File spoon-archives/heidegger.archive/heidegger_2003/heidegger.0302, message 174


From: "Anthony Crifasi" <crifasi-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Proof that New France is Old Europe
Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2003 18:23:21 +0000


John Foster wrote:

>The minority position appears to the US. The only governing
>body preventing the US from bombing Iraq right now is the
>United Nations, which is made up of almost all nations.

Perhaps you missed the list: Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, 
Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Poland, 
Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, the United Kingdom, Japan, 
Australia, Kuwait, Israel, Turkey, Qatar.

>"By this reasoning, the current murder rate in America is
>more serious than
>the Nazi threat was, because there are more Americans
>murdered on a per
>capita basis than were ever killed by Nazis. Obviously, the
>reasoning must
>be flawed. And what is the flaw? It is the assumption that
>the seriousness
>of an issue is solely a function of the number of people who
>die per capita.
>Such a mathematization of social seriousness is at the heart
>of the
>mathematical scientific attitude that Heidegger was trying
>to overcome."
>
>Anthony Crifasi
>
>John here...
>
>there is a flaw in the thinking about what Anthony has
>claimed. The Nazi SS are no longer killing people.

Perhaps you missed the verb I used above: "By this reasoning, the current 
murder rate in America is more serious than the Nazi threat WAS".

>It is the
>American people who are being killed, serially, every day,
>every hour by their own citizens. Instead of the US Federal
>government focussing on the exceptionally high rate of
>homicides (which on a per capita basis are 9 times greater
>than in the United Kingdom), they focus on issues which are
>more likely to be seen as 'popular' and 'consensus-based'.

And once again, we have the assumption that the seriousness of an issue is 
solely a function of the number of people who die per capita. This is the 
ultimate in the mathematization of "seriousness".

>The US government cares very little about serious
>consequences which they themselves create for innocent kids
>in other countries when they use bombers to 'smoke out'
>terrorists.
>
>Because drug use is very illegal in the US, it would be
>devisive and politically difficult, if not impossible, to
>deal with this horrible problem. If there was a system like
>there is in Holland, or Denmark, where users of illegal
>drugs, addicts, were able to obtain clean needles, and safer
>drugs, and enter treatment programs, then then the problem
>in the US would decline.

Since you have brought up Denmark as an example of a more enlightened view, 
I would like to note that Denmark supports the US stance on Iraq.

>Afterall it is active drug use,
>pushers, and others who use drugs that get young people to
>start using drugs. Stiff drugs laws which do not solve the
>problem create the need to use guns, and other lethal
>weapons by drug users, addicts, so as to prevent being
>caught, and punished. The typical users needs to find a $100
>bucks, so goes to a department store, buys a hand gun, then
>simply enters a 7-11 or some other store, attempts to steal
>a carton of cigarettes, often succeeds, but when the drug
>user gets caught -sometimes this happens - they may panic
>and pull of the hand gun and have a showdown.
>
>You see the approach which readers of Heidegger take?
>Anxiety as experienced by the addict is accentuated by the
>physiological and pyschological need for the high, the rush
>and the exstacy of the drug as well as the drug culture.

Oh geez John! You are making the same error over and over again - mistaking 
the ontological for the ontic. You are doing the same thing here with 
anxiety that you did before with mitdasein. When are you going to stop this 
continual perversion of Heidegger on this, a Heidegger discussion group?

Anthony Crifasi

>Imprisoning the drug addict is like putting a person in
>handcuffs. It temporarily prevents the person from doing
>what is harmful to innocent people, but eventually, the
>handcuffs are removed, the prisoner is let out, and the
>stigma of being a criminal remains. Most of 'criminals'
>return to their social milieu without much money, or
>material assets.
>
>In "old Europe" therefore drug use is not exactly a 'crime'
>because of the 'serious consequences' which occur for
>society if the drug user is made a 'criminal'. Illegal drugs
>are often very expensive.....which makes addicts become
>criminals to maintain their habits... and that is one reason
>why in "America" the "new world" there is a very high
>homicide rate. There are other reasons why the homicide rate
>there is greatest.
>
>cheers
>
>john foster
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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