Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.

On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 1:13 PM, Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...> wrote:
> With the risk of crossing the no-cross-no-crown line,
> is this really a right/left issue in the US?
Well, in the linked article, Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld were in
disagreement on such a point, and they're both pretty far to the
right.  So it's not strictly so.

Of course, really, none of the political issues in this country fall
neatly into left and right categories; even the two major parties, for
all the Democrat=Left and Republican=Right equivalences, aren't
strictly synonymous with the traditional liberal and conservative
interpretations of those directions. And even the most partisan of
folks tend to have at least a couple individual opinions that don't
match the party line.

But, all that said, there are some strong tendencies at the
statistical level.  On the left, you have the drive toward
multiculturalism, embracing diversity, etc.; on the right, you have
the backlash against political correctness and the perceived
denigration of traditional American/European culture.  Absent other
influences, those particular forces tend to lead to native
pronunciations on the left and Anglicized on the right.

So even though it's not so simple, yes, it is to some extent a left/right issue.



--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>