From: ed@somewhere.in.the.uk   
      
   Richmond wrote:   
   > Ed Cryer  writes:   
   >   
   >> oldernow wrote:   
   >>> On 2025-03-16, Ed Cryer  wrote:   
   >>>   
   >>>>> The internet cuts peoples' heads off on a regular basis,   
   >>>>> leaving people running around spewing liberal nonsense   
   >>>>> between screams of "HITLER!" and "FASCIST!"....   
   >>>>   
   >>>> Well, I have a head to cut off.  From your posts, I gather   
   >>>> that you don't.  Maybe that's got its benefits. Your   
   >>>> lonely isolation in your ivory tower safeguards you from   
   >>>> the natural shocks that flesh is heir unto.   
   >>> Indeed is identification with the idea of a free-willed   
   >>> being lonely isolation!   
   >>>   
   >>   
   >> You seem to me to be fighting for a widely held philosophical idea;   
   >> that mind is on its own, uncaused, unattached and free as the wind   
   >> swell.   
   >> OK, so I won't take you up on that. As John Milton put it "the mind is   
   >> its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of   
   >> heaven".   
   >>   
   >> But that seems to be the end of your campaign. A battle in the realm   
   >> of metaphysics; a battle to establish the autonomy of mind.   
   >> Me, I love battling. But I'd never battle to be alone. I fight for my   
   >> rights; my convictions; my political goals. They keep me in the world,   
   >> attached to other people.   
   >>   
   >> I won't fight for empiricism, I won't fight for idealism, I won't   
   >> fight to grind myself into a corner. Philosophy is interesting, but   
   >> it's a hobby, not an ideology.   
   >>   
   >   
   > Who gives you rights? Fighting for your rights sounds a bit idealistic.   
   >   
      
   Look up the word "idealism" in a good dictionary. I was using it in the   
   philosophical sense, while you seem to be using it here in the vulgar one.   
      
   Fighting for rights. How else does one acquire rights? A simple study of   
   history shows how hard they have been to acquire.   
   It's not as if there's been a committee around a table dishing them out.   
   Nor as if some philosopher said we should have them, and the whole world   
   agreed. You're up against power blocks; vested interest; class   
   differences; and often (as my dad used to proclaim) simple human greed.   
   I'd add ignorance to that list. Racialism, anti-semitism, anti- {add   
   many a word here}, hatred, fear.   
   The history of the world over the last 250 or so years displays this   
   truth adequately. You don't need to go back 2,000 years to Spartacus. We   
   live post-Enlightenment. And we honour the memory of the leaders of the   
   struggles.   
      
   Ed   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)