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Disappointing, Quixotic response

Posted by: Simon Palbera ( none, UK ) on February 19, 1997 at 19:17:45:

In Reply to: Re: Exodus 20:15 posted by Ashley Lavelle on February 15, 1997 at 09:35:08:

Ashley, I am not peddling politics. Perish the thought. Before you reach for your keyboard to reply, crying out your opinions like George Orwell's 'Squealer', let me clarify the point. I am simply peddling morality - good old-fashioned, stood-the-test-of-time morality. Stealing is wrong. Supporting a theft such as this, that for all we know was totally motiveless, is muddle-headed. Your professed support for the 'underdog' in this case is very noble - but can best be described as Quixotic.

Paragraph three of your posting has done little to illuminate me. Have you got your formers and latters mixed up, or are you saying that the theft was a political act? I have pored over your words for a while, but need a tad of advice on this point.

To move on, I am even more bemused by your refusal to comment on where I get my morals from. Your tone in the last few postings has been as if my moral code had been given to me free when I joined the Conservative Party. Whatever the media and everyone else tells me, I can still make up my own mind on an issue - I don't need someone to tell me not to believe everything, still less to lecture me on my morals. Your contempt for religion is disappointing. Show me a civilisation that has not proscribed theft and I will be very surprised. Yes, you and I both know a quote by Marx about religion, but to dismiss the roots of my remonstrations as 'groundless' shows a very sad paucity of spirit on your part, although a marvellous knack for an alliterative phrase. By this you are saying that anyone who has morals that tell them stealing is wrong, is not worth commenting on. 'Oh brave new world, that has such people in it' as another better hand than mine wrote.

Come on Ashley, wake up and smell the coffee. Tell me (tell the world! Comrades, come rally!) in easy-to-understand terms, just why you feel that you have the monopoly on righteousness here, and why you are so intent on giving your full and unqualified support to the hero (I assume?) of this story. Once you've successfully negotiated your way through that, tell me what your new world order is going to do about theft.

I'm interested in all of this, because you are coming across as 'clever-but-naive', which I do not think necessarily beats 'older-and-cynical'. You are by no means the first person to invite me to help to change the world, but so far you have been one of the least convincing.



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