>> > >From: "Justin Schwartz" <jkschw at hotmail.com>
>> > >
>> > [clip]
>> > >Carl, is it actuallly your view that intelligent people cannot
>>disagree
>> > >about fundamentals? That smart people cannot be right wing?
>> >
>> > Bingo, that is exactly my view. I think right-wing philosophies are
>> > inherently not only cruel but stupid -- ideas that will keep all
>>humankind
>> > mired in needless misery so long as they are taken seriously.
This confuses stupidity with wickedness.
But I do not even think that Posner is wicked. His views are wicked--he thginks the same about us--but he's a decent and honest thinker, and, as I have said, a first rate judge. He disgarees with you that his ideas, if implemented, will cause needless misery. He thinks that free markets, private property, and wage labor have brought untoild concucopias of wealth and happiness to people who would never have enjoyed any such thing under any feasible alternative. This is partly wrong--only partly--but it is not a stupid view, and given the premises, he defends it with immense intelligence and resourcefulness. Btw, it is a view that Marx shared, up to a point. Marx of course thought, and so do we, that now we can do better. Posner doubts it, but the ball is very much in ouir court to show he's wrong. I think Schweickart has shown that Posner's wrong, but you don't have to be a dolt or a bad person to disagree.
jks
_________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com