Where is the line?

Yeah, some of them!



Nothing wrong with that. We are free to respect whomever we want to. But does that mean that everyone else to disagrees with your views should be silenced and prevented from holding any government office? I want people who hold different views than I do to speak up and to be represented! That's how democracy is supposed to work. Now if the opposing views are all represented and one side prevails then we live with it or push back through the legally devised systems for doing that. Instead we have individuals and special interest groups harrssing and cajoling people (and their views) into silence.

It's all been going on all along - this is nothing new. It just reached a point where the frustration of those who been being locked out has built up and the momentum of the pendulum in one direction has slowed (or stopped and reveresed depending on your view). The fact that you now feel fear would seem to be an indictor that you've gone from being an observer of the pendulum to a force pushing on the pendulum (albeit a weak force at this point since you haven't expressed that you've actively protested or anything one way or another..). It would seem you've met your line and you are standing on it.

Perhaps it's a matter for Phoenix's women and politics thread that only dlowan seems to really get what I'm going for, with some flashes of insight from blatham. (But then, he likes to wear gingham dresses... )

This thread really, really is not another excuse for Bush-bashing. There are lots of other threads for me to bash Bush on if I so desire (and I often do.) I haven't asked people to quit with the discussions along those lines because the question is so open-ended (though I've been tempted.) I shared the back story of how I started thinking about this question of lines in the hopes that it would illustrate what I was getting at, since what I was getting at was rather hard to convey.

I obviously don't think that everyone who disagrees with my views should be silenced and prevented from holding office, and I think you know that. I am interested in the question that you professed fascinating a coupla posts back but then haven't followed up on, that I can see -- where the line is. People who disagree with me but aren't doing anything horrible, fine. People who are advocating exterminating a race, not fine. Lotsa grey areas in between, and I am interested in the concept of shaking free of the pull of what other people think and trying to look at a situation in a clear-eyed way. Is this regrettable but basically fine? Or is this downright dangerous?

Yes, I was pretty darn confident that you are willing to at least listen to opposing views.



I don't think it is either regrettable or dangerous. I'd say it's desirable. I think we all pretty much tend to ignore issues where the majority of the population is safely "on our side". As we wade through that grey area we come closer to our own lines and run into others from the other side of the issue. When we see a large number on the other side we have fear/dread/etc...

IMO, each individual basically has two choices as they drift through the grey. They can step back and question their own values and positions relative to "the masses" or they can follow blindly. If you can manage to step outside and analyze yourself why not? It seems like a desirable trait to me... I don't think everyone can (or perhaps "is willing to" is a better term) can break free though. They get caught up in the emotion of things (or just aren't willing to exert the mental energy) and are swept away with the masses. For those that can break free, they can review their thoughts and decide to either go with or oppose the masses.

But.. what makes some people able to break free while others can't or won't? There are probably a bunch of different things but you could probably narrow down a few traits and bunch most of those people up with some sort of description. My guess would include people who are generally inquistive and skeptical with a generalized education (the less specialized the more likely I'd think..). There are probably plenty more but I can't think of good words to get the idea across at the moment.

I see what you're saying about the types who are willing/ able to break free.

btw what I was saying with this part: "Is this regrettable but basically fine? Or is this downright dangerous?" was not clear. I meant, I am interested in looking at something and deciding if that (policy, law, action, whatever) is regrettable but fine or whether it is downright dangerous.

OK, pick a topic or item.. I'll play wid ya!

Philosophical subtlety and two-year-old-tending SO don't go together, I tell ya...

<deep breath, tries to attain clarity>
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<fails>

Will be back later...

LOL Ok! Take care of the lil Sozlet!

Hmmmm - I am not sure that I regard the "line" as necessarily an individual conscience thing - though many brave individuals have helped move various lines - I think that in some ways I am more wanting a philosophical/ethical discussion about where we as various groupings of humanity want to put "the line" - because, internationally, lines ARE being drawn for countries - mainly pretty much unilaterally by the USA, right now (previously by other empires) - and within countries lines are being drawn for leaders, church-people, professionals and so on and on.....some are actually codified lines - as in codes of ethics, others are fuzzier ones.

I think the lines for the US president are especially crucial in this era - as are those for the US as a whole. You guys are in a position to blow the rest of us to perdition. Your economy, your economic decisions, affect everyone - and your governments and financial institutions have no hesitation in telling the world how to run their economies and backing your ideas with formal and informal consequences.

You are going to be in a special spotlight all of your own - with your sins and virtues magnified. Partly this is cruel and unfair - a lot of it is very reasonable and inevitable - I do not think the world has much reason to have strong faith in the unwavering benevolence and reasonableness of very powerful people and nations.

We as a country suffer the same fate, in miniature, in our region.

Mahathir of Malaysia, for instance, commonly says the most derogatory things about Australia and our leaders, as do many Indonesian public figures - especially post-Timor - I do not think we have ever reacted as sharply as the US has here. I think we generally say, when insulted by other leaders, that we value free speech or some such anodyne, while being mightily pissed off in private.

I do think that the reaction of the US embassy is pretty damned interesting in the face of the reality of Australian troops and planes and ships being on their way off to Iraq - but with huge feeling in the Australian populace, Opposition parties and, increasingly obviously, in the ranks of the Government itself against their deployment sans UN approval.

Thing is, I understand the US point of view, too...

good points, as usual, dlowan.

Now we're talkin'. Thanks for helping my poor addled mind along.

Hee-hee - you should see mine!

I'd use the Forest/Trees analogy with the collective vs. individual line thing. You can't really look at one without looking at the other. Obvioulsy you can look at each in a generic sense but you have to use real numbers to determine where the line is, where groups think it should be and whether the line is moving. Those real numbers are usually based on individuals.

To a large extent I'd agree that lines are being drawn.. Well, actually.. I guess I'd say the lines have alwasy been there. They just weren't a concern on most days to most of us. I think a lot of things were just assumed. Right now there is enough upheveal in the world that people/nations are being forced to confront where they actually stand in relation to the line and the US (for good or bad) has been leading that push forcing people to confront the question.

The same is probably true within professions. Lawyers have a code of ethical conduct but most of us who aren't involved in the legal realm pay little attention to it. It doesn't effect us day-to-day. When you run into a problem with a laywer you get interested in the topic and you measure your position against the line in the codified cannons of ethics.

I think the process is pretty much the same for every issue.. A small percentage of people are really interested and affected by a specific "line". The rest of us pretty much muddle through life and ignore it until we are somehow dragged into confrontation with it.

But, as far as a discussion of where we collectively put the line.. Which line? Every issue has it's own. I don't think there is really one overall line... ?????????????

Perhaps that is what Sozobe is attempting to arrive at, Boss, consensus about where to place a line past which we, collectively, will not tolerate the actions of the administration . . .

Course, i could be wrong . . . would you like a ham sandwhich?

No Fishin' - and I have been guilty, I think, of drawing the discussion away from Bush and the line for a US President, here and now.

But I do like philosophical discussion and tend to draw things outward.....

True, true.

(Toddler sleeping, sanity returning...)

I think I am looking for some general philosophical principle that can be applied, and not sure if that is possible. Setanta said some good things about this way back on page one. In the "whistleblowing" examples I gave, there was a line that was crossed when I went from thinking something was unpleasant but fine (bad professor, weird co-worker) to thinking something was downright dangerous (inethical professor, sexually harassing co-worker.)

In both instances, I had a period where I was trying to figure out the truth; trying to imagine if the worst-case scenario was indeed possible without yet knowing. I had to extract myself from the status quo, people saying or implying "it's fine", to figure that out. That's kind of where I feel I am with the Bush administration. Are we at the dawn of something truly horrible? A long drawn-out occupation of Iraq, draft, terrorism at home, ever-reduced civil liberties, Arabs rounded up in internment camps (see c.i.'s thread)... what does my daughter's future hold?

Thinking about those things does not mean I think they will happen. It means I'm disturbed that they seem to be within the realm of possibility.

So, thinking about this, I wonder if there are safeguards, if there are lines, if there are enough people who think about these things to prevent them, if they are preventable... all that fun stuff.

******

Ooh, you folks snuck in when I was typing -- yes, Setanta, precisely.

And dlowan, I like outward too.

A collective line?!?

Would that such a creature existed.

For many of those here that line was crossed before the election of '00.
For others, shortly after.
And for both groups, he has been traveling at breakneck speed past that line ever since.

For me personally, he has just gotten within the same zip code of the line, but is still not there.

Max, I tend to agree about the zip code.

(P.s., I didn't edit 4 times, just once -- the stuff after the asterisks -- but it wouldn't take.)

Setanta - I'll take that sammich bud! The 4" of snow we were supposed to get here has already turned into 8" so I'm in and out between shoveling periods here and it's gettin' right near dinner time. Can I get some mayo on that puppy?

OK, so the topic of the day is the Bush Administraton... Let's see if this can be down without disentigrating into a mess. lol

Ummm.. well heck.. I don't know where the collective draws the line. I guess that's best highlighted by our public opinion polls. (which as of late would indicate that max's zip code analaogy isn't to far off in a few areas...)

Well, one prolly starts where almost everybody WOULD draw it - and backs up to where almost everybody WOULDN'T - and explores and reasons about the space between the lines....I would - but i gotta go learn how to do mosaics instead!