[Vision2020] re: Phil Nisbet on Toleration

[Joseph Campbell]

Phil,

A point of clarification about some comments you made awhile back. (I'm
having trouble sending messages to Vision 20/20 from home.)

My "toe the line letter" did not state that "'some people' needed to stop
making the majority angry."

What I said was, "Maybe if the folks at Christ Church stopped blaming others
and took responsibility for their own indiscretions, we might be able to get
beyond this mess. Maybe if they stopped insulting the majority of people in
town and started to acknowledge our concerns, the rest of us might be able
to believe that their indiscretions were mistakes and not merely an effort
to gain power at any cost."

Of course, you are free to read what every you want into these words but
what I meant was NOT that Doug Wilson should conform to the pressures of the
majority. The phrase "the majority of the people" alludes to another letter
that I wrote where I pointed out that Doug Wilson's comments are offensive
to women, blacks, gays, lesbians, and hippies, a group that in fact
constitute a majority of the folks in this town. Of course, that's a bit of
a cheat since women alone constitute a majority of the people in this town.
But the point is still true. If you add up all of the so-called minorities,
they happen to constitute a majority.

Of course, it is always easier to invent a straw man and criticize him than
it is to try and understand what a real person is trying to say. Likewise,
it is easier to make knee-jerk generalizations about an individual based on
his occupation or associations than it is to get to know him for who he is.

Joe Campbell

On 8/20/05 7:38 AM, "vision2020-request at moscow.com"
<vision2020-request at moscow.com> wrote:

> Message: 4
> Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2005 03:14:15 -0700
> From: "Phil Nisbet" <pcnisbet1 at hotmail.com>
> Subject: [Vision2020] Toleration
> To: vision2020 at moscow.com
> Message-ID: <BAY108-F620BA017D86D2B091D651EAB40 at phx.gbl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
> 
> Here on the weekend I would love to reflect on some things that I have noted
> recently.
> 
> At one of the public meetings I attended recently, I was told by a person
> who shall remain nameless, that I should go back where I came from.  As a
> Jew that?s not an atypical response that we tend to get when we voice our
> opinion, but this particular comment struck me as funny.  The person who
> uttered the comment is of recent extraction, to whit, an immigrant of
> European stock who, though having lived on the Palouse for many years is
> assumed to be 'from' here.  I, on the other hand, trace my family to the
> Boise Basin of the middle 1860's and my great great grandfather Rueben is
> buried down in Nampa, but obviously I am the person who should 'go back
> where I came from'.
> 
> And that got me thinking how totally 'cosmopolitan' and so free from petty
> parochialism this town is. . .
> 
> Then there was the toe the line letter, republished here by the services of
> certain folks, which stated that 'some people' needed to stop making the
> majority angry.  How foolish of me to think that as a Republic, the view of
> the minority was to be protected from the raging of the majority opinion?
> 
> So I got to thinking how tolerant and urbane this little burg really is, so
> accepting of the feelings and thoughts of others. . .
> 
> And its not the old time old line farming folks, though they can be crusty,
> that are the ones who back bite and hurl so many wondrous comments around,
> it?s the folks tied to the institution of higher learning.  The very people
> who should be more understanding, dare we say more liberal in their
> attitudes, are the people who seem least able to handle disagreement.
> 
> And those of you who spend so many hours thinking of the next attack phase,
> do you seriously think that the bulk of the lurkers on this list, the silent
> majority of very long term, life time residents are simply rustics who need
> to be taught a lesson in diversity?  Because from my experience, those
> ranchers and farmers and loggers in our rural areas are head and shoulders
> more tolerant, more willing to listen to the other guy and just down right
> more friendly than I have seen of late here in Moscow.  And just for a news
> flash to some, most of them laugh their butts off reading the squabbling
> that goes on here in Moscow.  And from what Debbie found when she meet with
> economic development folks down there in Boise, they are not the only ones
> laughing.
> 
> Because you see, all I have to do to ?go back where I came from? is head
> outside the immediate vicinity of Moscow, where the ?majority? of the people
> are nothing like the folks here.  Some of you might learn something about
> comity; learn to play well with others, from those farmers and ranchers and
> loggers and miners and paper workers and the lot who live in the rest of
> Idaho, just a few miles outside the environs of this town.  And considering
> how dependent this community is on the good will of the majority of the Rest
> of the state to see that funding happens right here at the University of
> Idaho, that the people who need to learn not to make the ?majority? unhappy
> are sitting right here in this town?
> 
> 
> Phil Nisbet