Comments on: Pragmatism Now

By: On Profanity — The New Clarion

On Profanity — The New Clarion — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 20:55:49 +0000

[...] the comments to a recent post, there was some discussion of profanity. Is it necessarily bad? Not important? [...]

By: Bill Brown

Bill Brown — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 11:19:50 +0000

Read this interview with Bush and you'll see the contradictions inherent in a pragmatist. He's absolutely all over the map.

By: Inspector

Inspector — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 04:21:12 +0000

“think long run”

That is absolutely what we must do. It is the short run where we are stuck; it is the long run where we have a chance.

By: Elisheva Levin

Elisheva Levin — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 03:46:18 +0000

Hmmm. Bush sounds like the old Vietnam era statement that we’ll destroy a village to set it free.
Haven’t learned much there in Washington, now have they?

By: Bill Brown

Bill Brown — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 03:18:42 +0000

I think profanity is inconsistent with our mission. I don’t use it and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it in either Myrhaf or Mike N’s blogging so it shouldn’t be a problem.

By: Myrhaf

Myrhaf — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 02:06:21 +0000

Inspector, please send me an email:

wagreeley@roadrunner.com

By: L-C

L-C — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:34:50 +0000

“Don’t you dare” is my reply to them. I’m planning on getting away from this place someday, I’d rather not arrive to the US only to find it as deeply entrenched in Marxism as Sweden.

By: Myrhaf

Myrhaf — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 20:37:23 +0000

Sweden has long been the country that American statists are most likely to hold up as the ideal we should emulate. “Why can’t we be like Sweden?” they ask.

By: L-C

L-C — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 19:17:54 +0000

Sweden.

By: Myrhaf

Myrhaf — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 17:55:50 +0000

Mike N., since the pragmatists throw out reality as a standard, they don’t have much to go by but feelings, do they?

Burgess, thanks. I try to rise above profanity, but I have failed in the past. I also try to avoid ad hominem mockery, but I’ve failed at that even more. The bigger the target is, the more likely I am to mock.

Inspector, think long run. The present orgy of statism might afford opportunities when things go south. We can always say, “I told you so.”

L-C, what country are you in?

By: L-C

L-C — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 17:22:20 +0000

Here in Europe, people are welcoming the bailouts. And where your leaders are pragmatists, ours are consistently statist.

Not surprisingly, Europeanization will eventually turn you into Europe. We’ll all be dining on frog legs soon enough.

By: Inspector

Inspector — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 15:42:48 +0000

“impotence in the face of threatening events”

Is that not, however, precisely the situation we’re in? Yes, I know: speak out. But right now, they are forcing this on us and we cannot stop them from doing it.

I’m not disputing the point of language – that phrase just struck me as fitting to our situation.

By: Burgess Laughlin

Burgess Laughlin — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 13:32:42 +0000

> “(At moments like [this] I must be careful. I want to call Bush names and swear a blue streak. [. . .])”

Thank you. Foul language in print, written to a broad audience, and recorded for decades to come, is often either lazy writing, a confession of impotence in the face of theatening events, or (in the case of excretory obsessions) a sign of a possible psychological issue.

_The New Clarion_ has much to offer, so it would be a shame for any of its writers to demean it with foul language.

I hope your restraint will set a standard for _The New Clarion_.

By: Mike N

Mike N — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 02:51:20 +0000

So right Myrhaf. Today’s leaders are not thinkers but feelers. They let their feelings guide their action and use reason if at all, to justify their feelings. I don’t see Obama as any different than Bush regarding pragmatism.