My biggest problem with Republicans is...

Results (total votes = 10):

they want to fuse church and state	6 / 60.0%
they don't care enough about the environment	2 / 20.0%
they lack compassion and empathy for the poor	1 / 10.0%
they do not support a womans right to choose	0 / 0.0%
they do not support my right to arm bears	1 / 10.0%

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward,for there you have been, and there you will always want to be."

Does anyone support the right to, "arm bears"?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Chris, are you checking-up on us to make sure that we are paying attention?

I was in a weird mood. What can I say.

Chris

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward,for there you have been, and there you will always want to be."

How about the first three options.

My biggest problem is selection #1, the desire to fuse church and state. I picked the last one as a joke.

But something else came to mind as I thought about this poll. My real problem with the right is how they view everything as black & white. A binary decision, so to speak. They like to disengage their brains and turn to the Bible for quick answers to complex issues. Life isn't black & white and somtimes you have to make tough decisions. Heck, this subject could be an entire thread/discussion.

Chris

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward,for there you have been, and there you will always want to be."

Actually, the first four apply. Very difficult choice. The first two get my greatest attention. I see the church and state issue intertwined with environmental concerns and woman's right to choose.

It appears the fundamentalist see this world as temporary, therefore unimportant. Armageddon will wipe it all out anyway, and heaven is more important.

The neo-conservatives on the other hand only use the religious right to build their coalition, though they are not neccessariy friends with them. The neo-conservative worship the concept of unbridled human selfishness will bring equal opportunity and wealth to all, and all restrictions must be removed. But such worship brings much blood and sufferning onto the altar of the Capitalist God. They believe this suffering is temporary and will get better. They depend on the voluntary charity from the semi-poor to take care of the bottom poor. They do not believe the environment is wreakable or even that important and that humans are very adaptable to new environments created from these economic changes.

On abortion, the "Right to Life" needs to be rephrased "Right to Human Life", if life is precious at conception, would that not apply to all bisexual life forms? Religion ordains man as special and separate from other life forms. That to me sound more like illogical species-ism. All species behave as if they are more important than other species; those that don't behave as so have been displaced. Logic cannot defend this position. It is simply a rule that the more aggressive species displace the less agressive. On the other hand, species that mutated a successful strategy not countered in time by other species evolving a counter-attact, tend to exterminate their environment and exterminate themselves. The few lifeforms left pick up the pieces and rebuild a co-operative arrangement until another rogue life form steps out of bounds. Humanity is at that stage.

Monty Vonn
Meme Wars!

Meme Wars

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if life is precious at conception, would that not apply to all bisexual life forms?

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Bisexual means (in biology) hermaphroditic; I think you mean "all sexual species" (All known sexual species have a maximum of two sexes, a fact which probably relates to the reasons sexual dimorphism evolves in the first place). But come to think of it, why the prejudice against non sexual organisms?

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If you make yourself really small, you can externalize virtually everything. Daniel Dennett, 1984

On a more serious note, my problem with republicans falls in to two categories. One is specific to the politicians who were in power during the Clinton administration; I think the behaviour of the group was abominable, almost treasonous.

The other has to do with my perception of a deep hypocrisy in conservative republican philosophy. "We believe in individual freedom without government interference. Don't let the tree huggers interfere with our god-given right to exploit the environment!" But, "Medical Marijuana? Oh no, daddy Ashcroft has GOT to put a stop to THAT".

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If you make yourself really small, you can externalize virtually everything. Daniel Dennett, 1984

Monty says:

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The neo-conservative worship the concept of unbridled human selfishness will bring equal opportunity and wealth to all, and all restrictions must be removed. But such worship brings much blood and sufferning onto the altar of the Capitalist God. They believe this suffering is temporary and will get better. They depend on the voluntary charity from the semi-poor to take care of the bottom poor. They do not believe the environment is wreakable or even that important and that humans are very adaptable to new environments created from these economic changes.

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Holy shit! Thanks for showing up and telling me what I believe, Monty! I was pretty confused before this, but luckily a liberal has come to straighten me out.

I thought I believed in secular democracy and free-market economics because history has shown them to be - despite some real flaws - the best systems currently available to the human race. I thought I also believed some social controls were necessary on these systems to prevent gross abuse, but apparently what I was really doing was worshiping unbridled human selfishness. Boy, I should have consulted someone from the far left before I formulated my own opinion based on two decades of studying history, science, and politics. Think of the time I could have saved!

I see that I also depend on voluntary charity from the semi-poor to the bottom poor. And here I always thought my opinion was that a government safety net is a fine idea but that a welfare state - the safety hammock, if you will - is unnecessary and wasteful. And I'm apparently pretty cold and unfeeling as well, seeing as how I bring about so much blood and suffering in the name of my Capitalist God. I'd always been told that I was a pretty compassionate and fair-minded guy, but I guess all those folks were wrong; my insistence that those who have dreams and work hard to achieve them deserve to benefit from that achievement must be somehow unfair. And I see that I don't even think the environment is wreckable! All those years I tried to support an environmental policy that was a responsible balance between our economic and ecological needs were a waste, considering how I don't even see the environment as that important. Apparently I believe something or other about human adaptability too, but it's kind of unclear. Oh well, it must just be my basic neocon stupidity rearing its ugly head again; maybe I'll call Howard Dean and ask him to explain it. He's so smart he even learned how to ski with a bad back.


/contempt


S

Jeremy says:

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The other has to do with my perception of a deep hypocrisy in conservative republican philosophy. "We believe in individual freedom without government interference. Don't let the tree huggers interfere with our god-given right to exploit the environment!" But, "Medical Marijuana? Oh no, daddy Ashcroft has GOT to put a stop to THAT".

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This is, in my opinion, the most legitimate beef that Libertarians and Independents have against Republicans (Democrats don't get to bitch - you guys advocate big government, just of a different stripe).

It's amazing how all of the small government conservatives disappeared when Bush passed his ban on government-sponsored stem cell research (yes, I'm still upset about it). The truth of the matter is that a lot of Republicans like laws just as much as Democrats do, they just like different laws.

The real small government people are actually a mixture of Libertarians, center-right neocons, and "Don't Tread on Me" - type Independents. Many do belong to the Republican party - if they belong to any party at all - but it shouldn't be taken to mean that they advocate far-right authoritarianism any more than they advocate far-left authoritarianism.


S