roundtable: Re: OP-ED ON TV - PUBLIC

roundtable: Re: OP-ED ON TV / PUBLIC

Re: OP-ED ON TV / PUBLIC

Vigdor Schreibman - FINS (fins@access.digex.net)
Mon, 9 Jan 1995 11:40:42 -0500 (EST) 

Date: Mon, 9 Jan 1995 11:40:42 -0500 (EST)
From: Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fins@access.digex.net>
To: roundtable@cni.org
Subject: Re: OP-ED ON TV / PUBLIC
In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.89.9501061756.A5110-0100000@bluejay.creighton.edu>
Message-Id: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950109112313.27124B-100000@access2.digex.net>


On Sat, 7 Jan 1995, Conal L Hession wrote:
>
> ....
> The idea that somehow either the "left" or the "right" (or any fringe or 
> centrist position) is any more or less legitimate or true is laughable.  
> Both lose claims to legitimacy when they stray from public opinion. 
> None have ever stated an exclusive claim on the "truth." (Whatever that 
> may be.)
> 
> Whew, I've been saving that up for too long! 


  Now that you have unloaded your frustrations on all of us, a exercise 
fully compelled by existing conditions, it appears that you conclude 
with an appeal for legitimacy based on getting at the beliefs of the 
people.  That's the essence of the democratic mission that the existing 
party system--both left and right--seek to evade in favor of the old 
self-interest.

  So long as individual self-interest is the dominant ethic, one hardly 
needs an advanced degree to see that raw power will rule, despite all our 
priorities to the contrary.  The antidote to this plague on our existence
is institutional forms that support the paramount social priorities that 
the people desire to advance.  In the field of electronic information and 
communications systems, this means support for institutions such as the 
National Research and Education Network (NREN) Program, which is one of 
the most significant success stories in the history of civilization.  In 
the field of environmental protection it also means support for the 
vision of sustainable development, and related principles, which the 
President's Commission is now fprmulating.

  If people don't want to support any set of social priorities but desire
to live by the ethic of "the survival of the fitest," it appears to me, 
we have not even advanced in moral terms to the degree of the animal 
kingdom.  The choice is quite simple: do we work to establish viable 
priorities that advance the public good or live in a perpetual state of 
war?

  Vigdor Schreibman
  <fins@access.digex.net>

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