Posted on 10/10/2003 4:42:38 PM PDT by B-Chan
Dear Mrs. B-Chan,
Have a link?
Get it right.
Currently the only people i know who change articles to fit their ideas of a situation are democrats and liberals if you wanted to "bash rush" why didnt you just write a vanity ? of course by adding that word to the thread you did write one !
I guess the original was'nt harsh enough you feel maybe a little more defimation of character would be fitting
Well im happy to see "your" character is showing
As for punctuation i really dont give a darn weather you like it or not you understood it !
Thank you for posting that interesting link. I disagree with West's analysis of equality, but his points are well-taken nevetheless. As a partial rebuttal, I refer you to “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” by James Fitzjames Stephen, who writes:
First, as to the proposition that justice requires that all people should live in society as equals. I have already shown that this is equivalent to the proposition that it is expedient that all people should live in society as equals. Can this be proved? for it is certainly not a self-evident proposition.I also recommend that you read The Conservatism FAQ by James Kalb. Food for thought may be found there.I think that if the rights and duties which laws create are to be generally advantageous, they ought to be adapted to the situation of the persons who enjoy or are subject to them. They ought to recognize both substantial equality and substantial inequality, and they should from time to time be so moulded and altered as always to represent fairly well the existing state of society. Government, in a word, ought to fit society as a man's clothes fit him. To establish by law rights and duties which assume that people are equal when they are not is like trying to make clumsy feet 1ook handsome by the help of tight boots. No doubt it may be necessary to legislate in such a manner as to correct the vices of society or to protect it against special dangers or diseases to which it is liable. Law in this case is analogous to surgery, and the rights and duties imposed by it might be compared to the irons which are sometimes contrived for the purpose of supporting a weak limb or keeping it in some particular position. As a rule, however, it is otherwise. Rights and duties should be so moulded as to clothe, protect, and sustain society in the position which it naturally assumes. The proposition, therefore, that justice demands that people should live in society as equals may be translated thus:--"It is inexpedient that any law should recognize any inequality between man beings."
This appears to me to involve the assertion, "There are no inequalities between human beings of sufficient importance to influence the rights and duties which it is expedient to confer upon them." This proposition I altogether deny. I say that there are many such differences, some of which are more durable and more widely extended than others, and of which some are so marked and so important that unless human nature is radically changed, we cannot even imagine their removal; and of these the differences of age and sex are the most important.
The difference of age is so distinct a case of inequality that even Mr. Mill does not object to its recognition. He admits, as every one must, that perhaps a third or more of the average term of human life--and that the portion of it in which the strongest, the most durable, and beyond all comparison the most important impressions are made on human beings, the period in which character is formed--must be passed by everyone in a state of submission, dependence, and obedience to orders the objects of which are usually most imperfectly understood by the persons who receive them. Indeed, as I have already pointed out, Mr Mill is disposed rather to exaggerate than to underrate the influence of education and the powers of educators. Is not this a clear case of inequality of the strongest kind, and does it not at all events afford a most instructive precedent in favour of the recognition by law of a marked natural distinction? If children were regarded by law as the equals of adults, the result would be something infinitely worse than barbarism. It would involve a degree of cruelty to the young which can hardly be realized even in imagination. The proceeding, in short, would be so utterly monstrous and irrational that I suppose it never entered into the head of the wildest zealot for equality to propose it.
Upon the practical question all are agreed; but consider the consequences which it involves. It involves the consequence that, so far from being "unfortunate necessities," command and obedience stand at the very entrance to life, and preside over the most important part of it. It involves the consequence that the exertion of power and constraint is so important and so indispensable in the greatest of all matters, that it is a less evil to invest with it every head of a family indiscriminately, however unfit he may be to exercise it, than to fail to provide for its exercise. It involves the consequence that by mere lapse of time and by following the promptings of passion men acquire over others a position of superiority and of inequality which all nations and ages, the most cultivated as well as the rudest, have done their best to surround with every association of awe and reverence. The title of Father is the one which the best part of the human race have given to God, as being the least inadequate and inappropriate means of indicating the union of love, reverence, and submission. Whoever gave the command or uttered the maxim, "Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land," had a far better conception of the essential conditions of permanent national existence and prosperity than the author of the motto Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.
Again, thanks for the useful link.
I am an elitist.
The Claremont Institute has a number of well-written thought provoking articles.
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