How to debate dialectically, and not ad hominem.

By Franz J. T. Lee.

Magnifisyncopathological
Quot homines tot sententiae

The opinions of a libertarian anarchist in Austin, TX.
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November 11, 2004
Franz J. T. Lee is a Flailing Moron

From South African Apartheid to North American Fascism
http://www.cmaq.net/fr/node/18783

How to debate dialectically, and not ad hominem.

Magnifisyncopathological
Quot homines tot sententiae

The opinions of a libertarian anarchist in Austin, TX.
« The Hypocrisy of Daily Kos | Main | Lynne Stewart's Violent Motives »

Monthly Archives | Recent Entries
November 11, 2004
Franz J. T. Lee is a Flailing Moron

From South African Apartheid to North American Fascism
http://www.cmaq.net/fr/node/18783

When I was studying in Germany, most of my professors, Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse and Ernst Bloch, told us how they had fled from Nazi Europe, yet I did not exactly grasp the real fear that faced all these "enemies" of the Third Reich. I did not understand the "war of ideas" against them.

When I read the diatribal speeches of Hitler, Goering and Goebbels, and saw documentaries of the yelling, brain-washed masses, of the stacked-up piles of the Jewish victims in Dachau and Auschwitz, their gold teeth extracted, then, I remembered the transatlantic slave trade, the quartering of African slaves, the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the millions of starved exploited Russians, in Siberia, in Workuta, in the "gulags". Then I understood what is capitalism.

Yes, as long as capitalism, colonialism, imperialism and corporatism are alive, it can again happen anywhere, anytime.

Now, please, do not label me as a "Marxist", "communist" or "terrorist"!

***
Drizz:
This smear of misunderstanding would be tedious parody if it weren't written in earnest. Posted by Drizzten at November 11, 2004 01:55 PM
Comments

***

Dear Drizz,

Thanks for having the courageous desire to classify me as a "Flailing Moron", and what I warned about, as a "smear of misunderstanding (that)would be tedious parody ... ".

Yes, I agree with you.

Man, you are so right, you should really be happy and dance with joy!

Do you know what touched me most about your hearty, scientific comment?

The fact that my commentary touched you at all. Nowadays, this is tantamount to a miracle. To use an "oxymoron", I am glad that you are not yet "dead alive". I congratulate you. You can still react, can still get into rage, can still protest. Direct this energy to those who really deserve it, please.

Anyhow, Hurrah! You still are linked to reality, keep up this fighting spirit.

I wish you luck.

Sincere greetings,

Franz.

****
Posted by: Prof. Dr. Franz J. T. Lee on November 13, 2004 02:35 PM

Professor (Dr.?) Lee, assuming that is you, welcome to my website. Believe me, you are not the first person to discover something I've written about them that compelled an answer. I have to say your response was one of the most good-natured so far. I appreciate your humor.

However, I really did mean what I wrote.

This is primarily because I don't know how you define the various terms in your article and can only operate on the preconception I hold of people who say the things you have. I don't disagree that the communications of my federal government have been tending towards the incandescently propagandistic for quite some time (and certainly before George W. Bush took office), lately ticking upwards in nationalistic earnest and strident disagreement with dissent from the party line. No quibbles there.

However, it is one thing to describe the policies and activities of the current administration and another to then simply ascribe them to the concept of "capitalism." Capitalism isn't what drove the various European fascists to attempt the conquest of Europe. Capitalism ought not to be blamed for the slave trade. Capitalism isn't responsible for the mass murders at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And no serious person would blame capitalism for the horrors of the Soviet GULAG.

It was that last comment of yours that convinced me you were either a moron or a liar. It was your plea that the reader not label you a Marxist or a communist that convinced me you were the former.

Because to me, the concept of capitalism means a very specific thing: the social institution that doesn't prevent individuals from marketing, selling, and buying their goods and services (including labor and ideas) to anyone they wish. In other words, the concept of capitalism is fundamentally connected and related to individual liberty. As such, it is the absence of capitalism - the existence of governments and people engaging in coercion, slavery, theft, and force - that should be blamed for those crimes you mentioned.

The fascists wanted to stomp out liberty for a select spectrum of society. Slavery is utterly at odds with the concept of free trade. The nuclear bombing of Japan had nothing to do with peaceful economic transactions. The entrenched and systematic assault on personal freedom and integrity in Communist Russia was explicitly the desire to combat capitalism and its underlying foundations.

Hopefully you understand the meaning of my comments now. Feel free to respond.
Posted by: Drizz on November 15, 2004 09:06 AM

***

Dear Drizz,

I never ever proclaimed to possess absolute truths about anything or any person, in fact, what I think and do also have nothing to do with human arrogance or omniscience.

For these reasons, I appreciate your detailed explanation of your views, that I accept, appreciate very highly, why not? Why should they not be real, be part of the flowing, ever-flowing, over-flowing Truth on this planet? Why should my views alone be true? Why should I not listen to other views, consider them, respect them?

You know something, dear Drizz, it would be far better for humanity that I am erring, and that you are "right", and I would be the first one to rectify, to recognize my equivocations. I have no problem whatsoever to be proven scientifically and philosophically "wrong". I am learning every day, every second.

However, the strange thing is that every second passing by, I become more desperate, because as reality currently moves on this planet, my greatest fears are being substantiated to the hilt. This is the reason why I so dearly wish that you are "right", so that both our truths could become one, two sides of the same global reality.

Kindly visit my URL, click on my publications, and see what I have said over the last 40 years in five languages. I am serious, very much worried about the future of mankind, about your tomorrow, about my today. It is not America, not the Americans, it is the system in which we live, that has to be changed radically, that is, must be annihilated, and be replaced with something human, humane, humanist, something worth to live for, something worth to die for.

Sincere wishes,
Franz.
http://www.franzlee.org

Posted by: Franz Lee on December 12, 2004 04:33 PM
http://www.drizzten.com/blargchives/001021.html