Re: CHAT: totalitarianism [was Re: Sexual terminology]

Quoting John Cowan <jcowan@...>:

> Thomas R. Wier wrote:
>
> > When I was last in the public school system some five years ago
> > in Texas, we were required to stand and say the pledge of allegiance
> > every week or two, though in elementary school every day.
>
> Note that this "requirement" has no force in law, being (as the
> Supreme Court has decided) clearly violative of the First Amendment
> prohibition on compelled speech.
Note that you have only proven that states can become less
compelling, not that there is a fundamental distinction between
one type of government or another.  Surely you would not claim
that when the United States *did* enforce this requirement
that the United States was not at the same time some kind of
liberal democracy, would you? There is no such thing as an
ideal form of liberalism; there are only individual states of
liberalism from which rather arbitrarily create an ideal.

=====================================================================
Thomas Wier <trwier@...> <http://home.uchicago.edu/~trwier>

             "...koruphàs hetéras hetére:isi prosápto:n /
Dept. of Linguistics  mú:tho:n mè: teléein atrapòn mían..."
University of Chicago "To join together diverse peaks of thought /
1010 E. 59th Street   and not complete one road that has no turn"
Chicago, IL 60637     Empedocles, _On Nature_, on speculative thinkers

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