You silly, twisted boy.
What’s weird here is the absence of Starkers. I mean, here we put out the fliers and rented a hall for the **Starving Artist **Show, here’s his special moment, and he’s, like, nowheresville. Start a thread about the proper arrangement of daffodils, and he’s all over it about how liberals have destroyed flower arrangement. Start one about arcane lexicography, and he’s all about how the liberals use too many dirty words, and invent new ones every day. Like “padiddle”.
But give him his own show, prime time, here’s your chance…and the absence which is dearly wished elsewhere…is here.
Well you know me, I don’t go in for sophistry.
I think it’s worth mentioning that in the 1960s, “liberal” meant “not radical” as often as it meant “not conservative”. Liberalism has an element of moderation that is absent from the far left, so it’s a misnomer to apply the term to the latter group.
Ironically enough, the Goons are generally very serious about projecting (and voicing) their “We aren’t serious!” schtick.
Not quite. Generally the daffodil or lexicography thread would have to include sentiments like having the government fund daffodil arrangement or the study of arcane lexicography for anyone who wants to do it before I would offer my thoughts on the subject.
Several things: One, I sort of ebb and flow when it comes to getting into heated discussions that are going to keep me glued to my computer for three days to a week, and I just haven’t felt like making that investment; two, there have been interesting conversations going on between other posters that I’ve been reluctant to derail; and three, the thread so far is doing a pretty good job of illustrating my point about how serious problems caused by liberalism get blown off with the focus being put instead on relatively minor complaints about politeness and scornful references to “the good old days” of the fifties.
But never fear! I feel the juices beginning to flow and it likely won’t be long until the post you’ve so patiently been waiting for makes its appearance. But first I’ve got to get some of my friends to come over and help me drag Really Not All That Bright out from under my bad, depants him and lock him outdoors, thereby exposing his shortcomings for all the world to see; and I’ve got to give lissener at least a cursory response to the several questions he’s asked, though I have to ask myself why. Several times in the past he’s made similar sincere-seeming and heartfelt posts asking me to explain myself to him, and then when I do he either ignores it or reverts to form and insults me. Still, being the polite and civil person that I am – and feeling as I do that when one approaches me in good faith, I should respond in kind – I feel compelled to answer, even though that compulsion leaves me feeling somewhat like Charlie Brown trusting Lucy with the football yet one more time. 
So, all in good time, mon frere.
Paging Dr. Freud…
I have a serious proposal for Starving Artist. You claim that part of the reason you so rarely actually debate the fine points of your claims is that you’ve learned that on these boards you’re outnumbered and frequently get piled on by lots of rude people, so it’s just not worth your time. Well, there’s probably some substance to that claim.
So, let’s do the following: We liberals, using our hive mind, will select one and only one of our number, someone who is intelligent and knowledgeable but also courteous and polite. Then we will challenge you to debate this issue with only that one person. In that debate, if either side sinks to invective or insult, then the other side wins by default, and because only one person will be debating you, you are encouraged, nay required, to ignore all posts by any other liberal posters.
Then this issue can receive the respectful and polite debate that it deserves, and we’ll see where that leads.
Do you accept?
I don’t believe I’ve ever made a point that commented on the Chicago '68 protestors at all, much less suggested that it would have been better if they had become criminals – whitecollar or otherwise.
You’re looking at it from the wrong perspective. I don’t decide liberals are doing this or that thing that is wrong and then go back in time looking for when it started; I was there when it started! I don’t have to go researching back in time to seek out some example of wrongful liberal influence, I was there and watched as they took place and all I have to do is remember it! I have watched with disgust and contempt and disdain every step of the way as this country, which was once the shining star of the world and whose style and ways of life most of the civilized world aspired to, has devolved into one whose societal style and behavior has more in common with 50 Cent, Jerry Springer’s audience and Hustler magazine than it does with JFK, William F. Buckley’s audience and Playboy. It has devolved from one to whom JFK would announce “Ask not what your country can do for you” and be applauded for it (by Democrats, no less) to one where the overriding question in congressional and presidential elections is “What can this country do for you?” Where people feel entitled to demand that their needs be met by everyone else and that selfishness or evil is the only reason to object. And finally, one where the notion of politeness and civility is met with jeers.
:smack:
So . . . in a nutshell, you’re not interested in analyzing it? “I know it because it’s true” is not an analysis. It’s not even an answer; it’s a refusal to answer.
You’re not willing to examine your beliefs, or analyze your logic?
Even your paragraph above pretty much states that you began with a conclusion–you were “there when it started”–and you’ve seen everything else that’s ever happened through the lens of that initial conclusion.
Why you won’t tell us about “when it started”? When what started? What was your first inkling?
Actually, most of your first paragraph is incorrect. I rarely complain about being piled on or being treated rudely by people here. It’s de rigueur, if you’re a conservative.
And most of my complaints about civility are with regard to society as a whole and not this board, which I consider to be largely a private conversation among consenting adults (and which is why I occasionally use language around here that I wouldn’t dream of using in public or mixed company elsewhere).
And as much as I appreciate the sentiment behind your proposal, I think I would prefer to decline anyway. Much of what makes discussion around here interesting is the wide-ranging diversity of points brought up by different posters, and I don’t think much would be served by my having it out with just one guy – polite though he may be. 
(Plus, people on the sidelines would be going nuts over what they see as openings not taken advantage of, points that should be raised but aren’t, etc. I can only imagine the burden on the board’s hamsters when the PMs start to fly, headed for this or that combatant.)
The only problem I have with being piled on is that it’s difficult timewise to contend with everyone.
If I may be so bold, I think you’re missing lissener’s point. It’s your decision to select a starting point the defines your whole argument, and places the blame for whatever has come after. It doesn’t matter whether the source of your information is your own memory or stacks of old National Geographics in the basement. That you see something as having started at a particular time, with a particular group, is not a self-evident fact to the rest of us. The hippies begat the protest marches, which begat the convention violence, etc. But something begat the hippies. The world was not created, from scratch, in 1967.
And if you are citing only your own memory as the source for When Things Began to Change, that’s a flawed way to look at it. My earliest political memory is watching on television as Nixon resigned. I could say that everything flows from that event, because, after all, I was there when it started. But I don’t believe that. That’s just the time that I started to notice. I think that World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, placed an influence on our history that in some way led us to where we are. Do you think those things changed us, that their influence is still with us, even if you weren’t there to remember them?
The world still aspires to our style. I can’t tell you how many New York Yankees caps I’ve seen in Germany; a dozen a day, easy. (I asked one girl if she was a fan of the team. She had no idea what I was talking about.) Levis cost a small fortune there. Paris was practically wallpapered with ads for the upcoming Pixar movie when I was there. The world clamors for our style; the one who has been left behind is you.
Funny thing, that. You see, I was there too. I was a liberal, and a participant, as well as an observer. And you know, your observations are at odds with mine.
Which one of our anecdotal memories should be given the imprimatur of “truth”?
You know, I’m not gonna make much headway in answering Polycarp if I have to keep answering these secondary posts.
What if I were to say to you, “With regard to your conclusion that 2 + 2 = 4, are you not willing to examine that belief?” That is what it sounds like you’re saying to me. There are conclusions that don’t require analyzation. For example: societally, a large number of people all around this country began behaving in a much more belligerent, crass and vulgar way during and as a result of the counter-culture revolution than they did beforehand. They use vastly more drugs. They dress differently. They have different values.
These are not suppositions. They are plain and simple fact. Now, you could argue that I’m wrong in viewing those changes as bad, but I don’t think that you could reasonably argue that they haven’t taken place.
My arguments are largely focused on the harm that these changes have wrought and the harm that they will likely cause in the future. These are the kinds of things that I think are open to discussion and analyzation, but bear in mind that one’s basic political philosophy is going to determine much of how he views things within the context of those analyzations. For example, I simply think it’s wrong for a variety of reasons for people to look to the government to provide and care for them (barring the truly disabled), so it’s unlikely that any analyzation or argument is going to persuade me otherwise. And the same is true for your take on the issues: you have fundamental beliefs about how things should be and you will analyze arguments to the contrary from that foundation. Have you ever heard a conservative argument that has persuaded you to do a 180 and thoroughly embrace the conservative point of view on any major issue? I doubt it.
What we are really doing here, you and I, is attempting to reach the undecided. I am not here primarily to engage in intellectual Firing Line-style debates of the issues. Those types of discussion take a great deal of time and rarely settle anything. (Watch the Firing Line debate between William F. Buckley and Noam Chomsky sometime and tell me what you think got settled.) Those types of debate are great for intellectual discussion and giving your mind something to chew on for exercise, but they accomplish little in the way of changing anybody’s mind.
The view, beliefs and goals of liberalism get wide exposure on this board. They can become persuasive simply by virtue of the fact that everyone seems to agree on them. What I try to do is provide a counterpoint to those views, and getting bogged down in formal debates over the finer points of this or that argument not only imposes a severe limit on the number of times I can do that but accomplishes nothing in the meantime.
The one that is accurate. My contention is that the things I complain about around here have happened one after the other starting primarily with the counter-culture revolution of the late-sixties. It was the cause of some changes and the catalyst for others which were unseen even at that time. As I just said to lissener, I don’t think there is any reasonable argument that and be made as to whether these changes have taken place; only whether it is or isn’t good that they have.
Robot Arm, it isn’t that I have “selected” a starting point; it’s that I merely point to it as what is was: a catalyst for what has followed. The starting point, which was the counter-culture revolution, occurred all on its own. Sure, there was activity about which was seeking to inculcate liberalism into American society long before that by virtue of portraying conservatives as dumb, backward, racist, etc. going all the way back to the turn of the twentieth century, but those were mostly limited to liberal universities and their professors (see Wm. F. Buckley’s God and Man at Yale), Hollywood, journalists, and small groups of liberal activists that most people had never heard of. The progeny of these groups became the beatniks of the fifties, who were generally laughed at and taken seriously by no one, and protest songs began to find popularity in the early sixties.
So it was a slow and not all that memorable slog for liberalism prior to the late sixties, which is when the generation gap between adults and the post-Beatles generation lead to hard feelings over the younger generation’s of long hair, unconventional clothing and drug use, and which, combined with the flash point of the Vietnam war and supported by Hollywood and the news media, ignited the counter-culture revolution and all that has come in its wake.
Yeah… but your side won! I blame conservatism for the ills of the past forty years.
Prove me wrong. lalalalalalala
…that’s what it’s like talking to you.
“2 + 2 = 4” has been examined, exhaustively. It can be traced to the axioms of arithmetic, the fundamental assumptions (and they are strictly codified and understood) on which the whole field of study is based. Every year, it is re-examined by students so that they may learn the rules by which such things are proven.
Your statement “societally, a large number of people…” seems to be axiomatic to you. I see multiple flaws with it, but by declaring it an axiom, you put it beyond examining.
It seems to me that you have selected a starting point, whether you are conciously aware of it or not.
Be that as it may, if a counter-culture revolution can arise “all on its own”, why hasn’t a counter-counter-culture revolution arisen in the years since? If one group can simply decide to change the world (for the worse, as you claim), then doesn’t everyone else bear some responsibility for not simply changing it back?
Are you suggesting Springers Southern fried guests are Liberal? Based on what ,your lack of logic? Those are your republican counterparts there .