Reply #19: I wish I had more time this weekend to "talk".

[bigmonkey]

My basic thought is I think you need to stop giving up, and you don't realize how much your presentation contributes to other people giving up as well.

I'd like to explore, among other things, your position that "you cannot help but believe" that slavery is a natural development from our current situation. Perhaps you feel also that it would be natural for Bush to declare himself emperor, or women to return to chattel status? Perhaps you are currently positioning yourself to have a good position with one of the new slavemasters?

Probably you find that more than a little harsh. Don't you think it's possible that your attitude actually is an instance of the kind of inertia you seem to feel is a dismal discovery you've made, or reasoned, about society in general? All of your obvious education expresses itself in helplessness before the burden of the current conceptions of the past, and cheery defeatism?

I don't believe that you actually, thoroughgoingly believe this stuff. Try taking your human side and using the education to arm it, instead of letting a professional attitude drown your heart. Useful as they are, giving primacy to abstract arguments about the patterns of society are for the Bloody Bill Kristols of the world. Arguing that the regress of human society is natural fosters defeat.