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From: nrh@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Orphaned Response
Message-ID: <7800764@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 26-Nov-85 22:57:00 EST
Article-I.D.: inmet.7800764
Posted: Tue Nov 26 22:57:00 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 30-Nov-85 01:15:03 EST
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Nf-From: inmet!nrh    Nov 26 22:57:00 1985


How remarkably unpleasant:

>/* Written  4:50 am  Nov 25, 1985 by jim@ISM780B in inmet:net.politics */
>....

>I have already mentioned intellectual honesty.  It requires that analysis be
>objective, based on evidence, and that one's unexamined prejudices be rooted
>out and questioned.  Your statement suggests several questions: 
   [42 or so (I counted but not carefully) questions about Nicaragua omitted,
     some of which were quite specific -nrh]
>Since you claim that you are intellectually honest and thus come
>to your conclusions based upon unbiased analysis and evidence and not mere
>ideology and unexamined prejudice, and since you are advocating continued
>material support of violent attacks on a sovereign nation, a course not
>lightly taken, I think it is reasonable to expect you to be able to answer
>most of these questions and be prepared to investigate all of them in an
>objective fashion as support for the position you have taken.

Oh *I* get it!  Jan is not intellectually honest if he advocates
something on the best information he has!  Of COURSE!  Isn't this
more than a little silly, Jim?  You're accusing someone of intellectual
dishonesty because he doesn't know information that I doubt you know, but
holds opinions different from yours.  Jan WOULD be intellectually dishonest
if he were deliberately ignoring some fact, but not if he fails to dig
it out (he may have other things to do).

The interesting thing about aid to the contras is that I think you're
quite right -- aid to other governments or movements by our GOVERNMENT
should not be lightly undertaken (actually, I doubt it should *ever*
be undertaken, but that's another story), but I'll bet there are a LOT
of things our government does with LESS information (at a guess,
funding primary education for poor children, or requiring utilities to
provide service to the destitute) that you ARE in favor of.  Sauce for
the goose -- sauce for the gander: TAXING people should not be lightly
undertaken either, but I don't hear you coming out and arguing against
it when it is for causes that you (with limited information, no doubt)
like.

>Of course, I don't really believe that you have honestly considered these
>questions or would be willing to honestly examine them.  

Keep calm, but one way to help Jan examine them would be to 
post your own answers to ALL those questions.  Since a great many of them
dealt with contingencies, I suspect you won't be able to answer all
of them with anything like authority.  Is it intellectually honest of
you to require answers of the opposing side that can't be tested?

>Instead you
>produce catchy little slogans like the one above, littered with dishonesty,
>and making no reference to the degradation and death of real human beings
>that such policies can produce.

I've heard no reference by you to the forced relocation of the aborigines
in Nicaragua, perhaps I wasn't listening.  Nor, have I heard you mention
the suspension of civil liberties.  Again, perhaps I didn't notice, and
again, if you didn't mention these things: Sauce for the goose.....

The subject WASN'T "degradation and death", so Jan wasn't obligated to
mention it.  Perhaps there's MORE "degradation and death" under the
current government than there would be under the Contras.  You have
some way of knowing that we don't (perhaps you have some way of
quantifying "degradation")?