Haiti (Catch all)

[marct]

Hi Tom,

No definition for such a complex matter could hope to be both comprehensible and perfect..... They're not perfect descriptors, but they're close while being simple enough to comprehend and explain. There's also the factor that, whatever up down variance there may be, the existence of "the other" tends to organize people along one or another end of the line.

Actually, you've hit the nail on the head as to one of the main reasons I reject the line or spectrum model; the polarizing effect it has. That polarizing effect, at least in my experience, all too often serves to stifle debate and exert an if-then influence that just serves to make people less thinking and less accountable.

I mean Viet Cong in the "Worm in the wood" sense; the dissenters from left wing, political anthropology, who undermine it from inside the beast.

Ah, you mean like insurgent . yup; I'm just not a populist insurgent.

I was pulling Eric Flint's leg one time, by claiming to be a libertarian fascist. He denied this, insisting I was an anarcho-nationalist. He had a point.

Yup, I can see that. It certainly does come through in your writing ....

Are you sure they'd be irrelevant if, say, the cultural expectations of those they claim to rule include, "if we do not obey, we will be tortured and killed, our wives and daughters raped, then sold as slaves...." presupposing the cabal has the means of doing that, of course?

Well, let's put it this way - if those are the cultural expectations on the ground, then if they don't do it or don't threaten it at least enough for people to believe they can (and will) do it, then they are are irrelevant since some other cabal will come along and say "Look, a real ruler would kill and torture you, but these slobs can't even do that. They're not strong enough to be real rulers; they are sell outs - namby-pamby LIBERALS!!!! - who we have to get rid of for our own good otherwise they will all have us hugging trees, thinking warm and fuzzy thoughts until we all just lie back and spend our days watching reruns of Baywatch! This has to stop! we need to return to the values of our Founding Fathers and restore our greatness as a people!"

So, yeah, under those conditions, the international "facts" are pretty irrelevant....

Factual may come from factus, and coupled with manu turn into manufacture. What it means now, though, is "real" or "true." You're right, however, that both sovereignty and legitimacy have, in public discourse, become terms fuzzy to the point of near uselessness. It isn't entirely, though, that the words have lost their meaning as that they've been deliberately prostituted to serve anti-sovereignty ends.

Agreed on all counts, although I would have added "convenient" to the list. Then again, I don't accept New Speak from my students (or colleagues), so I see no need to pander to the linguistic deficiencies of anyone else. 'sides that, I can be a linguistic SOB and use it to quickly separate people out into those who can think and those who just spout party lines <damn, there ain't an "evil grin" smiley!!!!>.

Seriously, though, just because popular usage of a word shifts, and English is actually one of the worst languages for that, it still retains older implications which usually give away people's agendas.