ext_281631 (![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
akilika.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
therightfangirl2012-03-19 07:11 pm
akilika.livejournal.com) wrote in therightfangirl2012-03-19 07:11 pm
NYTimes Columnist Tells it Like It Is...
...that is, exactly why it's not only acceptable, but in fact the only moral thing, to apply different standards to folks you generally agree with and folks you don't.
Two Cheers for Double Standards by Stanley Fish.
Kind of funny. Thought part of the very American principle, the whole "nation of laws, rather than a nation of men" thing, was... well, that the same standards need to apply to all, regardless of who their friends and what their beliefs are.
As a prime example, let's take John Adams' defense of the British soldiers charged with the Boston Massacre. "The law, in all vicissitudes of government, fluctuations of the passions, or flights of enthusiasm, will preserve a steady undeviating course; it will not bend to the uncertain wishes, imaginations, and wanton tempers of men." The Legal Papers of John Adams, No. 64, Rex v Wemms
Law does not care whether a man is "ours" or "theirs." Neither does reason, nor any of the philosophical dictates upon which liberty is, frankly, possible. To openly judge a man's actions based primarily on the dictates of his conscience is anathema to this. To openly accept this--to accept, as the speaker does, "differential and discriminatory treatment on the basis of contested points of view"--is to accept tyranny, just so long as it is tyranny by someone who believes as we do.
Strangely enough, on a side note, it also manages to completely excuse anything that Rush Limbaugh might have said. After all... by this philosophy, his only loyalties and principles must lie with the folks who agree with him, which, as such, neatly excludes Ms. Fluke.
Mr. Fish is not advocating a double-standard. He's advocating the oblivion of any standards whatsoever. And he is advocating this toward people who are not enemies in any real sense of the word at all--merely political opponents.
Is this really the sandbox he wishes to play in? Should the other side acquiesce to the same terms, I doubt he will find it as favorable!
In short... either Mr. Fish is, as they say in the old saying, a "closet aristocrat," or he has neither thought this through very well... or has even the slightest clue about reason and early American history.
I can only pray this philosophy does not have many adherents.
Two Cheers for Double Standards by Stanley Fish.
Kind of funny. Thought part of the very American principle, the whole "nation of laws, rather than a nation of men" thing, was... well, that the same standards need to apply to all, regardless of who their friends and what their beliefs are.
As a prime example, let's take John Adams' defense of the British soldiers charged with the Boston Massacre. "The law, in all vicissitudes of government, fluctuations of the passions, or flights of enthusiasm, will preserve a steady undeviating course; it will not bend to the uncertain wishes, imaginations, and wanton tempers of men." The Legal Papers of John Adams, No. 64, Rex v Wemms
Law does not care whether a man is "ours" or "theirs." Neither does reason, nor any of the philosophical dictates upon which liberty is, frankly, possible. To openly judge a man's actions based primarily on the dictates of his conscience is anathema to this. To openly accept this--to accept, as the speaker does, "differential and discriminatory treatment on the basis of contested points of view"--is to accept tyranny, just so long as it is tyranny by someone who believes as we do.
Strangely enough, on a side note, it also manages to completely excuse anything that Rush Limbaugh might have said. After all... by this philosophy, his only loyalties and principles must lie with the folks who agree with him, which, as such, neatly excludes Ms. Fluke.
Mr. Fish is not advocating a double-standard. He's advocating the oblivion of any standards whatsoever. And he is advocating this toward people who are not enemies in any real sense of the word at all--merely political opponents.
Is this really the sandbox he wishes to play in? Should the other side acquiesce to the same terms, I doubt he will find it as favorable!
In short... either Mr. Fish is, as they say in the old saying, a "closet aristocrat," or he has neither thought this through very well... or has even the slightest clue about reason and early American history.
I can only pray this philosophy does not have many adherents.