About
Content
Store
Forum

Rebirth of Reason
War
People
Archives
Objectivism

Post to this threadMark all messages in this thread as readMark all messages in this thread as unreadPage 0Page 1Forward one pageLast Page


Post 0

Friday, May 28, 2004 - 8:56pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Well, they are certainly major textual changes. The major change in the thrust of your argument has come about by the insertion of the two words "could cause." That sort of weasel-worded nay-saying is one beloved of environmental luddites, who claim all manner of disasters 'may,' might,' or 'could' come about due to man's meddling - they are the word's of either scientific illiterates, or of appeasers. In general most intelligent readers come to ignore claims preceded by that sort of weasel-wordedness

If one is certain of what one says, one does not say this 'could cause' that. Victor Hugo did not have his character put down his book, look out at the architecture of Notre Dame and say 'Gee, this could kill that. Maybe.' He said  'This WILL kill that.' {Emphasis mine.] Where you had made the bold  statement that banning stem cell research will 'kill millions ... by withholding life-saving therapies' you were absolutely right, and absolutely justified. It's outrageous, and you said so.

The editorial change suggests that the statement is just your opinion; it may not happen; it's only hyperbole anyway so don't, please, take me seriously. It's a statement of weak-kneed appeasement.

How could you have avoided the editor's rewrite? I don't think you could have. Weak-kneed appeasement seems to be TOC policy, doesn't it? :-)


Sanction: 1, No Sanction: 0
Post 1

Saturday, May 29, 2004 - 8:56pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
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


Post 2

Saturday, May 29, 2004 - 9:21pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
I think that the original paragraph was fine.  I liked it a lot.

The TOC's edit seemed to insert sentiments that I don't think you even intended.  Of particular concern for me was the way that they said that the government and its officials were not "thinking people". 

I beg to differ on this.  It is possible for philosophically evil people to exist, and for them to form sinister plans that enslave members of the population who are "noncompliant" with their grand exploitation schemes.  To say that such people do not think is incorrect.  They just think differently, and come to different conclusions. 

In the case of your paragraph, I think that maybe what I've just expressed is more in line with the originally spirit of what you were saying, and that maybe that's why you didn't "specify" that they weren't "thinking" people, because you did not yourself detect an absence of thought, but rather, decent thought.  And so you didn't say what the TOC editor felt was the case, and judged important to insert.

In that way, I think that the TOC's edit actually weakened your paragraph.


Post 3

Saturday, May 29, 2004 - 11:09pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Orion,

That was an excellent identification/integration regarding "thinking people." As you may have expected from the tone of MY post - I disagree on the weakening aspect of the edit.

The illustrative reasoning I use to support this position stems from the old proverb of using a sledgehammer to swat a flea. In faulty theory (good theories - by corresponding to reality - always work), the sledgehammer should do the trick, but in reality, it's too cumbersome to be a good tool for the task.

Let me ask you this in a serious tone: Were Adam's original words the better tool for the task?

If Adam's ultimate value was unfettered self-expression, then we immediately have the answer (Adam, please comment). If a blend of proper "pride" plus "utility" were aimed at, then we're less clear in a standard for our judgment of it.

I was operating (judging) on the assumption that THE SOLE PURPOSE of the essay was to get something done about policies or government departments that have no objective legitimacy in reality. And I'd like to see your reasoning why Adam's original words would be better tools for THIS purpose (assuming that you were making the same assumption that I had assumed - without making an A$$ out of U and ME!).

Ed
(Edited by Ed Thompson on 5/29, 11:20pm)


Post 4

Sunday, May 30, 2004 - 12:42amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Ed,

I want to thank you for giving me the beginning of exactly the kind of feedback I've been hoping for. For one thing, you have given me good insight into what is likely to have motivated the re-write. For another, it is now much clearer to me exactly what I failed to convey not only to eventual readers of the Op-Ed, but even to TOC's editors.

It so happens that in New York State, where TOC is located, "direct positive action" is not required for first-degree murder. Under the law of New York, and other North American jurisdictions, "depraved indifference" is as good as deliberate premeditation. One person convicted under the law a couple of years back, was a cheating wife whose husband suffered a heart attack, and she failed to bring him his nitroglycerine tablets when he could not move, failed to call for aid etc. If what was done to McWilliams had been done by a conspiracy of private individuals, every one of them would have earned life imprisonment for first-degree murder by depraved indifference. I think that I made the error of assuming that this was obvious to prospective readers, and to TOC's editor. I should have made the point clearer - perhaps by using the term "depraved indifference" in the paragraph, or even an explicit comparison to the private murder case.

Similarly, in the next case, I don't think that Bush and his cohorts are ignorant of the fact that millions of people will die, because treatments that could have saved their lives are not being developped under the ban on research with embryonic stem cells. This is a government which considers obedience to its religion more important than the human lives that are sacrificed to its policy. Similarly, Lenin could not fail to know that the elimination of trade in grain in Ukraine and Russia would kill millions of people by famine - but considered their deaths a worthwhile price for enforcing obedience to the Marxist ethos. Again, I ought to have put some effort into making the analogy clearer to the reader.

What we see happening right now is that America is being marched toward a totalitarian theocratic regime - and the events in Iraq, deliberately or not, are serving mostly as a distraction from the fact that mass murder is already being carried out, a known but deliberately hidden consequence of Bush's theocratic policy, just as famine was a known but deliberately hidden consequence of Lenin's Marxist policy. The challenge I need help with, is how to break through that distraction.

So, as an experienced communicator, how would you go about it?


Sanction: 3, No Sanction: 0
Sanction: 3, No Sanction: 0
Post 5

Sunday, May 30, 2004 - 6:50amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Adam, Ed,

Just two comments:

FIRST:

Any editor who ends up with a paragraph longer than the one he's editing ought to be shot.

I particularly enjoyed this stupid addition:

Yours: "The same government ... withholding life-saving therapies that Americans could be inventing right now ...."

Theirs: "The same government ... preventing innovative Americans from using their minds to develop life-saving therapies."

Essentially they replaced your word "inventing" with the words "innovative ... using their minds to develop." [At least they could have replaced "using their minds to develop" with "developing." What else would inventors use, besides their minds? Developing, "life-saving therapies," is not exactly like developing a rash.]

SECOND:

I think Ed's comments would apply if  you were writing a school paper or court brief. I cannot imagine H.L. Mencken saying "The same government has already taken steps that could cause millions of other sick people to suffer and die needlessly ...." when he could say, "The same government has already taken steps to kill millions of other sick people ...."

It depends on what your object is. If you want people to like you, and don't mind if they go to sleep while they're reading you, use Ed's style; if you want people to get the message, whether they like you or not, use your style.

One final comment. (I lied. So sue me.)

I  agree with your basic message (get the government out of the drug business), but I do not agree with any argument based on a potential ("could be inventing right now.") That is the same kind of argument the government uses for all its paternalistic protectionism, (it "could save lives"), and the reason there is an FDE, DEA, WOD, and other government EIEIOs.

(Just out of curiosity. Why would you want anything with your name on it published by the TOC? Don't let them turn your hard-hitting writing into the same insipid pap they like to serve up.)

Regi


 



Post 6

Sunday, May 30, 2004 - 8:58amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Reginald,

"Why would you want anything with your name on it published by the TOC?" Because I needed a learning exercise - and I am already learning enough from Ed and you to have made this exercise worth the while for me. Rand and Mencken have already taught me a lot, but the world, newspapers, and newspaper audiences have changed a great deal since their time.

Your point about brevity is very useful. I think that a real newspaper, quite unlike TOC, will not waste space with edits that unnecessarily lengthen the Op-Ed - every word that is not a paid advertisement costs money to print, and they will want that money economically spent. But as Ed points out, anyone will edit if they think that the original language will go over the readers' heads. I need to make the message both brief and obvious.

I hope to hear more from the rest of the people here. Linz is a successful journalist, so he will have useful comments when he comments (wake up, Linz!) I won't consider that I have learned enough about op-ed writing, until I've gotten one into the New York Times.

Post 7

Sunday, May 30, 2004 - 6:08pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Adam,
_________

Similarly, in the next case, I don't think that Bush and his cohorts are ignorant of the fact that millions of people will die, because treatments that could have saved their lives are not being developped under the ban on research with embryonic stem cells. This is a government which considers obedience to its religion more important than the human lives that are sacrificed to its policy.
_________


Adam, you are absolutely correct in your observation of faulty priorities (the Bush brigade has evident priorities that are not rationally justifiable). Also, a correspondence to the reality of the situation - the truth of your view - can be demonstrated beyond doubt.

_________

So, as an experienced communicator, how would you go about it?
_________


Well, I think that (for starters, anyway), if you were to model your argument layout more like an episode of Perry Mason, then it would be awful hard to ignore. Straussian neocons just have their priorities all screwed up. Indeed, imagine one of their pundit philosophers "signing" my discussion treaty and attempting real rational justification in full view of the public! We (you) would chew them up and spit them out like day-old chewing gum that has lost its flavor! Their policies couldn't survive the critical scrutiny that we (you) could summon. But the real solution will be found by somehow elevating public scrutiny to this critical level. How to do THAT is the $64,000 question. My discussion treaty essay was meant as a "backbone" for folks like us to add the "meat" of critical scrutiny with regard to any and every issue of contention in relating to reality and each other. If you find any part of that essay useful, then utilize it.

Another possibility is a mock dialogue - dialectic reasoning - between key players (using subtle name changes to prevent impending lawsuits), much like Plato did. I have always found a third-person observation of ongoing debate to be about as enlightening a method as is humanly possible.

I applaud you for both your moral discontent and your subsequent, purposeful actions in this matter, Adam.

Ed

Post 8

Sunday, May 30, 2004 - 6:34pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Hi Adam, Ed,

You said: "Why would you want anything with your name on it published by the TOC?" Because I needed a learning exercise .... 

Of course, I was just pulling your chain. Besides, you don't need to explain to me why you do anything. You're too kind. If I were you, I would have to me to mind my own business.

I am already learning enough from Ed and you ...
 
Good grief! Look what you've done now. I have just concluded a juicy debate with Ed demolishing his conviction that it was possible to teach people, and then, in the same sentence, separated by only one word, you credit Ed and me both with providing you learning. (I sure hope you were only being polite to me. I won't mind at all if you tell Ed you really didn't learn anything from me.) 

Rand and Mencken have already taught me a lot, but the world, newspapers, and newspaper audiences have changed a great deal since their time.
 
Very true! And certainly not for the better.

Adam, I wish you great success. Personally I like your style. I do not like that kind of writing that appears to be written by a machine, a zombie, or some other creature without feeling. I am very suspicious of anyone who's convictions are not accompanied by feelings, and if they are, genuinely, they cannot be hidden.

Regi


Post 9

Monday, May 31, 2004 - 3:31amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Adam wrote: "I hope to hear more from the rest of the people here. Linz is a successful journalist, so he will have useful comments when he comments (wake up, Linz!) I won't consider that I have learned enough about op-ed writing, until I've gotten one into the New York Times."

Adam, TOC should be shot at dawn for those changes. Was it Donway? I suspect so. TOC's approach to polemics is to render it bloodless, on principle. TOC has no notion of the concept of what I call "rhetorical license," which gives one permission to go beyond what is literally true & state the logical truth that may legitimately be inferred from it - for instance, your depiction of the forcible denial of this fellow of his marijuana as "murder."

I'm not clear as to whether you accepted these changes, but I would have told them to stuff their passionless pedantry up their retentive anuses (as indeed I once did). An op-ed piece worthy of the name should pack a huge wallop - intellectually & emotionally. It should excite the mind AND the emotions. It should galvanise its readers into wanting to DO something, as a matter of urgency. Your writing does that. Do not let those handwringing weasel-worded wishy-washies at TOC sanitise your writing of its best attributes!

Linz
(Edited by Lindsay Perigo on 5/31, 4:25am)


Post 10

Monday, May 31, 2004 - 6:59pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Thanks Linz!

Donway was not my primary contact, but who knows who at TOC had a hand in the re-write. I did let them publish it their way, because it was topical and the window of opportunity was running out. And I am grateful to you for pointing what I ought to have insisted on keeping intact. Have you considered using your journalistic contacts to set up a SOLO Op-Ed distribution in competition with TOC and ARI?
(Edited by Adam Reed on 5/31, 7:01pm)


Post 11

Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - 9:08amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Well, now that's just great. Don't I feel like the damn appeaser-compromiser of the bunch. Apparently, I'm the only one with issues regarding Adam's wording.

Well, before I take refuge under a rock somewhere, let's not forget what a French wise man once said:

We always weaken whatever we exaggerate.

Integrating this wisdom, one may identify the counter-intuitive insight that the cause Adam's fighting for may be better serve by exaggeration of the contradiction! In other words, stating that gov't policies have NEVER led to untimely deaths may have MORE of an effect on the public as they spot the obvious contradiction and lose their complacence!

Adam, even if you don't use the rhetorical ploy above (exaggeration of the contradiction), I suggest that you still work to get some hard numbers (rather than relying on a single popular case report) to add weight to your words. For instance, you may want to include the hundreds or thousands of babies born dead or deformed because of FDA lollygagging over the known necessity of prenatal folic acid (obviously a case of pull-peddling). Or you may want to included the hundreds OF thousands (a strong case can be made for "millions") who have died because of FDA censorship regarding the cardio-protective effects of small-dose aspirin and fish fats (this last claim was allowed only after the FDA was sued over it!).

Ed
(the real or imagined "appeasing compromiser")

Post 12

Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - 2:44pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Ed: “Don't I feel like the damn appeaser-compromiser of the bunch. Apparently, I'm the only one with issues regarding Adam's wording.”

You’re not the only one with issues, Ed. I used to edit a magazine. Never in my wildest dreams would I accept the paragraph in question, regardless of the underlying issue. Apart from the possible libelous aspects, the accusation of murder is extremely serious, and as you point out, requires a conscious intent.

There’s also the matter of style. “American writer Peter McWilliams was murdered, by choking on his own vomit…” is simply incoherent, as if he murdered himself. That stylistic glitch is a clue that there’s a problem with the thought the writer is trying to express.

But the most serious aspect of that paragraph is the debasement of the language. If we accuse the government of murder in this case, what words could we use to express our outrage if the government actually did commit murder? The rhetorical volume has already been taken to its highest pitch on this lesser charge, and there’s nowhere else to go.

Brendan


Post 13

Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - 4:27pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Whew!  Thank Rand - someone spoke up! 

So, I DO have an intellectual associate on this matter!  Thanks for chiming in Brendan.

Now we can form a "schism" or something.  Or perhaps, we could just stick with plain ole' rational-debate-aimed-at-progress-in-understanding?  I don't know ... whichever seems best: (mud-slinging, hurtful schism) vs. (mutual enlightenment) ... it's seems to be quite a toss-up to me.   But whatever the course taken here, the world must now know - I am no longer alone in my opinions on this matter.  Actually, I was never alone (something which could have been reliably predicted/preconceived by the application of reason to reality - in response to the original wording - in the context of the goal of changing the public opinion).

Ed


Post 14

Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - 7:03pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Ed: “So, I DO have an intellectual associate on this matter!  Thanks for chiming in Brendan.”

I thought Adam’s paragraph was off-the-wall the first time I read it, but since you made such a good job of critiquing it in your first post, I let it go. It just goes to show that silence in cyber-space doesn’t necessarily mean your message hasn’t been heard.

As for mutual enlightenment – sounds very worthy, but sort of …nice and wet liberal. Schisms and mud-slinging sound a lot more bracing, and surely more in tune with Galt’s ringing affirmation?

Brendan


Post 15

Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - 8:26pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Brendan,

Thank you for your inciting, galvanizing words. If 'tis schizm they ask for, then 'tis schizm they'll get. I quote a great, but unknown-to-the-world, author:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to [Schizm] with another ... and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature ... entitle them, a decent respect to mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation:

To the posters above - and with the sole exception of the man called Brendan - I hereby disagree with thee.

Ed

Post 16

Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - 2:39amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Adam,

I don't have a problem with you using strong language, including the word "murdered".  The only concern I would have had is that your paragraph implied that the government was trying to kill the people, and not just that they were killing them.  I think that would have been the part that stuck out for a reader, and they would have probably thought you were paranoid or something.  Of course, if you really wanted to make that point, I'd say go ahead, but back up that particular part.  That the government is responsible for the death of an innocent man is not a question in my book.  That they wanted him to die is something else entirely.

I think the TOC draft was really wishy-washy, trying not to offend anyone by making too strong of a statement.  They couldn't even insult politicians right.  "Thinking is not the way of most politicians".  Most?!?!? 

And they say "The same government has already taken steps that could cause millions of other sick people to suffer and die needlessly".  Why "could cause"?  And why the term "needlessly"?  It's like they want to say something, but they want to sneak it in without too much conviction or people will think they're crackpots.  You used the the phrase "taken steps to kill millions..." which implies an intent to kill.  So I can see why they'd want to modify it.

Frankly, I'm surprised they wanted to run your piece even modified.  Their style is to present a calm, cool, intellectual position.  They want to be taken seriously.  And that means, no passion!  No bold or controversial statements!  And that's what yours was.


Post 17

Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - 1:20pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Joe: “I don't have a problem with you using strong language, including the word "murdered"…That the government is responsible for the death of an innocent man is not a question in my book. That they wanted him to die is something else entirely.”

Joe, your distinction between responsibility and intent is exactly right, which is why the use of the word “murder” to describe the government’s denial of cannabis to this man is inappropriate.

Murder implies intent to kill. In the absence of that intention, the act is not murder. So on the one hand you’re saying it’s OK for Adam to use the word, on the other you’re saying it’s not OK. I don’t think he’s going to find that advice very helpful.

Brendan


Post 18

Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - 2:33pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Adam, as a professional copy editor I have general comments on what was done, though I lack time to analyze the changes in particular.

They have not done an edit on the passage, but a rewrite. I would have thought you would at the very least be queried on these changes. Such work as they have done on your paragraph could easily alter the meaning.

Since you might very well disagree with the implications inserted under your name, they are in effect using you as a mere microphone.

I don't necessarily fault TOC, and perhaps the editor was pressed for time. Still, it's wrong--especially because this is not a mere letter-to-the-editor. All it would have taken was an email or phone call.


Post 19

Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - 4:30pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Brendan, you win the award for the biggest context-dropper.  Or maybe your attention span was only two sentences long.

Post to this threadPage 0Page 1Forward one pageLast Page


User ID Password or create a free account.