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No. I started out by making a case about a comfort. I mentioned private room and satellite TV, I could have mentioned ivory bathrooms, and you would have been outraged and accused me of ideological bias :)
The point was about striking the right balance between decency and comfort.

The first quotation of me is about human rights, if you pay attention. You didn't challenge me on the decency part; you made it a matter of human rights, and I pointed out that turning everything in life a matter of human rights will lead no where; this is just a way for you the Revolutionary to make sure you'll always be able to claim the Establishment (led by those fatcats, no doubt) despises human rights .

This is how you twist one tiny word in a phrase and then make a huge case about it - and why I called you a vicious debater. I don't have time to correct each of your tiny errors of logic, let alone that I suspect them to be intentional, given the general revolutionary tone you chose to use.

Finally, the word "utilitarian" has two meanings (as you might well know; so I won't give any links - there). One is about caring about the usefulness rather than the pretty packaging. The other is related to the doctrine of utilitarianism. I used the term in its first signification, and while I might have put this clearly, it was you who deliberately picked the second one, in order to be able to send a arrow about my supposed need of "education". The doctrine goes much farther than the everyday life term of utilitarian.

Compromise can be pragmatic, as well as un-pragmatic, when the two parties involved strike a deal according to the balance of power between them and other factors but the best way for the given situation.
Real-politik can be pragmatic, but can also be cynical. Rational pragmatism implies in my view a good dose of humanism and especially intellectual honesty - something you seem in utter want of.

Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)

by ValentinD (walentijn arobase free spot frança) on Sat Dec 6th, 2008 at 08:38:14 PM EST
[ Parent ]
"The point was about striking the right balance between decency and comfort."

I meant balance between decent conditions,
and the degree of comfort fitting their condition of prisoners - people paying their debt to the society for a wrong done (and not just "removed from society").

Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)

by ValentinD (walentijn arobase free spot frança) on Sat Dec 6th, 2008 at 08:43:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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