[MD] Bill's Intellectual Level

[Arlo J. Bensinger]

[Plattman to Ant]
Scout oath: "On my honor, I will do my best"-- a pledge to one's self. 
On a desert island, the survivor must honor (respect) the environment  that
supports him.

[Jarloker]
Now "honor" is "respect". I thought it was "truth"? I'm still waiting for one
example of someone behaving "honorably" that does not entail a "duty to others
over self". 

[Plattman to Ant]
"Proper" context is a judgment call. After Rigel describes the troubles 
Jim suffered because of his affair with Lila, "'That's really bad,' the  author
said, and looked down at the table."

[Jarloker]
Anyone who read the text can see that he's talking about Jim's friends
abandoning him. The very next words by Phaedrus in the dialogue are...

"Who was to blame?" he said.

"What do you mean?" Richard Rigel asked.

"I mean was it Lila who was to blame for your friend's misfortune or was it his
wife and his so-called friends and his superiors at the bank? Who really did
him in?"

"I don't follow," Richard Rigel said.

"Was it her love or was it their hatred?"

It's rather obvious that the "badness" Phaedrus is referring to is "their
hatred". No where else in the dialogue is there any support to the notion that
he is referring to Jim's actions, but immediately afterwards he speaks as
provided.

[Plattman]
First, Clinton's impeachment wasn't a failure. He was impeached. Second, during
Clinton's reign and subsequently the American public has indeed placed
intellectual values over social ones by electing Republicans. :-)

[Jarloker]
Nay, the American public has placed fear and nightmare over everything else,
giving power to anyone promising to protect them from the dark demons of some
eternally shapeshifting boogeyman. Whether its terrorists under ever stone,
Mexicans swarming over the hills, commie liberals, multiculturalism, or "moral
relativism". It is a pendulum, though. For every swing in one direction, it
takes a swing back. We are simply witnessing a backwards swing, a "return to
Victorianism". As Pirsig says, "The end of the twentieth century in America
seems to be an intellectual, social, and economic rust-belt, a whole society
that has given up on Dynamic improvement and is slowly trying to slip back to
Victorianism, the last static ratchet-latch." Pretty much sums up American
politics.

Y'know, "Was it her love or their hatred?" is a good question. Plattman had
brought up Clinton's infidelity again, and my repsonse was that it was a family
matter, something left to those involved to handle. This is how it should have
been handled no matter who was the involvee. Let the family heal. But "their
hatred" was quite vitriolic, wasn't it. Dragging everyone's shame and
humiliation through the public troughs just to score a political victory. It
was shameful, more so I'd say than the adultery committed. But what's funny is
that not only do those who glorified in humiliating another family NOT feel
shameful, but they feel RIGHTEOUS.

Sounds a lot like Rigel and Jim's so-called "friends", eh?