Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Why do I do it?
At first I thought I must have a masochistic streak a mile wide, for why else would I subscribe to the Daily Telegraph's daily news and sport emails? The fact is that they're one of the few mainstream news providers that still offer a free daily service that covers the stuff I want to read about. Most of their news coverage and pretty much all of the sport stuff is fine, but so many of the opinion pieces have me seeing red within the first paragraph.
So, am I a masochist? Well, much as that would be a powerful justification for reading their stuff and writing about bits of it, I'm afraid it doesn't really cut it. What was really happening, I realise, is something I identified (and wrote about) some time ago that I thought I'd given up.
Once again I'd been doing it because I loved being "right" about things, and that was much easier to do when I picked a fight with an idea that was so palpably "wrong" - in my opinion. Where better to look than the Torygraph for fodder?
So, I give that stuff up - again. I logged on here because I was moved to write an indignant post about this opinion piece from today. There was SO MUCH that had me going, "What?? That's such crap! And that! No-no! You're missing the point! Ooooh - how can you SAY these things? etc. etc."
All that was really going on for me was, "A-ha! I can write something really scathing about this, and I'll be RIGHT. I'll have WON!".
Well, that way lies confrontation, posturing and negativity. The very same mindset, in the extreme, leads to riots and the deaths of many mothers' sons over a few cartoons. And that's not what I'm committed to. Read it if you want, and make up your own mind. I'm just going to notch it up to freedom of speech.
posted by Plig |
11:42 |
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Forget the sentimental notion that foreign policy is a struggle between virtue and vice, with virtue bound to win.
Forget the utopian notion that a brave new world without power politics will follow the unconditional surrender of wicked nations.
Forget the crusading notion that any nation, however virtuous and powerful, can have the mission to make the world in its own image.
Remember that diplomacy without power is feeble, and power without diplomacy is destructive and blind.
Remember that no nation's power is without limits, and hence that its policies must respect the power and interests of others.
Hans Morgenthau
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts
Bertrand Russell
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one
Albert Einstein
When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative
Martin Luther King Jr.
Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man
Bertrand Russell
I think it would be a good idea
Mahatma Gandhi, when asked what he thought of Western civilization
There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun
Pablo Picasso
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others
Groucho Marx
Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it
Mahatma Gandhi
Always make new mistakes
Esther Dyson
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