[Campaigns-l] Formal statement for press release--do not silence an opposing political viewpoint by imposing your own "unity" on me

Tue Oct 24 20:56:13 UTC 2006

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CH Rob J King <kuriosiesuschristos at abidinglifephoenix.com> wrote:      P  {  margin:0px;  padding:0px  }  body  {  FONT-SIZE: 10pt;  FONT-FAMILY:Tahoma  }    
Secular French post-modern philosopher Michel Foucault, not a religious believer and even a practicing homosexual, nonetheless questioned rigorously the supposed "objectivity" upon which modern Western Liberal societies are now built.
In my brief foray into the Wikia campaigns, I was saddened at the attempts by many to impose an apparent "objectivity" (by force if necessary) over an over-lapping set of complex political viewpoints arising from an equally complex set of underlying and over-arching worldviews.
What constitutes "normativity"?  As Foucault questioned regarding sexuality, is heterosexuality normative, and if so why?  Is homosexuality normative, especially if the ancient Greek philosophers seemed to welcome it?  Whose reigning sets of institutions, social and more importantly academic, will define what is normative?  What happens with groups, like Muslems and Jews living in France in 2006, who, for the sake of a secular normativity, are denied of religious liberties such as not being allowed to wear religious headware in public?  Is the secular view normative?  Is the Jewish view?  Is the Islamic view?  Who decides?
Here is the problem that Wikia Campaigns will now confront.  Any public forum wishing to remain credible will not seek to silence or eliminate voices that the forum's moderators happen to be in disagreement with.  Granted, Wikia Campaigns will seek to be objective, but in seeking objectivity, as Foucault would rightly question, whose sets of knowledges, whose protocol, and by whose authority would one define such objectivity?
Simply claiming academic or professional standing, although a move with obvious merit (i.e. it is more difficult to obtain entrance into schools such as Harvard, Duke, etc.), nonetheless does not solve the issue.  Pro-abortionists have ethicists teaching at Princeton.  Pro-lifers have ethicists also teaching at Princeton.  Which Ivy League ethicist are we supposed to view as authoritative?
Because of the incommensurability (to use moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre's terminology) of current Western European, N. American and the elite world moral debates (e.g. pro-life vs. pro-abortion), in order that no perspective be silenced, a quick and easy antidote is for Wikia Campaigns to adopt a type of "Social Contract" (e.g. as described by Rousseau) so that every participant in Wikia Campaigns will agree to a mutually binding, mutually determined set of normative rules, policies and procedures.  One example could be rules and standards that would govern the giving of academic lectures--i.e. a formal statement followed by short, pre-determined lengths of responses, without editting for content or even tone (e.g. many academic debates can become quite heated, even in the elite academic institutions of the United States such as Duke or Notre Dame).  The pre-determined length will allow short, well-written, non-caustic responses, in short, similar to a televised
 political debate.
Only through adopting a mutually-binding, mutually-determined social contractarian form of on-line communication can the attempts at "knowledge control," as described by Foucault and others, be avoided.
Sincerely,
Rob J. King, M.Div., Th.M., Ph.D. (ABD*), Professor of Bible and Christian Ministry, Grand Canyon University-Online

      CH Rob J. King, M.Div., Th.M., Ph.D. (ABD*)
  Chaplain, 345th, AR-MEDCOM
  Professor of Bible and Christian Ministry Grand Canyon University-Online  
Abiding Life Christian Ministries--Phoenix & Tampa Bay
Ministry Home Page: http://abidinglifephoenix.com/default.aspx
  Ministry E-Mail: kuriosiesuschristos at abidinglifephoenix.com

  "Be without fear in the face of your enemies.  Be brave and upright that God may love thee.  Speak the truth always even if it leads to your death.  Safeguard the helpless and do no wrong." --The vow of a Christian Knight, Kingdom of Heaven  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0320661/

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  Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2006 17:34:06 -0700
From: jenniferforunity at gmail.com
To: campaigns-l at wikia.com
Subject: [Campaigns-l] Help a good cause and get a look at a wiki driven letter writing campaign.

Hi guys,

I know this isn't totally on topic for this list, but you guys are totally tapped into wikis and it seemed like you might be interested.  I've been working on a letter writing campaign for the last 40 hours and a wiki turned out to be the most useful part of it... and it's taught me that it maybe would be good to have some templates laying around a wiki to make something like this easier to throw together.  You might be curious even if you're not interested in the political cause itself just because this might become a standard part of campaigns wikia as it grows and evolves.  Anyway, I'll cut to the political blurb now :-) 

...

Harry Welty is a Congressional Candidate running to represent Duluth, Minnesota. He's also affiliated himself with Unity08 and the Unity Movement, a multipartisan movement with the goal of getting national attention off divisive issues like abortion and onto issues that will seriously affect the welfare of Americans for generations to come, like the massive National Debt that threatens to fiscally cripple the U.S. just in time for our young people to inherit it. If this is the first time you've heard about Harry Welty you can get a quick one page summary with links to his blog and his campaign website at this website: 
http://unitysupporters.com/wiki/index.php?title=Harry_Welty 
Harry was been told by the Duluth News Tribune and the local public television station WDSE PBS-8 that he can't debate because he doesn't belong to a political party that fielded a candidate who won at least 5% of the vote in the previous election. 14 years ago Harry Welty ran as an *unknown* independent against Oberstar and took 7% of the vote. Since then he's served on the Duluth School Board and been a columnist for The Reader Weekly. *So far* that doesn't matter to the people in charge of the debates (but we're trying to change that). 
The decision makers seem to care about political machinery instead of people, parties instead of candidates. It's not right. Harry deserves a chance in the debates. Please forward this email to everyone you know who might be interested. Then go to the link below and learn about emails and phone calls you can make to try to help Harry get chance in the debates: 
http://unitysupporters.com/wiki/index.php?title=Letter_Campaign_For_Harry_Welty 
Thanks for taking the time to read this, thanks for taking the time to pass this on, and thanks for visiting the link above and doing something to help Harry. Please do it fast. The debates are on Friday, October 20, 2006 and after that point forwarding this or sending email won't be very useful. 
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