Comments on: What would de Tocqueville think ?

By: Decnavda

Decnavda — Tue, 01 Jun 2004 17:53:39 +0000

I posed the above question because de Tocqueville’s observations have usually seemed conservative to me and Paine is a figure, who, like many enlightment thinkers, has been appropriated in all sincerity by right libertarians whose ecconomic views are at odds with many of the individuals whom they have appropriated. But, okay, I get it. My conscience is now clear.

By: rea

rea — Tue, 01 Jun 2004 12:41:12 +0000

“Can anyone clear my concious as to why it’s okay for progressives to take Tom Paine’s name for their cause, but not for conservatives to take Alex de Tocqueville’s name for theirs?” Perhaps because Tom Paine was a progressive, while de Tocqueville was not a conservative?

By: Peter Murphy

Peter Murphy — Tue, 01 Jun 2004 05:07:24 +0000

Decnavda, Calling the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution “conservative” sounds like an insult to conservatives. Think of corporate shilling as just the flip side of the many “_______ for Peace” organizations that turned out to be front groups for the USSR. (Although as the good profesor said, naming them after uncontroversial figures like AdT is particularly outrageous.) I can’t even see how you can think of the Institution as “conservative”. It’s attacking open source, for god’s sake. You don’t do that unless you have a financial interest in the matter. That’s not ideology – that’s just a flag of convenience.

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Mon, 31 May 2004 23:48:10 +0000

At least for me, there’s no doubt that Tom Paine is a partisan figure of the left, like Bertrand Russell. This is obviously more so outside the US, where he is remembered mainly for The Rights of Man, rather than for his role in the American Revolution. An analogous choice for the other side would, I think, be Alexander Hamilton.

By: Decnavda

Decnavda — Mon, 31 May 2004 22:48:46 +0000

My instinct is to agree with this post, but I am reluctant to do so, because I like http://www.tompaine.com. Can anyone clear my concious as to why it’s okay for progressives to take Tom Paine’s name for their cause, but not for conservatives to take Alex de Tocqueville’s name for theirs?

By: Cranky Observer

Cranky Observer — Mon, 31 May 2004 18:42:19 +0000

Good discussion of the AdTI situation over at Groklaw.

Cranky

By: PG

PG — Mon, 31 May 2004 10:08:20 +0000

Speaking of using Jesus’s name for dodgy purposes, this site used to be jesus.com (presumably the owner finally decided to cash in) and is an attempt to pick up women.

By: q

Mon, 31 May 2004 04:15:53 +0000

A lot of people have been using Jesus’ name for dodgy purposes for many years. For example, Jesus was not particularly vocal on the moral status of gays, but to listen to campaigners on either side of the argument, you wouldn’t think so.

By: Nabakov

Nabakov — Mon, 31 May 2004 03:56:11 +0000

Love the umbrella company name. Fergco! For all your right-wing astro-turfing needs – call Fergco now!

By: Matt McIrvin

Matt McIrvin — Mon, 31 May 2004 03:26:15 +0000

The Lyndon LaRouche organization really likes to toss Friedrich Schiller’s name around in a similar manner—or, at least, did a lot of this in the 1980s.

By: Jacques Distler

Jacques Distler — Sun, 30 May 2004 16:46:48 +0000

I thought Linus Torvalds's response to these ADTI bozos was a far-better debunking than anything else I've read.

OK, I admit it. I was just a front man for the real fathers of Linux: the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. They (for obvious reasons) couldn't step forward to admit that they had gotten bitten by the computer bug and had been developing a series of operating systems on their own during the off-season.
But when they started with Linux (which they originally called Freax—they do feel like outsiders, you know, and that's a whole sad story in itself), they felt that they could no longer just let it languish in obscurity.
They started to look for a front man, and since Santa Claus is from Finland, and thus has connections to Helsinki University, and the Easter Bunny claimed, "He's got good ears, if a bit small," I got selected.
Since then, I've lived a life of subterfuge, always afraid that somebody would find out the truth. I'm actually relieved that it's over, and that the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution has finally uncovered the lie. I can now go back to my chosen profession, the exploration of the fascinating mating dance of the aquatic African frog.

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Sun, 30 May 2004 13:33:53 +0000

I think you’re safe enough, PG. Bertrand Russell has more than enough enemies to disqualify him from naming rights for an Astroturf operation.

By: PG

PG — Sun, 30 May 2004 12:53:33 +0000

"By contrast, to choose a long-dead person with whom almost everyone has positive associations, then to put forward controversial positions in the name of that person is to be dishonest from the outset." Uh oh. Um, none of y'all have positive associations with Bertrand Russell, do you? Or alternatively, none of y'all find any of this the least bit controversial, do you? Please save me from having been "dishonest from the outset."

By: bellatrys

bellatrys — Sun, 30 May 2004 11:08:58 +0000

Ouch! That’s really evil! As a longtime de Toqueville fan, I’m personally indignant. This is, after all, the guy who back when both countries were vast stretches of wilderness full of bears, predicted that Russian and the US were the Next Big Thing in terms of world powers, and that the US had so much going for it, it would be a shame if it sabotaged itself which it would it if it didnt’ deal with the craziness of institutionalized racism, and talked about how Americans are so concerned with show and surface (putting fancy columns and facades on 2-bit houses) and how the US valued education and the arts not for themselves but as means to ends of making money, and this was problematic, and oh, by the way, Americans love to criticize themselves all day long, but you better not say any of the same things to them, if you’re a foreigner. Don’t agree, or they’ll insist they’re perfect… (I actually saw this happen, live, in the class where we were studying de Toquville. This girl started getting all bent out of shape at his comments in re education/the arts, saying Who does he think he is? even if there is some truth to it, how dare he!—and then got all grouchy when she read the bit about how he’d predicted she’d do just that…