On 12-25-97 Frank Masingill wrote to John Boone... 
 
        Hello Frank and thanks for writing, 
  
        [snip] 
  
 FM> JB> No, but I do believe man can change Reality in small ways with 
 FM> JB> his "vision." 
   
 FM>    That gets close to the old, unprofitable debate between free-will 
 FM> and 
 FM> determinISM.  I'm inclined to the view that whatever man can "change" 
 
   Perhaps. 
  
 FM> is 
 FM> already within the realm of REALITY.  We just don't know ALL of the 
 
  While, this ultimately comes down to -how- we view, I don't like 
your view that whatever man can "change" (implied not happened yet) 
is -already- (implied past tense) within the realm of Reality. 
  I view REALITY rather as a tapestry in process with us being 
one or two threads with some control over where and what color 
those threads will be but yet -whose- future is yet to come.  
  
 FM> potential 
 FM> until it develops ("reveals" (that hated word) itself.  It seems to me 
 FM> that this is what takes place in history - a "differentiation." 
   
 FM> JB> the external world.  For example, the "unrestrained" vision 
 FM> JB> generates 
 FM> JB> communism, socialism, etc.  Communism and socialism have 
 FM> JB> different 
 FM> JB> -effects- (part of Reality) than do the -effects- of Capitalism 
 FM> JB> (also part of Reality). 
   
 FM>    That's far too facile, John, don't you see?  Bismarck in the 19th 
 FM> century 
 FM> would certainly not have been viewed as an ideological socialist but 
 
  Perhaps, however, because he wasn't viewed as a "ideological 
socialist" doesn't mean he wasn't. 
  One could make the statement, slave owners -weren't- viewed as 
racist.  Does this view make them not racist? 
  
 FM> he, 
 FM> indeed, founded German socialism by accepting some of the major 
 FM> principles of 
 FM> the socialists, i.e. the wisdom of the government having some care for 
 FM> the 
 
        [snip] 
  
 FM>     There is a huge difference in the meeting of actual situation with 
 FM> attempts to better it and the TRULY unconstrained vision of an 
 FM> ideologist (a 
 
  Yes, there is a difference, but often those "meetings of 
actual situations with attempts to better it" are often 
based upon the -assumptions- of the ideologist. 
  
        [snip] 
  
 FM> deserve the loss of THEIR freedom."  But I could catalog a whole 
 FM> panoply of 
 FM> ways in which our freedoms have been whittled away if necessary.   
   
  Our freedoms have been whittled away, particulary by those who 
wish to say I know better than you. 
  
 FM>    Self-salvation through some "social fabrication under the knowers" 
 FM> is our 
 FM> modern gnosticism.  This is what I'm struggling to point out. 
 
  I agree, if I understood correctly, this is exact point Thomas 
Sowell and I have tried to make. 
 
Take care, 
John 
 
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