Thanks, TVeblen

[Starving_Artist]

@olivesmarch4th

You know, Starving Artist, I’ve been paying attention to your posts and to your political opinions, and have really been starting to grow a respect for your ability to express them so eloquently without attacking people who view things differently. I personally really enjoy reading and observing the political analysis of folks who don’t agree with me.

Thank you very much. And thank you also for the superb post which follows.

@olivesmarch4th

I must say I’m really disappointed by the things you have said here.

I believe experiences can shape who we are, but I really don’t think we have as much control over our sense of what’s right as most people would like to believe. There is a decent amount of evidence that indicates our gut sense of right and wrong isn’t a rational process, but a biological impulse stemming from a very specific region of the brain that is shaped by the environment we grew up in, among other factors. What that means is, when faced with a moral dilemma, first our brain tells us what is right, then we feel emotion, and we rationalize the feeling with logic long after the fact. Part of the reason there is such a huge breakdown in communication between people on opposing political sides is because we speak different moral languages which are mutually unintelligible. (Note: I disagree heartily with this reviewer’s interpretation of Hauser’s objective for writing his book as well as his interpretation of the content, but you get the point.)

I’m glad to hear you say this. Shodan and I were discussing it just the other day, and someone else since (I don’t recall who) mentioned it as well. I first became aware of this phenomenon during an argument about the death penalty, when I realized that there was just a visceral feeling at work one way or the other and the reasons given to support or critisize the death penalty were really just justifications for what the poster wanted anyway, and that should one reason actually find itself debunked, the poster instantly switched to another.

I’m heartened to see this subject being broght up so frequently now. Perhaps it will lead to more honest debate.

And for the record, I’m truly sorry to have disappointed you. You are clearly one of the good ones, and to tell the truth, this thread has been somewhat enlightening for me in that I think many of the posters who’ve pointed out that the loud, obnoxious lefties are the ones who get heard but they don’t represent the majority. I’m heartened to think that perhaps the majority are more like you.

Having said that, though, it also seems to be the loud, obnoxious and vocal minority that has the most influence on society these last few decades, and perhaps its my desire to counter their influence that drives me to post the things I do which you find distasteful.

@olivesmarch4th

I am a liberal, I was born liberal, and I will most likely die a liberal. That said, I am an independent voter and do consider every candidate as objectively as possible without regard to party affiliation. I see the merits of fiscal conservatism. I tend to lean fiscally liberal because of my bleeding heart, but I can understand, rationally, why someone would be a fiscal conservative, and I’m always interested in hearing the perspective of conservatives.

Most of my relatives are extremely conservative, working-class, small-town folks. Some of them are bigoted and irrational and some of them, like my mother, are intelligent, hard-working, experienced people. I love them, and while I don’t spend hours arguing their positions with them, I do listen to them talking to one another to see what I can learn. Some of them are my heroes, political affiliation (and prejudice) be damned.

So what I wanna know is, if I am fully capable of sitting down at the supper table and excitedly relaying the details of my best friend’s recent lesbian wedding while my grandma tells me all about collecting bread for her church’s food drive, why is that so damn hard for some people?

I can relate to this very well. Many of my friends and a fair number of my family are either liberals or Democrat-leaning in their politics. We are all fairly bemused by each other and ocassional good-natured teasing is the norm. We never get in fights because as soon as things look like they might get heated, we back off and change the subject. But we all love each other, we all respect each other, and we all know that we each want what’s best as we see it.

@olivesmarch4th

What you are doing with this thread is buying into the bipartisan extremism that is breaking down all hope of cooperation and effective communication. So TVeblen pisses you off – why do you respond by painting us all with that same broad brush? I don’t think you’re a bad person. I think that like me, like my parents and my grandparents, you vote your soul, you vote what you think is right.

You are exactly right and I appreciate your acknowledgement that that is what I do.

Please try to understand that for the last 40 years or so I’ve seen people who believe as I do absolutely deluged with accusations of bigotry, racism, sexism, hating poor people, hating sick people, etc., all by members of a political ideology that purports to be tolerant, “enlightened”, and “evolved”. As though we on the right are scarcely removed from our simian ancestors, and we should accept that and take our cues as to how we think and behave from our more enlightened liberal bretheren.

This thread is not an attack on TVeblen, though she was the catalyst for it. It is intended as something of a treatise on how such supposedly enlightened, evolved people can react with such rigid, inflexible, outlandish hatred toward those who think differently that they do. TVeblen’s behavior around here the last few days, in which she expresses nothing but sheer hatred for anyone voting Republican, simply provided the insight that answered that question.

@olivesmarch4th

And as an added note – not directly at you Starving Artist – for the love of Christ, will people stop blaming their moral and political positions on other people? You have come to your own conclusions because of YOU. Nobody is responsible for how you think, or how you vote, but YOU. If I changed my opinions based on the hypocrisy of other people I would never get anything accomplished. Sheesh.

Thanks again for your very nice post. It is my hope that as the board ‘goes public’ and begins to draw members from the population at large, the vociferous, hate-filled liberal clique around here will find itself marginalized or shouted down altogether and that perhaps then useful dialog will become the norm.

Cheers.

[Miller]

@TVeblen

Overturn Roe vs. Wade and criminalize abortion again. In his words, change the laws and convince you I’m right. IOW, I’ll enact my precious, enlightened beliefs into law and maybe you’ll see how wrong and sinful you were.

I figured you were going to go with abortion. Thing is, at least as far as Bricker’s concerned, I’m pretty sure he can defend his pro-life stance without recourse to the Bible. Because, and I say this as someone who is very much pro-choice, there really are a lot of good arguments against legal abortions. Not as many as their are in favor of legal abortion, but you don’t need to talk to Jesus to decide the algebra works out in the opposite direction.

The same can be said about Bricker as regards capital punishment, which he also opposes, also because of the teachings of his church. But when I’ve seen him argue against capital punishment, he uses pretty much the same arguments I use when I argue against capital punishment. And I’m an atheist.

Now, here’s the real kicker: gay rights. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that the Catholic Church isn’t too keen on us queers. Bricker’s personal beliefs hold that homosexuality is a sin. But his political beliefs are that gays deserve all the same rights and protections as straights, up to and including marriage. Because, unlike abortion or capital punishment, he doesn’t have any non-religious reasons to oppose homosexuality, and so he doesn’t feel that the state has a right to treat us any differently than anyone else. Which is, I think, the best evidence there is that Bricker is not the sort of conservative who’s interested in legislating his religion. His positions are certainly influenced by his religion, but he seems more than able of keeping the two separate when it comes to the voting booth.

[Miller]

@Starving_Artist

Please try to understand that for the last 40 years or so I’ve seen people who believe as I do absolutely deluged with accusations of bigotry, racism, sexism, hating poor people, hating sick people, etc., all by members of a political ideology that purports to be tolerant, “enlightened”, and “evolved”. As though we on the right are scarcely removed from our simian ancestors, and we should accept that and take our cues as to how we think and behave from our more enlightened liberal bretheren.

The thing is, SA, there isn’t a liberal out there who doesn’t know exactly how that feels, because they’ve subjected to exactly the same thing from the right, just with a different selection of adjectives. The conservatives are not more picked on than the left, nor are they more saintly in their behavior. They are, on the whole, not much different from the left. You’re only perceiving yourself as particularly persecuted because you’re only noticing when it pertains to you personally.

[DiggitCamara]

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

In my jurisdiction, you would have, in a very minor way, broken the law: all dog bites, all dog bites, are required to be reported to Animal Control.

Do yo know whether this dog has ever bitten someone before? Did you check whether it was current on its vaccinations? Do you know whether the owners have been cited half a dozen times for failure to keep a dangerous dog under control?

Of course not. That’s why we have law enforcement agencies: they track these things that individuals can’t track.

That dog may have already bitten someone, and the owners may have been required to keep it under control at all times, in which case, you’re endangering other folks by not reporting their behavior (not the dog’s, theirs). It may be that the owners don’t take your conversation as seriously as you’d hope, and they start relaxing their restrictions on the dog, and it goes after someone else in a serious attack three months from now. It may be that the dog has had exposure to a rabid raccoon recently, and its aggression was due to a neurological condition known as rabies.

Your behavior demonstrates neither intelligence nor character. The fact that you’re still alive shows that you’re lucky: seems that the dog wasn’t rabid. But settling it in the manner that you did exposes yourself to needless risk; what’s more, it exposes other folks to needless risk.

Daniel

Pretty much what I’ve been trying to say.

However, there’s more: by the way Starving Artist originally portrayed the whole incident, I was confused:

1. He’s a compassionate citizen who, even though he’s been hurt himself prefers to limit the hurt on others (the dog’s owners, specifically the children)
2. He’s someone who doesn’t want to bother with further, possibly problematic, complications to other people’s actions because … well, who knows?

Both options are problematic. He didn’t ascertain, at least in the original account, whether there was a deeper problem. Indeed, even after the deeper problem was evidenced, he chose to put a patch on it (yell at the children).

Now, of course, he’s told us there actually was further action, i.e., he talked to the dog’s adult owners. And LHoD points out, even that action isn’t much more than a second, shortsighted patch on the whole mess.

Now, you, Starving Artist, tie your actions directly to your political world view. I have to ask: Do you really think you’re presenting a compelling example of the actions of a “good” conservative?

[Starving_Artist]

@Miller

The thing is, SA, there isn’t a liberal out there who doesn’t know exactly how that feels, because they’ve subjected to exactly the same thing from the right, just with a different selection of adjectives. The conservatives are not more picked on than the left, nor are they more saintly in their behavior. They are, on the whole, not much different from the left. You’re only perceiving yourself as particularly persecuted because you’re only noticing when it pertains to you personally.

There’s another thing, too, Miller. And that is the difference in our time on Earth and the perspective that brings. To me, everything starting in the eighties is recent history. And prior to the eighties, almost all the public dialog on social issues came from the left. Leftie issues were promoted by Hollywood, the television news media, major newspapers, most influential magazines, television progams such as All In The Family, etc. What one got from all these entities was that the left was more tolerant, more ‘enlightened’, and more ‘evolved’. That liberalism was the more high-minded ideology and that anyone who didn’t adhere to it was essentially a neanderthal. As a result, there was much of the same type of hate speech and vitriol coming from lefties of the day as there is now, with no way for the right to respond.

It was during this era that most of my contempt for the left and its tactics took root and grew.

Now, with the advent of Rush Limbaugh and the Fox network, the right has a voice too, and just in time. You guys managed in a couple of decades to go from a minority of probably less than five percent of the population to around fifty percent, and it was largely because of the influences I described above.

Now the right has a voice and it has adopted a ‘fight fire with fire’ philosophy, and has begun to give as good as it gets among society at large. So to you, it looks like everybody is an equal-opportunity asshole, and to a certain degree you are right…as things stand now anyway. But to me, you guys (not you personally) started it and you guys are the ones primarily responsible for the state things are in now.

[Starving_Artist]

@DiggitCamara

Now, you, Starving Artist, tie your actions directly to your political world view. I have to ask: Do you really think you’re presenting a compelling example of the actions of a “good” conservative?

You guys are making a bigger deal out of this than it was.

The young couple who owned the dog was in their back yard with their kids. The kids opened the gate to come into the front yard and let the dog out.

The dog saw me (I had my back turned and never saw it before it bit me), came around from behind and nipped me on the lower abdomen below my belt. It was more of a pinching bite, and though it stung somewhat, it wasn’t a big deal. I yelled at the dog and he backed off with something of a mixture of playful/can’t-decide-whether-to-attack-this-guy-for-real look on its face.

I yelled over to the kids that I needed to see their parents, their dog had just bitten me. The parents came out from the back yard and after I explained what happened, they said the dog was just a big goof, barely grown, and thought of himself as one of the kids and he was probably just playing. I said okay, no worries, and went back to what I was doing.

They went back to their back yard and the kids stayed out front. Almost immediately, and again with my back turned, the dog came up and chomped down forcefully on my left calf, causing, in combination with my reflexive wrenching away, the wound I described. I yelled at the dog and raised my hand as though to strike it and it backed away.

The parents heard the commotion and came running to see what happened now, and saw me with my pants leg up examining the wound. It was at that point that the dialog I described took place. They apologized profusely, put the dog in the back yard, secured the gate, and put up a BEWARE OF DOG sign.

I never saw the dog again (though I heard it barking on subsequent visits), and I’m sure that had it bitten someone else beforehand it would have been dealt with accordingly at that time.

And yes, DiggitCamara, I think my actions were perfectly in line with my conservative mindset. I recognized that on this planet, shit happens. I didn’t look to assign blame, I realized that the dog’s owners were just as surprised as I was, that they took the appropriate action to prevent future occurrances, and that all was well in the end.

[TVeblen]

@Starving Artist

Now the right has a voice and it has adopted a ‘fight fire with fire’ philosophy, and has begun to give as good as it gets among society at large. So to you, it looks like everybody is an equal-opportunity asshole, and to a certain degree you are right…as things stand now anyway. But to me, you guys (not you personally) started it and you guys are the ones primarily responsible for the state things are in now.

Now the right has a voice. Kindly explain your gee-shucks comments, post #311, in the the “Bricker thread”:

@Starving Artist

So yes, had I been a black man or a woman in the 50s, I might feel that things are better now.** But when I look at how little they seemed to feel put upon in the pre-sixties era, and I look at the criminality, widespread use of drugs, filthy, vulgar misogynistic rap music, rampant STDs, and overall decline of societal civility, I’m hard pressed to think things are better now.**

You, Republican white male, have finally been granted a voice. Multiple presidential terms for noted liberals Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Bush Sr. and Shrub made you fear, kept you from speaking. The darkies were probably just as happy in the 50s too, when they couldn’t eat in ‘white’ restaurants, stay at ‘white’ hotels, attend ‘white’ schools or use ‘white’ pools their taxes helped pay for. Freedom Rider lynchings to protect blacks while they tried to register to vote? They didn’t seem to mind it all that much, not compared to crime, rap music and “an overall decline in civility”.

You, Starving Artist, genuinely are a self-absorbed piece of filth. You, unfortunately, are a racist asshole, and one who has the unmitigated gall to cry “victim!”.

[Starving_Artist]

@TVeblen

You, Starving Artist, genuinely are a self-absorbed piece of filth. You, unfortunately, are a racist asshole, and one who has the unmitigated gall to cry “victim!”.

I’m beginning to think you’re a genuine imbecile. I wasn’t speaking of government, I was speaking of societal discourse and that we have at long last a voice to counter accusations of assholery from wingnuts such as yourself.

And I’m not a racist; I have friends who are black.

Seriously, you need to get a grip before you hurt someone.

[bdgr]

@Starving_Artist

I’ve had an epiphany thanks to you, TVeblen. For years I’ve heard it said that while conservatives think liberals have bad ideas, liberals think conservatives are bad people.

I know many decent people who are conservatives. They fall in to two categories:

1. Those who still believe that they are right, but acknowledge that Bush was very bad for the country ( either because he screwed up, or was a bad person).

2. Those who are just too un-informed to know better about Bush. I’ve got relatives out in rural Arkansas that are like this. They believe what they’ve been told by their AM radio.
   People who are aware of what has happened under the Bush administration and still think that it was good that he was elected…I do have a hard time giving those people the benefit of the doubt.

[Starving_Artist]

See, I even though I support Bush and believe that war is nasty business in which many bad and unpredictable things happen, I respect your point of view and your right to have it.

Do you respect mine?

[TVeblen]

@Starving_Artist

I’m beginning to think you’re a genuine imbecile. I wasn’t speaking of government, I was speaking of societal discourse and that we have at long last a voice to counter accusations of assholery from wingnuts such as yourself.

And I’m not a racist; I have friends who are black.

Seriously, you need to get a grip before you hurt someone.

Oh, your voice was just stifled in general societal discourse. And you are, at long last, free to counter vicious wingnuts like me.

Newt Gingrich. Radio dinosaur Rush Limbaugh. Ann Coulter. Bill O’Reilly. You’ve been kept down by evil liberals all right.

Of course you have black friends. They’re the ones who reassure you they were really okay back in the good old days of segregation. They blame liberals and Martin Luther King for ruining Starving Artist’s world too?

I’m fine, thanks. It’s been rather refreshing to have confirmation that you, Bricker, et. al. really are as despicable as you appeared. So fuck right off, cunt.

[Starving_Artist]

No, darling, you’re the cunt!

You know, hatred can be kinda sexy! You wanna get it on?

I’m so going to hell for that. Please forgive me olives, I just couldn’t take anymore. (kiss smiley)

[Giraffe]

I think your OP loses some of its punch when I remember recent posts of yours which say things like:

@Starving Artist

Vote Democrat! (Because drugs, criminality, widespread STD’s, a shitty, ineffectual educational system and a society where everyone acts like assholes isn’t really all that bad!)

It’s far from the first time I’ve seen you issue blanket condemnations/attacks on liberals or Democrats, implying (or stating outright) that we support shitty things like widespread criminality and STDs.

You can say that’s just you criticizing the ideas Democrats have, but at best you’re splitting hairs. Saying someone wants harm to befall society as a whole is not much different than saying they’re a bad person.

[Starving_Artist]

@Giraffe

I think your OP loses some of its punch when I remember recent posts of yours which say things like:
It’s far from the first time I’ve seen you issue blanket condemnations/attacks on liberals or Democrats, implying (or stating outright) that we support shitty things like widespread criminality and STDs.

You can say that’s just you criticizing the ideas Democrats have, but at best you’re splitting hairs. Saying someone wants harm to befall society as a whole is not much different than saying they’re a bad person.

I didn’t say you support it, and I didn’t say you want it. If anything I said it’s the result of impassioned leftie do-gooderism.

[Mighty_Girl]

“Toto” is Dominican slang for twat.

Just saying.

[Bryan_Ekers]

I will never ever claim to be victimized by the political speech of others (unless I’m being ironical) because that is the hallmark of such a colossal amount of self-pitying pussified bullshit that, well, it’s just not me. Others may have gouged out their eyes and their balls and mailed them to Dear Abby with a letter that starts “What can be done about…”, and I will cheerfully ridicule them, but I shall never join them. This I swear to a God I don’t believe in, on a Bible I’ve never read, in a house or worship I’ve only visited to get out of the rain.
The right “at long last a voice” ? Please unregister to vote immediately, you inane fucking moron and leave your country in the hands of those less drool-drowned.

[bdgr]

@Starving_Artist

See, I even though I support Bush and believe that war is nasty business in which many bad and unpredictable things happen, I respect your point of view and your right to have it.

Do you respect mine?

Do I respect the opinion that torture is ok? No.
Do I respect the opinion that it’s ok for a president to lie to the American people to get what he wants? No.
Do i respect the opinion that it’s ok for the president to break the laws of this country? No.

If knowing all the things bush has done when in office, and still support him, then I have little respect for you. It’s not that I mind people disagreeing with me, it’s that there are certain things, like torture, that are flat out wrong and people who support them therefore are not people I have much respect for.

[Starving_Artist]

@Bryan_Ekers

I will never ever claim to be victimized by the political speech of others (unless I’m being ironical) because that is the hallmark of such a colossal amount of self-pitying pussified bullshit that, well, it’s just not me. Others may have gouged out their eyes and their balls and mailed them to Dear Abby with a letter that starts “What can be done about…”, and I will cheerfully ridicule them, but I shall never join them. This I swear to a God I don’t believe in, on a Bible I’ve never read, in a house or worship I’ve only visited to get out of the rain.
The right “at long last a voice” ? Please unregister to vote immediately, you inane fucking moron and leave your country in the hands of those less drool-drowned.

Did I ever claim to be victimized?

Hot nardly!

I merely pointed out a gross imbalance in the way public discourse was presented pre-1980s.

Comfort yourself with accusations of pussified bullshit all you want. The fact of the matter remains inviolate.

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

@Starving_Artist

Did I ever claim to be victimized?

Hot nardly!

I merely pointed out a gross imbalance in the way public discourse was presented pre-1980s.

Comfort yourself with accusations of pussified bullshit all you want. The fact of the matter remains inviolate.

As I recall, Republicans weren’t such big whiny ass titty babies back then. Of course, it could be that my memories are hazy. I think you’ve woven quite a nice little persecution fantasy for yourself.

You make me laugh, you silly little person.

[WF_Tomba]

I respect your point of view and your right to have it.

I don’t tend to put much weight in statements like this when they come along with statements about How All Liberals’ Minds Work or references to a very broad political orientation as “you guys” as if everyone on one side of the spectrum belonged to the same Elks lodge or something.

But I thank Starving Artist for respecting the right of liberals to hold the point of view he has declared that they hold. His opinion on their actual point of view is probably not something he himself is interested in.