re: #136 Charles

But Joe Stalin is not known for being a political philosopher, and you’d be hard pressed to find very many other statements he made that are quotable.

Again, it’s a point that people really don’t seem to want to understand, but it’s possible to read Chairman Mao and take away some perceptive points about politics, without admiring him as a person, or admiring what he did in China.

Nontroversy.

I didn’t know that Mother Theresa was a political philosopher at all! Who is a political philosopher to someone may barely or not-at-all qualify as such to another. Stalin did fancy himself a political philosopher, some may find less merit in his designation as such than they may find in Mao’s. Subjective taste… I challenge anyone to produce “very many other statements” Mao made too, which are quotable and non communistic/totalitarian. What is equatable and non-controversial about Mao seems like a recycling of Sun Tzu and Machiavelli — as an original thinker Mao falls short in every respect. The world has known many great political philosophers, since antiquity to modernity… to pick Mao as the best of that cannon is disgusting, no matter the spin. Anything admirable or quotable in his writing can be largely attributed to past authors to whom he was indebted. The rest of it, the bulk of it, is dictatorial trash. Anita’s remarks were off-putting, to put it mildly.

I don’t see how McCain’s or Gingrich’s quotes parallel her stated admiration for Mao in any way — and I am no fan of either Republican man.