread Gautam Mukunda
out race? I have no doubt that it was. In 1994, was it about race? I honestly think that it was not. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter

Re: Double Standards on Regional Bigotry

2004-01-14 Thread Gautam Mukunda
est Virginia? After which he would become President Pro Tem of the Senate and one of the most respected members of the Democratic Party? And it's not as if the West Virginians have the excuse that he was running agaist Edwards, either. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PRO

Re: Double Standards on Regional Bigotry

2004-01-14 Thread Gautam Mukunda
rast. Al "Tawana Brawley" Sharpton is kowtowed to by Democrats every day. And, as I've already mentioned, Robert "White N-" Byrd is one of the leaders of the Democratic Party. The modern record of the Democratic Party is every bit as bad, despite the disgraceful herit

Re: Double Standards on Regional Bigotry

2004-01-14 Thread Gautam Mukunda
n this list, surely the most bigoted groups are the ones that The Fool is a member of... = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signi

Re: Double Standards on Regional Bigotry

2004-01-14 Thread Gautam Mukunda
not exactly an insider, so I'm sure Lott knew. Quite a few Republicans (myself included, but least important among them) were trying to get rid of Lott for years, because they knew that he was a racist and that he would eventually screw up and make it unmistakeable in public. =

Re: Double Standards on Regional Bigotry

2004-01-15 Thread Gautam Mukunda
postdate 1995 or so on that topic, so that's uninformed speculation and not worth much. If the southern strategy was a raced-based appeal _today_, it wouldn't be Southern. It would work every bit as well in the North and the West. But it doesn't, because it's not about rac

Re: Double Standards on Regional Bigotry

2004-01-16 Thread Gautam Mukunda
te for the Crook! It's Important" which, as I recall, was popular at the time. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus"

Re: 2004 Elections (and Kerry)

2004-01-20 Thread Gautam Mukunda
sufficiently small state that running into a Senator is a fairly common occurrence). And many of them said that they would vote for Bush before they voted for Kerry. It was quite remarkable - I've really never seen anything like it. Al Gore generated something of the same feeling, I think,

Re: 2004 Elections (and Kerry)

2004-01-20 Thread Gautam Mukunda
have all say pretty much the same things about him - that if you're not "useful" to him, you're nothing to him. It also strikes me that the Washington Press Corps, which is usually pathetically in the tank for any plausible moderate Democrat, just can't _stand_ the guy. It

Re: 2004 Elections (and Kerry)

2004-01-21 Thread Gautam Mukunda
gt; JDG - Who has never so much as met his Congressional > Representatie. It's not, actually. None of the people I had in mind were in any way involved in politics. Most of them were doctors, actually. Massachusetts politics is very retail. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] &qu

Science Fiction Question

2004-01-21 Thread Gautam Mukunda
hat I'm talking about? Does this sound familiar? Was it part of a series? Have I, in fact, lost my mind (note that the answer to this question is not necessarily related to the previous ones)? = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" h

Re: 2004 Elections (and Kerry)

2004-01-21 Thread Gautam Mukunda
--- "John D. Giorgis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > At 04:42 AM 1/21/2004 -0800 Gautam Mukunda wrote: > But again, doctors aren't exactly representative of > ordinary > Massachusettans.They tend to be the very sort of > highly-paid people who > would be li

Re: Science Fiction Question

2004-01-21 Thread Gautam Mukunda
published in 1954, then republished in two books in the 1990s (I read it in one of them, obviously). Thanks for your help, William. A pity if that was all there was - I was very impressed by it. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blog

Re: Doing Business With The Enemy

2004-01-27 Thread Gautam Mukunda
e graduated _income tax_ was unpatriotic, and he used the word. Howard Dean accused the President of the United States in a time of war of high treason. So which party is questioning people's patriotism again? = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://w

RE: Doing Business With The Enemy

2004-01-27 Thread Gautam Mukunda
ing - something like that. But I don't hear anybody in the Democratic Party repudiating him either. I'm pretty sure that he's also accused the Administration of being unpatriotic, although I couldn't swear that he used the word per se. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] &q

Re: Doing Business With The Enemy

2004-01-27 Thread Gautam Mukunda
he conspiracy? If I go to Iraq, will you be proclaiming that I'm doing it for Halliburton money? = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Site

Re: Doing Business With The Enemy

2004-01-27 Thread Gautam Mukunda
career makes him one of the most influential Senators in history. The last 1-2 years, though, have been a disgrace, and people should stop pretending that he is in any way what he used to be. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com ___

Re: Doing Business With The Enemy

2004-01-27 Thread Gautam Mukunda
you could tell us we were stooges for the oil lobby. It seems to me that one of the statements you quoted was right - when people look at George Bush and Osama Bin Laden and think that _George Bush_ is their enemy, there's something wrong with them. Now, I don't think you're one

Re: Doing Business With The Enemy

2004-01-28 Thread Gautam Mukunda
ident Bush walked across the Potomac you'd declare it was proof that he couldn't swim. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site

RE: Doing Business With The Enemy

2004-01-28 Thread Gautam Mukunda
d respond to? As far as I can tell, _nothing_ except force is likely to get results from someone like him. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo

Re: Doing Business With The Enemy

2004-01-28 Thread Gautam Mukunda
> xponent > Good One Though Maru > rob "Talent creates, genius steals" - Picasso :-) = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo!

Re: Brin: LotR and Conservatives

2004-01-29 Thread Gautam Mukunda
hough I will be less so if he doesn't do something to get California spending under control. A trained poodle could do a better job than Grey Davis, though. Doesn't seem like your "varied" Democrats did all that good a job of picking leaders, does it? = Gautam Mukunda [EM

Re: Doing Business With The Enemy

2004-01-29 Thread Gautam Mukunda
om he approached first, which all by itself is pretty indicative. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/s

Re: Brin: LotR and Conservatives

2004-01-29 Thread Gautam Mukunda
tax cuts for the > millionaires the entire > deficit goes away. No amount of 'spending' cuts, > discretionary and/or > mandatory does that. Again, learn something about the topic. This is factually not true. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free&qu

Re: Brin: LotR and Conservatives

2004-01-29 Thread Gautam Mukunda
Joe Nye. That's a pretty high league to play in. > ---David > > In my experience, real scholars avoid administrative > work like > the plague! (I should know, it's my turn to be > Chair...) Of? = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" h

Re: Brin: LotR and Conservatives

2004-01-29 Thread Gautam Mukunda
of war, as a man should. Working for the CPA might be a close substitute, but maybe not, too. But, if you're so free attacking people in the Bush Administration as idiots, corrupt, and unpatriotic, and justifying it with their lack of service - what's yours, Doctor? ===

Re: Brin: LotR and Conservatives

2004-01-30 Thread Gautam Mukunda
But fundamentally this isn't about conservatism. It > is about kleptocracy. They hated him as much as all > the other war heroes, like Kerry and Clark. You mean like George H.W. Bush? He would be a war hero too, after all. = Gautam Mukunda [EM

Re: Brin: LotR and Conservatives

2004-01-30 Thread Gautam Mukunda
about his age in order to join the Navy. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/ ___

Re: Brin: LotR and Conservatives

2004-01-30 Thread Gautam Mukunda
you're just as harsh now as you were last night. I'm not offended, because in a list with Tom and The Fool, I'd have left long ago if I was likely to be offended by people who think that everyone who disagrees with them is tricked, dumb, or evil. But I'm not intimidated by you

Re: Brin: LotR and Conservatives

2004-01-30 Thread Gautam Mukunda
in? So you know all the options that were discussed? = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site buil

Re: Brin: LotR and Conservatives

2004-01-30 Thread Gautam Mukunda
knowledge of history? You're not stupid, Dr. Brin. You can accuse me of being ignorant all you want, but no one will believe you. I'd be surprised if anyone even believes that you're serious. I mean, really. I'm not even offended. Something this ridiculous isn't wor

Re: Brin: LotR and Conservatives

2004-01-30 Thread Gautam Mukunda
e to take into account) that the pressure from this sort of deployment isn't a little helpful in spurring the pace of reform. The military bureaucracy is so resistant to change (for good reasons - that's a positive, not a normative statement) that something like that might be the only wa

Re: Brin: LotR and Conservatives

2004-01-30 Thread Gautam Mukunda
ns. That conservatism extends to a reluctance to embrace doctrinal change, so you usually have to generate external stresses in order to encourage it. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com ___

Re: Brin: LotR and Conservatives

2004-01-30 Thread Gautam Mukunda
rhaps you could extend me the same courtesy in my own field of specialization? = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free we

Re: Brin: LotR and Conservatives

2004-01-30 Thread Gautam Mukunda
omething written by Gore Vidal or Noam Chomsky. I am not an historian, but American political history, at least, I have some background in. If there is something that makes a plausible case, I would of course be interested in reading it. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] &q

Re: Brin: LotR and Conservatives

2004-01-30 Thread Gautam Mukunda
made, both political and personal. I certainly hope to continue to count you as a friend, so I'm reluctant to push this further, but I feel that I must and ask that you withdraw your comments about my ignorance and suggest that (unless I choose to opine about physics or the proper way t

Re: My field is more academic, nyah, nyah, was: Re: Brin: LotR and Conservatives

2004-01-30 Thread Gautam Mukunda
an they are to political science, which at least tries really hard to adopt the standards of the hard sciences (sometimes too hard!). Does your criticism extend to them as well? In other words, are you saying nothing is academic except a science? Or is it just political science that y

Re: Conseptual lines - Re: Brin: LotR and Conservatives

2004-01-31 Thread Gautam Mukunda
ever your particular problems with the Bush Administration - is Orwellian. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder

Re: Brin: LotR and Conservatives

2004-01-31 Thread Gautam Mukunda
ation. > > Damon. That's interesting, Damon. You are _literally_ the first person with military experience I've communciated with who thinks that Clark should be allowed in the White House on anything other than a public tour. Did you encounter him while you were in the service? =

Defense Reform

2004-01-31 Thread Gautam Mukunda
So, if the opposition had fought more effectively, would there have been more casualties and would the war have taken longer? Of course there would have been. Would it have been any less decisive a victory? I doubt it. So that's my non-professional and unexpert opini

LotR and Conservatives

2004-01-31 Thread Gautam Mukunda
t say they didn't like him much. I'm told his superiors loved him (I didn't meet any of them) but his peers and subordinates were less impressed. At any rate, it doesn't matter much. He has about the same chance of becoming President as Dr. Bri

Re: Doing Business With The Enemy

2004-02-01 Thread Gautam Mukunda
ed_ someone. The most sympathetic possible interpretation to him is that he let her drown and then walked away without a care in the world. God knows what really happened. So I'll say it's not relevant to what sort of a person he is when Mary Jo asks me to, and not before. That seems

Re: Doing Business With The Enemy

2004-02-02 Thread Gautam Mukunda
o knowledge, that's not exactly a problem for you, is it? There must be a pony in here somewhere... = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteB

Re: Good and evil (was Re: Reviews for Mel Gibson's "ThePassion of the Christ")

2004-02-06 Thread Gautam Mukunda
d evil in a form that approaches that of Stalin or Hitler. Good people can disagree on many issues. A cause that I've taken up on this list quite often in the last few days, and even more often in the time that I've been on it. But there are issues - present day issues - on which good

Re: Good and evil (was Re: Reviews for Mel Gibson's "ThePassion of the Christ")

2004-02-06 Thread Gautam Mukunda
ety of reasons, all of them bad. If you can't say that North Korea's government (or Saddam Hussein) is evil, and destroying them would be a good thing, black and white, simple as that, then that's not sophistication, it's sophistry. We can argue about means, and whether it

Re: Good and evil (was Re: Reviews for Mel Gibson's "ThePassion ofthe Christ")

2004-02-07 Thread Gautam Mukunda
couldn't make judgments about Saddam's government and didn't have the right to take action against it. It's not all black and white - we're not perfect, Saddam's not perfect, so how do we justify going after him? That's the sort of argument to which I was referr

Re: Voodoo Economics

2004-02-09 Thread Gautam Mukunda
- Just reverse a few key terms. Or like Karl Marx, actually. Enhancing the contradictions, isn't that what the Marxists called it? :-) Been a long time since I read any Marxist philosophy, and I will admit I didn't pay that much attention when I was supposed to be studyin

Re: Voodoo Economics

2004-02-09 Thread Gautam Mukunda
Jesus. You can't argue nearly as plausibly that the USSR was a perversion of Communism as you could that the Spanish Inquisition was a perversion of Christianity. At what point do we get to say that he was full of it and move on, really? = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not fre

Re: Voodoo Economics

2004-02-09 Thread Gautam Mukunda
historical dialectic is a worthwhile > tool. > Dan M. OK, Dan, your philosophy is better than mine, and I agree with you about his work on alienation, although I wasn't terribly impressed by it (I admit that my response after reading it was something along the lines of "So what?&qu

Re: Voodoo Economics

2004-02-09 Thread Gautam Mukunda
my latent Straussian influence there). Malthus's ideas were one of the major inspirations for Charles Darwin, I believe. In both cases I think you'd have a hard case arguing that they weren't worth studying... = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free"

Re: Voodoo Economics

2004-02-09 Thread Gautam Mukunda
Batista > good. No, but they were both better than the people who replaced them, and the constant apologizing for Lenin (in his time) and Castro (right _now_) and excusing of every tyranny and atrocity they perpetrate is the greatest shame of the Left, and the reason its cla

Re: Voodoo Economics

2004-02-09 Thread Gautam Mukunda
d with the > subtly of theory/practix/practice, but said he > didn't understand it well > enough to teach it. > > Dan M. Well, I don't even understand it well enough to comment on it, so I'm going to leave it at that... = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTE

Re: Voodoo Economics

2004-02-09 Thread Gautam Mukunda
lly engendered) much more interesting conversation about philosophy. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by fi

Re: Voodoo Economics

2004-02-10 Thread Gautam Mukunda
u in any position to tell me that. Displacement sound familiar to you, Doctor Z? = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http

Re: Thoughts on gay marriage?

2004-02-15 Thread Gautam Mukunda
r why I'm a conservative. But I can always rely on you to remind me... = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by fili

Re: Thoughts on gay marriage?

2004-02-15 Thread Gautam Mukunda
tart. If John ever did the same (and I don't think he ever would, because he's a _lot_ more polite than the people on this list who abuse him constantly and then whine and whimper when he snaps back) I'd call him on it. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not

Re: Thoughts on gay marriage?

2004-02-15 Thread Gautam Mukunda
ite a few things as well, I think. They just have a lower level of political salience right now, so they don't come up in political discussion much. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com

Politics and Motivations

2004-02-15 Thread Gautam Mukunda
ted. American conservatives are a lot of things. Many of them are not particularly admirable. But I've never met an American conservative who didn't _like_ Americans, and I've never met one who didn't respect the extraordinary wisdom of the American public. The question I would p

Re: Politics and Motivations

2004-02-16 Thread Gautam Mukunda
e fence. Before the Vietnam War that wasn't true. Today, Michael Walzer rights essays asking if it is even _possible_ for there to be a decent Left, and his answer appears to be yes, but it doesn't exist right now. If the editor of _Dissent_ is saying that, then there is a problem, an

Re: Politics and Motivations

2004-02-16 Thread Gautam Mukunda
iable truths - that regime change was a goal of the US government before the Bush Administration (again, something that we were legally committed to by a vote of Congress and by many public statements from the Clinton Administration) and that there was only one way to do it (invading Iraq) - is why

Re: Politics and Motivations

2004-02-16 Thread Gautam Mukunda
t that's the equivalent of what you're doing to people who support the PATRIOT Act. I'm willing to acknowledge that reasonable people can differ on such opinions. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" ht

Re: Politics and Motivations

2004-02-16 Thread Gautam Mukunda
--- Erik Reuter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Mon, Feb 16, 2004 at 02:17:39PM -0800, Gautam > Mukunda wrote: > Not always. Some taxes provide services that > increase freedom. For > example, taxes that support schools that provide a > good education > for anyone, re

Re: Democrats secular?

2004-02-17 Thread Gautam Mukunda
ily aware of who edits The Nation? No, not at all - but the tenor that they create is perceived by the very perceptive American public. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Fin

RE: BRin-L - are we average? (was RE: Federal Marraige [sic]Amendment)

2004-02-17 Thread Gautam Mukunda
n-in-fur, 3 > surrogate children-on-the-hoof... > > Debbi Single as well. One of my best friends (gay) once described me as "the straightest human being who has ever lived." I don't think he meant it as a compliment, but he's probably right :-) = Gautam Mukunda [EM

Re: Dean today, gone tomorrow?

2004-02-18 Thread Gautam Mukunda
e sex scandals and Republicans have money scandals, and I don't really care about money, shouldn't I be a Democrat? His answer was "Republicans have better booze and better-looking women. That's all you need to know." Not sure if he was _right_, but that seems like a

Re: A reasonable view.

2004-02-20 Thread Gautam Mukunda
and one of my professors in college actually used it in a lecture - only to come back to us next week and tell us that he was incorrect, that this fact was not true. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com ___

Re: Semicolon Saved San Francisco RE: BRin-L - are we average?(was RE: Hate_Amendment)

2004-02-21 Thread Gautam Mukunda
ter http://www.erikreuter.net/ My theory has always been that The Fool is Howard Dean, actually... = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Rea

Re: No Predictions But...

2004-02-21 Thread Gautam Mukunda
of warning. Mark Prior was the most-abused pitcher in the Majors last year. He has the best mechanics of any pitcher of his age ever recorded, so if anyone can survive that, he can. Nonetheless, that would be my major concern if I were a Cubs fan. = Gautam Muk

Re: Constitutional Amendment Question

2004-02-24 Thread Gautam Mukunda
y contrast, was a model of judicial deference to the legislative branch. The rot began with Burger, but it's Rehnquist who has done the most damage. We certainly shouldn't be amending the oldest governing document in history, the blueprint of the most successful government in the entire hi

Re: Constitutional Amendment Question

2004-02-24 Thread Gautam Mukunda
p some more articles on the topic when I get a chance. But conservative judicial usurpation is no better - and sometimes worse - than its liberal counterpart, and I _must_ to oppose the one if I oppose the other. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.

Re: Thoughts on gay marriage?

2004-02-24 Thread Gautam Mukunda
wasn't by much. The point is that each of the three has _different_ powers, which act as a check upon each other. It's the difference in the nature of their powers that is crucial. The problem with Rehnquist is that he has aggressively usurped executive and (even more) le

Re: Tyranny

2004-02-25 Thread Gautam Mukunda
ing to do about it? Better that they have the bare minimum, with disagreements engaged in the legislature, where people can decide on things and accept the legitimacy of the decisions, not have them made for them by the arbitrary and unrestricted power of an appointed elite that has little or no

RE: Tyranny

2004-02-25 Thread Gautam Mukunda
niquely tolerant of homosexuality (as with most other things). = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the

Re: Thoughts on gay marriage?

2004-02-25 Thread Gautam Mukunda
ated_. I can't speak for John, but I think it's unfair to state as a blanket that he supports activism that he agrees with and opposes activism that he disagrees with without probing to see if there's a judicial philosophy underlying those positions that makes them consistent, i

Re:L3 Bitter Mellons, Gin and Tonic, and a an Un- reasonable view.

2004-02-29 Thread Gautam Mukunda
..state's rights. So while I think it was fair to look with suspicion at people who made the claim that they were important in the 1950s, or even the 1970s, I don't think it would be fair to do so today. Had the claim of state's rights _always_ been about race, it would b

Re: L3 Bitter Mellons, Gin and Tonic, and a an Un- reasonable view.

2004-03-01 Thread Gautam Mukunda
ong many) of the Civil War that perhaps the single most important reason for the South's defeat - the genius of Abraham Lincoln - could _only_ be utilized in the meritocratic North, where a dirt-poor farm boy had the chance to rise to the Presidency, something that would have been inconceivable i

Re: Lincoln and the Civil War (Was: Re: L3 Bitter Mellons ...)

2004-03-01 Thread Gautam Mukunda
you understand? It is _all our soil_.") All of that just for starters. There's much more. It's a fascinating topic that I have only begun to scratch the surface of, and every President and Defense Secretary (in my opinion) should be required to study it before taking office in order to

Re: L3 Bitter Mellons, Gin and Tonic, and a an Un- reasonable view.

2004-03-01 Thread Gautam Mukunda
again. Why did they (finally) find the generals (Grant and Sherman) who understood the war (not just tactics, but the war itself) and what it took to win it? Lincoln. And what are the odds of that? = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __

Re: The unlikely triumph of democracy

2004-03-01 Thread Gautam Mukunda
mind that had Seward or Chase been President of the United States, the North would have lost the war in short order. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Get better spa

Re: The unlikely triumph of democracy

2004-03-01 Thread Gautam Mukunda
s victory in the war made further democratic reforms in Britain possible, and without that victory they would not have happened. So not only did the North's victory assure the survival of American democracy - it had a pretty important impact on the development of _British_ democracy as well. =

Re: Re:L3 Bitter Mellons, Gin and Tonic, and a an Un- reasonable view.

2004-03-01 Thread Gautam Mukunda
t book I've read on this topic (in part) is _America's Constitutional Soul_, a collection of essays by Harvey Mansfield. Unfortunately it's written with Mansfield's usual elegant but opaque style, so I found that I had to read every paragraph at least three times bef

Re: L3 Bitter Mellons, Gin and Tonic, and a an Un- reasonable view.

2004-03-01 Thread Gautam Mukunda
my opinion) would have settled for no less than the absolute censorship of any anti-slavery views expressed anywhere in America (something that was already the case in the South) and quite possibly the extension of slavery over the whole country (see Dred Scott). The North would never accept eithe

Re: L3 Bitter Mellons, Gin and Tonic, and a an Un- reasonable view.

2004-03-01 Thread Gautam Mukunda
lower middle class at best, and Reagan's family was _poor_. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Get better spam protection with Yahoo! M

Re: L3 Bitter Mellons, Gin and Tonic, and a an Un- reasonable view.

2004-03-01 Thread Gautam Mukunda
like to study some day). _But_. One reason the British were under less economic pressure to intervene than they might have been was record cotton crops in India and Egypt. Had the climate been less favorable, the economic pressure for Britain to intervene would have been much higher. Luck once

Re: L3 Bitter Mellons, Gin and Tonic, and a an Un- reasonable view.

2004-03-01 Thread Gautam Mukunda
st _urban_ President from a poor family? I don't know - can't think of who it might be. Nixon is the first to spring to mind, but there surely must have been others before that. Anyone else on the list have an idea? = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freed

Re: Would the North Have "Settled" in the Civil War? Re: L3 Bitter Mellons, Gin and Tonic, and a an Un- reasonable view.

2004-03-01 Thread Gautam Mukunda
Civil War. Gettysburg was the largest. Shiloh was the worst at its time - unprecedentedly bad. It is perhaps a sign of how incredibly bloody the Civil War became that it would be surpassed over and over and over again by the time the war was done. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTE

Re: The Fugitive Slave Act Re:L3 Bitter Mellons, Gin and Tonic, and a an Un- reasonable view.

2004-03-01 Thread Gautam Mukunda
could say that the American Civil War was a product of technological change, actually. Without the cotton gin, slavery would probably have been economically unsupportable, and the South might have been willing to agree to compensated emancipation, or something like that, anyways. = Gautam Mukund

Re: Race to the Bottom

2004-03-02 Thread Gautam Mukunda
ere a technological invention that allowed you to use, say, 50% fewer American programmers, would you have the government legislate against it? If so, why did you not support (say) such legislation against the roboticization of American factories? If not, how is that different from sending progra

Re: Why fight in the Civil War?

2004-03-02 Thread Gautam Mukunda
e an important lesson for liberals who feel that we should be flexible in interpreting the Constitution. Not all change is progress. Civil rights got _worse_ between 1877 and the 1920s or so, not better. So it seems a bit unfair that the "Radical Republicans" are still vilified as r

Re: Why fight in the Civil War?

2004-03-03 Thread Gautam Mukunda
r the cultural too much (about which I could be entirely wrong) I don't know. I know I've read _something_ by Dunning, but for the life of me I can't think what it was. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blog

Re: Why fight in the Civil War?

2004-03-03 Thread Gautam Mukunda
long time. What do you think, robb? I'd be interested in hearing your take on Foner and the historical dispute. Gautam = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Y

RE: L3 Bitter Mellons, Gin and Tonic, and a an Un- reasonable vie w.

2004-03-04 Thread Gautam Mukunda
_ be a racist. That was, I think, pretty much the default position in the North, actually. So it really isn't that surprising that after the war and abolition the North didn't make the efforts that it should have to promote equality. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not

Re: States Bent on Collecting Internet Taxes

2004-03-05 Thread Gautam Mukunda
es tax). Or, of course, to shift the tax burden from investment to consumption... = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Search - Find what you’re looki

Re: Voting Re: Pledge of Allegence

2004-03-06 Thread Gautam Mukunda
ion troops passing through Baltimore in an attempt to reinforce Washington in the early days of the war. Everything about it is just atrocious. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yaho

Re: LIBERAL TALKRADIO NETWORK TO LAUNCH MARCH 31

2004-03-10 Thread Gautam Mukunda
nda > >on the American public. > > You mean, moreso than making money? > > JDG Now, now, John, you know that arguing with the paranoid school of American politics is a lost cause... = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.c

Re: LIBERAL TALKRADIO NETWORK TO LAUNCH MARCH 31

2004-03-10 Thread Gautam Mukunda
you'd be honest about it if you admitted that you already had one - it's called NPR - paid for with my tax dollars. If you want to waste _your_ money on such a thing, be my guest. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com _

RE: Race to the Bottom

2004-03-11 Thread Gautam Mukunda
t if they weren't going to Indians - that is, if they were disappearing because of technology, or, on a darker note, if they were going to Germans, say - there would be no attention paid to it at all. One other point. The _US_ is a primary offshoring location. Every Japanese car factory in

Re: Race to the Bottom

2004-03-11 Thread Gautam Mukunda
shoring to India different _in its effects_ from that invention? = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Search - Find what you’re looking for faster http://search

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