[mburbank]

See? This thread is way funnier than most.

Preech, I think I have finally found the rock solid common ground we share. I agree that the appeal of authoritariansim is on the rise. Like anybody else, I'd like my authoritariansim to have more sway and I have vivid dreams of eating the wealthy and distributing their property, but honestly, I'm an open hand guy, which is very hard to work toward when yiou are as naturally suspicious and distrustful as I am. I don't favor forcing the wealthy to pay more in taxes, I favor making vast wealth more difficult to acquire , middle class wealth easy as pie and dynastic wealth all but non existant. But all that is only if I got to make the rules, and I don't and I don't want to make the rules or be expose to the corrupting influence of power over others. All I have to play with is my own life. I believe the test of the open hand is the willingness to die for it. I've never had to take that test, and if I do I hope I can get a doctors note to get me out of it, but on the whole I think I'd rather die than kill if it came down to it. After all, I'm going to anyway.


Kevin; I DO forgive you, and that's exactly my point. Why? Because I am as saintly as fuck. You can question my 'sincerity' if you like, but I am very sincere and I think it's uncommonly rude of you to think you have access to my motivations. If you said you thought I was kidding, or using some sort of literary device to make a point, that would be different. But I'm nothing if not sincere.

I don't think you are authoritarian. I do agree the board has become more balanced, if by balanced you mean seeing political viewpoints as a line with a left, middle and center where points can be assigned, and in that speciffic measure, I think the boards have improved. don't recall time when it was a lefty self congraulation society, but you've been here longer than I have.

Here's what I think has increased here. Contempt. Contempt, like cussing, looses it's spice if employed to frequently. As I've said before, there are many people here I disagree with vehemently, but there have been only a handful who's ideas are expressed so poorly that I am certain they are wrong enough that I am comfortable holding them in contempt. AND, it's generally their ideas I find contemptable. I am not being ironic when I say that though I held his ideas in contempt, I thought Vinth was one of the most wonderful things ever to happen to this board. I think only Naldo ever really reached the point of me finding him personallt repugnant, and only et the very, very end.

Debate is good. Funny is great. Posts the subtext of which are "Only a fuckin' moron who only wants bad shit to happen like you could believe anything different from me"? Not so much. While I have very strongly held beliefs, the number of people here I think are fuckin' morons are relatively few and it was mostly revealed by the way they wrote and only now and then by what beliefs they held. In only two cases (Vinth and KulturKlub) have I ever thought I could glimpse people motivations and, dare I say it, souls, to comment on them. Okay, maybe Naldo, too. I don't think any of those guys are "token Right-Winger", I think they are side show attractions, and it isn't because they are right wing.

The main difference between Geggy and Naldo isn't their political viewpoints. When have you ever heard Geggy be anywhere near as hateful as Naldo could be? Naldo on several occassions endorsed and hoped for the prolonged suffering of his 'enemies', all the while going on and on about how 'Christian' he was.

"t shouldn't come as a surprise to you that regular conservatives on the board either came and went, or stay quiet most of the time. "

If by 'quiet most of the time' you mean not excessively windy like you and me, then sure. But it seems to me that Eye Tai and El Blanco contribute frequently and at the risk of offending Preech (who I don't see as a conservative per se, but he's certainly more conservative than I am) can write a post as long as yours any day of the week.

"But the funny thing about polarization is it also tends to go hand-in-hand with high involvement. Same could be said of FDR, and the same could be said now."

And the civil war, don't forget that! There wsas some seriously high involvement. I don't mean I feel like we're near civil war, I'm just saying. Polarization per say would be okay if it was more like trying to figure out what's best for people and less like a football game. Keep in mind when I say that, that while I am a lefty, I have 'left' the Democratic party to become a registered independent because I feel the Party is more and more a football team, and if they have to be a fuckin' football team I wish they be at least a good one. But mostly I feel it's all about the win and the power instead of what you might achieve if you won and if you had the power.

I'm relieved you don't think I'm an anti-semite.

I'm all for supporting democracy and freedom abroad. When did the D's or the R's do that? The country got totally sucked into the football game aspct of the cold war, and instead of fighting dictatorship and opression, we fought the Reds instead. Not that their wasn't a great deal of overlap, but they had their petty, vicous, proxy tyrants and we had ours. It was a dream that got corrupted awfully quickly. I think there is something inherantly wrong with supporting democracy and freedom shock and awe. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe there is no other way to do it and all this cranage is unavoidable and more good will come from it than bad. I honestly hope so, because it's clearly what we're doing and will be doing for a while. I can't root for it because I really believe it's wrong. But I am not so attached to my ideas that I actively hope for enhanced suffering just to prove my point.

My ideas, and there are other Jews who feel the same way, even in Israel, have been shaped by being part of a people who have been used as history's kickball. In my particular case it makes me very, very, very leery of even the possability of treating other peoples that way. I am perfectly open to a great deal of debate about just what the relationship between the state of Israel and the people who refer to themselves as Palestinaians. It is tragically easy for victims to become victimizers . that's what sustains the cycle of violence. I don't blame Israel for the situation in the middle east, least of all this current horiffic round of violence. But I don't buy the idea that Israel is blameless either. I can't accept the idea (and we practice it more than the Israelis) that the blood of 'colateral damage' is on the hands of only the enemy. I don't believe any participant in a war can remain clean, and I think it is the widely held human belief that you can that makes war so common. That's my deeply held, personal, religous viewpoint. It predates the Bush presidency and is in now way inspired by my hatred of Bush.

"Generally speaking, people here aren't spouting talking points from DNC or RNC e-mails, but rather say what they think. I see nothing wrong with that."

Neither do I. Here are the two things I think I see here that I DO think are wrong, and screechy, uninteresting, somehwat offensive and not funny.

1.) If you were informed on the subject (as I am) you would have to think what I do. So it follows you are either uniformed, an idiot or hypnotized. My opinion is NOT an opinion, like yours, or a viewpoint. It is a law of physics.

2.) You say "X", but what you REALLY want is "Y", and you are willing to put up with utold human suffering to prove your point. No, wait, not put up with, hope for. Pray for. Crave? Lust? There, that's it, you lust for untold suffering and death and the end of the world just so you can say "I told you so."