> From: "Michael Perelman" <michael at ecst.csuchico.edu>
> Subject: Hamilton vs. Jefferson
> > Not much of a choice, but certainly on a higher plane than Bush
vs. Gore.
> > > On Tue, Aug 21, 2001 at 07:30:11PM -0700, Ian Murray wrote:
> > > Hamilton, the man who created dirigisme out of mercantilism,
lover of
> > > protectionism, not a big fan of civil liberties or
democracy...That
> > > Hamilton?
>
> Debates like this always leave me in knots. When I read about the
> Enlightenment, I feel inspired. I want, very much, to admire the men
and
> women who contributed to that era. Not just the writers like
Voltaire, but
> also the men of action who tried to put the new hunger for freedom
into a
> working real-world form. Then people bring up the sins these men
commited in
> their lives. And then I don't know what to think. There is an old
British
> saying that no man is a hero to his valet. We all have small flaws.
Is there
> no one in history to be admired?
>
> (Sometimes the radicals feed on the radicals - I was at a party a
few years
> ago and the house had several posters of Che Guevare up. An
arugement broke
> out. Most of the crowd didn't know much about Che, but they
worshipped him
> anyway. Two guys, however, both Hispanic, said they'd studied Che,
and that
> Che had done many bad things, and that we shouldn't admire him.
There
> reasons were all about Che's wrong interpretation of Marx. There is
> sometimes a negativity on the Left that gets so extreme it just
depresses
> me.)
=========
Hang in there; sometimes a little detachment can help one to focus on
the norms rather than how other's failed in their own way to live up
to them.
Ian
"how much can we forgive" [the cop in Magnolia]