From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Tue 10 Dec 2002 - 01:55:23 GMT
> Joe,
> > I cannot understand this. Freedom cannot be compelled (that in
> > itself is a self-contradictory notion); it can only be permitted.
> > And if people are not equally free, then true and open discussion
> > between them can never be held.
>
> >> Yes it can ! I can 't withstand the sense that the Iraqi people,
> >> and
> there
> can be others ( Russians for instance) aren 't that keen to be ' free
> ' !
>
Oh yes, they are, and they say so - when they are free to.
See:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/08/magazine/08LIBERALS.html?page
wanted=1&8hpib
>
> Don 't misunderstand me, but I base myself here on the notion
> which I tried to explain in my earlier post. There is a memetic
> deathlock in place which can 't be easily removed. See what happens in
> Russia of today, still people are not that keen towards individualism,
> identity and authen- ticity, for those still the meme is in place that
> they have nothing to gain from those notions and that in extent don 't
> have any possibility to have influence and those people stopped, and
> still are at a standstill, to be interested in those things. That is
> what I meant by that freedom will be compelled if you place its
> mechanism in the mids of the Iraqi people....
>
Some prisoners become so inured to the system that, when freed, they
will commit another crime just to get reinstitutionalized. This is no
reason to condemn Iraq's children, and future generations, to the same
fate, by not heeding the desperate pleas we hear to free them.
>
> Joe,
> > Actually, the entire problem is that these people suffer from dual
> > unfreedoms - to dictatorial regimes which manipulate enslaving
> > religious ideologies in order to perpetuate themselves. Until they
> > are freed of these constraints, we can never be sure what they
> > themselves would truly prefer.
>
> Yes ! And now you gonna try to put a mechanism into motion by which
> they will to be able to barter one system for the other in the
> understan- ding that they don 't know anything about the new one !
> They don 't know even to act free ! The position I take has to do with
> the fact that within each individual the point of wanting to be free
> has to establish itself and lead towards a ' collective existential
> revolution within ' ( Havel) Otherwise I don 't see how the US its
> attempt will succeed in the short run....
>
It is unfair and inhumane to deny them the chance to grow into freedom.
By your logic, slavery in the US should never have ended.
>
> Joe,
> > The Iraqi people are crushed under an iron heel. They would dearly
> > love to be free of their oppressive dictatorship, but all who stay
> > and
> fight
> > for it are murdered by a brutal military regime with all the
> > weaponry,
> that
> > is not above using weapons of mass destruction upon them. Those who
> > leave declare their desire for their country to be free, but can do
> > nothing in and of themselves to effect this liberation....( Snip)
>
> >> Remerber what I said about this, each individual is as well victim
> >> as
> perpetrator of the system where he/ she lives in.
>
Actually, there is a Tikrit-based tribe, to which Saddam belongs, that
inflicts serfdom upon the rest of the ppulace. Since that tribe controls
the weaponry and are quite willing to viciously use it, they can enslave
a hapless and helpless majority.
>
> The way you vote is enlarged in the society you end up with...
> Of course, in the case of Iraq things are different, but nonetheless,
> didn 't we, they or anyone else saw Saddam coming !? Probably they
> did, and did nothing ! The thing I mentioned by which we are all
> paralized to revolt works in that kind of cases. What it is, beats me
> ! The fear of loosing one's life, death !?
>
Many there prefer slavery to death, because they have never tasted
freedom. Saddam was a hit man for the previous regime; he
enginneered a coup within it. The vast majority of the Iraqi people had
no say in the matter. The US did not see him being anything except a
local strongman who would keep control of his population and maintain
cordial relations with them as long as the US furnished him with the
weaponry with which to perpetuate his reign. They were wrong, and the
US itself has more fully embraced its own ideals. For these twin
reasons, the US is morally obligated to rectify its horrible error in
supporting such a megalomaniacal butcher.
>
> Joe,
> > But I do not think that one can say that
> > people who are suffering under a military dictatorship too strong
> > for them to overthrow unassisted would be having their right of
> > existence removed if the rest of the world provided the liberating
> > assistance they so desperately need and desire.
>
> >> Yes, but its gonna be a question of existentalism !
>
Sartre did not reject Allied assistance, did he?
>
> Joe,
> > Actually, most of the Muslim world is not living as they wish; they
> > are living in the way that the ruling cabal of mullahs and dictators
> > self- servingly enginneer for them, in order to keep their own hides
> > in power.
>
> > > Actually, the same notion as mentioned ealier can be applied, that
> something holds them back to revolt not against their rulers but also
> against themselves ! This is memetical, this is what Blackmore said in
> the early years of memetics, that we, humans are the only species to
> fight our memes ( if of course no other species have them). I agree
> with her, but maybe the US and Europe are fighting the wrong war, and
> maybe it is afterall better to follow the way of Europe, fighting it
> out with words and arguments instead of bombs and artillery !?
>
Not when the opposition enforces (and attempts to expand) its
hegemony by means of poison gas and anthrax and is pursuing nukes.
The pen is not mightier than the sword on the battlefield. Where did all
your words get you with Milosevic?
>
> Joe,
> > When people are taught only useless religious dogma in their schools
> > instead of the knowledge and skills required to effectively compete
> > in the modern world, their array of conceiveable choices is being
> > dictated to them by those who wish to keep them ignorant and
> > enslaved, fearing that knowledge of freer and more informed
> > alternatives would cause them to chafe at their religious and
> > governmental chains.
>
> > >Again I agree, but the fact remains that the modern world is one of
> our making, not theirs !
>
They are not getting their fair chance to constructively contribute to its
constitution and evolution.
>
> And aren 't we taught useless dogma's of our history in the same way
> they are taught religious dogma !? Christianity and nationalism are
> the worst kind of examples !
>
Neither of those is the point of contention here; freedom and self-
determination are the best kind of examples.
>
> Joe,
> > The extremists intimidate the moderates into acquiescent silence, so
> > that only the extreme voices are heard. Those who respond to them
> > with a desire to act, especially the poor wifeless religiously
> > educated young males, are shipped off to terrorize other nations in
> > a vain search for a houri-filled paradise rather than causing
> > troubles for their own country's religious and governmental
> > totalitarianisms. This is the antithesis of individualism; it is
> > human beings memetically reduced to the status of programmed
> > berserkers and faith-based missiles.
>
> << This can count for anti- democratic movements as well for funda-
> mentalistic religious ones ! Extremists are everywhere, even in the
> finest democracies of the world. Fighting for the right of others to
> be free seen as one idealistic trait of your country is from my POV
> the same as the ground where Muslim extremists work on...
>
Then your vision is truly myopic, for there is no way that the two can be
compared, except on the self-contradictory ground of absolute moral
relativism, that would equate Adolph Hitler with Mahatma Gandhi. The
same arguments have been put forward to allow primitive tribes to force
genital mutilation upon their unwilling young girls, and they are equally
misplaced there.
>
> > It's not too warm in NW Florida, either (we have has freezes
> > recently).
> Hm, never thought you have cold winters in Florida !
> I have much to learn about the weather....
>
> Many regards though,
>
> Kenneth
>
>
>
>
> ===============================================================
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===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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