From: silva@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Holly Silva)
Subject: Re: Kulturkampf
Organization: Stanford Univ. Earth Sciences
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 20:33:05 GMT

In article <1992Aug20.181232.23398@kadsma.kodak.com> pajerek@kadsma.kodak.com (Don Pajerek) writes:
>In article <1992Aug20.160827.13408@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> andy@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman) writes:
>>...  Many groups in America currently advocate force to impose
>>their culture on others.  Some of them are "good liberals".
>
>Examples, please.
>
	Answers pertinent to the question you asked, in regards to the use
and advocacy of force by 'good liberals' are:
	The use of explosives, vandalism and the threat of vandalism by
animal-rightist who have attempted to shut down university research labs
which employ animals and animal testing. This is done in conjunction with
civil disobedience activities, perhaps in hope of provoking the authorities 
to violence and/or aggression against the civil protestors, in order to
create martyrs.
	I was a lab technician at the Louisiana State University Medical
Center in 1986 when they were among the targets for one such attack. 
Fortunately, LSUMC was just one of the feints, or false targets on the
list. The protests and attendant violence went to another lab somewhere
else in the south.....that time.
	The use and advertisement of potentially dangerous tree spiking
by Earth First! in their efforts to stop logging of old-growth forests.
While Earth First! cognescenti know to place the spikes high enough up on
the trees so that loggers won't be killed by them, many Earth First! 
imitators are not so knowledgeable. Eventually they may be responsible
for some man's death or dismemberment. They may also eventually be 
responsible for injuring saw mill workers. It is the blades of the mill
saws which are the intended targets of 'spiking'. These blades are run 
and maintained by people who may be injured in the course of removing 
and repairing damaged blades.
	While neither Earth First! nor the animal-rightists are liberals
in the classic sense, the general worldview they share springs from the New
Left philosophies of the 1960's. These New Left philosophies were 
originally expounded by classic liberals, and hence the inheritors or heir-
apparents of such philosophies are still commonly regarded as 'good
liberal' by John Q. Public.

>>There's nothing wrong with being a partisan whiner, but it is
>>deceptive to hide it behind "general" concerns.
>>
>>-andy
>
>You are the partisan whiner. Fitch's concern *is* general. What
>are the 'good liberals' doing that compares to Jesse Helms' attempts
>to police the National Endowment for the Arts?
>
>
	Mr. Fitch worded his concerns in a general manner, using 
largely bias-free language. His postings are invariably characterized
by bias-free language and they commonly take the high ground in terms
of method and tone; you will never see him opening a post with an
attack that could be construed as personal, for instance. Nonetheless,
his _pattern_ of posting is far from bias-free, and the particular post
which kicked off this thread was _intrinsically_ partisan in nature. 
	In the 5-6 months that I've been tapping into s.c.usa, I have
never seen him direct a posting toward the myriad idiocies and wrongful
acts committed by groups and individuals who hover on the hazy left side
of America's political/social spectrum. It is this _pattern_ of omission,
I suspect, which prompted Andy Freeman to call Fitch a partisan whiner.
	Mr. Fitch is not a whiner. He is definitely partisan, and, as
Freeman indicated, he does commonly cloak this partisanism or bias with
a false display of even-handedness in language. His posts, actually, are
commonly even-handed, if taken alone. His pattern of posting is definitely
_not_ even-handed.
>
>Don Pajerek
>
>Standard disclaimers apply.


--
======================================================================
|| Holly Silva			I have nothing terribly clever to say||
|| Applied Earth Sciences	today.  You're in luck.		     ||
|| Stanford University						     ||
Xref: sparky talk.politics.misc:40456 talk.abortion:32338 alt.politics.bush:2026