[Buddha-l] As Swami goes, so goes the nation? (Dan Lusthaus and Richard P. Hayes)

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Fri, 2010-04-23 at 01:26 -0400, Dan Lusthaus wrote:

> For instance, perhaps 
> slightly reworded: "Richard gives gold stars to any prominent person who 
> trash-talks the US, even repressive dictators and mass murderers" will give 
> him less wiggle-room deniability.

How about this more accurate characterization: "Richard recognizes that
legitimate criticism is legitimate criticism, no matter who says it, and
that no one is incapable of making good observations that it would not
be a bad idea to think about carefully, and that acknowledging that
someone has said something worth thinking about is not at all the same
as claiming that that person is admirable in all ways."? 

That would be a considerably more accurate way of characterizing what I
have said about various people in the past. I think that what Dan seems
to want to call "wiggle-room" I would be more inclined to call making an
important distinction. In this case, I think there is an enormous
difference between "making a criticism of US policy" and "trash-talking
the US". One can do the latter without doing the former, and one can do
the former without doing the latter. And I think there is an enormous
difference between "acknowledging that someone has made a valid
criticism on a particular issue" and "giving someone a gold star."

One has to be very careful when speaking to imbeciles, to psychopaths,
to Fox News commentators (but I repeat myself) and to Dan Lusthaus, for
there is nothing such people will not twist to score a cheap point. So
if I were to say "Sven Kramer of the Netherlands won a gold medal at the
2010 winter Olympic games in the 5000-meter race, and former
gold-medalist Shani Davis of the US did not win a medal in that event,"
Dan would report in the Internet tabloids that "Richard trash-talks the
US Olympic team and celebrates white skaters who can beat black
skaters," and the next thing you know I would be portrayed as making a
subtle and insidious endorsement of the racist agenda of Geert Wilders.
But that's OK. There is room on buddha-l for a Glenn Beck think-alike.

Now to a much more serious matter, one of deep concern to me. In the
Maritime region of Canada, the local governments are offering a $20
bounty on coyote pelts. Apparently they are labouring under the delusion
that coyotes are dangerous (just because three or four children have
been attacked by them, and some of the children have died). So instead
of giving the coyotes credit for helping to thin out the overly large
human population by weeding out sick and weak members of the human herd,
the coyotes are being labeled a menace and hunted down by bipeds
carrying legally registered firearms. The whole thing makes me sick. So
I have taken the liberty of sending of a formal letter to the Canadian
parliament on behalf of the subscribers to buddha-l, warning the
Canadian politicians that if they do not stop the shameless slaughter of
coyotes immediately, the Buddha-l Liberation Army will invade Nova
Scotia with arms akimbo and deplore the situation in no uncertain terms.


-- 
Richard, gentle brother of the Olive branch of the Coyote clan