poli-sci (05/18/82)
>From JoSH@RUTGERS Mon May 17 20:16:52 1982
Poli-Sci Digest Tue 18 May 82 Volume 2 Number 133
Contents: Solidarity on the Left
Decision to Build the Bomb
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 17 May 1982 00:35-EDT
From: James A. Cox <APPLE at MIT-MC>
Subject: Solidarity on the Left
Your message amused me. So "fear keeps alot [sic] of 'moderate
leftists' and 'liberals' from casually making their opinions public."
Interesting. Perhaps I have been too long here at Harvard, where
political dominance (among students and faculty) has long been in the
hands of the left. Here, it is the conservatives who suffer social
ostracism by the majority when they reveal their beliefs. Liberalism
has long been entrenched as the dominant ideology, and liberals
dispense their opinions freely and often.
Naturally I dislike being ostracized (to whatever degree) because of
my beliefs. But there isn't a hell of a lot I can do about it.
People are people, and that is the way people behave. Likewise, if
liberals are afraid to speak out because the conservative majority
would ostracize them, well that's too bad but there's not much anyone
can do.
You don't come right out and say it, but you seem to imply that
leftists have something to fear from the government if they make their
beliefs too well known. I reject this. If this actually is your
implication, I think you're being paranoid. In this country, leftists
and rightists alike have freedom to expound their beliefs without
fearing recrimination. This freedom has limits, of course, for
example one may not advocate the overthrow by violence of the
Government, but that leaves quite a bit of room.
My impression of unanimity on the left does not come from small but
vocal groups of Young Sparticists marching in formation protesting
whatever issue happens to be in fashion this week. It comes rather
from an observation of politics on the Harvard Campus. Hold a
conference on gay rights here and who do you get supporting it? The
Gay Students Association, of course, but also the Committees on Central
America and South Africa. Protest U.S involvement in El Salvador and
in addition to the Central America group, you get the SDS and the
Black Students Association. It is really monotonous to read the list
of supporting organizations for leftist events, because the list is
always the same.
I confess that politics here at Harvard are different from those in
the "real world." There is dissonance within the ranks of the left,
an example is leftist opinion on the Falklands conflict. Some
leftists support Britain because of their fanatical hate of repressive
right-wing regimes like Argentina's. Others cry out for
"proportionality" because of their profound faith that wars in a
far-off place are always unwinnable. But really, there is a lot more
agreement between Ted Kennedy and every leftist subscriber of this
list (excluding the lunatic fringe) than there is between me and
either Milton Friedman or Jerry Falwell, both of whom could be called
conservatives. And as you go even further left you find still less
difference. Marxist-Leninist disputes tend (to me anyway) to have
about the same import as the question of how many angels can dance on
the head of a pin.
------------------------------
Date: 17 May 1982 1033-EDT (Monday)
From: Robert.Frederking at CMU-10A (C410RF60)
Subject: Re: Decision to build the bomb
Actually, I think almost anyone would have approved building the
bomb at the time, since there was good evidence that the Nazis were
conducting nuclear experiments, and it was a widely known (among
physicists) theoretical possibility. So the U.S. went about building a
nucear bomb while we concentrated our bombing on research facilities and
heavy water manufacturing sites. In fact, even as deeply pacifistic a
person as Albert Einstein urged the U.S. to do this, since the Nazis
clearly would have used them if they had gotten them built. Now, if
you're going to claim that a decentralized government in the U.S. would
have prevented the rise of Nazism in Germany, I'm not interested in
discussing it. (Note that this doesn't excuse the U.S. for using the
bomb on Japan, after the Nazis were gone).
------------------------------
End of POLI-SCI Digest
- 30 -
-------