Hello to all
- Thread starter Max R.
- Start date
fairsheet
Senator
Max, you don't appear to suffer fools, nor are you easily goaded. Those traits are admirable.Welcome to the Human Condition; lots of questions and very few definitive answers.
FWIW, if someone says they have all the answers? Don't trust them.
Thanks, and correct. By no means am I perfect nor have I found anyone who is. Fools and liars, especially the latter, are not tolerated. I don't have to agree with a person to like and/or admire them, but I do have to trust them.
Many people, in my experience, mean well, but they don't follow through worth a tinker's dam. My jobs in both military and civilian careers involve teams. I'd rather have someone with a 90IQ but always gives 100% rather than a genius who can only be relied upon 75% of the time. I tend to be blunt and as factual as possible. Sometimes this ticks people off. That's not my intention, but I usually don't have the luxury of worrying about it.
fairsheet
Senator
I imagine I think along some generally different lines than you, but I still hope I can make my cases with integrity.
All we can do is try. You obviously are, but not everyone can honestly say the same.
fairsheet
Senator
A good start imho, is the willingness to cop to being wrong (when we are). IMHO, that lends credibility to our otherwise yammering.
There are those herein, who will suggest that the reticence to cop to "wrongness" is peculiar to one "side" or the other. Unfortunately, it is not.
Most people on political forums, in my experience, tend to go to one political extreme or the other. This, in itself, tends to paint them into a corner. They often can't admit to being wrong without admitting the other guy, their political opposite, has a valid point.
Moderates and independents have no problem seeing both sides of a problem and, when necessary, either admitting error or agreeing to a valid point regardless of the source. Political extremists, be they Left, Right or anything else will not do this. If they didn't, they wouldn't be extremists!
fairsheet
Senator
For the record, I must define "moderate" for myself. Too often I think, people perceive "moderation" as "splitting the difference". Maybe they're right and I'm not moderate. I prefer to think in terms of choosing out the better ideas of either side, irrespective of the color (blue or red?) of their shirt.
On the other hand - as a respecter (as it were) of the fundaments of (d)emocracy, I think it very unlikely that those "better ideas" will fall 50/50 at any specific time-point. After all, isn't (d)emocracy supposed to draw us to better ideas?...and if everything's definitionally 50/50, what the hell good is democracy?
Those who see moderates as "fence sitters", "splitting the difference" and the like are often politically extreme in their viewpoints.
We are agreed that choosing better ideas over political ideology is the better course of action.
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Sometimes it is that the mass of the forum chooses a side for a person and that person must adhere to the side chosen for him/her or else face an onslaught of disdain and derision from both sides. It's better to choose for ourselves rather than wait for that to happen.
I am a moderate. I have been called a "fence-sitter" by the left (as far back as my early days on forums). So what I did was got off the fence, looked at the two groups of people on the forum (some of whom are still here on PJ) and chose the side with the people that thought the most like me, and allowed myself to be aligned with them and allowed myself to be called a conservative. I am pretty moderate in thought, more libertarian than anything, but not Libertarian. I like some of the ideas brought forth by the Tea Party, but I am not a Tea Party person.
I am fine with gay marriage being legal and I hate abortion but I want it to be legal. I did not vote for GWBush and disagreed with his taking us into Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein. My more conservative friends are fine with that........... the liberals here hate me for all my thoughts including these that they should agree with. Partisanship is alive and well with the PJ Leftists.
The board dynamic almost requires a choice of either right or left. Middle doesn't resonate with anyone. I don't know why that is since I believe most of us see ourselves as being in the middle, but it is the way it is. I am a moderately conservative libertarian Christian. And that fits here as being on the right.
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Queen Titania
Senator
The Leftists on this forum are mostly very extreme (so are a few Righties). The politically extreme are intolerant of anyone who is not fully aligned with them.
Agreed being moderate or Libertarian seems to make us Right Wingers (or "Wingers" as some call me). Definitely agreed that being an avowed Christian makes one a "winger" in the eyes of the far Left.
Disagreed on a requirement to choose one side or the other. As long as a sound, well-grounded argument can be made for a position, normal people will side with the voice of reason. It's the politically extreme, the "my way or the highway" people who will have a conniption no matter how reasonable a position.
Some people here are so hard core with their political ideology that a "voice of reason" means nothing to them. I am not worried about where people on this board place me, I am what I am and I am true to myself. I try hard to set the Christian example but I also remember that Jesus was not a doormat. I may change my mind about things from time to time when I learn more about a subject. That's not acceptable to some here so watch out if you do it.
Leftists here are, for the most part, secular, hard-core Leftists, absolutely intolerant of thoughts differing from their own, and angry much of the time. Once they decide you are not one of them, you can agree with them on some issue and they will attack you as if you disagreed. In order to shut you down, they leap to playing the "racist"/ "bigot" card. I hope that Leftists here aren't indicative of Leftists around the country but I'm afraid they are just that.
And speaking of that racist card - nobody talks about race issues as much as leftists do. It's everywhere. It's constantly on their mind.
Thanks for the response.
Quite possible.
I give every poster the benefit of the doubt until I know otherwise.
Those are people you can safely categorize as "idiots"....or, to be more polite, "poor unfortunates who cannot see the nose in front of their faces".
As Shakespeare once wrote: This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Agreed. What's funny is seeing them throw down the race card like it was a microphone and declare victory. Personally, I don't take false proclamations of victory anymore seriously than Saddam Hussein's claim that the Coalition forming to kick his army out of Kuwait would be the "mother of all battles".Leftists here are, for the most part, secular, hard-core Leftists, absolutely intolerant of thoughts differing from their own, and angry much of the time. Once they decide you are not one of them, you can agree with them on some issue and they will attack you as if you disagreed. In order to shut you down, they leap to playing the "racist"/ "bigot" card. I hope that Leftists here aren't indicative of Leftists around the country but I'm afraid they are just that.
And speaking of that racist card - nobody talks about race issues as much as leftists do. It's everywhere. It's constantly on their mind.
That throw down and declared victory is all for show.Those are people you can safely categorize as "idiots"....or, to be more polite, "poor unfortunates who cannot see the nose in front of their faces".
As Shakespeare once wrote: This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Agreed. What's funny is seeing them throw down the race card like it was a microphone and declare victory. Personally, I don't take false proclamations of victory anymore seriously than Saddam Hussein's claim that the Coalition forming to kick his army out of Kuwait would be the "mother of all battles".
Just like Saddam Hussein's...... and it's just as "real" as his was.
And I'm not able to see the image.
