From: hallam@Etna.ai.mit.edu
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 16:45:23 +0800
To: Duncan Frissell <cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Responding to Pre-dawn Unannounced Ninja Raids
In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19960723033257.008af3cc@panix.com>
Message-ID: <9607230402.AA01393@Etna.ai.mit.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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>>Genuine philosophers have made such sacrifices. Russell gave away his 
>>inheritance after completing Principia because he objected to the idea
>>of inherited wealth. 

>And spent his life arguing for a social system which executes those who do
>not work all their lives for the State or attempt to escape it.

Russell was a very eloquent opponent of the death penalty and in
any case it was never in particularly widespread use in the UK
during his lifetime. It is somewhat pointless to argue that his later 
opposition  to nuclear weapons was motivated by affinity for the 
Soviet Union Russell was a convinced Pacifist before the Soviet 
Union came into existence, going to jail because of his beliefs. 

I don't know quite why you seem to have picked up the idea that he
was some kind of Stalin appologist, he wasn't even a Marxist. Russell
was far too intelligent to be taken in by the communists, he didn't
waste many words on them but those he did were generally 
uncomplimentary. He was very contemptuous of Wittgenstein's 
brief attempt to become a Soviet pessant.

Its an odd kind of world view you have in which anyone who does
not agree with your views must be a communist sympathiser. Its
not even the case that the left were uniformly sympathetic to
communism as the example of George Orwell makes very clear. The
vocabulary of the cold war was established by a socialist
propagandist on the basis of a speech by a socialist Prime 
Minister. Churchill made the original "iron curtain" remark, but 
it was after Atlee's speech to the UN which left the USSR unable
to reply and thus established the basis of engagement. 


If you are going to make ad-hominem attacks you should at least
try to get them on target. 


		Phill