I'd better not, for, since you stumbled over my "drug insult," you didn't even get to the "masturbation" insult that followed. Don't bother.
Your admission that you'd rather fling childish insults instead of understand the issue under discussion is duly noted.
Indeed, I won't bother with you any more.
(For the curious, here's what I wrote)
Wow, you're awfully *proud* of your juvenile insults, aren't you? Not enough to just let people follow the thread links back, you have to provide special pointers to it. Sheesh.
I outgrew that sort of stuff a couple decades ago. May you someday do likewise.
This is all quite funny, for I never meant a thing. I only replied to you since you took offense the first time. Now you're making it even more fun.
You're a bit sensitive me thinks. I wrote the word "toke" without any reference to drugs. It was a metaphor, a means to emphasize the statement without elaboration. I only saw it after you pointed it out; then I re-read what I wrote and I found two other potential insults that I never intended -- very funny!
Just shows how one can read anything into anything.
As for me enjoying this stuff, absolutely. The other day, I pulled up in my little beat-up Ford Escort next to a guy in a BMW 7-series. His kids were in the back. At the green, I took off with my usual vigor, that is I popped the gas pedal. The guy next to me took this as a challenge, I guess, and sped past me. Ahead, though, the road merged to one lane just as my little Ford was struggling its way out of second gear. I drive this way. But the BMW was stalled at 50, and I had to hit the brakes. He again took this as a challenge and slowed down to forty, just to be in the way.
It was very funny, for I never meant to race the guy. I drive fast. I'm used to taking off at that light, as I know there's a lane merge ahead, and I hate being stuck behind people. This guy seems to worry about what other people do around him. He wanted to show off to his kids, too, I supposed, but it was more than that. He had something to prove.
At the next light, there were two lanes. I pulled up next to him. He was laughing with the kids, and pointing to me. I rolled down my window. Straight-faced now, he stared at me. I smiled, and gestured to roll down the window. He did and said, "May I help you?" I said, "Your car is faster than mine." "What?" he said, trying to look like he had know idea what I was saying. I repeated it. "I didn't notice a thing," he said. "Well, I'm just pointing it out to you, then, since you didn't notice: your car is faster than mine. Mine sucks, in fact. Yours is nice." He didn't know what to say. He sputtered, "Have a nice day, and enjoy yourself." I replied, "I always do."
If that makes me an asshole, fine. It's just the way I enjoy life. Even though I end up running in life on four cylinders with dents down the side, I get more out of it in a day than most ever do in a BMW lifetime .
"Have a nice day."
Oh, here's something on the point you've been trying to make about pushing politics from the extreme:
Extreme Leaders as Negotiators: Lessons from the U.S. CongressThe article affirms that an extreme view drives politics. Before you get excited, though, the study concerns extremism within party politics. Once it's outside, the party is relieved of it. TR's little third-party run is case in point: by leaving the Republican party, the Republican party no longer had to answer to him. He carried greater influence within than without.