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To: EveningStar
Ohioan, would you be willing to distill your univeral suffrage and Holocaust stances down to a paragraph or two each? Thank you.

I tried to contact you, privately, to make sure that I understood this request. I am not quite sure, but I will try to do what you request with respect to the most significant aspect of each subject, noting that these "distillations" do not cover all aspects--not by a long shot, as each subject is either the subject or a major part of the subject in at least four separate essays at my web site:

With that caveat, my view on universal suffrage--as a means of determining policy or leadership--is that it is only a satisfactory method, when you have a population where almost everyone has the intellectual capacity, the educational background--which can be at one's mom's knee--and the standard of living, where there is sufficient leisure time, to both understand the political aspects of a people's ethos, and to reflect deeply and regularly on those aspects. Where those things are not all present, there is obvious danger in trusting the "counting of noses," as the determinant of public policy. That danger increases in proportion to the class and ethnic divisions in the population involved--i.e., there is less danger of victimizing minorities and eccentricity, where all those involved have most traits in common.

I also feel that the suffrage should be structured to eliminate obvious conflicts of interest. Thus, anyone receiving regular, unearned checks from any level of Government should not be allowed to vote for that level of Government and still retain eligibility for such payments. The reasons for this are also obvious--preventing the buying of votes, by misapplication of the public revenues.

With regard to the Nazi slaughter of millions of European Jews, I think that one needs to understand the historic root in a century of Socialist propaganda, which demonized the Jews because of their success in Germany under Capitalism--Marx blamed Capitalism on Jews, and speculated on "a world without Jews," and even some of his rivals in the Socialist movement, preached a similar line of hatred. In terms of the early 20th Century, Hitler took up the standard Socialist line, and built on it, as part of his battle to win the rabble in the street from the Bolsheviks. Ultimately--9 years after creating the climate of hate and demonization--he authorized a systematic slaughter, which served the same function for those trying to build a Nazi monolith, as the Bolshevik slaughter of millions of Kulaks, served for the Soviets.

Both massacres reflected the willingness of Socialist movements to employ whatever means they deemed necessary to destroy those whom they did not see as fitting in their "classless" Utopias. Both reflected the intolerance for eccentricity--for individualism--among those with a neurotic need to impose uniformity on their subject populations.

I hope that this is helpful.

For anyone who wants more information, I will be happy to provide links for more thorough discussion.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

410 posted on 11/12/2003 12:26:29 PM PST by Ohioan
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To: Ohioan
I did read your private post but had not yet composed a reply.
412 posted on 11/12/2003 12:32:11 PM PST by EveningStar
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To: Ohioan
I'll put the Holocaust question aside for the moment, however it is important that you understand that my wife is Jewish and that I hope to someday be Jewish myself.

As to the suffrage issue, your position is, to me, unrealistic, elitest, and arbitrary. Any measurements of voting qualifications such as you mention would be arbitrary and subject to abuse.

419 posted on 11/12/2003 12:54:33 PM PST by EveningStar
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