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Submitted by Mike on Tue, 01/01/2008 - 6:21pm.

Worth reviewing and thinking about today and everyday:

  In 1857 Frederick Douglass said:

"The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. 

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Mike,

With all due respect, you are not Frederick Douglass and furthermore, nowhere in this missive did he advocate being a jerk. I also don't think he wasted his time arguing with minds he knew he couldn't change. That's something worth thinking about.
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What he said.

Frederick Douglas? 

I'm reminded of a comment I made a while back about how often Christians behave in counterproductive ways, and then -when they get the backlash they were begging for- claim they are being "persecuted for Christ".

Likewise, there is a sentiment among radicals that you aren't an effective activist unless you are making people angry.  There is a seed of truth in this.  But working hard at making people angry is not the same thing as working hard to affect change.  And a mob of angry people is not evidence of effectiveness.

Cool your jets, dude. 


The Canaanite's Call

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I hope

Krull and Tsch are wathing this conversation. Perhaps it will convince them that it isn't about ideology, but presentation.
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I think...

Gug and the like have completely missed the point of the post, but thanks to Rob for chiming in to say that Mike is not Frederic Douglas. A fact I am confident Mike is aware of! Again I would kindly suggest that you stop taking it upon yourself to tell others how to say what they have to say. Doing so would probably keep the thread on topic, but I am just sayin'. 

 

C.  

One of the great non sequiturs of the left is that, if the free market doesn't work perfectly, then it doesn't work at all-- and the government should step in.

Thomas Sowell

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If people could

play the ball, not the person, it would keep threads on topic also. As someone who cares about this community, I will ignore your request, and restate that if you don't like being nice then you don't have to be here.

image
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What do you think...

Bakunin would think of your speech code? Do you think he spent so much time telling others how to speak? C.
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I think

If he was trying to have a conversation in a group, and one person was being a jerk, he would tell that person to shut up, most people would.

image
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Very well said

In fact, you kept an adult, yet firm tone throughout this thread. Thank you Rob.
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