On Friday 17 May 2002 08:10, you wrote: And is response, this one seems apropos The cavalier attitude toward historical truth has reached epidemic proportions - has in fact become part of the intellectual furniture of our age, something presupposed rather than argued for. One sign of this situation is the horror with which the idea of 'objective truth' is regarded in certain academic circles today. Another is the widespread tendency to downgrade facts to matters of opinion -- a tendency that follows naturally from the rejection of objective truth. This shows itself in the amazingly prevalent assumption that truth is 'relative,' i.e., that the truth of what is said depends crucially on the interests, prejudices, and even the sex or ethnic origin of the speaker, rather than on - - well, the truth or falsity of what the speaker says. The basic idea is that truth is somehow invented rather than discovered. The irony that attends this triumph of interpretation over facts is that it ultimately undermines fact. When facts are downgraded to opinions, they no longer have the authority of facts; but opinions without the bedrock of facts deliquesce into whims. Opinion remains opinion only so long as it is grounded in, and can be corrected by, fact. What is at stake in the confusion of fact and opinion .. .. is nothing less than the common world of factual realtiy and historical truth." -- Roger Kimball, "In Defense of Facts" That would be great, my mailer has a twit filter as do most others i could name, and that would be the proper action to take. When you make use of your twit filter you supress only your own senses, for bad or good. This is not the same as those that embark on their own crusade, not satisfied with control of their own twit filter, but at supression, that is in effect the co opting of control of everyone elses filter See its not their own viewscreen they attempt to filter, but the aim is to filter the viewscreens of everyone else. Its not that they are concerned by what they might hear the aim is to prevent anyone else from hearing it. You should look at what happens when a conservative speaker dares accept an invitation at todays leftist controled universities, the intolerance and behavior of these new leftist brown shirts scares to the very core. My interest in this list is the same as the topic of this list, i dont join in technical forums to evangelize politics or bash winblows any more than the others ive seen here, even you have voiced your own concern that you be forced to wash your posts in too much detergent. Poltical commentary in passing, metaphor, a jab in the ribs, humor, winblows bashing, totaly baseless calling others "stupid" Well cest la vie. My reservations about the list bifurcation is only the maint load on the maintainer, it would seem to me that once the maintinace required becomes non-trivial the eventual outcome is to toss in the towel all together. So you are basically left with two choices, let the touchie-feelie intolerants force their demand for sterility, at which time they, as always would simply rachet up their demands or route all the demonstrating and placard waving to /dev/null and allow them to find a more wobbly object on which to press their "power process". Raymond "Double standards, inevitably, erode honesty. ..Intolerance poses as tolerance, and the double-entry bookkeeping leads to deception. It's all a house of cards, bound to collapse sooner or later. Sooner would be better." --John Leo

It was written... In reference to Raymond Moyers.... Ray, I have admonished you in private to stop the political/philosophical discussion here. I am now proceeding to do it in public as you obviously haven't listened. Your last post was clearly off-topic, and illustrates a growing (some would argue "well established") trend. This is your last warning to refrain from political/philosophical rhetoric. If it happens again, you will receive no further warnings (other than any list traffic to you ceasing rather suddenly). I have never banned a member from this list (even though some have begged me to do so). You are just about to cross the line and become the first. Jay West