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From: tan@ihlpg.UUCP (Bill Tanenbaum)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Goodbye
Message-ID: <1694@ihlpg.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 10-Mar-86 12:06:40 EST
Article-I.D.: ihlpg.1694
Posted: Mon Mar 10 12:06:40 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 11-Mar-86 19:25:50 EST
References: <1466@decwrl.DEC.COM> <34@gilbbs.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 50

> > [Leo Simon]
> > With this posting I am saying Goodbye to this net.group.  But it's not 
> > that I am changing jobs or anything like that.  For the last few months 
> > I just get sick and tired of reading the articles written by people who 
> > know next to nothing about what they are writing.  I am talking about 
> > people who would be much better off in the Soviet Union then in a 
> > democratic country.  People who compare everyday abuses of human rights 
> > [many lines deleted] 
> > Many years ago Lenin said about people like these:  "We need useful 
> > idiots in the West.  They will do more damage to capitalist countries 
> > then we can".  He was right.  Here on this net.group there are more 
> > people like that then in any place else.  I have been living in the USA 
> > for four years now and have not met personally anybody with so 
> > pro-Soviet views.  But here on net.politics....
> >  [many lines deleted]
> > the subject that is close to me.  A few months of going through this 
> > again is enough.  This time I am quitting for good.
--------------------
> [Tom Keller]
>    It strikes me that this represents no loss to the net.group, or to
> the net as a whole.  It never ceases to amaze me how right-wing idiots
> equate criticism of the United States with Soviet sympathy.
>   I deplore and reject the support that the Reagan administration is lending
> to the Contra rebels.  Therefore, I *MUST* be a supporter of the Sandinista
> regime, right?  ***WRONG***  I simply believe that *WE* have no business
> in there at all!
>   The Soviets invade Afghanistan, and I argue that what the Soviets are doing
> is no worse than what we did in Viet Nam, Grenada, etc.  Therefore, I *MUST*
> be a Soviet sympathizer, right?   ***WRONG***  I simply believe that if this
> nation reserves the right to invade and interfere with the internal workings
> of other nations, for reasons of political convenience, then we *AS A NATION*
> have no right to complain when other nations do the same!
>    In fairness, left-wing idiots make the same errors, when people disagree
> with them.  Amazing, how much the same they are, isn't it?
--------------------
Leo Simon's error was to label such views as "pro-Soviet".  Tom Keller is
correct on that point.  If Leo had just stuck to terms such as "idiotic"
(to those who compare human rights abuses in the U. S. to those in the
Soviet Union), all would have been well.
	On foreign policy, I have a question for Tom Keller:
Do U. S. actions in Viet Nam and Grenada (assuming for the sake of argument
that they were wrong) mean that the U. S. as a nation
has no right to help the Afghan guerrillas?  I mean, if the U. S. cannot
even CRITICIZE the Soviet Union for Afghanistan, how can we possibly aid
the Afghan guerrillas?  
	Translation:  If the U. S. does anything wrong, we must therefore
shut up when the Soviets do the same or much worse.
	One does not have to be "pro-Soviet" to be an idiot.
-- 
Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL  ihnp4!ihlpg!tan