OnToMars
Now on to the making of films!
Member # 621
posted
quote:Originally posted by Vanguard: Most of which were under *gasp* a democratic Congress... which never was responsible for anything, ever. It's always Bush Bush Bush Bush Bush Bush. Also, Bush.
No, not really. Bush's immense unpopularity started BEFORE 2006, which is why Democrats were elected in such big numbers that year. Cause and effect a bit?
And for the record, I'm as hardcore a Democrat as they come these days and I've been tremendously dissatisfied with the job they did in the last two years of Bush's administration. They could've done a lot to stop him and didn't. So to sit here and claim that everything bad about Bush was the fault of a Democratic Congress in its last two years and I'm not assigning any blame to them anyway, is ludicrous.
-------------------- If God didn't want us to fly, he wouldn't have given us Bernoulli's Principle.
Registered: Jun 2001
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OnToMars
Now on to the making of films!
Member # 621
posted
What facts precisely? When you say "Democrats" you mean the Democratic Congress. Obama has a 68% approval rating at the moment.
And I've already agreed with you that I don't approve of the job Congress is doing, albeit for different reasons. So I'm a liberal, what makes my point of view any less valid than yours?
-------------------- If God didn't want us to fly, he wouldn't have given us Bernoulli's Principle.
Registered: Jun 2001
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WizArtist II
"How can you have a yellow alert in Spacedock? "
Member # 1425
posted
One of the issues I find rather amusing, being conservative myself, is that whenever I speak my opinion on particular issues I am typically blasted by the liberals as being 'closed-minded' and wrong. They then proceed to tell me that I should be tolerant and accepting of ALL points of view and should not chastise someone based on their opinions or tell them that they are wrong.
Ironic.
-------------------- There are 10 types of people in the world...those that understand Binary and those that don't.
Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
It's never been a civil discussion. I'm just being direct where 'the other side' (as it were) is being more indirect.
If I said "All liberals are scum-sucking communist wannabees without the testicles to put their Stalinist agenda on the floor", I'm pretty sure that would still warrant a warning.
Now, the liberals here get to say that about Conservatives in a general sense, but that's just okay, right? It's happened in this thread, not even obliquely.
This is why I don't repsect the viewpoints of Nim, Mars, and so on. It's not because they're liberal. It's because they'll regurgitate the talking points (Bush is a War Criminal), often using the most vitriolic propogandist rhetoric possible, and you can't so much as ask a question about where that stance comes from without also being tarred and feathered.
So, Fabrux, the moment it really is a civil discussion, where a conservative point of view is not automatically equated with the worst elements of human and demonic history, I'll take your concerns more seriously.
Until then, the way I see your use of 'civil' is nothing more than 'agree and accept everything the groupthink has to say, regardless of what it is, else YOU are the trouble-maker.'
posted
I think am going to see how well this "ignore" frature works.
Also: last night, when I went to bed, the last thing I thought of was how I need to complete the "Wasteland Survival Guide" quest in Fallout 3 tonight. Apparently, Vanguard here went to bed and thought "I need to tell four people, anonymously, on the internet, on a Space Ships forum, with a colon, a running tally of what I think some President Man is doing wrong."
Let me know when your funeral is, from all the burst anyeurisms you have trying to crush that coal into diamonds with your bare hands.
Registered: Oct 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Ventriloquists Got Shot: Also: last night, when I went to bed, the last thing I thought of was how I need to complete the "Wasteland Survival Guide" quest in Fallout 3 tonight.
Yeah I've been neglecting Fallout 3 as well. It's just that I get so engrossed I forget other responsibilities, like eating.
Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
Hi, Vanguard. Ten years ago I was you. I was absolutely convinced I was right and everyone here (more or less) was against me. I was also convinced that those that disagreed with me just did so because they followed the talking points, not because they were well informed or had formed their own opinions.
These things are not the case. Your enemy, and the enemy of all thinking people, is the same as ours: people who perceive all who disagree as stupid and dangerous. This includes Rush Limbaugh, the Obama supporters you seem to have run into, and Muslim extremists.
I know that people who don't think through issues and hold onto dogma instead are frustrating. But I can tell you from personal experience that the people here aren't like that. But you need to know that if you're seeing people like that everywhere, there's a very good chance that you're becoming one yourself.
Let me give you an example. I think Bush was an awful President, and I can tell you exactly why. Iraq, torture, war crimes, all of that can be debated. One thing, though, is a matter of simple fact: Jose Padilla. Bush took a US citizen, arrested in a US city, transferred him into military custody, and held him for three and a half years without charge. He stripped one of us of all rights, and thought he never had to justify to anyone why. That alone is grounds for his impeachment for violating his oath of office, and conviction and imprisonment for wrongful arrest.
See? My impression is that you would disagree with that. But you can see that my reasons are from undisputed facts, not from talking points someone handed out. If he would treat one man like that, you have no reason to think he wouldn't treat any other the same. But for at least the next few minutes, we don't have to worry about that.
quote:Originally posted by Vanguard: It's because they'll regurgitate the talking points (Bush is a War Criminal)
Dear god, did somebody really say that?
It's kind of a litmus test thing. There are levels of another person's mental absurdity and your own required defense condition level.
DEFCON 1: NUCLEAR WAR
"9/11 Truth"ers who claim Bush destroyed/allowed-the-destruction-of the towers. This is Bush Derangement Syndrome to its maximal extent, and a majority of the time is indicative of the emotional problems shared by most conspiracy loons.
(This is not necessarily a leftist problem, mind you, as conspiracist lunacy of this level can be shared among those holding any philosophical extremes.)
No attempt to reason with such people is going to be effective. Even attempts to reason with or trick the individual toward their own self-interest is fruitless, as their looniness is invariably self-destructive, and they could snap at any moment. Back away slowly with defenses raised.
DEFCON 2: CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS
"Bush is a war criminal", or "baby-killer", or "hates black people", or whatever . . . extremist speak is the mantra of this group. This is a somewhat less crazed version of Bush Derangement Syndrome, but still absurd. The same irrational exuberance and extremist talk exists, but whether honestly or merely to be able to feign rationality these people don't go all the way to 9/11 ignorance.
An example of this is a guy I heard on the radio the other day calling for the arrest of Bush on war crimes charges as part of some San Francisco group he runs. He claimed it gave him no pleasure to levy such charges against a president and country, but that's total crap and obviously so. He's devoted his life to that mess.* Clearly he gets his jollies by believing he (almost alone) knows the truth the hoi polloi has failed to realize, and it gives him a hippie mind-stiffy to "speak truth to power" and all that Alinsky-ist babble. Not to mention the pleasure of making the extreme (shock) statements, which is (I believe) and under-studied realm of psychology.
(*Hell, me, I just have an old decrepit website featuring various verbal asskickings of loony fanboys by use of reason and their own rule set. Now suppose I claimed it gave me no pleasure to do it, ever. I'd be full of shit, wouldn't I?)
However, these are the people who seriously claimed or believed it plausible that Bush had secret plans to declare martial law so as to suspend the election and remain in power. Instead of now recognizing that this idea was obviously false, leading to possible questions of the premises about Bush and his staff that led them to such erroneous claims, these folks probably believe that the plan maybe got cancelled because it was outed before it happened, or maybe some secret event occurred where Dear Leader Obama cleverly out-maneuvered the coup attempt, or some other such stupidity.
But certainly the falsity was not because Bush actually *isn't* as bad as I heard from Kos, HuffPo, MSNBC, NBC, and NPR! No, never that!
How to deal with this kind? I am really no expert on it. Ideally one should, as with DEFCON 1, leave them to their own absurd devices. However, the intartubes is awash in these addle-brained individuals, so frequent encounters are impossible to avoid.
This is why I avoid threads swarming with leftists excepting those occasions where I'm feeling particularly masochistic/selfless.
They cannot be fully reasoned with but you can 'buy them off' with a strong enough case for self-interest. We call this "compromise" in American politics.
Just try to have fun with it and try not to let them agitate you. Don't feel bad if they *do* agitate you, but try to remind yourself that they *want* you so shocked and angry that you can barely think straight.
These are the people who want us all to drive Priuses (Prii?), ignorant of or ignoring the fact that the infrastructure to make their specialized parts is more energy-intensive and environmentally damaging than that for a normal car.
These are the people who wanted the disadvantaged to have "affordable housing", ignorant of or ignoring the fact that their policies produced a housing bubble (e.g. less-affordable housing) and permissive credit system which has now burst into a worldwide credit problem, meaning that even their "affordable housing" is no longer affordable because the disadvantaged got laid off, and the house costs half-again as much anyway, even after the recent value drops.
Unbridled emotionalism is the fundamental basis of the leftist philosophy. It is child-like wants unfettered by logistical or rational concerns.
Hence the unstated goal of leftist argumentation styles (be it Alinsky-ist sort of stuff or just internet trolls) . . . to short-circuit your reasoning faculties and those of any readers. "Shock, mock, and produce disgust."
After this you get to DEFCON 3 and below, which are largely not worth concern.
DEFCON 3 is for reasonable people who vote Democrat because they don't know that the Democrat leadership is full of leftist Che-corpse-blowing loonies, or haven't heard of the tingly sensations shooting up the media's collective leg at the thought of Obama, or that sort of thing. These people are just ignorant, but can be educated. Depending on how interested or interesting they are, you can actually have a great conversation with these people and learn a lot back and forth. Might even change your mind as you change theirs.
But that's the natural result when both minds are open.
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
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