Carrol writes:
> You still don't understand. Of course my views of the DP are not
> dispassionate. They are in fact quite passionate. Why shouldn't they
> be? You seem to hold the odd idea (as does Doug) that the only grounds
> for passion are moral. A Christian hangover I guess. I hate the DP and
> want to destroy it. It is a major source of immense human misery - but
> it is a mere superstition to think that those feelings require a
> moralistic basis.
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But passionate hatred is no substitute for analysis, and you rarely if ever
seem to engage with the substantive issues. We still don't know, for
example, whether you accept that the Democrats in the US and their social
democratic counterparts abroad represent different interests and values than
the Republicans and the other conservative parties to their right, and that
these differences find expression in domestic and foreign policy,
particularly when the masses pressure their leaders to act on their demands.
It's not by chance that trade union rights, civil rights legislation, and
the major social programs have been won under Democratic administrations
against fierce Republican resistance. Such gains illustrate that mass-based
left-centre parties are CONTRADICTORY formations which demand a more
considered response than the Manichean one you habitually provide.