sad to say , mr mephisto, but welcome to how the american right "deals with" dissent.
denial: not just a river in egypt....

Actually Mephisto I think you are a smart educated person who post your opinions. Politics should be opinion, and it's not wrong to choose your sides in this arguement.

I'm conservative, but I know that too much conservatism would be horrible for our country. I also know though that too much liberalism would harm us also.

Let me say this, even if you did hate Bush Mr. M, why shouldn't you? You should feel how you want about people. As long as you don't tell me to hate bush, and vice versa I don't tell you to love him I think we stand on even grounds. If you, with constructive reason and dialog motivate me enough to change my opinion on a subject matter that's excellent.




In that post about the Iraq election, in my opinion it's a good thing because it's a developmental story that comes out of the woodworks for what America is doing in Iraq. Does it make America safer? In the broad picture I believe it does. In the immediate picture it will probably be harmful because as the election comes, many of our soldiers will die. People will be crying foul as they see "Unneeded" bloodshed, while others would quietly stay solemn realizing how unique and inspiring such an event will be.


There should always be both sides, if not at least a twinkle of question. We need balance.

I couldn't have said it better myself Konichiwaneko.


Mr Mephisto

but in this case, almost all conservative arguments are empty.

politics is not simply a matter of opinion if by that you mean arbitrary positions that one adopts not on the basis of any factual material, or considered engagement with material whose status is problematic, but rather because it follows from a disposition.

nor is there much value to a diversity of positions for its own sake if, as in teh case of the war in iraq, every single premise brought to bear on the matter from teh right had proven to be either false outright (wmds, the linkage of iraq to the "war on terror"), incomplete to the point of total incompetence (the "strategy" for dealing with iraq), a thin veil for the rationalization of crimes against humanity (the administrations apparent affection for abuse/torture in addition to the creation of the various legal black holes)....

there must come a point when even the most dispositionally committed conservative has to reconsider his or her position, dont you think?

or is message board culture a space where you can go to write out otherwise totally untenable positions that you defend in big lebowski fashion (that's your opinion, man)....

Reconsidering position doesn't mean 180 degree turn.

The message board is a place to express your opinion because it's the choice of the person listening to you to either give you attention or not. It's also a place that allows you to develop the repetoire among the people you chat among.

Me personally if you qoute me facts and documents all day long, your opinion to me is more in tuned to a cookie cutter liberal or republican. Yet if you don't need to depend on documents, don't paste hyperlinks left and right saying "See, someone wrote about it so it has to be true"...if you put down exactly what you feel from what you've read and what you deduced in the intelligent head of yours then I honestly believe it's you.

why not? if i was as wrong as the conservatives have been and are on iraq because i followed some political line or another, and i could see that i was wrong, i would reconsider my position. it's pretty simple.