Brad De Long doesn't belong on a left discussion list

[James Farmelant]

I endorse Carrol's position on Brad De Long.  A little while ago
a somewhat similar situation arose on the marxism list when an
anti-communist joined.  However, that person showed little
inclination to intelligently engage with or debate with Marxists
on the list.  Therefore, I was one of many list members who
called for this individual's expulsion from that list.  It seems
to that Brad's case is quite different because he does attempt
to intelligently defend his positions and not simply engage in
mindless red-baiting and that is IMO good for the list.

		Jim Farmelant

On Tue, 21 Jul 1998 11:43:13 -0500 Carrol Cox
<cbcox at rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu> writes:
>I belong to four maillists (actually 6, but the other 2 aren't 
>relevant
>hear): lbo, marxism, leninist-international, and marxism-feminism. I
>would not want Brad on the last two of these (nor, I am reasonably 
>sure,
>would he care to be on them). I would be indifferent to his presence 
>on
>marxism unless too many subscribers on that list found it difficult to
>resist flaming him, in which case he would be a disruption.
>
>But surely there needs to exist a list in which marxists can co-exist
>with, occasionally clash with, non-marxists such as Brad. As far as I
>can tell, he does not engage in red baiting: that is, he does not 
>assume
>that a proposition is wrong just because its author is a communist.
>Hence he does not poison the wells of discourse here. One can at times
>learn from him; at other times ignore him. He is *certainly* not a 
>M....
>or a L... or a K...: each of them exists *only* to spread noise on
>whatever lists they post to. Brad has never done that, and I don't 
>mind
>occasionally being reminded of intelligently held stupid positions on
>Mao's China.
>
>I think those who are objecting to Brad's presence are the disrupters
>here, not Brad.
>
>Carrol
>

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