| | Adam,
First of all I want to iterate that I'm definitely not a stranger to the "politics of executive summarization." With a background in nutrition, which is one of the Big Three "visceral-reaction" topics (nutrition, politics, religion) - I have "felt the sting" of political pull and "position statement" reorganization (by fiat), and more than just a time or two!
To be clear, your request calls for honest and direct insight, so that is my attempt here (I have not made any special attempt to be polite or courteous to you).
For a comprehensive understanding, here are all the major points of difference (noted as "Reed" or "TOC") with my explanatory impressions tacked on (noted as "Ed").
Edit #1 Reed: "Peter McWilliams was murdered, by choking on his own vomit"
TOC: "Peter McWilliams died by choking on his own vomit"
Ed: Adam, using the word "murdered" implies direct positive action (your use doesn't meet current legal standards of evidence, for example) - Peter's death was merely an unavoidable consequence of other actions which - on the whole - will necessarily do more harm than good.
Don't get me wrong Adam, I do personally believe that feds are the culprits in Peter's untimely death. But this is because of implicitly adopting a "Policy of Death" or a death-as-the-standard policy to continue to fraud the public out of either money, power, or both. They didn't actively "murder" him, and precisely because they could care less over whether he lives or dies.
Also, the word "murdered" implies that a single culpable individual was the entire problem - and therefore, that the simple elimination of said individual will fix the problem (leading to the erroneous and counterproductive "scapegoat" effect). To see whether the mere elimination (or addition!) of any one individual can ever fix any problem in a huge power system that is fundamentally wrong in principle, see my quote on the administration of gov't.
In short, reading your words as they were written would lead a semi-reasonable public to consider a witch-hunt for an individual to burn (a mere pseudo-solution to the real problem - to the real issue).
Edit #2 Reed: "when his government took away the marijuana"
TOC: "because the government took away the marijuana"
Ed: Again, using "when" creates a temporal association in the minds of readers as if this one overt act (which, by implication, has a single culprit behind it) can be remedied by a simple erroneous witch-hunt, rather than a mass reform or - and only as a final resort - outright revolution.
Edit #3 Reed: "The same government has already taken steps to kill millions of other sick people, by withholding life-saving therapies that Americans could be inventing right now"
TOC: "The same government has already taken steps that could cause millions of other sick people to suffer and die needlessly by preventing innovative Americans from using their minds to develop life-saving therapies."
Ed: Adam, I do agree with your general position on this matter, but realize what you are, in actual fact, particularly stating here (and not merely "implying") when you use the words "has already taken steps to kill millions of other sick people."
You have now committed yourself to defending the position that the feds are no different from Hitler or Stalin - ie. guilty of mass, overt genocide of their own people.
A more defensible view would be that the feds are currently only about half or two-thirds as evil and destructive as a Hitler or a Stalin (which is still 100% unacceptable!).
What you've done with your wording of the issue is to elevate the logically consequent, necessary reaction from the feasible reform of something unacceptable (which sheds little blood - literally), up to an issue so vile and inhumane that it calls for nothing less than a nationwide revolution against something intolerable (which, by the way, has never occurred before without human bloodshed).
Now ask yourself honestly - am I being an irritating mere appeaser in this matter (so that my views can be rejected outright)?
Do appeasers EVER admit (like I did) that a "defended" party is - in actual fact - at least somehow responsible for the atrocity in question?
Do appeasers EVER negatively evaluate a "defended" party, judging the party as something that is potentially more than half as bad as a Hitler or Stalin?
My honest prediction on this Adam, is that - while your individual "right" to independent expression on this matter has been literally stripped from you like the very skin off of your bones - the underlying cause that you do stand for here was best served by the changes made.
Adam, please take me to task if you still feel that my argument is fundamentally infected with an appeal to appeasement (I want to know when I'm missing the mark - so that I can recalibrate the scope on my philosophical crossbow).
Ed
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