Stoid, I don’t want you to re-agrue those threads either; nobody does, and that’s not what we’re asking. You made the claim that your politics are not radical in any sense and challenged us to provide examples showing your claim false. I have done exactly that - and with one simple declaritive sentence typed by your own hand: “Suffice it to say that I am happy to be the hypocritcal Angeleno who holds the most radical view possible.”
What I want, is for you to admit that your challenge has been met; that your politics, in certain arenas, are indeed radical.
And thanks, Maeglin, for finding an entry for that word.
Maybe I missed something, but it looks like you got completely ignored here. I am probably horribly wrong and eeevillll, but I would think your friend deserves a hell of a lot better than the treatment and marginalization he is getting now. Imagine - fighting for your country, being maimed for life, and then being told by “the People” that he is are a perverted pile of shit. I bet that is an awful bitter pill to swallow. I think it’s especially right for me to make this observation on Veteran’s Day. This person and many like him are being told “When we told you that you were fighting for justice and freedom we LIED”.
Go back and pull everything I’ve ever said about capitalism and the environment and personal rights, in context. Then come back and reassert this so I can call you a liar.
Right now I will be generous and call you…mistaken.
Besides, I thought you didn’t wanna re-hash all those old arguments? Kinda dumb to ask people to go find things in your posting history here and then say you don’t wanna discuss it, ain’t it?
Well, now, that depends. As usual. I don’t think Stoid’s position on that is as radical as you make it out to be, and am perfectly willing to accept that such results from a misunderstanding. I have spent quite a bit of time on the left, I hope you will accept my assurance, in good faith, that I have met some genuine radicals. If such men as they were to take positions of power, I would be on the barricades with you quicker than you could say “Eugene V. Debs”. According to some, me, Stoidella, and the late lamented Paul Wellstone are all “radicals”. I shrug, it is only a label, intended as a slur.
As to property rights and environmentalism, I agree that environmentalism must supercede individual property rights, because the environment is held in common. Mr. Burns may own his property, but he cannot own the water that flows past it, it is not his to sully. If he wants to burn old tires inside his home, with the windows shut, its no skin off. But if he burns them in the open air, he is defiling property held in common, and I have every right to demand that he cease and desist.
Like any good and reasonable principle, this can be overdone, and reasonable men can disagree. But the argument is over application of a valid principle, not the validity of the principle itself. Hence, necessarily, property rights are secondary to environmental concerns.
The assertion was much larger than “Stoid, you’ve said you have radical politics”. The assertion was that I live at the wacky end of the political spectrum, and that if the Democratic Party were to take on my politics, it would be the end of the party. I respond that that is ridiculous, since my politics are pretty much the poltics of the Democrats, with a sprinkling of libertarianism. Hardly radical. 6 years and 6000 posts are available for review. That you found one hyperbolic sentence where I called myself radical is meaningless, and you know it as well as I do.
The people who made the original assertions have copped to the fact that their problem isn’t with my politics, it’s with ME, how I express myself, and my intense disgust and distrust of the Bush administration. I’m guessing that’s mostly your problem with me, too. I’m willing to own that, why do you feel the need to construct some shaky justification for the idea that I’m some commiepinkoleftywhackjob, since I’m plainly not? I’m a lefty, I’m a liberal. I’m a feminist and an environmentalist.
I also think Truman was right to drop the Bomb (though not for the reasons he gave).
I think communism is evil.
I think animal experimentation is probably necessary to some degree, but needs to be regulated and controlled.
I think PC speech was a good idea that has been taken to ridiculous and sad extremes and become a parody of itself, as well as a form of the oppression it purports to correct.
In my deepest, darkest, most primitive and reactionary heart, I think the world really might be better off if we bombed the entire Middle East right off the face of the earth, even though I know that’s just wrong.
[quote=Stoid]
Isn’t there ANYONE here, given this apparently pervasive belief, that can cite something about my political views and ideals, that most people would call “extreme”?/quote]
One more time. Duplicitous. Revisionist. And radical.
Unclebeer, I don’t know what you are getting at, but I’ve responded to your response, and I will repeat for the last time: the evidence is available. ALL the evidence. My politics are spread all over the place. They are not radical. What I support and vote for and advocate for is pretty vanilla lefty. Get over it and enjoy hating me for myself, not my politics. If I’m ok with that I don’t see why you can’t be.
The problem is that it never was a challenge. It was an assertion. And it also was a lie.
Stoid’s claim to be moderate reminds me of a statement by a pretty left-wing friend of mine before the election. He said “the Democrats are in the middle, and the Republicans are extremist.”
I particularly loved Stoid’s mocking of UncleBeer, after he took the time and effort to look up data that was really Stoid’s responsibility (as she was the one making the assertion):
No matter. Only anecdotal anyway. As well, I haven’t spoken with him in some time. And, as I said, he didn’t realize his sexual orientation at the time. I don’t understand this very well, but take his word for it. Last we spoke, he was entirely confident that if he could just sit and speak with an anti-gay bigot, and let such a person come to know him as simply another person, the prejudice would melt away like yellow snow. I hope he still holds that view, and I wish that I did.
What I’m getting at is that your assertion wasn’t merely to find evidence that you’re at the widest, wackiest, weirdest end of the left, but that aspects of your politics are simply extreme, even radical. There are ample quotes there from you seeking evidence of that more “narrow” interpretation. As usual, you’re engaging in the backpeddling and revisionism for which you are so infamous 'round these parts. You’re being duplicitous.
Believing that “it’s all in a day’s work between the sexes” when a guy shows his dick to his female subordinate in the workplace and without her permission is a pretty “extreme” view in most people’s book.
Nonsense, and entirely ad hominem. The very term “radical” is wholly subjective, and it is a call you are welcome to make, but entirely incapable of proving, because no objective standard exists, save only for you insistance that it is so. Is there a Radicalism Index, approved by the Dept. of Weights and Measures? Or are we to believe that the opinion of Unc has such unanimous approval and approbation, that we may simply take your word? This would be news. No, this would be astonishing news!
Even if The Cecil, Himself, were to descend amongst and cry out, with a loud voice, “Verily, the Stoid is a radical!” it would still be nothing more than an opinion.
If you can refute what she says, do so. If you cannot, you can shit, go blind or go pound burdocks. If you expect respectful attention to your opinions, you must be willing to extend it as well. Otherwise, you are not an advocate, but a dogmatist. You do not fight ignorance, but merely repackage it in a form you find more agreeable. I would hope you would aim higher.
Take my word? Fortunately, we don’t have to take my word for it. Nor would I be so bold to suggest that you do. Even more fortunately, we’re in a situation nothing remotely like what you claim. But most fortunately, we do have an objective standard to which we may refer. The person making the assertion has freely *applied the fucking label to themself - the very one they deny. Right there; black and white.
I don’t know how much more objective one can be. An admission of guilt is acceptable in a friggin’ court of law. And it oughtta be acceptable in this stupid exercise, too.
One minute I’m claiming I’m a radical, the next I’m a moderate? Please.
My claim is my fact and it is what it has always been: I AM A LIBERAL. I AM LEFT OF CENTER. I HAVE NEVER CLAIMED OTHERWISE. (On an issue by issue basis, I have been known to veer right, but I try tnot to admit that unless I have to.)
I was responding to others who were asserting that I was so “out there” that it would be disastrous for the Democrats to align with “stoid’s politics” as though they were so bizarro. They are not. They remain not. The evidence abounds that they are not. I own and admit and claim that as a personality, I am radical. I own and claim and assert that my politics are not.
And I further invite anyone and everyone to look at the evidence, which must include more than one or two hyperbolic sentences pulled out of context, if not the hundreds of thousands of words I have contributed to this board, to see that my politics are simply liberal. Not centrist, not moderate, not radical, not extreme. Just liberal.
And one more thing: what elucidator said. Which was what I was planning to say only better. You can jump up and down screaming “gotcha” til you are blue in the face, but the accusations of rightwing dopers about my radical leftyness don’t exactly move me to reassess my entire understanding of what I believe in, which has, again!, been thoroughly documented in these pages.
And again, so fucking what? She can describe herself as the Great Speckled Bird, and you are still in the same position: you can either refute what she says, or you can’t. All ad hominem attacks are intellectually lazy and dishonest, regardless of whence you derive the label. I know people who use the word “conservative” as a term of withering contempt, it proves nothing. If you identify yourself as a conservative, does that mean that said person is justified in treating you with contempt?
And, finally, why in the world is it so important to you? I am in general agreement with many of her views, I suppose that makes me a radical. OK, then I’m a radical. Big whoop-de-fucka-doo. Give me a moment while I check the mirror. No, no improvement, more’s the pity.
It begins to appear that you hope to achieve by labeling what you cannot achieve by argument and persuasion. Because if you could, you wouldn’t need to bother.
Screw the labels. Is Stoid a radical? Hell if I know or care. Is Stoid a moderate? Hell if I know or care. Is Stoid a lefty? Hell if I know or care. Does what Stoid makes sense? That is the important thing. Either it makes sense or it doesn’t. Right now I don’t really know, thanks to all the “noise” getting in the way.