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Monday, April 10, 2006
Personal Conversation
Category: Issue 2I posted this article at E-thepeople.org, and it generated this email conversation:
——- Original Message——-
From: robert walter
To: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2006 10:03 PM
Subject: Let us Dirty what They have Cleaned
Don’t particularly approve of this posted article as to attitude and content or effectiveness of metaphor.
First, the majority brain-washing the minority doesn’t , IMO, have a very crisp relation to “Let’s Dirty what They have Cleaned”, said at the outset.. To brain-wash is hardly to “clean”. Un-brain-wash is not “dirty” either.
Second, as regards brain-washing by the Gov’t, I particularly have the War on Terror(orism) as put forth in offical US Govt documents, such as the Budget and 2006 National Security Strategy, in mind.
I see the War on Terror as a rhetoric excuse for war mongering and misuse of language.
Third, I can see that it is the season you might have income taxes on your mind. But the lead about “bait” and the frivolous idea of paying to agencies directly is a PITA..
As one retired with so little income that I don’t pay income taxes, I found you’d not considered my case as possible poll-answerer.
—- I posted his critique to e-thepeople
—- Then he wrote to me again:
Asshole,
You owe me an apology.
Why did you not just reply to my e-mail?
I didn’t think your comment deserving of my time to construct an accurate comment for ETP. And sought a personal conversation..
Where’s your courtesy? You’re that starved for attention on ETP? [That you’ve posted my personal e-mail!]
Bucky
————My reply——————
Robert,
I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that you weren’t comfortable sharing your opinion with everyone else. I thought that you sent it personally because you were being critical of me and wanted to avoid embarrassing me. In fact, I thought you’d be honored that I was willing to share your critique with others to see what they’d say.
I can add another comment to publicize my apology if that would help.
I explained the situation to my daughter (she’s 4) and she asked if you were mad at all of us or just me. I said ‘just me’ and she said ‘Ok.’ And she wants to say “Hi!” to you.
Ok, so… personal conversation - I can do that too…
Your critique of my use of the term ‘dirty’ is sensible, but since washing a brain is allegorical, I figure that ‘dirtying the brain’ is a good simple mental tag - a meme if you will - for independent thought.
I didn’t mean that a majority brainwashes a minority. That might be something I could change if I try to post something like this again. The relationship between the majority and a minority that interests me is the coercion. I have felt that it was bad, but then realized that sometimes it is good. It is certainly not new, so there’s probably some benefit to it.
I agree with you about war mongering. Those guys *can* make a lot of money through war, and so whoever among them is willing to stoop that low will do so. I see the individual citizen’s desire for ‘free’ goods and services - public goods and services - government, essentially - as the root cause of their ability to make money through war.
I don’t know what you mean by PITA.
If the size of your income allows you to pay no income tax, and you haven’t been audited, then I think a good answer in the poll for you would be the one that sayd you wouldn’t worry about it because you ‘do your taxes’ carefully (by making sure your income is low enough).
I AM totally attention starved on ETP. I could post this entire email, but I’m guessing that would offend you again because you called me an asshole. Would you mind if I posted just this email that I’m writing now? Or perhaps I should post only my response to your original email (from “Your critique” up to the last paragraph)?
In any case, I have to share all of this with my friends to see if they can help me learn and grow, so it’s here too: (a link to here)
Dave.
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