pan6467

I am tired of hearing how one side wants to portray he other as wanting to dictate their views. I actually heard one on TV last night {CNN Headline News around 5-7 I was at work} say "Sarah Palin deserves to have her child in this problem, because maybe if she believed in birth control and sex ed her daughter wouldn't be an embarrassment to this campaign."

That is pathetic..... they wish to portray Dems as saviors but let's look:

It was the Democrats that started no smoking legislation in Ohio. It is the Democrats that fight to keep even a meditation period out of school, the Pledge of Allegiance, GUN CONTROL, and so on. The Dems are just as extreme in the power they want over lives.

It's all about power over others lives. So don't get self righteous and believe it is just one side. IT'S BOTH.

One reason this election sucks is this is one of extreme sides. Both parties to pander to the vocal minorities in their parties have gone too far in each direction.

What's wrong with compromise, finding a middle, letting the people, the states, the communities decide if they want abortion, gun control, sex ed... whatever? That would be too wrong. The {insert party here} knows what is best over that issue and we need to standardize it across the US.... even though communities were started on beliefs in most cases and as we have eroded the people's power to have those beliefs, we have destroyed those communities.

The problem has become we are like a rubber band right now. The left hand has pulled, the right hand has pulled equally hard, neither side will let go. This leads to where the band is so tight it has no choice but to either break or both sides let go at the same time and it can snap back and retract saving the whole.

So until you see the log in your own eye and admit BOTH sides wish to control your life..... you only fool yourself. Don't be all pious and self righteous and tell everyone your side isn't about control..... they both are.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

abaya

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

Poppinjay

I don't know any democrats who have fought against the pledge of allegiance. Who did this? Are you confusing the ACLU with the DNC?

As far as smoking, only an idiot would argue for indoor smoking in public places. Nobody fought against this for the power of peopling the entrance to every public building with misearble addicts. They did it because it's unhealthy and spreads to others.

Other than the pledge and meditation period, which are really targets of the ACLU, the Dem measures seem to be for better health and humanity, while the GOP efforts seem to be directly against that.

So let's go down that middle road.

Let's allow smokers to smoke in the doorway. Nope, fire hazard.

Let's allow for sex ed but leave out the part about condoms. Yeah, that'll work.

Let's allow people to have guns, but no ammo. They could throw the gun at somebody I guess.

Let's outlaw right and wrong, and have only the middle ground.

__________________
I think the Apocalypse is happening all around us. We go on eating desserts and watching TV. I know I do. I wish we were more capable of sustained passion and sustained resistance. We should be screaming and what we do is gossip. -Lydia Millet

dc_dux

To generalize in a manner similar to the OP about controlling our lives:

Democrats are about protecting workplace safety, the air we breathe and the water we drink, the food we consume, the toys our kids play with, etc....to ensure some minimal level of quality control

Republicans are about leaving it all up to the free market to provide that quality control.

I'll take the former, thank you very much.
-----Added 3/9/2008 at 02 : 31 : 29-----
I thought the smoking ban in Ohio resulted from a statewide referendum...a vote of the people.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

ratbastid

I agree with you, abaya. This is a perfectly good topic for a THREAD. I think that framing it as PUB DISCUSSION is problematic.

To answer the OP, though: In my opinion, banning smoking and limiting handguns isn't even in the same PLANET with banning abortion or limiting access to birth control. One is a move that, yes, to some extent curtails people's freedoms for the literal, tangible benefit to the public. The other is a control on people's freedoms for nothing other than religious or emotional reasons.

Could it be that I agree with the liberal controls and disagree with the conservative ones? Sure. But arguing that nobody should control my actions is just silly.

When you partake in a civil society, you agree to give up certain rights for the common good. Rousseau. Social Contract. One of the notions our country was founded on. You don't have the right to drive your car literally anywhere it can go--you have an agreement with the state apparatus to keep it between the lines. There's no argument about whether that's for the public good; it clearly is. This is no different, it's just a matter of where you draw the line, and what "public good" exactly it is you're serving--and the argument over the specific placement of that line is the whole nature of politics.

pan6467

That was the party I once I believed in and loved, but it has gone to the extreme and what was once about the people and helping the people has become ruling the people and dictating to the people what is healthy, what is moral, what is..... They have become no different than the people they used to fight. They are just as militant and as extreme and they have lost what they set out innocently to do.

It was pushed ad funded by the Dems. Much like the GOP spoke out against and funded all the gambling issues here.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

dc_dux

It would be helpful if you provided better examples. The ones you listed above - no smoking legislation in Ohio..keep even a meditation period out of school...the Pledge of Allegiance...GUN CONTROL - are just false or misleading.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

pan6467

I thought pub discussion frowned on all the research and was just discussion of opinions..... that was my goal. I did not want this thread bogged down by people pulling out articles and the like to prove one side is worse than the other.

My goal here was for opinion..... how is it affecting you, why do you believe one party isn't about power over you..... what do you disagree with on principle and in opinion with the op or subsequent posts.

You allow people to bring in BS links and articles and research..... you take away opinion and one's principle.

Elections are not won or lost by FACTS they are won and lost by people's PERCEPTIONS and OPINIONS..... thus in order to understand and truly hold a good political discussion that one can learn from is explaining those opinions, respecting each other and trying to understand why one believes the way they do.

Not just shoving links and articles and so on down their throat to show them how wrong they are.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Willravel

Compromise isn't always a good option.

If someone wants to warp my children's understanding about how the world works, compromising isn't an option for me. And it has exactly nothing to do with wanting to control anyone. It's fighting for the freedom that comes from having better and more information. My children are not going to be ignorant to the way the world works because of some entitled teacher's religious perception of the universe. If I wanted my children to learn about God, G-d, or Allah, I'd take them to a church, temple, or mosque. If I wanted my children to learn about mystic runes, I suspect there's also a place for that (and I'm not suggesting that religions or spirituality that involve mystic runes are any less legitimate than Abrahamic or other world religions). There are no shortages of places that can teach my children about religion. Public school is not a forum for religious evangelism, though, and enforcing that reality is not unreasonable and it's not in any way about control.

The problem is that we're pretending like the US is just filled with two types of people, "right" and "left". It's a dishonest oversimplification and it leads to partisanship. There are as many types of people in the US alone as there are grains of sand on a beach. There are 300 millions tiny little political parties. Some parties are similar, so there are allegiances to tackle common issues, but "us and them" is unreasonable. Look at DC_Dux and I. We're both liberals, right? Oh, it's not that simple at all. We disagree on the Senate and Congress, we disagree on abortion, we disagree on a thousand things. We're two very different flavors of liberal. We still respect each other, and still are able to come together for common issues, but we're not the same at all. We're not even registered with the same political parties. Moreover, I suspect there are some conservatives that I have more in common with than most liberals. Recently, I've helping a woman that's trying to CARB's anti-idle laws in California, and she's deeply conservative. We've found a common ideal and we're shoulder to shoulder trying to deal with it.

My second point is that the "you're both" equally responsible thing should be "we're all are". I don't make policy, I only try to vote for the person most close to my own personal politics.

roachboy

so let me get this straight.

information is bad because it is presented by someone, often with the idea that your Opinions can be shown to be demonstrably wrong.
so both Information and the people who process information in the fashioning of their political views are like those evil politicians who are all the same because they want to control you.

in the kumbaya land of politics, which is all about your Feelings and Opinions, information tells you other things that you might want to consider, and so is about perhaps encouraging you to think again or reconsider your feelings or opinions and so is about controlling you. information is, in short, mind control.

this follows from the arguments outlined in the op and after, which were predicated on opposing Information and Opinion.
so we can say that, in the context of this exercise, the two are mutually exclusive.

this logic should extend to information about opinions, and particularly to information about opinions which are couched as arguments, because arguments in this context are often made with the end of showing that another is perhaps demonstrably wrong, and so are about controlling them, controlling their minds.

this should also obviously extend to information about information about opinions, which is couched in the form of argument, because argument in this context is being made with the end of showing another that he is perhaps demonstrably wrong and so is about controlling that person, controlling his mind.

this should also obviously extend to information about information about information about opinions for the same reasons.

so to be strict about the rules, what is possible:
we sit in a circle and just feel together.

in this context, there is only one permissible conversation, though there are many variants:

Q. what are you feeling?

A. i can't tell you.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Willravel

I thought it was:
Computer: How do you feel?
Spock: I do not understand the question.

abaya

Pan, check your PM's. If we can't get this thread started on civil footing, I'll just remove the "PUB" label for now and let it get back to Politics as usual--not a big deal. Starting with accusations/assumptions is just contradictory to the whole spirit of the thing. If we can change that, then we can get it back to the "pub."

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

pig

Quick note: I don't think it's so much Democrat vs. Republican...but perhaps more of a liberal / conservative thing...regardless, the distinction I see in the OP's examples, and others like it, is one of public vs private behavior. Ban smoking...IN PUBLIC. Smoke in your own house until you can't see across the room. Ban prayer....in a PUBLIC school.

Ban a man fucking another man in the ass? Well, is it in public?

As for sex-ed - that's just a presentation of information, and I will never understand how that is a bad thing, conservative or liberal. But apparently it might change how someone acts in private, so we should ban the shit out of that.

__________________
You don't love me, you just love my piggy style

Charlatan

Excellent point pig.

pan, you appear to be looking for any way to paint the Democrats as slanderous and attacking your party of choice. I would argue that partisans on both sides of the fence sling mud from time to time. I don't see why you should be surprised. The key thing to ask is who, exactly, is slinging the mud. Is it the candidate or someone else? I think it matters.

As for POWER... of course it is about the power. The power to enact laws and control the direction of a nation. As for power of the people... isn't that what a democracy is about? Electing representatives to do your will? I am not sure how to reconcile those who are on the losing side. It's been 8 long years for many who did not vote for Bush... perhaps it will be the same for those who didn't vote for Obama.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

jorgelito

You're assuming Obama is going to win though. Many Dems and liberals have a big problem with "power of the people". How many times do we get insulted here as being "too dumb to vote"? That is the most vile, elitist bullshit spewed here all too often. I am sick of that type of thinking. It's also that type of thinking that exposes liberal people for the frauds they are. They claim to be for the people but would gladly take away our right to vote because we are "too stupid". BULLSHIT!! FUCK THAT!! Who are they to tell us who and how to vote? How rude and condescending!

To answer the OP: Both parties suck ass and are morally bankrupt. Fuck parties, vote the individual. Another way to put it: Dems want to be your mommy and tell you what to do because they don't trust you to be able to do things yourself. Repubs want to be your daddy and tell you what to do but with "tough love" and want to tell you how to live your life.
That's why people like McCain, Obama, Lieberman, Nader, Paul, Kucinich are so refreshing. Because they are not as party oriented as the other idiots in power.

__________________
"The race is not always to the swift, nor battle to the strong, but
to the one that endures to the end."

"Demand more from yourself, more than anyone else could ever ask!"

- My recruiter

Charlatan

The key word in my post was "perhaps". I am not assuming that Obama will win. I think this is going to be another 50/50 election.

I don't disagree that there are many that use terms like "stupid" or "too dumb to vote". Perhaps it is elitist.

I think it's unfortunate that people use these terms but is it all that different from those on the right who claim those on the left are morally bankrupt?

I think both responses stem from the same place... a place where you cannot conceive that someone else can hold to their opinion in the face of yours (which is, of course, the "right way" to think).

Furthermore, I don't think it helps when the way in which we interact with those of differing opinions is (generally speaking) though sound bites in the media. There is no level to which misunderstandings can be achieved through lack of context.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

jorgelito

Beautifully articulated. I agree with you. My post was just an attempt to bring some balance. The right is no less guilty either and it doesn't make it right (correct). The good news is, at least we can discuss, agree, and disagree civilly here. At least i hope so. Thank you for your response Charlatan.

__________________
"The race is not always to the swift, nor battle to the strong, but
to the one that endures to the end."

"Demand more from yourself, more than anyone else could ever ask!"

- My recruiter

ratbastid

Never mind. Go on about your business.

jorgelito

MSD, I promise you I did not invent that. It has been said in numerous threads here. If I am indeed incorrect, then I will retract and issue an apology.

Blast! My moustache is a thing of wonder and beauty. It's the source of my power...muhahahaha! I shan't relinquish it. Never I tell you! from my cold dead hands...

__________________
"The race is not always to the swift, nor battle to the strong, but
to the one that endures to the end."

"Demand more from yourself, more than anyone else could ever ask!"

- My recruiter

Charlatan

ratbastid... I haven't see those specific words uttered here but I have seen that tone come from many posters and I stand by my assertion that it comes from a place of frustration... i.e. "I can't believe those sheeple that support Bush", etc.

The implication is clear that those who would vote for Bush have no thoughts of their own and are merely "sheep". It is a short step from there to, stupid.

And yes, I have seen similar vitriol from more conservative members as well.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke