Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 23:53:59 -0500
From: UticaRose-AT-aol.com
Subject: Re: Banning, Shunning and Self-appointed Leftists.


In a message dated 95-11-15 08:59:05 EST, Louis Proyect wrote:

> This list is just not a hospitable place for people who 
>refuse to have a modicum of respect for other people's opinions.

Is that so ? And what about those who launch into ad hominems ?

All I had to do was to raise some simple questions about the barbarities of
Soviet Communism and the relation of socialists and the left to those, and
Mr. Proyect tore into me. That Burns guy asks questions about the possibility
of a non-materialist approach to socialism and he is baited with traditional
anti-catholic bayings. 

One thing which has always turned people off to the left has been the brittle
intolerance, the hauty phony intellectualism and the mistaking of caustic and
vicious personal attacks for political criticism. Fact is, socialism has been
a collosal failure during the past century. Fact is, socialists have been
very good at criticising others, very poor at taking a look in a mirror. Fact
is, garden variety liberals are often more practical, humane and successful.
Fact is, for all the carping about religion, much of the left has been almost
rabbinical in approach to 'sacred texts' and unable or unwilling to move
beyond a 19th century radical liberal social and secular programme. 


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