Posts by Stephen Judd
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Strauss did teach what some people might think is a rather subversive doctrine. There is no need to have read Strauss to point this out, any more than I need to have read Marx to say someone is a communist.
If you simply google "Strauss neoconservative" you will find a fair amount of material that addresses what he said and how his influence manifests. If I were writing a thesis, rather than posting on a blog, I'd go to primary sources, but in a context like PA System I think I can be forgiven for condensing secondary material down into a sentence.
(But you'll be pleased to know that I have in fact read Darwin, Freud and Marx - in German even. Darwin and Freud are still pretty readable but Marx make ma head asplode).
Oy. I must be feeling oversensitive this morning :)
Perhaps I misunderstand and you're saying that leading neocons couldn't cope with Strauss in the original. In which case I'm going to lazily dump some Wikipedia on you. Maybe his influence is overstated -- I don't know.
-
"These cases are not typically prosecuted because they are likely to fail because of the section 59 defence."
You know, I've heard that claim (and read a couple of shocking examples of such cases) numerous times in the past few weeks. So what do you make of this?
I say the repeal of section 59 is unnecessary because in my experience it is just that - unnecessary. I never lost a case which I prosecuted on the basis of section 59.
I drafted an indictment against a man who was convicted of smacking his 4-year-old son about five times on the backside with an open hand, leaving marks.
I think the jury convicted because the man smacked his boy too hard and because the boy was smacked not for a deliberate misdemeanour but because he soiled himself.
-
That seems very likely, Kyle, and in fact I only started paying attention after those rewrites. But the thing is that it's the rewritten bill that's going to be voted on. And if the bill as it is now doesn't capture what its advocates want, why are they still advocating it?
-
But have the right shifted popular opinion much?
I would love to see some polls from a few months ago to provide some evidence for or against that.
Personally I think it's fairly obvious that there is a disconnection between the stated aims of the bill's advocates and the language of the bill, and you don't need to be a member of "the right" to be concerned about that.
-
"removing the reasonable force defence for hitting children"
/coughs, produces megaphone:
NO ex-CUSE for CHILD ab-USE!
You're welcome.
-
"Wasn't it Strauss that came up with the idea of using religion to keep the population in line and distraction them. "
Plato, dude.
But yes, the Straussian influence on the neocons has been remarked.
-
Clearly "thrash" wasn't the best possible word to choose there.
Let's say "belaboured."
-
"But do you trust the "scary loons" to know the meaning of reasonable force?"
I don't want to go into great detail because goodness knows we've thrashed this subject. Briefly, no, I don't trust them, but neither do I think the proposed legislation is the right way to assuage that distrust. Hence my mental discomfort. Such is life.
-
"the neocons are cynically exploiting the Christian vote through its heavily think-tanked message campaigns."
Nah, I think that the neocons (which I think of as free-market hawks with an imperialist bent) AND the fundies have both been duped by a rather smaller group who believe in nothing but the party, and couldn't give a rats' about policy at all. Hence the wailing starting to appear from neocon pundits who are disappointed in Bush's conduct of the war, and from conservative Christians who are realising that Bush has done little for them and their policy either.
I think we're fairly protected from such unholy alliances (you should pardon the expression) here because MMP makes it too tempting to form new parties rather than join a "big tent" party if you have a real policy axe to grind.
-
As noted in other threads I'm against it. And I don't like the fact that scary loons agree with me for whatever bizarre reasons of their own. But that's a necessary outcome of having principles.
Otherwise, I'd never take up water colour painting, because Hitler did too.