Return
Home
The
Credits
The
Cast
Act
1
Act
2
Act
3
The
Reviews
     
 
INTERESTED(ING)
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
INTERNET (THE) --- INTOLERANCE --- INTUITION

.
.
.

INTERESTED(ING)

see: "ATTENTION (PAYING)"
see: "IMPORTANT"
see: "MOTIVATION/MOTIVES"
see: "SELF-INTEREST"


You can make more friends in two months
by becoming genuinely interested in other
people than you can in two years by trying
to get other people interested in you.
--Dale Carnegie (1888—1955)
American writer and lecturer.
_How to Win Friends and Influence People_ [1936]

The fortunate man, in my opinion, is he to whom the gods
have granted the power either to do something which is
worth recording or to write what is worth reading; and most
fortunate of all is the man who can do both.
--Letter from Pliny the Younger to Tacitus.
(Pliny the Younger or Caius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (62—c.115)
Roman senator and author of a famous collection of letters.
Tacitus [or Publius Cornelius Tacitus or Gaius Cornelius Tacitus]
(c.55—c.117), Roman orator, lawyer, senator, and historian.)
Quoted in _Letters, and Panegyricus_, Books I-VII [Harvard University Press, 1969].

We are interested in others when they are interested in us.
--Publilius Syrus (85—43 B.C.)
Latin writer of mimes who was originally a slave.
_Moral Sayings_, tr. Darius Lyman Jr., [1862], Maxim 16

-----

piquant (adj.)
1. Spicy or savory: having a flavor, taste, or smell that is spicy
or savory, often with a slightly tart or bitter edge to it.
2. Sharply stimulating or provocative: refreshingly interesting,
stimulating, or provocative.

sapid (adj.)
1: Having taste or flavor, esp. an agreeable taste.
2: Pleasing to the mind; interesting.
Related: savory




Click picture to ZOOM
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

.
.

see: "DIPLOMACY"
see: "FOREIGN POLICY"
see: "THE HUMAN RACE" for other related links


National security is primarily defined in terms of reputation for
having more power than all other nations and a willingness to
use it.
--Richard J. Barnet (1929—2004)
American author and political activist.
_Roots of War_ [1971]

[Winston Churchill] does not talk the language of the
20th century but that of the 18th. He is still fighting
Blenheim all over again. His only answer to a difficult
situation is to send a gun-boat.
--Aneurin Bevan (1897—1960)
British Labour politician.
Speech at Labour party conference, Scarborough, Eng. [2 October 1951].

Red China is not the powerful nation seeking to dominate
the world. Frankly, in the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, this strategy would involve us in the wrong war,
at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the
wrong enemy.
--Omar Bradley (1893—1981)
American general.
Testifying before a Senate committee on the desirability
of widening the Korean War [15 May 1951].

New World Order: International Organization,
International Law, International Cooperation
--Frederick Charles Hicks (1875—1956)
[Title of 1920 book.]

Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with
all nations — entangling alliances with none.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826)
American statesman and president [1801—1809].
Inaugural address [4 March 1801].

The great nations have always acted like gangsters,
and the small nations like prostitutes.
--Stanley Kubrick (1928—1999)
American film director.
In "Guardian" [5 June 1963].

The public is bored by foreign affairs until
a crisis arises; and ... then it is guided by
feelings rather than by thoughts.
--Harold Nicolson (1886—1968)
English diplomat, politician, and writer.
_The Evolution of Diplomacy_, ch. 4 [1954]

We have no eternal allies and we have no perpetual enemies.
Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests
it is our duty to follow.
--Lord Palmerston [Henry John Temple] (1784—1865)
British politician.
Speech, House of Commons [1 March 1848].

-

... international humanitarian law evolved and expanded, the ICRC
[International Committee of the Red Cross] became the legally
recognized guardian of these regulations. And yet, the paradox of
the success of the Red Cross movement, the advance of international
law, and, after World War II, the worldwide diffusion of the concept
of human rights and new authority for it, is that all these developments
coincide not with a new era in which Kant's perpetual peace was
ushered in, but rather with the hideous course of the twentieth
century itself. No century has had better norms and worse realities.
In the period from the signing of the first Geneva Convention and
the subsequent conferences of 1899 and 1907 in The Hague, to the
outbreak of World War I, the rights of individuals in wartime were
expanded, "aggressive force" was outlawed, and protections for
civilians were expanded. Then came the mass slaughter in the
trenches of World War I and the Armenian genocide to make a
mockery of all that.

In the aftermath of that war, in a Europe shocked by the toll exacted
by gas attacks, another Hague conference outlawed the use of poison
gas and other forms of chemical and biological warfare. Three years
later, the Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawed war itself. Those whom the
gods wish to destroy they first allow to set international legal norms.
Nine years later, the Japanese army was murdering Chinese civilians
by the hundreds of thousands in Nanking. Four years after that, the
Germans put in motion the Final Solution. Four years after that,
twenty million Russians were dead and Europe was in ruins.

--David Rieff,
_A Bed For the Night, Humanitarianism In Crisis_ [2002]

-

We have learned that we cannot live alone,
in peace; that our own well-being is dependent
on the well-being of other nations far away …
We have learned to be citizens of the world,
members of the human community.
--Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882—1945)
American Democratic statesman and President [1933—1945].
4th Inaugural Address [1945]

There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate
upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion
which experience must cure, which a just pride ought
to discard.
--George Washington (1732—1799)
American general and commander-in-chief of the colonial armies in the American
Revolution [1775—1783] and first president of the United States [1789—1797].
"Farewell Address" Philadelphia, Pa. [17 September 1796]

-----

comity [KOM-uh-tee], noun:
1. A state of mutual harmony, friendship, and respect,
especially between or among nations or people; civility.
2. The courteous recognition by one nation of the laws
and institutions of another.




Click picture to ZOOM
INTERNET

.
.

see: "COMPUTERS"
see: "TECHNOLOGY"
see: "COMMUNICATION" for other related links


And all the puppets in this digital jail
They're runnin' around in a frenzy in search of the Holy Grail.
They're havin' virtual sex. They're eatin' virtual food.
No wonder these puppets are always in a lousy mood.
--Laurie Anderson (b. 1947)
American performance artist.
"Puppet Motel" from the 1994 album _Bright Red_.

-

Picture this scenario: It's 8 p.m. on a weekday night, and
your twelve-old child suddenly remembers that he has a
major school report on the Spanish-American War due
tomorrow. He needs to do some research, but the library
is closed. No problem! Your cyber-savvy youngster simply
turns on your computer, activates your modem, logs on to
the Internet — the evolutionary 'Information Superhighway'
and, in a matter of minutes, is exchanging pictures of naked
women with other youngsters all over North America.
--Dave Barry (b. 1947)
American humorist.
_Dave Barry in Cyberspace_ [1996]


A common criticism of the Internet is that it is dominated
by the crude, the uninformed, the immature, the smug, the
untalented, the repetitious, the pathetic, the hostile, the
deluded, the self-righteous, and the shrill. This criticism
overlooks the fact that the Internet also offers — for the
savvy individual who knows where to look — the tasteless
and the borderline insane.
--Dave Barry (b. 1947)
American humorist.
_Dave Barry in Cyberspace_ [1996]

-

Writers of the past had absinthe, whiskey, or heroin. I have Google.
I go there intending to stay five minutes and next thing I know,
seven hours have passed, I've written 43 words, and all I have to
show for it is that I know the titles of every episode of The Nanny
and the Professor.
--Michael Chabon (b. 1963)
American author.
Quoted in David A. Vise & Mark Malseed _The Google Story_ [2008].

The Internet is an ιlite organization; most of
the population of the world has never even
made a phone call.
--Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
American linguistics scholar.
Quoted in "Observer" [18 February 1996].

Personal relations are the important thing
for ever and ever, and not this outer life
of telegrams and anger.
--E.M. [Edward Morgan] Forster (1879—1970)
English novelist.
_Howards End_ [1910]

Within the last seven days, Google has altered and
augmented my perceptions of tulips, mind control,
Japanese platform shoes, violent African dictatorships,
3-D high-definition wallpaper, spicy chicken dishes,
tiled hot tubs, biological image-processing schemes,
Chihuahua hygiene, and many more critical topics.
Clearly, thanks to Google, I am not the man I was
seven days ago.
--John Gaeta
Interview with "Wired", quoted in David A. Vise
& Mark Malseed _The Google Story_ [2008].

During my service in the United States Congress,
I took the initiative in creating the Internet.
--Al Gore (b. 1948)
American politician.
CNN television interview [9 March 1999].
(The Internet was created in the 1970s.)

Enthusiasm for a medium that keeps you away from
human beings strikes me as worrying. That you would
rather live in an unreal time and space, with unreal
people who don't even give their names — you can
say whatever you like, you can be whoever you like
— means that people aren't anyone, they become
more and more unreal.
--Ian Hislop (b. 1960)
English satirical journalist.
On Channel Four TV [19 March 1996].

My favorite thing about the Internet is that you get to
go into the private world of real creeps without having
to smell them.
--Penn Jillette (b. 1955)
American comedian and illusionist.
Quoted in "Builder", vol. 23, issue 8 [2000].

The defensive battle of the Chinese regime against
faxes, e-mail and TV broadcasts from the capitalist
world serves not only to keep it in power but also to
keep at bay a different concept of society. Where
television pictures from the world of universal
commodities are still frowned upon, as in North
Korea and some Islamic countries, photographs and
detailed reports do the rounds instead. Even in Iran,
where American heavy metal is the most popular
music among middle-class teenagers, the Ayatollahs
no longer have their sovereign air space under firm
control.
--_New Perspectives Quarterly_, p. 3 [Fall 1995]

The Internet is as persistent as it is potent,
an indelible and uncontainable presence in
the culture. In fact, the Internet isn't separate
from the culture at all; it *is* the culture. All
the trash, flotsam and spillage of our society
gets its moment there, where the tiniest
obsession has its spot on the shelf, right
next to Bach and charity and sunsets. The
Internet lets a million flowers bloom, and
a million weeds.
--Daniel Okrent (b. 1948)
American writer and editor.
"Raising Kids Online" in _Time_ (mag.) [10 May 1999].

What a world is this! one half of the people in it tormenting
the other half, yet being themselves tormented in tormenting!
--Samuel Richardson (1689—1761)
English novelist.
_A Collection Of the Moral and Instructive Sentiments_, p. 138 [1755]

It's been my policy to view the Internet not as an
'information highway,' but as an electronic asylum
filled with babbling loonies.
--Mike Royko (1932—1997)
American journalist.
Quoted in David L. Green
_I-Quote: Brilliance and Banter from the Internet Age_ [2007].

[Of the Internet?:]
The web of our life is of a mingled yarn,
good and ill together.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_All's Well That Ends Well_, IV, iii [1602—1604]

[...] behind all the techno-babble about cyberspace
and hyper-text and virtual worlds, behind all the
promises of total immersion in a parallel universe,
there's a boring reality: a bunch of screeching
modems, lost jobs, and boring computer-nerds
getting all excited over a glorified telephone
exchange. I'm sick of the spurious claims devotees
make for the internet, and I'm particularly sick of
the internerds.
--Janet Street-Porter (b. 1946)
British broadcaster.
"Without Walls: J'Accuse — Technonerds" (Channel 4) [19 March 1996]

We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be
less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story
begging the listener to say — and to feel — 'Yes, that's the
way it is, or at least that's the way I feel it. You're not as
alone as you thought.'
--John Steinbeck (1902—1968)
American novelist.
Quoted in George Plimpton (ed.) _Writers at Work, Fourth Series_ [1981].

Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's
game because they almost always turn out to be — or to be
indistinguishable from — self-righteous sixteen-year-olds
possessing infinite amounts of free time.
--Neil Stephenson (b. 1959)
American writer.
_Cryptonomicon_ [1999]

-

She wore a purple leisure suit
All stained with coffee grounds
Her hair was bleached, her skin was grey
She weighed two hundred pounds
Between her flaccid lips she held
A hand-rolled cigarette
Was this my faithless Flora?
The Lily of the Net.

And when she saw my stricken face
A sigh escaped her breast
She took my trembling hand in hers
And tearfully confessed
The picture was her daughter
A twelve-year old nymphet
I was betrayed by Flora
The Lily of the Net.

Come all you ramblin gamblin men
Who lurk both night and day
Don't trust a gal from AOL
Whatever she may say
I'd rather have my fantasies
I wish I'd never met
That false deluding Flora
The Lily of the Net.

--Holly Tannen
"The Lily of the Net"

-

The Internet is a shallow and unreliable electronic repository of
dirty pictures, inaccurate rumors, bad spelling and worse grammar,
inhabited largely by people with no demonstrable social skills.
--The Chronicle of Higher Education [4 November 1997]

^^

Trevor Tasker's steamy online romance took a turn for
the worse when he flew to the US to marry his cyber
girlfriend. Instead of the 30-year-old beauty he was
expecting, Tasker, 27, was greeted at the airport by
65-year-old Wynema Shumate, who weighs 20 stone.
Worse, when she took him back to her flat, he
discovered that she kept the dead body of a former
flatmate in her freezer. Shumate has been jailed, and
Tasker has vowed never to go online again.
--_The Folio Book of Humorous Anecdotes_ [2005]
Introduced by Edward Leeson, "Love and Marriage"

^^

This e-mail has been printed on paper treated with a deadly Chinese
poison — using herbs so deadly that it will do you no good to wash
your hands. As soon as you opened this e-mail you became infected.
Unless you take the special antidote, you will die a horrible and
lingering death within five hours. Said antidote will be e-mailed
to you upon my receiving $50,000 in wired funds. Hurry!
--anonymous prank

-

Q: How many newsgroup subscribers does it take to change a light bulb?
Answer: 1,445...

1 to change the light bulb and to post that the light bulb has been changed;

14 to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light
bulb could have been changed differently;

7 to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs;

27 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light bulbs;

53 to flame the spell checkers;

41 to correct spelling/grammar flames;

6 to argue over whether it's "lightbulb" or "light bulb"; another 6 to condemn
those 6 as anal-retentive;

156 to email the participant's ISPs complaining that they are in violation of
their "acceptable use policy"

109 to post that this group is not about light bulbs and to please take this
discussion to alt.litebulb;

203 to demand that cross posting to alt.grammar, alt.spelling, and alt.
illuminati about changing light bulbs be stopped;

111 to defend the posting to this group saying that we all use light bulbs
and therefore the posts *are* relevant to this group;

306 to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, where to
buy the best light bulbs, what brand of light bulbs work best for this technique
and what brands are faulty;

27 to post URL's where one can see examples of different light bulbs;

14 to post that the URL's were posted incorrectly and the post the corrected
URL's;

3 to post about links they found from the URL's that are relevant to this group
which makes light bulbs relevant to this group;

33 to link all posts to date, quote them in their entirety including all headers
and signatures, and add "Me too";

12 to post to the group that they will no longer post because they cannot
handle the light bulb controversy;

19 to quote the "Me too's" to say "Me three";

4 to suggest that posters request the light bulb FAQ;

44 to ask what is "FAQ";

4 to say "didn't we go through this already a short time ago?"

143 to say "do a DejaNews search on light bulbs before posting
questions about light bulbs"

34 to say "FA: on Ebay---vintage light bulbs---no reserve"

66 to killfile anything with the words "light" or " bulb" in it;

1 Autobot from the Usenet Self Awareness Project to post that
the lightbulb controversy generated the most posts;

1 DejaNews subscriber to respond to the original post 6 months
from now and start it all over again.

--unknown author

-

--

TOPICAL

Not surprisingly, many of the same millions who call Bush dumb consider
Bill Clinton the White House's most brilliant occupant. ...

Indeed, the zeitgeist was not surprised when the Lovenstein Institute
of Scranton, Pennsylvania, led by Dr. Werner R. Lovenstein and Professor
Patricia F. Dilliams, released its study ranking the IQs of every president
over the last 50 years and found that first among them, with a 182, was
Bill Clinton. He was followed, in order, by Jimmy Carter, John F. Kennedy,
Richard Nixon, and Franklin Roosevelt (so much for 50 years).

As for the dumbest chief executives, they were, in descending order,
Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and--brace yourself — his son,
the current president, whose 91 charts in at exactly half of Clinton's.

The results were so alarming — ohmygod, our president is a complete
doofus! — they were forwarded via e-mail tens of millions of times, from
one concerned citizen to another, and impelled Garry Trudeau to compose
a Doonesbury strip around Bush's low "intelligence quota."

Just one problem. There is no Lovenstein Institute, no Dr. Lovenstein,
no Professor Dilliams. That the Internet ruse spread so quickly, without
anyone bothering to immediately verify the results (it was "a fact too
good to check," as they say at the New York Times), frankly explains
more about our culture than it does about our president.

--Joel Engel,
"Too Smart To Be So Dumb" in _The Weekly Standard_ [27 May 2003].





INTOLERANCE

.
.

see: "ANTI-SEMITISM"
see: "BIGOTRY"
see: "FANATICS"
see: "NARROW-MINDEDNESS"
see: "PERSECUTION"
see: "PREJUDICE"
see: "RACISM"
see: "OPINION"
see: "ZEAL"
see: "EMOTIONS & FEELINGS" for other related links


Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is of the same
kind as the intolerance of the religious fanatics and comes from the
same source. They are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of
their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are
creatures who — in their grudge against the traditional 'opium of the
people'—cannot bear the music of the spheres.
--Albert Einstein (1879—1955)
German-American physicist.
Letter to unidentified addressee [7 August 1941].

I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally.
--W. C. Fields [William Claude Dukenfield] (1880—1946)
American vaudeville star and film actor.
Attributed in "Saturday Review", vol. 50 [1967].

^^

[D]uring the First World War, suppression went far beyond anything the war
could possibly justify. An outburst of anti-German feeling sometimes took
absurd forms: sauerkraut became "liberty cabbage" on some menus, and
some people even wanted to call German measles "liberty measles."
There were schools that dropped German from the curriculum; the
New York Times applauded this idea, and recommended Spanish instead,
or perhaps French, which was "more cosmopolitan and urbane." Four
county councils in Missouri banned anybody from speaking German on the
telephone; and some towns tried to banish it on the streets. The town of
Potsdam, Missouri, changed its name to Pershing.

The language of Goethe and Schiller survived this onslaught; other forms
of xenophobia had more serious results. In a burst of fervor, Congress passed
an Espionage Act in 1917. The law understandably imposed severe penalties
on people who passed secrets to the enemy. But it also made it a crime to
"willfully make or convey false reports or false statements" with the aim of
interfering with the "operation or success of the military or naval forces" of
the country, or to "promote the success of its enemies"; or to try to foment
"insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty" among the armed
forces; or to "willfully obstruct the recruiting or enlistment service of the United
States." The Trading with the Enemy Act (1917) did what the title suggested;
but it also provided that nothing could be published or printed "in any foreign
language" about the government of the United States, "or of any nation
engaged in the present war, its politics, [or] international relations," unless a
full translation was lodged with the postmaster general. These provisions
were barely discussed in the sometimes heated debates over the Espionage
Act and the rest of the legislative package; in practice, they proved to be
pregnant with trouble for anybody who fell short of 100 percent red-blooded
patriotism, and in particular, for Americans of the left-wing persuasion.

The war generated heat and paranoia. The government found it easy to
smear speech that opposed the war or denounced capitalism or the like as
dangerous talk which interfered with the war effort. The Sedition Act of 1918
was another truly drastic statute. Under this law, it was a crime to spread
"false statements" that might hinder the war effort, obstruct the sale of bonds,
or incite mutiny and disloyalty in the army. The act also criminalized saying,
printing, or writing any "disloyal, profane, scurrilous or abusive language"
about the government, the Constitution, the flag, the army, the uniform; or
saying anything that would bring the government or the Constitution "into
contempt, scorn, contumely, or disrepute." Anything written which violated
the act was "nonmailable," and could not be sent through the post.

In short, only total jingoism was acceptable — or legal. German-Americans
in some parts of the country had a particularly tough time. In front-line South
Dakota — a state with a large German population — zealous officials raided the
offices of a German-language newspaper, the Deutscher Herold, where they
found some truly dastardly objects, including a paperweight with an image of
the kaiser. The editor, Conrad Kornmann, was charged with espionage, mostly
because of a private letter he wrote to a friend, in which he was lukewarm about
the war, to say the least. That this was an attack on vital war interests or the
armed forces was totally absurd, but a jury found Kornmann guilty. The appeal
court reversed; still, Kornmann's life was a shambles.

South Dakota was not the only state in danger. Rumors flew about in remote
Montana of German spies poised to invade from Canada. Local "liberty"
or "defense" committees rounded up "slackers," reds, Wobblies, and other
bad elements; Montana whipped itself into a froth and conducted a major
witch-hunt. In Illinois, a Granite City man got two years in Fort Leavenworth
for shooting off his mouth in a saloon — to the effect that he liked the kaiser,
and would fight for him. In 1918 the Rev. John Fontana, a Lutheran minister
in Salem, North Dakota, a German community, went on trial for violating the
Espionage Act by obstructing the draft and fomenting insubordination. The
evidence was flimsy, to say the least — some testimony that Fontana was
unenthusiastic about the war, refused to buy liberty bonds, and prayed for the
"old Fatherland." In wartime, the prosecutor said, "the unbridled tongue is
more dangerous than the arms of the enemy, more stealthy than the submarine,"
The jury convicted him. The judge fulminated against Fontana for not putting
away his German soul; he criticized immigrants in general ("these thousands
of little islands of foreigners"), and sentenced Fontana to three years in
Leavenworth. On appeal, the case was reversed — but it seems incredible,
today, that it was brought in the first place.

--Lawrence M. Friedman (b. 1930)
_American Law in the 20th Century_ [2002], ch. 5
"Race Relations and Civil Liberties" pp. 138-40

^^

^^

There was no "liberty cabbage" during the Second World War, and nobody
tried to kick Goethe, Schiller, and Beethoven out of public life. Still, the
fate of the West Coast Japanese reminds us that there was plenty of bigotry
afoot. The passions of the war gave cover to some spectacular incidents of
intolerance. Among the worst victims were members of Jehovah's Witnesses.
This was a small but fervent band, very active in trying to spread the word of
God, as they saw it. Witnesses went from door to door, selling or giving away
their literature, especially their organ, The Watchtower. Witnesses also refused
to salute the flag: they considered the flag salute rank idolatry. This behavior
threw American Legionnaires and other superpatriots into an utter frenzy. It
lent credence to the ridiculous claim that the Witnesses were fifth columnists,
spies, Nazi sympathizers. The flag salute issue came to the Supreme Court in
1940, in Minersville School District v. Gobitis. In a small town in Pennsylvania,
three students, children of Witnesses, refused to salute the flag and were
summarily expelled from school. Felix Frankfurter, writing for the majority,
upheld the expulsion; only Justice Stone dissented. The flag, Frankfurter said,
"is the symbol of ... national unity." "Religious convictions" do not excuse a
citizen from the "discharge of political responsibilities" if these "convictions ...
contradict the relevant concerns of society." Frankfurter also was willing to give
the legislature a great deal of deference in matters of "educational policy."

The world was in flames as Frankfurter wrote; and he was, in a sense,
carried away. He personally meant no harm to the Witnesses. But the decision
gave a green light to small-town chauvinists; dozens of riots and mob actions
against the hapless Witnesses followed. Local law enforcement officers stood
by, or actively pitched in, as mobs beat and harassed Witnesses, or even
tortured them. In Rockville, Maryland, a crowd sacked the Witnesses' meeting
hall. In one particularly gruesome incident, a Witness in Nebraska was castrated.
In many communities, the American Legion egged on or led the rioters.
The American Civil Liberties Union, on the other side, fought gamely for the
rights of the Witnesses; the ACLU lobbied, cajoled, and litigated in an attempt,
often unsuccessful, to safeguard the rights of this group.

The battle was waged in state courts as well as federal courts; on the whole,
the Witnesses and the ACLU did better in state courts than in federal courts,
at least at first. The persecution was pervasive: Witnesses lost their jobs at the
height of the hysteria, were hectored out of towns, and arrested on trumped-up
charges, or on paranoid claims of insurrection and sedition. The courts, to their
credit, sometimes granted injunctions and overturned groundless arrests.
Witnesses were also persecuted for their refusal to fight in "manmade" wars.
Even though the text of the law clearly respected the rights of conscientious
objectors, and exempted ministers from service altogether, about four thousand
Witnesses went to jail for violating the draft laws. Even after the war was over,
more than a thousand Witnesses stayed in prison for crimes against the Selective
Service Act.

--Lawrence M. Friedman (b. 1930)
_American Law in the 20th Century_ [2002], ch. 10
"Race Relations and Civil Rights" pp. 282-83

^^

^^

[T]here was McCarthyism before McCarthy. The House Un-American
Activities Committee had been established in 1938. The Smith Act — a
strong anticommunist law — was passed in 1940. The Second World War
had hardly ended when the cold war began. Truman instituted a federal
loyalty program in 1946, and strengthened it in 1947. [. . . ]

Now an epidemic of witch-hunting, paranoia, and political grandstanding
infected the whole country. States and local governments got into the act.
Fifteen states passed laws in 1949 against subversive activities; forty-four
jurisdictions had laws by 1955 to punish sedition, criminal anarchy, criminal
syndicalism, advocating the overthrow of the government, and so on. Some
of these laws were incredibly draconian: in Michigan subversives could be
imprisoned for life; in Tennessee the death penalty was theoretically possible
for anybody who dared advocate the violent overthrow of the United States
government. Many states outlawed the Communist Party. New Hampshire's
attorney general, Louis C. Wyman, was a particularly notorious zealot, out
to get Marxists, fellow travelers, "dupes," and "apologists" for the communists.
A number of states created committees and commissions to carry out
investigations (essentially witch-hunts), searching for radicals secreted in
the nodes of business, government, and academia. Washington State,
Illinois, California, and Maryland had legislative committees especially
keen on ferreting out reds. Ohio was another state with an Un-American
Activities Commission. After all, as a congressman from Ohio warned,
there were 1,300 actual Communists in Ohio; and consequently there
"can be no real peace or security ... for Communism is the devil's own
instrument of hatred, war, chaos and ruin."

--Lawrence M. Friedman (b. 1930)
_American Law in the 20th Century_ [2002], ch. 10
"Race Relations and Civil Rights" pp. 331-32

^^

Intolerance betrays want of faith in one's cause.
--Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869—1948)
Indian statesman and leader of the nationalistic
movement against British rule.
In "Young India" [2 February 1921].

The highest result of education is tolerance.
--Helen Keller (1880—1968)
American author and educator who was blind and deaf.
"Optimism" (essay) [1903]

What is objectionable, what is dangerous, about
extremists is not that they are extreme, but that
they are intolerant. The evil is not what they
say about their cause, but what they say about
their opponents.
--Robert F. Kennedy (1925—1968)
American Democratic politician
_The Pursuit of Justice_, pt. 3 "Extremism, Left and Right" [1964]

I know that there are people who do not love
their fellow man, and I hate people like that!
--attributed to Tom Lehrer (b. 1928)
American songwriter and satirist.

Toward no crimes have men shown themselves so
cold-bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences
of belief.
--attributed to James Russell Lowell (1819—1891)
American poet, critic, essayist, and diplomat.

There is one characteristic of the present direction
of public opinion peculiarly calculated to make it
intolerant of any marked demonstration of individuality.
The general average of mankind are not only moderate
in intellect, but also moderate in inclinations; they have
no tastes or wishes strong enough to incline them to
do anything unusual, and they consequently do not
understand those who have, and class all such with
the wild and intemperate whom they are accustomed
to look down upon.
--John Stuart Mill (1806—1873)
English philosopher and social reformer.
_On Liberty_ [1859], ch. 3, "Of Individuality, as One of the Elements of Well-Being"

-

In this modern "nonjudgmental" era, the accusation of
hypocrisy is about the only acceptable judgment call.
Today, hypocrisy appears to be the only universally
recognized sin and evil — not even infidelity, lying
and cheating, out-of-wedlock births or addictions are
considered as reprehensible.

The fact is that we as a society have caved in, dumbed
down our expectations and morality, and called it
tolerance and freedom. Anyone who dares defend
standards risks relentless attacks in order to find some
flaw or inconsistency that can be used against him
to nullify the message. The epithet of "hypocrite" is
hurled at people who are unafraid to make judgments
based on a set of standards by people who have no
standards at all.

--Dr. Laura Schlessinger (b. 1947)
American radio host.
"There's A Difference Between Change And Hypocrisy"
in "Chicago Tribune" [15 November 1998].

-

Whoever kindles the flames of intolerance in
America is lighting a fire underneath his own
home.
--Harold E. Stassen (1907—2001)
Governor of Minnesota [1939—1943] who campaigned
for the Republican presidential nomination nine times.
"Where I Stand" [1947]

There are those among us who live in rooms
of experience that you and I can never enter.
--attributed to John Steinbeck (1902—1968)
American novelist.

No man has a right in America to treat any other
man "tolerantly" for tolerance is the assumption
of superiority. ... Our liberties are equal rights
of every citizen.
--attributed to Wendell Wilkie (1892—1944)
American lawyer and the Republican nominee
for the 1940 presidential election (won by FDR).

-----

bigot (noun) ['bi-gκt]
An extremely prejudiced fanatic obstinately wedded to a
particular opinion or attitude and passionately intolerant
of those who disagree.




INTUITION

.
.

see: "THE MIND" for related links


Intuition is truly a feminine quality, but women
should not mistake rash conclusions for this gift.
--attributed to Minna Thomas Antrim (1861—1950)
American writer and epigrammist.

In poker, as in life, intuition can be a valuable attribute,
but temper it with thought and logic. And don't follow it
blindly. If you persist in doing so, magicians will fool
you, con men will swindle you, and good poker players
will take your money.
--attributed to Lou Krieger
Author of books about poker.

Women have a wonderful instinct about things.
They can discover everything except the obvious.
--Oscar Wilde (1854—1900)
Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet.
_An Ideal Husband_, act II [1895]

-----

presage [PRES-ij; pri-SEYJ], noun:
1. An indication or warning of a future event; an omen.
2. A feeling or intuition of what the future holds.
3. Prophetic significance.


end page





| IDAHO - IDIOTS | IDLENESS - ILLEGAL ALIENS | ILLNESS - IMMATURITY | IMMIGRATION & IMMORALITY | IMMORTALITY - IMPOSTORS | IMPRESSIONABLE - INDECISION | INDEPENDENCE - INDIANA | INDIFFERENCE - INDIVIDUALITY | INDOCTRINATION - INFORMATION | INGRATITUDE - INNOVATION | INNUENDO - INSPIRATION | INSULTS - INTEGRITY | INTELLECTUALS - INTENTIONS | INTERESTED(ING) - INTUITION | INVENTIONS - ITALY | IRAQ | ISLAM | JAIL - JOGGING | JOHNSON (LYNDON) - JOY | JOURNALISM | JUDGE (TO) - JUSTICE |
| H | I - J | K - L | M | N - O | P - Q |
| Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The Reviews |
 
     



Copyright © 2012, someworthwhilequotes.com. All rights reserved.