03-02-2007, 07:09 PM | #81 (permalink) | ||||
... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.
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First off, welcome back Ustwo. We missed you (especially host).
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Just fyi, a new feature was added so that ultra-long articles can be better organized for the ease of the reader. Quote:
You were a 20 something once upon a time, and I'm sure you had just as many big opinions on things as you do now. I'm also sure that you would have been pissed off if some older person tried to dismiss you and/or your ideas based solely on your age. Have the courtesy of showing others the respect they earn. If someone is an idiot, call them an idiot for the things they say and do, not their age. |
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03-02-2007, 07:33 PM | #82 (permalink) | |
Gentlemen Farmer
Location: Middle of nowhere, Jersey
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I can't say I completely agree with this characterization of conservatism, at least in it's present incarnation in US politics. Essentially I think that the stripes of both "ideologies" are for the most identical, and essentially boil down to staying in power, at what ever cost. Classical liberalism or true libertarianism I think is concerned with understanding human nature and adapting appropriate solutions and present day liberalism is essentially (and has yet to chalk up a single success. This lack of success or even a single improvement is key) attempting to create a utopia based on how the population of a utopia "should" behave. Obviously and without a doubt dillusional in assuming that human nature can be utopic or even in the slightest way manufactured or steered in such a direction. Anywho....Ustwo, I miss your insights, and wish you well in your quest for family happiness and whatever other goals you seek to accomplish. -bear
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It's alot easier to ask for forgiveness then it is to ask for permission. |
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03-02-2007, 08:29 PM | #83 (permalink) | ||||
Location: Washington DC
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Its a fine model on paper and may work well in a small, agrarian, homogenous, isolationist nation. I dont believe for a second that such a government can represent its citizens best interests in a post-industrial, geo-politically and economically complex 21st century. No, I would not be happy living under such a government, because, IMO, most likely it would be a failed state. *** edit: Quote:
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My apologies to others for the threadjack and and making it personal.
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"The perfect is the enemy of the good." ~ Voltaire Last edited by dc_dux; 03-02-2007 at 09:22 PM.. |
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03-03-2007, 01:11 AM | #84 (permalink) | ||
Artist of Life
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Thanks for stopping by Ustwo. Hopefully your new found ability to let go of anger and disdain is contagious. I wish you and your family well. Last edited by Ch'i; 03-03-2007 at 01:20 AM.. |
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03-03-2007, 05:01 AM | #85 (permalink) | |
Location: Washington DC
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Ch'i....if you want to start a new thread on liberalism/conservatism (based on Ustwo's premise or not), I will be happy to debate it.
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Now if you think these examples are "against human nature and tries to force us to become what they think humans should be", as I said, I would be happy to discuss it further in a new thread....I would suggest it is religious social conservatism in the US that has these characteristics. And, I persisted with my observation regarding Ustwo's follow-up comment to my initial observation of his "hit and run" tactics ("There are about 15 liberals to one conservative that posts, I'm not going to respond to everyone who thinks they have a point.") with an example -- I simply pointed out he if post an article and comment that criticizes others here as "armchair experts", he should stay around and debate it. The same would apply to his latest sweeping characterization (or mischaracterization IMO) of liberalism/conservatiism. If he is going to offer that kind of controversial commentary, he should have the courage of his convictions to debate it and defend it. I thought a public response was reasonable (considering all the threadjacking that goes on in the political forum) and I stand by what I wrote.
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"The perfect is the enemy of the good." ~ Voltaire Last edited by dc_dux; 03-03-2007 at 06:27 AM.. |
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03-03-2007, 12:28 PM | #86 (permalink) | |||||
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....speaking of empathy.....let's hop in the "way back" machine, for a sec...
Seaver in this post on Aug. 12, 2006: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...1&postcount=53 Quote:
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In this post http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...&postcount=204 http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...40#post2106840 Quote:
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03-04-2007, 11:27 PM | #87 (permalink) |
Crazy
Location: Music City burbs
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My post has to do with the statements made about hunger in the US - I am amazed that anyone would say that there is true "hunger" in the US, true hunger meaning there is no access to services or ministries that would alleviate an actual physical hunger.
I have lived in Thailand for years, I have walked amongst poverty stricken people there in the slums of Klong Tuey and have walked down the streets of Vientienne, Laos, and in the eastern border towns between Thailand and Cambodia. I have walked in Myanmar, and have seen hungry kids asking for money for food (or for their weekly amounts they must give their handlers who are watching on the side) I have walked in Egypt and had kids asking for "bahksheesh", kids who don't have homes and who only eat when a foreigner gives them money. In these years I have been privileged to walk amongst such children, never have I seen a "fat" kid, a child who obviously and truly had enough to eat. Not like most all American kids I have seen, even in the most impoverished of American kids. So don't say that there is true "hunger" here in America - there are services available, and failing that, there are ministries who will care for these kids. In other countries, there is nothing - no government, no services, no ministries. These kids are truly "hungry". Americans need to pull their heads out of their asses and see what is going on in the world, and not just think the sun rises and sets on them. And I am an American.
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(none yet, still thinkin') |
03-05-2007, 01:14 AM | #88 (permalink) | ||||||
Banned
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But, since you did compare the US to those countries, please take note of the fact that Thailand has a lower poverty rate than the US does, compared to the respective mean incomes in each country. Notice, too....that in both Egypt and Thailand, the bottome ten percent enjoy almost twice the 1.8 percent of total national income that reaches the bottom ten percent of the US population. Are you defending the idea that, in the US, a country where the average income is five to ten times the average income in Thailand and Egypt, hunger that is say....."half" as severe, for the bottom ten percent here in the US, as it is in those much poorer places, is acceptable, or out of the realm of your belief system, as it seemed to be out of candidate Bush's? Your opinions contradict the reports from the USDA, and the CIA factbook offers statistics that indicate that the bottom ten percent here control only 1.8 percent of the total wealth, 1/17 of the top ten percents' 1997 figure of 30.5 percent. ....and if the CIA factbook can tell us the income distribution in the last few years in foreing countries, why do your think that 30.5 percent wealth figure for the top ten percent in the US is from 1997...nine years old now.....? You say that it is not so bad here....but don't the income numbers tell us that it should be five times better for the poorest here, than in Thailand? Your comparisons of conditions of the poorest of the population living in the wealthiest major country in the world, with the plight of the poorest in 4 or 5 impoverished third world countries, as a method to dismiss the hunger problem in the wealthiest major country, is unconvincing and disturbing to me. It reminds me of Newt's shameful rhetoric: Quote:
Keep pushing an agenda that makes it impossible for the rural poor to obtain birth control and sex education, and birth control products and access to safe clinical abortion..... Keep doing all of the things that I've described republicans' supporting, and you'll succeed in shifting that last 1.8 percent of the national income that does trickle down to the poorest ten percent in the US, and keep denying that there is a hunger problem, here, because you have witnessed REAL hunger....and maybe you'll get to see REAL hunger here, too! Quote:
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03-05-2007, 06:58 AM | #89 (permalink) |
Junkie
Location: Fort Worth, TX
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Ustwo, I really do understand where you came from. You see that little warning bar under my name? That is because I got sick of the feces which was pouring out from another TF'er and I simply didn't care. I never apologized and I never will. By the end of your tenure, however, you were doing nothing more than flame baiting.
We saw eye to eye on most issues, and would try to mutually support each others arguments against the heavy tilt which is TF Politics. However by the end of it you didn't care and it showed, hell I hardly post here anymore. Even salmon give up after swimming up stream long enough, but simply not posting is much more civil than the one liners you were using.
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"Smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge, and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth." - Ashbel Smith as he laid the first cornerstone of the University of Texas |
03-05-2007, 08:44 AM | #90 (permalink) | |
Tone.
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You can make up any word you want for hunger but it's still hunger. Note I said hunger, not starvation. Sure, there are few, if any, people in America that are truly starving. Sure, there are many countries where the people are a whole lot hungrier than we are. But comparing the USA to egypt and saying "See? Look! We're not as bad as them so things are great" is disingenuous. It's rather like coming home to mom and dad with a D on your report card and saying "Yeah, but this other kid got an F, so compared to him I'm awesome and therefore don't need to do anything to improve!" It simply doesn't fly. There are certainly organizations that you can turn to for help if you can't afford to buy food - - - but why should we think it's acceptable that so many Americans *have* to turn to those organizations. If the citizens in the richest country on earth can't afford to buy even cheap, crappy food for themselves, while the government drops BILLIONS into a front of the "war on terr" that in fact has nothing to do with the fictitious war on terror, what does that say about our priorities? |
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03-05-2007, 08:54 AM | #91 (permalink) |
Wehret Den Anfängen!
Location: Ontario, Canada
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You can have low food security without being hungry. You can have low food security and be fat.
A non-reliable or unsafe source of food is a food security problem. A non-nutritious source of food is a food security problem. I thought that most industrialized nations engage in practices to increase the price of food?
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Last edited by JHVH : 10-29-4004 BC at 09:00 PM. Reason: Time for a rest. |
03-05-2007, 11:31 AM | #92 (permalink) | |
Pissing in the cornflakes
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You did nail it though, I didn't care anymore, but I wouldn't say I was flame baiting. If you recall ANY post of mine became a flame bait to the slavering horde, it doesn't matter on how it was presented. My posts did stand out more, but when you think of the outright flames, no bait, just complete flames, I would get without any moderator action until it was pointed out since the moderators never bothered to read those posts, I should take some solace in that my posts were at least read. In the end I've just decided to look at the path my life has taken, and then the paths of others and wonder who's philosophy should be the rule of law. Maybe now I am 'The Man' in many eyes, but I am what I am by taking control of my own life and hard work, not by leeching off the work of others or complaining it wasn't fair.
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Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps. |
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03-05-2007, 11:45 AM | #93 (permalink) |
Artist of Life
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I never read any of those posts, Ustwo. Seems I was wrong in thinking that you had grasped at any sense of humility as well. Not really sure why I did in the first place. Oh wait, that's right! I thought you had actually meant something when you said "With age comes wisdom, and I received a bit of a dose this last year or two."
My mistake. |
03-05-2007, 11:56 AM | #94 (permalink) |
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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my my, ustwo.....such Grand Pronouncements.
it is i guess nice to see that your time spent in an ashram had such effects, focussing you on the Big Picture and reducing those of us who scuttle about here to a suitably small scale. just be careful up there in those Olympian Heights: the air is thin and it makes you dizzy the way drinking in boulder can. one consequence of this thinness in the air is that your sentences--you know, those transmissions aimed at us Little People--dont really make sense at times. like your equating of your "life path" and that of "whose philosophy should be the rule of Law". i dont recall your having much of a philosophy. but, as one of those Little People that you use in order to get a sense of the scale of your Magnificence, i am sure that the problem of recognizing your philosophy lay entirely with me: as does the sense of garble in your last post. so no worries: next time you feel inclined to stride mightily downward from the Heights in order to deliver a Transmission, i'll be just as grateful as i am right now. it is always lovely to see you and your sentences. god knows there's nothing quite like reading a post from someone who imagines himself to be copping a squat on you from a great height: it really makes me feel inclined to say welcome back.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 03-05-2007 at 11:59 AM.. |
03-05-2007, 12:33 PM | #95 (permalink) |
Asshole
Administrator
Location: Chicago
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People, let's quit the personal criticisms. Almost all of us are faceless internet personalities, and decending into personal attacks are counterproductive to the very basis for this thread.
In other words, keep it above the belt.
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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin "There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush "We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo |
03-05-2007, 01:03 PM | #96 (permalink) |
All important elusive independent swing voter...
Location: People's Republic of KKKalifornia
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Ustwo, what's wrong with being the "Man"? People reap what they sow. Not everyone gets this. *shrug*
I have a great quote (paraphrase cause I can't remember it verbatim) for you that you may like from one of my favorite statesmen: Winston Churchill: "If you are not a rebel by the time you are 20, then you have no heart. But if you are not part of the establishment by the time you are 30 then you have no brain." I hope you stick around Ustwo, it brings a little balance to this place. |
03-05-2007, 03:12 PM | #97 (permalink) | |
Junkie
Location: Right here
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"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann "You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman |
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03-05-2007, 04:26 PM | #98 (permalink) |
Location: Washington DC
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People come and go all the time...thats the nature of political forums.
I do find added entertainment value from those who feel a need for an extended public farewell tour.
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"The perfect is the enemy of the good." ~ Voltaire |
03-05-2007, 10:46 PM | #99 (permalink) | ||
Pissing in the cornflakes
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You just don't get it, but thats ok. Quote:
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Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps. Last edited by Ustwo; 03-05-2007 at 10:48 PM.. Reason: Automerged Doublepost |
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03-06-2007, 05:23 AM | #100 (permalink) | |
Getting it.
Super Moderator
Location: Lion City
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"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars." - Old Man Luedecke |
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03-06-2007, 06:24 AM | #101 (permalink) | |
Tone.
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03-07-2007, 08:32 PM | #103 (permalink) |
Crazy
Location: Music City burbs
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Perhaps, Host, I was unclear about what I stated before - I have seen hunger, and it is awful. Perhaps we should define the term "true hunger". I see true hunger as being a situation in which there is no hope, either from familial, ministerial or governmental means, for alleviation of hunger. I'm writing of personal experience of actually seeing kids/adult suffering with both marasmus and kwarshkor (sp?).
I don't know about statistics regarding how horrible you feel the Bush administration has performed regarding the poor in the US. You have so many stats and quotes that I just really have no desire to work through, but from what I can see, you just are focussed on the politics of seeing conservative issues fail. That is not what I am talking about - I'm talking about real hunger. Kids with distended bellies, kids who have begged me for water and food, kids and adults who have no one else but me (a foreigner) who can supply them with a few pennies in order to give them another meal. I've personally walked through this, Host, in other countries. I've never seen emaciated kids in the US. Where are they? If there are emaciated kids in the US, why aren't YOU out there helping them? Or at least calling attention of the numerous government services available to them? Where are you, Host, in the issue of hunger in America?
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(none yet, still thinkin') |
03-07-2007, 08:55 PM | #104 (permalink) | |
Tone.
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03-07-2007, 10:42 PM | #105 (permalink) | |
Crazy
Location: Music City burbs
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If this is an "Ethiopia is worse" problem, then so be it. Sometimes you just have to concede that indeed, Ethiopia is just worse off than we are.
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(none yet, still thinkin') |
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03-08-2007, 09:34 AM | #106 (permalink) |
Tone.
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No one disagrees that Ethiopia is worse. However I feel it is not a meaningful activity to compare the US to other countries. Either we're doing what we need to do or we are not. And the simple fact is, we are not. Those homeless shelters and soup kitchens should not be anywhere close to full every night, yet they are, all while the richest tiny fraction of our society spends their days deciding between the Bentley and the Rolls Royce - - and then deciding aww what the hell, let's get both. I have no problem with people being wealthy, but I find it unconscionable that those who are wealthy do not have to contribute their fair share to the government, which could then turn around and help empty out those shelters and kitchens.
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03-08-2007, 11:04 AM | #108 (permalink) | |||||||
Banned
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Are the lower class inhabitants of the US. Mexico,and Brazil, lazier, or less productive, than their counterparts in Sweden, Germany, and Japan. Are the top ten percent in the US, Brazil, and Mexico, smarter, or more productive...or are they simply, and probably temoporarily, in possession of more politcal influence than their counterparts in Japan, Germany and Sweden? |
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03-08-2007, 11:30 AM | #109 (permalink) |
All important elusive independent swing voter...
Location: People's Republic of KKKalifornia
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What are you talking about host? Your stats don't prove squat. I was referring to taxes cause that's what I assumed we talking about when it comes to "fair share". So yes, apparently it is very subjective because we all have different views as to what is subjective.
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03-10-2007, 06:37 PM | #110 (permalink) | |
Insane
Location: under the freeway bridge
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I can't speak for anyone else but I don't post much because frankly the line by line dissection of each others posts and sources is TEDIOUS. I get more enjoyment out of the first few posts in a thread when people are on point and projecting their opinions (right or wrong) from original thoughts rather than sniping the other guy and getting so far afield from the original topic that it is forgotten.
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"Iron rusts with disuse, stagnant water loses its purity and in cold water freezes. Even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind" Leonardo Da Vinci |
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09-07-2007, 12:55 AM | #111 (permalink) | |
Tilted
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No? How shocking. |
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09-16-2007, 09:26 AM | #115 (permalink) |
Conspiracy Realist
Location: The Event Horizon
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It also appears the touchy subject of Israel / Palestine is avoided now. That seemed to lead to real nasty dialogue.
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To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit.- Stephen Hawking |
10-15-2007, 01:44 PM | #116 (permalink) | |
Playing With Fire
Location: Disaster Area
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Now this thread was an interesting read, very informative. I'm glad to know I'm not alone in my view on certain modular TFP matters......dont ask.
80% warn on Ustwo??? Obviously I don't call members cocksuckers quite as much as I should. I feel inadequate with no warnings at all..... Quote:
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Syriana...have you ever tried liquid MDMA?....Liquid MDMA? No....Arash, when you wanna do this?.....After prayer... Last edited by DaveOrion; 10-15-2007 at 01:46 PM.. Reason: Automerged Doublepost |
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10-17-2007, 05:29 PM | #118 (permalink) |
Illusionary
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I was thinking (yeah...I know, bad Idea), but for me at least the lack of serious debate comes down to two things:
1) the vast majority of people agree for the most part with my stance, thus making debate pointless. 2) those who do not agree have debated with me on the issues, and are extremely negative for the most part, making debate again...pointless.
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Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha |
10-17-2007, 06:44 PM | #120 (permalink) | |
Tilted
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A search of posts containing the word "Abramoff": Showing results 1 to 40 of 91 A search of posts by Host containing the word "Abramoff": Showing results 1 to 40 of 58 In these posts, Host was able to delve out incredibly minute details of public figures he dislikes. Contrast that to a search for posts by Host containing the word "Hsu": Showing results 1 to 3 of 3 Unfortunately, none of these refer to NORMAN Hsu. A man who can tell you Abramoff's uncle's shoe size, and who posts at length of real and imagined transgressions by Republican politicians, does not stimulate me to debate if he has not heard of Norman Hsu. For that matter, a large majority of other posters on this forum has no interest in lawbreakers who are not named Abramoff, Cheney, Rove, or Bush. Why in the world would anyone consider debating people with such closed mindsets? Perhaps one of Host's lengthy posts, this time dishing on Norman Hsu, would stimulate animated debate. |
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debate, heated |
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