My point, and I think Ben’s, had to do more with protectionism as an idea rather than with the people who typically happen to hold it – if one endorses the view that people should buy local products, one certainly doesn’t have to then add that “real” champagne can only come from the Champagne region (etc.) A consistent protectionist position is possible, and reasonable, to hold – but you’re surely right that relatively few actually do so.

As I said to Bitterroot, I think it’s a good thing that you two criticized Hume – and of course I criticized him myself in the post. But to say that someone should be fired for expressing his sincerely held opinion: that is intolerance. That is refusing to allow the existence, in a major public forum, of views you disagree with. Hume didn’t do that. You did. If you think that your actions were tolerant or that his weren’t, what definition of “tolerance” are you using exactly?

I’m looking forward to your Saturday post. Question though: what happened to your previous rebuttal posts on your site (“I am a peanut butter sandwich” and “PhD Zombie Land”)? I thought there was some really good discussion on those pages, but they don’t seem to be there anymore.

You didn’t even mention how our uproar brought Buddhism, even if only for a few days to the public’s attention. I even made a post on it.

http://www.thereformedbuddhist.com/2010/01/is-outspoken-buddhist-oxymoron.html

Do they teach you guys at Harvard to stifle your right to speak up, take a stand and make your view known?

Bitter apples Doc, bitter apples.

On the other hand… While I do agree that the Chinese issue is a more serious concern, it’s also one that Western bloggers are unlikely to have an effect on. And while getting Fox News to censor Hume or demand an apology is entirely unlikely (and undesirable, I think), responding to Hume probably did do a little bit to help public perceptions of Buddhism in the US.

I’ve been cringing all week, watching Buddhists declare how offended they are, demanding that someone make a public apology for expressing their persoanl opinions, and writing blogs calling him all kinds of insulting things.

In the meantime, while everyone’s been getting worked up about Brit Hume’s personal opinions on Tiger Woods, the Chinese have sentenced Phurbu Tsering Rinpoche to eight and a half years in prison on what, in my opnion and that of most of the rest of the world, those who are bothered to look, are trumped up charges in an unfair trial.

http://savetibet.org/media-center/ict-news-reports/influential-tibetan-lama-sentenced-eight-and-half-years-prison

And yet, while Buddhists and Buddhist monks are being tortured and sent to prison on a daily basis, the western Buddhist blogoshere don’t even notice, they are too busy writing letters to Fox news demanding that someone apologise for giving their opinion.

Marcus

But getting back to Elisa’s post, Kant and Śāntideva would both say that selfishness IS bad logic. For Kant, it’s inconsistent to make an exception of yourself, to act according to principles that aren’t universal – you’re expecting, unfairly, that you be held to a standard you don’t apply to others. I suspect Elisa may be treating inconsistency in a Kantian sense here.

Similarly, I don’t think it disrespectful for him to speak as he did. I think It’s well and good for him to try to promote his tradition, though he’s unlikely to win any actual converts with this approach. But I suspect that he’s wound up learning something about Buddhism from this episode, which is exactly what he needed.

There’s nothing inconsistent about protectionism. Rather, remember that every government has a special duty to its own citizens, over and above other people in the world- for example, nobody expects the US government to offer Medicare to people in Spain.

For every nation, the logic of protectionism (even taken to its extreme) is, “everyone should buy our country’s goods.” It’s certainly a selfish argument, quite easy to disagree with but it’s not inconsistent or incoherent. It doesn’t play well with other nations’ protectionism, but again that’s selfishness, not bad logic.