I always knew JimRob could do that...
...oh, and Happy New Year.
Cheers!
finish reading
All of this, just to justify hate-porn against Ron Paul, instead of discussing his policy issue strengths and weaknesses as rationally as any other politician?
LOL, the country is being beat to death by Leftist fiscal destroyers, and the only guy who is nailing the economic self-destruct process to the wall is being slandered because he wants to point out the reduction - not elimination - in foreign military intervention a strong worldwide US dollar would enable.
Not to mention the reduction is lost military lives.
But hey, go ahead and enjoy ya’lls DU-level “tard” Paul-swarming. Oh - and enjoy RINO Romney too, because that’s who we’re going to get by shutting down the rational discussion of issues FR has been famous for, for so long. Because even if Paul isn’t elected, he could, would and is beating the crap out of Mittens on the economic front. But we can’t have that now, can we?
Happy New Year indeed.
The solution is simple. As I am supremely correct in my views on all things, thought, word and deed, people need only need ask me for the opinions they should hold. Being a generous man I will be happy to give them the correct one.
What? ;)
If y’all only knew...
I hereby nominate you as the official "FR plotter" whose duty will be to calculate each FReepers curve so that we will not have to waste time with those whose "curve" is obviously divergent from conservatism. : )
Unfortunately there are many more, and not just the two that the simplistic libertarians claim.
What about the "this needs to be in the constitution" vs. "this needs to be handled by the states" axis? Some conservatives favor a stronger DOMA that would make gay marriage illegal throughout the country. Others want this handled on a state-by-state basis. Similar arguments go both ways on abortion, environmental regulations, business restrictions, etc.
The debates on if/when to use the military are often argued out on a "realist" vs. "idealist" axis.
Even if you stick to conservative vs. liberal, there are differing opinions within the conservative ranks regarding such things as Social Security. There are conservatives who feel that promises were made and need to be kept. Others who think those promises should never have been made and the program should be scrapped post-haste. Others believe it just needs to be "privatized", but every privatization scheme I've seen has had a large government component to it. What is the "real" conservative position on Social Security? Medicare? Private pensions (where promises were made and contracts signed for good or ill)?
An insight, of course, perfectly consistent with Sartre's: Hell is the Other!
And that's the best result you can get from the premise of a fundamentally "morally relativistic" universe.
I actually heard on NPR radio last evening (which I almost never listen to) that Hinduism/Buddhism is "superior" to Christianity because it fundamentally acknowledges that the "universe", being purely "flux" in principle, never can settle on "law." (In so many words.)
The script reader did not give further (logical) particulars. But from that ["progressive???"] point of view, I gather that "whatever happens" is okay: If the Eastern philosophical view of the ultimate nature of Reality is truly the natural case, then nobody can ever again speak legitimately of "right or wrong," of "good or evil" in human society.
Worse, there is no foundation of Truth.
I'm sure it seems I digress. For you were (at least in part) regretting the practice of "zotting" at FR. It happens I share your feeling about this; BUT....
To get to a more practical point: There is no reason in the world why JR should have his resources consumed and depleted by people who hold him in contempt and animosity. Ultimately, FR is the private enterprise fruition of a single, passionate and patriotic imagination, who staked his all on the enterprise, and rises and falls with its fortunes. He is our host; and we are all his guests here.
Zotting wouldn't happen, if people just adhered to the basic rules of civility appertaining to this Forum.
Which to the Occupy Wall Street types is both senseless and tyrannical. But then, so are they.
Christians DO dispute with anarchists over basic principles, to be sure.
But I have very strong doubt that anarchists can possibly prevail, on the "merits" of their "non-argument": You just can't get any sense at all from a "senseless" person....
I'll stop such tiresome musings now, and point to the actual problem I have in "corresponding" with certain other members of the Forum.
Because I have felt so frustrated by the seeming sheer pointlessness of "engagements" with, e.g., materialists, atheists, "doctrinaire" Darwinists, et al — I have tried to understand why such conversations never seem to lead anywhere.
I've been feeling this especially since I realized I couldn't even "get on the same page" with A_perfect_lady. Whatever the question posed, she and I will respectively be dealing with it, not only from "different standpoints," but "from different levels."
Anyhoot, I read both your recent, wonderful posts on this subject before responding to this, the first one. In which you seem to be proposing the absolutely fundamental need for a universal criterion by which the Truth of Reality can be reliably known. In the second, it seemed you presented a small sampling of effects which naturally proceed from any distortion of Reality.
It seems Reality can be distorted by minds — in ways that actually afflict human beings personally and directly and, from there, into society at large.
The reason I say that (FWIW): Nowadays, since both truth and morality are "assumed" to be "relative" (relative to WHAT????), people no longer discern that there is any substantial difference between "rhetoric" and "reality."
I'll just leave the problem there for now.
Thank you ever so much for your wonderfully thought-provoking essay/posts, dear grey_whiskers!
What about change and growth. 10 years ago I was a conservative Reagan republican. Now I have left the world systems behind? I have found out it is much more profitable to seek God’s kingdom first.
Could you add me to your ping list.
Sounds painful. Is that what Bill Clinton had?
How about just continuing on as we have done? Let people express themselves and let each person decide how to react. That's worked out well so far.
The bell curve is overused, even possibly in Student’s day. But in his day there was an excuse for it — it was a simple thing (a simple model) to calculate with. It is amenable to many forms of manipulation.
Today with computers we can and should model much closer to the real dynamic is of a system.
Fun read ping.
You’ve got something there. My teens and I have heard a song on the radio with the lyrics:
“I’ll be your velcro”
Why not make your own number 1 on the hit parade....
“I’ll be your weirdo”
To this thread...I embrace and revel in my own weirdness/eccentricity.
And Happy New Year to you as well.
My personal philosophy...Keep smiling, it makes people wonder what you've been up to! {;^) anonymous my "pale backside"