Re:

[Clifford Poirot <cpoirot@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jeff,

I think under ordinary circumstances this discussion would probably not be
appropriate for the PKT list, but these are not ordinary circumstances (even
so, I suspect any extended discussion should take place off list). Here is
my brief reply:

1) As a moderately left academic, i've been dismayed by the nihilistic
approach of post-modernism for a long time;
2) I would think of myself as more of a "vital center, Schlesinger type
liberal in this regard. There are values that are essential to any political
entity. I might suggest that you reference both Martha Nussbaum and Amartya
Sen's neo-Aristotelian approach to essentialism.
3) Your characterization that conservatives want to leave individuals to
determine their own values, applies to libertarians, but not to social
conservatives in the Republican Party. Bill Bennett is quite content to say
what he thinks are the common values we must all follow and utilize the
coercive power of the state to enforce those values.

Any discussion of values will be a lot more productive, if we realize there
are any number of approaches to this issue that do not include stereotyping
all liberals as nihilistic post-modernists and all conservatives as simply
American versions of the Afgahni mullahs.

Finally,  I believe your remark about votes in Congress was a misconstrual.
Clearly, one could be against terrorism and yet be very value oriented and
vote against Congress giving up its clearly specified Constitutional power
to declare war to the Executive branch.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff MacConnell [mailto:jeff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 10:43 PM
To: Bill VanLear; pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject:


Bill-

If President Bush suggested that people should buy securities ONLY to buoy
the market, he was mistaken;  our economic strength is based on practical
market forces, and will stabilize without synthetic influences.  By the way,
LOTS of "Wall Streeters" are Liberals, and will ignore government-defined
"civic values" with the best of them!

However, Sooprize, Sooprize!!  I disagree with you about "Civic Values".  In
referring to Patriotism, as an example, your statement:

	"Conservatives will have difficulty in employing civic
	values effectively after 25 years of trying to undercut them.",

you ARE kidding, right??

Recent decades have seen significant deconstruction by Liberals of the
values our country was founded upon, and patriotism is only one example.
Note how the leftist California Rep. Barbara Lee, in Chamberlainesque
fashion, has refused to join every other U.S. Representative in support of
defending our country against murderous attacks on our people and freedoms.

Even twenty years ago, we would never have imagined that Liberal ideologies
and PC NewThink could motivate an employer to suspend an employee for
displaying the American flag, or a public school official to forbid kids to
display a patriotic slogan for fear of 'offending foreign students'.  There
are countless examples of how our traditional values, "civil" and moral,
have been corrupted by the moral relativism that is promoted by most Liberal
groups.

In summary, Liberals and Conservatives differ mainly because:

Liberals believe a strong, centralized Government should impose their
definition of "Civic Values" on The People;

Conservatives tend to trust the people, as individuals, to act according to
their own decisions, thus deriving a more democratic consensus on "civic
values".

-Jeff