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Re: Mad as Hell
At 7:08 am -0500 on 11/14/97, [email protected] wrote:
> >> But in many ways, this is good news. The war is coming faster than I
> >> thought.
> >>
> >> The judge in this case has committed a capital crime.
> >
> >was *not* a threat against a judge?
> >
> >Right, Tim, if you say so.
>
> The phrase "capital crime" (literaly "head crime") just means "worst
>crime".
> It does not imply punishment. Punishment for capital crimes varies with
>time
> and place. Saying someone is guilty of an infamous crime is not a death
> threat. It's not even a death threat to say, "I think X should be arrested,
> tried by a court, and gassed." You are merely expressing opinions about
> criminal guilt and perhaps capital punishment but you are not making a
> threat.
C'mon, Duncan, you know you're equivocating here, and you know better.
Tim says we're going to war. He says that a judge commits a capital crime,
by whatever definition he, or you, choose to use. Most people, and it
doesn't have to be you, or me, or even Tim himself, would call that a
threat, and, in the above case, against a judge. "Most people" especially
includes those folks with aptly-named "criminal justice" degrees, too much
military hardware and not enough understanding of rhetorical nuance.
*That's* the kind of threat Tim made, and the kind of people who will
interpret it.
At this point, I guess, it's moot. Tim can bay at the moon all he wants. It
is, after all, a free country. "Consider it evolution in action", as Tim's
favorite Pournelle quote goes.
But, up until he made that remark, I still had some respect for him. What
he said there was the breaking branch which turned loose this entire
landslide of disrepect for him on my part. As far as I was concerned, he
crossed the border into loonyland, and I decided to call him it. "Call a
spade a spade." Or a loon a loon.
Now, frankly, Tim still says stuff here worth reading, but I'm finding,
more and more, that other people say the same things I used to hear him
say, and they say it much better. At the moment, I expect, someday, to put
him in my own killfile, just like Chrispin, or Vulis, or Detweiller/Nuri,
or even poor Phill Hallam, who can't help himself ;-), just to keep me from
going off on him like I did this time. I'll try to restrain myself a little
bit better in the meantime.
> Tim was *not* threatening to set up his own court and try anyone himself and
> carry out a punishment.
No, he said that war was coming, and that a sitting judge had committed a
capital crime. You figure it out.
> >> You sicken me.
> >
> >Um, well... Take a pill, maybe?
> >
> >Cheers,
> >Bob Hettinga
>
> Bob, Tim's is just a different approach. It shouldn't sicken you.
Watch your attributions, there, Duncan. Tim's the one who needs to take a
pill, not me.
I'm fine. I *was* mildly apoplectic, but I feel *much* better, now. :-).
> Tim and I
> are members of the same birth cohort and I think you are a little bit
>younger
> but it seems to me that he has absorbed the major message of modern
>education
> better. You know -- Multi Culturalism. Or as Mao said "let a thousand
> flowers bloom". Tim's a very Multi Culti guy. Individuation. Big time.
> Micro Cultures. He believes in letting other people explore the rich
> diversity of their lives and experiences as long as they let him do the
>same.
> He's trying to make sure that everyone is aware that Multi Culturalism is
> *real*. Too many proponents of same treat it as some bland mush. Tim is
> keeping them aware of the spice.
>
> Or as my grandfather said "It doesn't matter what your race, creed or color
> is. You can still be a son of a bitch." True equality requires true
> liberty.
I agree with everything you said there, Duncan. All of it. Except the part
where Tim, metaphorically or not, calmly goes out into the street one nice
afternoon and throws rocks at cop cars to get their attention about how
fascist they all are.
That's not revolution. It's the act of a loon.
Cheers,
Bob Hettinga
-----------------
Robert Hettinga ([email protected]), Philodox
e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/
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