Flame — HabitableZone

Flame » in reply to you must be kidding??

No, seriously
Robert — (archived)

Daniel, take what I wrote literally, and don't expand it. There's a disconnect between what people are dissing Lee about, and what Lee is stating about his beliefs. He may actually be some kind of monster, but then your calling him a monster is only coincidentally correct. I see people charging in to battle against a straw man. If you're going to attack Lee's beliefs, you should try to aim at the target.

I think it's factually correct to say that Lee is not a NeoNazi; he sympathizes with historical Nazis, but he's not a member of the present-day NeoNazi movement. This thread's gotten too big to go find examples again, but he seems to look upon the Neos with scorn, as dinosaurs marching in a bygone era. And he refers to a "movement" to which he belongs and which is clearly not the NeoNazis--by implication it's a successor. You should find out more about that movment and attack it if you think it's as bad or worse than the Neos. But what good does it do to diss Lee about a movement of which he's not a member?

Pursuing the genetics thread, I could see that people had put Lee's statements of sympathy with the Nazis together with his interest in genetics, and jumped to the B sci-fi movie conclusion that he dreams of building an Aryan Superman. That's a juicy little soundbite, but apparently not correct. I'm a dilettante who likes to read about biology and genetics and evolution, and I think I have barely enough background to see that he's serious about what he said to me about his actual goals. And here's something to ponder: If Lee's goal really was to build an Aryan Superman, he'd have been doomed to failure, so there was nothing to worry about (and he'd have made a lousy genetic engineer). But his actual stated goal is probably feasible within his lifetime. Isn't it smarter to examine his real goal than to waste time and energy fretting about an impossible goal?

I'm not trying to rob you of the satisfaction of expressing our general contempt for Nazism. I'm just pointing out that it's a small satisfaction to beat up on a misconception. If the reality of Lee turns out to be just as bad as the illusion, then at least you'll have the genuine satisfaction of going after something real. But if the reality isn't as monstrous as it's been built up to be, then fairness demands that we acknowledge that mistake.

The Zone's become enshrouded in fog over the last year or so, spending its days battling partisan straw men and lobbing rhetorical insults back and forth. There's little of substance any more. I'm looking to cut through some of that fog and find something real to debate. Beating up on Lee is a tired old rut. Let's move on to something worthier.

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