Toby Bartels wrote:
Jonathan Walther (Clutch, right?) wrote to Lir:
You claim to be
from Iowa; speaking ill of your country, in the way that you do, is
treason.
No, it's not. Maybe in Canada it is, which is why I'm still proud to be an American, despite the ever shrinking reasons for such pride. But ill speech of anybody and anything is still protected here to a greater extent than anywhere else, thank goodness.
No, not in Canada either. We don't regard our politicians as seriously you do yours. An aide to the prime minister to-day made a casual remark that George W. Bush was a moron. The politicians are aghast, but the public is giggling.
Speaking ill of one's country could be sedition rather than treason ... if it's anything at all. Patriotism masks too many evils.
I finally subscribed to the en-list and spent the rest of the day catching up on the archives. Larry's definition of fact seems way off base. If we strictly follow his definition of fact than it is fact to say that Saddam Hussein is a popular president.
Fact is what is or what was, independently of what anybody sees to be fact. NPOV is a great ideal, if only the people trying to apply it knew what it means. From our frail human perspective, it can only be approximated.
Eclecticology