The Logic Off Topic list

Kool Musick wrote:
> > It is surely not unreasonable to conclude that it is because
> > ordinary and typical Americans regard him as the ideal representative of
> > their ordinary and typical lives -- and that the policies he is pursuing,

Wilson Zorn responded:
>I think it is unreasonable to conclude that even 40% of Americans (or even
>10%) considerhim "as the ideal representative" UNLESS you think in your own
>democracies that you get to elect "ideal" representatives.

You are perfectly correct, of course. It's just that when democracy is 
being sold, there's a lot of the fine print that's omitted.


>Kool, I don't even know what you are so you might not be in a democracy and
>hence your comment might seem reasonable to you - ? - but I assure you,
>democracies are not mechanisms by which the people elect anything
>approaching an ideal, typically.
I know that ... I was just trying to kind of get across to you and anyone 
else interested what it looked like when people keep on and on trying to 
sell the system abroad as 'the great panacaea to end all your troubles'. 
Which is what is consistently done.

>Instead we get a compromise,
As immediately above ... this is not how it is sold. Would you like a job 
in selling, by the way!!!!


>I missed the disparagement, particularly since I didn't see anyone here even
>know who your gods are.
OK.

>As far as I can tell you're a pagan or Hindu or
>who-knows-what that in any case hasn't come up.
Who-knows-what is fine!

>I think by the same token though those of you
>who have religious convictions and see fit to trumpet them here equally
>disparage those of us who not merely disbelieve but disavow.
Well ... I don't think I trumpet mine, actually, because mostly I believe 
in the great god Science, with just a bit of help from mumbo-jumbo to fill 
in a few gaps. And since the mumbo-jumbo is not really universalizable ... 
!!!!!


>You know, the sad thing about traveling what little I have (France, Germany,
>England, different parts of America) for me is I have found the world is a
>much worse place than I had imagined when I grew up under liberal
>influences.
Well ... actually ... I know some people who have visited the USA and left 
with the same kind of impression. Pity, that.


>But on the other hand I certainly have found people are all
>alike in that we all pretty much suck in some fundamental ways as well as
>shine in some fundamental ways.

Yes. It's worth doing some travelling just to learn that much. Kind of like 
travelling the whole world and finding out that the girl you love actually 
lives right next door I guess.

Kool Musick
Keep Musick Kool


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