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[James Dasher <jdasher AT ibiblio.org>]

Though there were a slew of messages on this topic, I'll use elements 
from this one as my springboard.

On Friday, Mar 5, 2004, at 15:43 US/Eastern, David R.Matusiak wrote:

> YES - i think it was wrong for FDR to use that tack as a campaign 
> slogan.
>
> i believe we must honor our soldiers, living and dead, but i think 
> that using their sacrifice as a political gambit is deplorable.

Unlike Sil (in a different message), I don't think it's possible to 
interpret the FDR button as anything other than a re-election slogan.  
Unlike Mr. Matusiak, I don't think there's anything wrong with that.  
Generically honoring "our soldiers, living and dead," sounds great in 
the abstract, but that begs the more difficult question: what do we do 
about it?

Just to remind people, a democratic republic (e.g., the United States) 
is founded on the principle that human happiness in a regime can best 
be fostered by balancing people's competing interests.  Since none of 
us are omniscient (well, I am, of course, but I do what I can to hide 
that fact - including making any number of mistakes just to maintain my 
secret identity as Head Mason In Charge), neither a single person 
(monarch) nor a small group (oligarchs) can make decisions that will 
reflect what has come to be called "the will of the people".

Democracy has its own problems - namely, it ultimately devolves into 
mob rule.  Hence the mixture of monarch (president), aristocrats 
(legislators and judges), and people.  We avoid the problems people 
like Rousseau, and Marx after him, introduced with the concept of the 
"general will" - the notion that, if you were part of the majority, and 
someone disagreed with you, then they were wrong - by selecting 
legislators from certain established populations and geographic regions.

So WTF am I doing going into all that?  (Aside from the fact that it's 
possibly the most succinct exposition on the Western political 
tradition in perhaps 2,500 years. :)

Whenever we step beyond Mr. Matusiak's generic honoring of the dead, 
and state specifically what we should do to honor them, we are engaging 
in a "political gambit".  It is, if you will, the nature of the beast 
of politics in the republic.  Even saying we should avoid using the 
memory of the dead to further political aims is, in itself, a political 
gambit - a rhetorical device to craft consensus around the proposition 
that the living should not use the dead to justify taking action.

> that, and i think that the whole 1940s/50s way of thinking (which 
> included such greats as "Remember Pearl Harbor") did a whole lot to 
> engender hatred and bigotry towards Asian peoples and Asian-Americans 
> for the past 50+ years.

Actually, their attack on Pearl Harbor did a lot to engender hatred of 
the Japanese.  If by the "whole 1940s/50s way of thinking" you mean the 
notion that we should bomb the crap out of Japan (popular in the early 
'40's), or the notion that bombing the crap out of Japan was a good 
thing (largely popular from the mid-'40's through the '50's, and on 
into the present), then no: those notions did little to "engender 
hatred and bigotry towards Asian peoples and Asian-Americans" for any 
length of time.  Japanese, yes - and in the case of Americans of 
Japanese descent, unjustifiably.  Bear in mind that the Japanese were 
also on a rampaging pillage through most of the proposed Greater 
East-Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, and that U.S. troops were hanging out 
with lots of friendly Asians in China, the Philippines, and assorted 
other destinations across the Pacific.

The "whole 1940s/50s way of thinking" also included Brown v. Board of 
Ed/Topeka, the Beats, integration of the armed forces under Truman, the 
integration of schools under Eisenhower, the defense of South Korea 
from Communists, and so forth.  Hardly ignoble actions, and probably 
not predicated on a way of thinking particular to any couple of 
decades, including the two in question.  Certainly, the way of thinking 
that led to these and other actions didn't do much to "engender hatred 
and bigotry towards Asian peoples and Asian-Americans" for any length 
of time.  Bigotry towards Chinese people was already well-established 
100 years prior, and toward other ethnic and minority groups - whether 
Asian, European, African, Jew, "Mohamedan", Catholic, and so on and so 
forth - depending on their arrivals to these shores, and the 
circumstances surrounding them.

> i think we have to change things quite a bit (like our attitudes) if 
> we are going to see ANY improvement in our lifetimes.  thus, you can 
> see that i am not in agreement with the "Things must stay as they are" 
> party.

I'm guessing you meant that as a jab at the Republicans, since 
conservatives are the ones who are accused of preferring the past over 
the future.  But I have to say, as a registered "Unaffiliated" and a 
regular multi-party balloter, that the rhetoric emerging from the 
Democratic Party sounds fairly unchanged from the last 30 or 40 years, 
excepting Clinton's first term.  The rhetoric from the Republicans, on 
the other hand, is fairly forward-thinking, anticipatory, and 
indicative of a willingness to try new things, both domestically and 
abroad.

If that means using images of the WTC to promote an agenda, then what's 
wrong with letting voters decide whether you're capable of leading, or 
prone to reacting?  And if it means using images from Vietnam to 
promote an agenda, again, what's wrong with letting voters decide 
whether they think you're full of it or sincere?

If you've made it this far, congratulations!  I don't have any reward 
for you, but I will offer an explanation.  This thread, like others, 
suffers from people's tendency to speak in cliches when they lack the 
time for debate or introspection.  Email is not as bad a format as IM, 
but it's still terrible for getting people past their inclination to 
shoot from their prejudicial hips.  It's too easy to write a couple 
sentences and fire off a reply.  I'm guilty of this myself, and not 
just via media.  That's why, even when I know something about the topic 
at hand, I tend not to participate.  But this morning, the cats woke me 
up early, and I had time (after reflecting on the various points 
raised) to compose this reply.  It's still a rough draft, but I did use 
the delete key a few times. :)

Also, my apologies to Mr. Matusiak.  To some degree, I used him as a 
foil.  I blame him for making it easy: short, well-spaced paragraphs, 
each making a separate point.  If his paragraphs were a bit meatier, a 
bit more round-about, a bit too long-winded, I might've picked someone 
else.

Take, for example, this message.  Whoever the guy is writing this 
thing, I probably won't rebut it, even if I don't agree with it.

Oh, and to forestall any question, for those of you who probably 
were(n't) wondering: the fewest number of parties receiving my vote 
occurred last year, during the local elections, when no Libertarians, 
Greens, or others appeared on the ballot.  I won't reveal the exact 
split, but I didn't vote a straight ticket.  And though judges weren't 
marked by party affiliation, I still knew who they were and which party 
they "were unaffiliated with".  (Yes, I think that rule is a stupid 
rule.)

PS  It was nice putting faces to a couple names on Thursday.  For those 
of you I didn't get to meet - my apologies.  Perhaps next time.  But, 
to proffer excuses, I started a new job, and have been climbing into 
bed before 10:00 p.m. most nights.  Oh, and I had to culture the 
linguine, and count out the seeds for the bird feeder, and tally the 
number of pixels on my display.  (You don't honestly believe everything 
those manufacturers tell you, do you?)

--
James Dasher