Subject: Re: small town boy
From: Tim O'Connor (oconnort@nyu.edu)
Date: Wed Mar 08 2000 - 11:41:57 EST
On Wed, Mar 08, 2000 at 10:51:35AM -0500, AntiUtopia@aol.com wrote:
> Good lord, I can only hope so, Tim. But the posts so far leave me
> little hope. We've already seen the Republicans called Nazis once.
> I have yet to hear of a Democrat on this list give an assessment of
> the strengths of the Republican party in the same terms I described
> Clinton's strengths.
Like Paul, I was raised to believe that politics and religion are not
subjects fit for popular conversation, because they too easily turn into
a brawl of some kind.
My point, I guess, is that there are more shades involved than only
black and white. Even a mediocre photographer can manage 256 shades of
gray. And I believe the current state of politics can support quite a
bit of shading between extremes. I don't think either group could fall
into the category of "Nazi," but I see things I don't like on both
sides, and more often than not have voted outside the two-party system
rather than cast a vote under the "lesser of two evils" principle.
I've always felt that the Republican party could be summarized as
"thou shalt not" and that the Democratic party could be billed as "do
what you want."
The Democrats have morphed considerably since the time I came up with
that formulation, but I still feel that the Republican *party* is full
of people who would not welcome my opinions or my beliefs, but that
the Gore Democrats are also trying so hard to woo independent and
right-leaning people that they, too, wouldn't welcome me in their
house.
I refrain from getting into partisan debates here (they're way
off-topic), but we have a lot of subscribers who read but do not post,
and I find it hard to believe that they are all on the other side of
your hypothetical fence.
Perhaps Salinger lists, or many literary lists, attract liberal thinkers
who find the Republican platform not to their taste; perhaps too they
attract people who find the morphing Democrats also distasteful. I
don't know. But it's a subtle topic, and I don't think you'd
realistically be the sole believer if we took a straw poll here. I
admit that I would not be in your camp, and I know many others here
would not, but this list consists of more than the handful of people
who speak up so readily.
--tim
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