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Article 2206 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges)
Subject: Re: Existence
Message-ID: <1991Dec15.220913.11224@Princeton.EDU>
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Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1991 22:09:13 GMT
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I have directed followups to talk.politics.mideast.  Politics is far
more relevant to academic philosophy than many academics would like,
but the substance of this discussion has shifted to the middle east.

In article <5830@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>In article <1991Dec7.190338.2203@Princeton.EDU> egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>>This is fascinating, for it mirrors a larger ossification of a
>>midcentury liberal state (exemplified in pre-1966 America and pre-
>>1967 Israel) that in dialog with Naziism "had history on its side"
>>but now (in dialog, again, with figures so disparate as Palestinian
>>teenagers and Professor Anita Hill) is indeed a valley of dry bones.
>>For further reading, see Lewis H. Lapham's excellent column in this
>>month's Harper's.
>
>Yes, let's just drop all this democracy and bill of rights stuff.
>What use a valley of dry bones?

What democracy?   Democracy implies meaningful participation of the
people in the decisions that govern their lives and this is decidedly
on the wane in Britain, the United States, and Israel.  Jeff, you
fellows over there don't even have a written Constitution, much less
a written Bill of Rights; Margaret Thatcher demonstrated that your
freedoms could be curtailed at the whim of Parliament, which boys'
club makes the decision as to who is cool enough to join (us Americans
watered ancient battlefields with our blood not far from my office,
rather than put up with THAT bullshit.)




