I like your perspective on this, Gerhard.  However, the extent to which 
"pure reason" can produce results is limited, and the "law of unintended 
consequences" as you point out reveals itself.  I am reminded of Kant's 
"Critique of Pure Reason" and later "Prolegomena."


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gerhard Fiedler" <lists@connectionbrazil.com>
To: <piclist@mit.edu>
Sent: Friday, August 01, 2008 7:12 AM
Subject: Re: [OT] politics - I shouldn't be posting it 
anywaybutIhavenorestraint


> Lindy Mayfield wrote:
>
>> Here I tread lightly, but I'm sure you know exactly what I mean.
>
> I don't know for sure, but I think so :)
>
>> We could debate in a friendly way how each of us has decided to make our
>> lives better, and learn some things along the way.  That's a Good
>> Thing(tm).
>
> Yes, exactly.
>
>> No, it is the other stuff that worries me.  And not in a paranoid way,
>> but in a very real and "fear for my life" way.  This one wants to cut
>> off my head because I don't believe in flying horses, and that one wants
>> to beat me to death over a disagreement about a cracker.
>
> I take this as some kind of sport (not sure that's the right way to put 
> it,
> but I think it comes close). A sport in the sense that if I get into such
> an unpleasant fight, there was something along the way that brought me
> there that I did "wrong". Not wrong in an absolute sense, but wrong in the
> sense that I had a chance (usually several) to turn where I didn't turn 
> (or
> had a chance not to turn where I did) -- and this took me somewhere I
> didn't want to be.
>
>> On the other hand, there are too many places in this world (including the
>> southern state where I grew up) where if I said, "Sorry, I don't happen
>> to believe your fairy tales to be literally true", then I would fear for
>> my safety and my life.
>
> But if that is so, why would you say something like that? I guess I see 
> the
> point (or a point): it should be possible to say what you want, to 
> disagree
> how much you want, without fear. But that's one of the conditions here:
> nothing is perfect :)  So we have to accept that things we say have
> consequences, and they are not always easy to predict. From one angle, I
> see this as a sport (discovering what are the right turns), from another
> angle, it doesn't really matter (because we don't know what's better
> anyway).
>
> Gerhard
>
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