Author Topic: Election Thread 2008  (Read 4349 times)

Lord J Esq

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Re: Election Thread 2008
« Reply #60 on: November 10, 2008, 07:26:14 am »
BROJ: I do not know what to make of your post. It contains...nothing. No premise. No conclusion. No meaning. I did try. Sorry.

Thought

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Re: Election Thread 2008
« Reply #61 on: November 10, 2008, 02:30:43 pm »
It's our country too, and they are going to learn that the hard way now.

Problem there is that conservatives will gain power again. Maybe not as the Republican party (certainly if Palin has any role in the party, the GOP is a body waiting to die), but you'd have to counteract the cyclical nature of civilization itself to prevent this. No matter how good your ideals are, indeed no matter how right your actions are, for the next several years conservatives will view Democrats as taking their rights away for, and for naught but reasons of religion and profit (albeit, in a different form). They'll have to listen to liberals going off on how enlightened the left is and how good citizens agree with them. And they'll find it no more palatable than Democrats have.

Democrats have been given the opportunity to engage in the political process respectfully, but even now there is talk of reinstating the FCC's "Fairness Doctrine." Even now there are people seething in California because their rights are being taken away by a constitutional amendment, all the while ignoring the courts that tried to take away the right to vote of all citizens in the first place.

It is inevitable. Any harshness Democrats show now (even if it is justified) will be returned in kind eventually, just as the harshness the Republicans showed in the past is being now returned in kind.

That is why good sportsmanship is desirable. Yes, win. Yes, crush your enemy, see them driven before you, hear the lamentations of their women. That is best in life. But if you can manage, be moderate, understanding, and kind. Democracy only works if you believe that people can be changed, that even though some people are as wrong as can be, they can come to understand the truth (or at least, the truth as you see it).

If people can be changed in such a manner, then Democrats must show kindness when faced with hate, understanding when faced with lovecraftian logic. People are willing to lower their defenses and be changed when they are with friends; they'll be more stubborn than water flowing downhill when faced with anything else.

If, however, people cannot be changed, then by all means do not show kindness when faced with hate. Do not approach lovecraftian logic with understanding. By all means, end the charade of democracy; if people cannot be changed, then let those who are right rule over those who are wrong.

To be clear, I am not saying that Republicans had shown anything of the sort. The vices of the Republican party have more to do with their reversal of fortunes, I’d wager, than the virtues of the Democratic party. I am merely urging Democrats to be the better party. It would be nice if there was at least one political organization that I wouldn’t feel ashamed of.

Side note: I'm a Republican and I like the election outcome just fine, though I'm leery of giving any party the power of break a filibuster; I don't want Republicans or Democrats to have that and in another two years the Dems will probably have it. Course, if the party even gives Palin the hope of political career, I'll be in the market for a new party. She nicely represents almost everything that makes me feel ashamed of the Republican party. Course, if I get just one more "Obama's a Muslim" mass email, I might leave the party out of spite and disgust. Mostly disgust.

BROJ

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Re: Election Thread 2008
« Reply #62 on: November 10, 2008, 03:21:08 pm »
BROJ: I do not know what to make of your post. It contains...nothing. No premise. No conclusion. No meaning. I did try. Sorry.
Common sense would tell me that the onus is on your side, I asked a question(i.e. what you are searching for, in me, can only be found in yourself; e.g. the premise-knowledge, the conclusion-wisdom and the meaning-illumination), as per the intrinsic nature of inquiry, you are the only one who can answer. Perhaps I should ignore your taunt and go on with my day. However, this is one of the few cases where my logic comes in conflict with my humanity. Thus, I find it my charge to attempt again to inquire upon the nature of your intentions.

Is it illumination or victory you seek? Please answer.

EDIT:Fixed.
« Last Edit: November 11, 2008, 01:34:16 am by BROJ »

V_Translanka

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Re: Election Thread 2008
« Reply #63 on: November 10, 2008, 03:56:03 pm »
The 2008 Election That Really Matters :lol:

Though why Anna Kournikova is on that list but not Maria Sharapova is beyond me...and wtf? Emma Watson!? Gross...

Lord J Esq

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Re: Election Thread 2008
« Reply #64 on: November 10, 2008, 06:51:22 pm »
Thought! You make good points, but I think you misunderstood what I said yesterday. My goal is not vengeance, or to stoop to the level of discourse that the Republicans maintained while in power. I strongly implied that I reject such a philosophy, but perhaps you underestimated me due to my style.

I have no interest in doing to the Republicans what they did to the rest of us, and I am joined in that sentiment by the Democrats who matter most: the elected ones. To comprehend my position you need to acknowledge...many things, really...starting with the distinction between ideological activism and plain old malice. It's no secret that I have some malice toward the far right, for they are on the wrong side of history and have done great injury to our Republic since their current ruling alliance took power in 1995. Nevertheless, this is not what informs my strategic thinking. I appreciate more than others here how essential it is that the political proccess proceed peacefully, and, daydreams aside, I have always advocated respectful engagement within the system. Here I mean "respectful" not toward the other side and its ideas, but toward the system itself, into which an accommodation for the other side to have their say is built in. You gotta let the other party finish their sentence, Thought. You gotta, or this country won't work. For all its overuse as a catchphrase, "bipartisanship" is crucial to healthy governance in America, and yet bipartisanship has been an endangered species under the national GOP ever since the Gingrich Revolution. The Republicans wielded power as though they were the only ones who even existed. The only time Republicans were ever thwarted in their agenda is when Democrats were able to use their minority power to gum up the works. While there were a few high-profile exceptions to this in the Republican Congress, and a vanishingly small handful with the Bush Administration, the iconic emblem of the GOP during this era was the mighty Streamroller. In many states, conditions have been even worse, owing to significant Republican majorities and greater concentrations of radical right-wing elements in the party.

This is not progress, Thought. Even looking at it from the Republican point of view, this is not progress. This is the sundering of our Union. The actual progress made under the Republicans has been bad enough, highly oppressive and thus destructive to the national fabric in its own right, but the manner in which this progress has been achieved is not compatible with a democratic nation. Don't you see that? The Republicans aren't playing democracy. Only by the grace and tradition of the offices they held have these people failed to become outright tyrants. Even so, we have seen fourteen years of Government by Fox News: microphones killed, sentences cut off, opponents mischaracterized. What do you think that does to the people? Specifically, what do you think that does to the people who those would-be tyrants represent? Egged on by the heinous example of political and religious leaders, the far right has become increasingly militant, autonomous, and insular, and its members either do not realize the consequences of what they have been doing, or they actually seek to dissolve the country or upend its democratic ideals--which brings me to another thing you need to acknowledge: The far right has been fed to the point of frenzy. No other faction in society is remotely as radicalized as they are. It would not take much to push them over the edge. We are at the yellow line, my friend. This country cannot move further to the right. I understand that some folks wish it could, but it can't. It has moved as far that way as it can go without the social fabric beginning to unravel. The comparable point on the left is not even on the horizon. Our democracy is without a doubt no less strained of late than it was during the Vietnam era, and for a while we were looking at worse.

All of this is the result of the misuse of power by Republican leaders. Have you ever heard me say that we should purge the Congress? No. But an actual Member of Congress said it, just two weeks ago. Surely you recognize how dangerous that kind of politics is. There are some things in politics that should never be said unless they are uncondtionally true and relevant. There are some roads in politics that should never be traveled unless all other roads are out. In retrospect, we needed to have the Civil War. We don't need to have another one. We didn't need it in the 1930s, the 1960s, or today. Even I do not think that the solution to right-wing extermism is to fight them into submission. (In fact I am a bit wounded that you think I would be both stupid enough and petty enough to want to keep the Republican leadership style intact under the Democrats, knowing full well what good it shall have done the GOP in the long run to scorch the earth.) By making the ultraconservatives "learn the hard way" that America belongs to all of us and not just to them, I meant what I said in my earlier post. I will say it again now, better:

The Republican Party has been ruled outright since 1994 by an axis of powers consisting of fundamentalist Christians, corporatist robber-barons, and war-mongering neoconservatives (the Italy of the group). This alliance was the dominant voice in American politics from the mid-1980s until last Tuesday. This alliance is why our national dialogue turns on issues like abortion and gay marriage, John Galtian wealth-capture capitalism, and, until 2005, preemptive warfare. These are not the values of the American people as a whole, although there is plenty of overlap. These are the values of the people who were in power. They got to be in power due to oganizational prowess, activism, and energy. They took more than their share because they could. They were clever, they were strong, and the opposition was shitty. The country as a whole was never on their page or close to it, and so, for all their power, the arrangement was always unstable. Now they are out of power. The GOP has lost control, having reached so far that not even time could hold it up anymore. As a result, the axis alliance is crumbling and a battle royale is breaking out for control of the party.

This is the first of two ways in which the Republicans will be cut down to size: Their movement has expired, and their factions no longer control the government. They can no longer force their initiatives onto the political scene, and, in reaching out to the minority, Democrats need to be conservative rather than liberal with their generosity. Bipartisanship, first and foremost, requires that the minority party adapt its agenda to the realities of minority existence. The Democrats should encourage and reward the Republicans when it serves the national interest to do so, and should be gracious in granted the Republicans inclusion in the process (which actually did happen in the 110th Congress), but Democratic party leaders should make it absolutely clear that this is the end of the radical right-wing agenda that has dominated this country entirely since 2001, and to a lesser degree since the 1970s. Elections have consequences. The passage of time has consequences. The Democrats spent a long night in the wilderness trying to tweak their message and exploit Republican abuses. They finally succeeded, on Tuesday. Now it is the Republicans' turn to look inward. In particular, the far right needs to understand, and accept, that its period of rule is over. This will be difficult, because they have become so rigid and deluded that they won't have the words to conceive of their new situation at first. Ideally the other elements of the Republican Party will be the ones to temper the tantrums of the fallen mighty, but where the GOP falls short, the Dems need to make it clear that, moving forward, America will be getting back to that respectful engagement within the system that has long lain dormant.

The second of the two ways in which the Republicans will be cut down to size is that they will lose their prominence in the national dialogue. If you have followed the news over the years, you should have noticed the gradual rightward creep of our traditional news media, which only began to thaw in 2005 when a perfect storm of disasters (including a real storm named Katrina) began to lay bare the empty insides of Republican rule. However, even through this year, the traditional media have remained right-wing in their framing and language. I recently wrote a short article on why that is, but the bottom line is that they did it because the people in power were gays-n-god conservatives. As the Obama administration takes form in the coming year, we shall see the old religious and corporate talking points questions subside somewhat. I think it would do this country good to consider some other topics, and to reconsider some of these longstanding controversies from a new point of view.

In the end, that's all that I meant: The Republicans no longer have majority power in Washington, D.C., and their agenda will get less play in the news. They'll be "cut down to size," and my advice to our national leaders is that they make it clear that the Republicans will be accommodated when they behave maturely and interact generously, and will be ignored when they throw a fit and try to have their way. They'll have to learn this "the hard way" because they never figured it out when the power was still theirs, and so now they're going to be like the royals kicked out to the street curb: out of their element, and a little bit pathetic. Democrats need to understand not to coddle or spoil or give in to them. The Republicans need to hurt now, or else they are not going to learn their lesson.

I have every hope that, eventually, the GOP will move left toward the rest of the country. That is better in the long run for all of us, regardless of whether it costs the Democrats ground on their right. In the meantime, however, we are living in the aftermath of an unqualified disaster, and, as part and parcel of restoring this nation's political operability, those who caused such damage to the country need to be reined in. I will not pretend that I will not take any pleasure in seeing the Republicans humbled, but, once again, my intent is socioeconomic progress...not glee or vengeance or any of that, and not any of the childishness and destructiveness that BROJ foolishly impugns of all those who participate in politics. I know how to separate my personal feelings from my strategic objectives.

BROJ

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Re: Election Thread 2008
« Reply #65 on: November 10, 2008, 08:15:04 pm »
@Lord J: I now see your motives, as it takes quite a bit to get to them. Your initial statements, regardless of intent, gave off a sort of malignant spite and a hubris that can only be attributed to a long, voracious awaited victory.

You called me foolish(again, when did I imply all politicians are puerile and savage, or even that you, yourself were a politician?) when I was ignorant, impudent when I was curious and weak-minded when I was being compassionate. Alas, misunderstandings are inevitable when different styles of thinking interact.

All the same, I understand where you're coming from now. But, I must ask, how can one have a code of ethics that applies only when it is convenient, as per what you said:
Quote from: Lord J
I know how to separate my personal feelings from my strategic objectives.

Lord J Esq

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Re: Election Thread 2008
« Reply #66 on: November 10, 2008, 08:36:53 pm »
BROJ, ethics and human emotion are not mutually exclusive.

BROJ

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Re: Election Thread 2008
« Reply #67 on: November 10, 2008, 09:56:29 pm »
BROJ, ethics and human emotion are not mutually exclusive.
No, that's not what I meant; what I meant was converse to what you said: do you believe a code of ethics only applies in personal engagements, and not in professional, strategic engagements?
Perhaps, I am simply misunderstanding what you mean─if that is the case, then please allot me the opportunity to understand.

EDIT: Fixed.
« Last Edit: November 11, 2008, 01:36:18 am by BROJ »

Lord J Esq

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Re: Election Thread 2008
« Reply #68 on: November 10, 2008, 10:51:17 pm »
Sorry, BROJ. You've stumped me. I haven't understood you throughout this whole thread. I don't mean that in an ideological sense. I mean that, as far as I can tell, you're just stringing words together. I'm sure you're trying to say something, but I'm obviously not up to the challenge. Until you can communicate effectively, I've got nothing for ya. Talk to ZeaLitY; he has more patience for this kind of thing.

BROJ

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Re: Election Thread 2008
« Reply #69 on: November 11, 2008, 12:40:38 am »
Sorry, BROJ. You've stumped me. I haven't understood you throughout this whole thread. I don't mean that in an ideological sense. I mean that, as far as I can tell, you're just stringing words together. I'm sure you're trying to say something, but I'm obviously not up to the challenge. Until you can communicate effectively, I've got nothing for ya. Talk to ZeaLitY; he has more patience for this kind of thing.
Perhaps that would explain the disconnect, and if it is I shall try to be clearer. However, from my point of view, that isn't entirely the case. For the entire thread, when you didn't understand my words, questions and/or opinions, you didn't ask what I meant. You made assumptions on what I meant. And when you failed at guessing the correct meaning, you gave up. For example, when I asked: "How can one have a code of ethics that applies only when it is convenient?" I was expecting an answer along the caliber of: strategy is a way of life, and cannot be interpreted apart from it, not "BROJ, ethics and human emotion are not mutually exclusive." That is not the kind of information I asked for.

Now rather than continuing to beat a dead horse, may we cease with the idle banter and bitching and get to the real matter at hand? My question is for you, directly; if I wanted to disrespect you or another, I would do just as you said. Now I ask, why do you vainly flame the conservatives if your intent is to remediate the state of affairs benevolently and productively?
I know you are not a vengeful person, so I am confused as to why this would be the action you would find aesthetically appealing.

Please just answer the last question, if anything. This wasn't meant to be a dispute; in fact it was all in fun─it only turned into one after a complaint over semantics. From there, it proceeded to move chaotically from one tangent to another because questions weren't being addressed, but rather blatantly dodged as if they were irrelevant.
« Last Edit: November 11, 2008, 01:38:13 am by BROJ »

ZeaLitY

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Re: Election Thread 2008
« Reply #70 on: November 11, 2008, 02:14:11 am »
Quote
my words, questions and/or opinion

Words would have sufficed.

Quote
cease with the idle banter and bitching

Quote
vainly flame

Quote
remediate the state of affairs benevolently and productively

Quote
aesthetically appealing

Quote
blatantly dodged

Quote
allot me the opportunity to understand

Quote
sort of malignant spite and a hubris that can only be attributed to a long, voracious awaited victory

Quote
ignorant, impudent when I was curious and weak-minded when I was being compassionate

Quote
the premise-knowledge, the conclusion-wisdom and the meaning-illumination

Your English has suddenly become bloated and hyperbolic, and not in the entertaining Daniel Krispin Tolkien way, but more in the "meaning gets lost in pseudointellectual vocabulary-flexing" way. I went through a phase where I typed as ornately on that, evidenced in some of my earliest posts at the Compendium. It's a crappy way to go.

Jutty

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Re: Election Thread 2008
« Reply #71 on: November 11, 2008, 02:59:42 am »
Is it really necessary for everyone to communicate like the cast of "Dawson's Creek". I'm just a simple minded mortal after all.

placidchap

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Re: Election Thread 2008
« Reply #72 on: November 11, 2008, 08:04:23 am »
There are a certain few that like to drown others with excessive vocabulary, some entertaining, some not.
« Last Edit: November 11, 2008, 08:05:59 am by placidchap »

Thought

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Re: Election Thread 2008
« Reply #73 on: November 11, 2008, 11:39:13 am »
Thought! You make good points, but I think you misunderstood what I said yesterday. My goal is not vengeance, or to stoop to the level of discourse that the Republicans maintained while in power. I strongly implied that I reject such a philosophy, but perhaps you underestimated me due to my style.

Actually, I understood what you were saying; you were quite clear you were not out for vengeance. I do think that you are out for justice and objective fairness, however, which is the entire problem. Justice and objective fairness are harsh things; people don't like them when they do not work in their favor. It might not be vengeance, it might not be a derogatory level of discourse, but that doesn't matter. It will be perceived as such.

If the Democrats do nothing else but be just and fair, then they'll have failed as a ruling party. Curiously, I am saying that the Democrats need to be unjust and unfair. They need to be understanding to an unreasonable extent, kind beyond propriety. Merely doing what is right and proper won’t win the day. It is good, and it is certainly better than it could be, but it is not best. Convincing Republicans (and others) that you are right is. As utterly distasteful as that might be, the first step is to disarm your opposition and put them at ease. An enemy will resist you to his dying breath, but a friend will suffer all pains for you (even if the pain is overcoming their own beliefs). This is what I wish the Republicans had done, and it is what I hope the Democrats will do.

Obama, I am fairly sure, will take this sort of approach. But I suspect you can see the difference between Obama and yourself. I believe you are more concerned with the task at hand (as evident from your post), but I believe that Obama is more concerned with the people at hand. He won’t leave the tasks ignored, but people will be his first reaction, just as tasks are your first reaction. So I suppose, what I am saying is that what the Democrats need to be a successful party is more Obama and less Josh.

Lord J Esq

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Re: Election Thread 2008
« Reply #74 on: November 11, 2008, 05:15:42 pm »
Quote from: Thought
If the Democrats do nothing else but be just and fair, then they'll have failed as a ruling party. Curiously, I am saying that the Democrats need to be unjust and unfair. They need to be understanding to an unreasonable extent, kind beyond propriety. Merely doing what is right and proper won’t win the day.

You are right.

Quote from: Thought
Obama, I am fairly sure, will take this sort of approach. But I suspect you can see the difference between Obama and yourself. I believe you are more concerned with the task at hand (as evident from your post), but I believe that Obama is more concerned with the people at hand. He won’t leave the tasks ignored, but people will be his first reaction, just as tasks are your first reaction. So I suppose, what I am saying is that what the Democrats need to be a successful party is more Obama and less Josh.

You're assuming that my persona on the Compendium is the one I wear all the time. It's not, but, even supposing for a minute that it is, I would disagree with you strategically. I wrote an article about this recently. Every aspect of the Democratic Party now has its own work to do in furtherance of their shared goals. The elected Dems have to lead. The movement progressives don't; their job is to change the terms of the debate. Obama himself said during the campaign that he can't do everything, and he expects us to pull ourselves past the finish line rather than dumping it all on him. He's right. By combining leadership and outreach with activism and idealism, we move forward. The key is not to stab the Republicans, but to make them think we're doing them a favor by stabbing them. We have to give them ownership in the progressive movement. I don't know how much of it we can pull off. Certainly, ideologues and strategists on the right will make that work a lot harder. What I do know is that America, on average, has always moved left rather than right, so in that regard I have some hope. I expect that universal healthcare and energy production in America will be in a completely different place by 2016. Gay marriage may take longer, but with interracial and interreligious marriage now commonly accepted where once they would have resulted in disownment and violence, I am hopeful.

Now, as for "more Obama and less Josh," I think you do not give him or me enough credit. It hasn't gotten a lot of coverage, but Obama is both more liberal and more ruthless than he lets on. He is a very calculating person, and I expect him to lead with smiles and handshakes not only because he recognizes that it would be healthy for the country (which is what sets him apart from the Republican leadership style of recent times), but also because this is what he expects will bring him the most success. And I agree with him. Obama didn't get to be president in his forties by being a nice guy. He got there because he has the moves. He's one to be taken seriously. As he himself once said, behind the scenes, in response to a question by Brian Williams about what Obama was doing in his life to combat climate change, "We can’t solve global warming because I fucking changed light bulbs." That's not the kumbaya you heard on the campaign trail. That's the voice of somebody who has plans. Obama knows what he's doing.

Meanwhile, when it comes to Josh, I'm not as mean as I might seem here. I certainly can be that; I wouldn't personally call it "mean," because of where the motivation comes from. But whatever you decide to call it, it's true that I am not betraying my character by being aggressive and adversarial. These, however, are not my only tricks. I would have to be considerably more ignorant and less ambitious to be nothing more than the Lord J Esq you think you know, and that doesn't add up. Would you expect a starship to have only one system for responding to a new situation?



Is that what you think I am out here to do? Hah!

Remember that, by reading into my writings here, it is much safer to try and deduce what I can be than what I am not. I'm not like Krispin or ZeaLitY, who wear everything on their sleeve whether they mean to. I'm more like yourself.

In general, antagonizing Republicans is something to be avoided...if all else is equal. I never pick on people, except Krispin, who keeps bringing it on himself. But "all else" rarely is equal. We live in a vibrant, dynamic, deliciously intricate world. Progress is a challenging, multivariate equation. It takes half a lifetime to figure out what the world really is and what we want progress to actually look like. Even then, there are many ways to go about it, and many strategies to try. I rarely antagonize Republicans with no other goal than short-term entertainment. I usually have something much greater in mind. You talk about changing people's minds...but can you do more than talk? It's hard to actually find ways to carry it out. Consider, for a moment, the influence I have had on several of the people here at the Compendium. I didn't plan that from the beginning, but I saw the opportunity for it before anyone else did. I bring to the table a hard-to-miss blend of strong ideas and personal flamboyance. Many people, including some in this thread, are dismissive of that. Fine; they're dealing themselves out of the game by taking such a stance, so I consider them dead weight and don't pay them much attention. Others, like Ramsus, have concluded that I'm a shit. Fine; that harms my reputation but not my cause, and I have to admit that, if somebody wants to get upset with me, they have usually earned the right to do so. Other people, however, have, amazingly, bought into to my ideas. That may make me temporarily en vogue, but, far more importantly, it helps promote my cause. When I first came here, I wasn't expecting anything in particular, other than to share my enthusiasm for the Chrono series. My personal style on the forums, which developed over time, was the result of a question I posed to myself after the early presence of Daniel Krispin gave me the opportunity to observe my own development of a social mask in real-time. That in turn afforded me the even greater opportunity to conduct a grand "social experiment": I didn't realize at first exactly what that was, but it has always been my ambition to question the unknown, and it was only a matter of time before I began to figure out that I was in the position to test my ability to influence people not just by reciting lines of logic, but by folding human emotion into the concoction. Say what you will; I'm pleased with the data. My phasers actually work. And I'm telling all of this to you, Mister Bond, because you're the only one who could possibly understand.

As an elitist I'm not above manipulating people. Indeed, that's a requirement. Don't get me wrong: I do give genuine praise, or consolation, or advice whenever they are genuinely sought out. I freely give them, for we all share the same humanity and I never forget that. What makes me harder to figure out is that it is in my interest for all of us to become better people, and, contrary to popular belief, the road to "better personhood" cannot be reached by amity alone. I have great respect for humanity even if my repsect for individual people is hard to earn, and, as a consequence, I know that people can take a lot, and will often emerge the better for it.

Do you know what happens when people's minds grow? They become more liberal. For once, I use the word "liberal" in its best sense. That's the kind of liberal I consider myself to be. I am only a Democrat because that is the party which best advances my interests, however maddeningly imperfectly. I am not a doctrinaire liberal, not a collectivist, and certainly not an old-school Marx-fueled revolutionary. I like my liberties civil and my rights human. I play politics in order to achieve these ends, and what I want the most is for the human mind to be held up above all of our other attributes. I want a world where the law says, and the people agree, that no basic right and no personal ambition--no ambition, good or bad--should ever be denied to a person on the basis that they are female, gay, black, nonreligious, poor, or whatever else.

My adversarial posture here, and wherever else it shows up, is almost never to antagonize Republicans for the sake of antagonizing them. I am comfortable that I have taken more steps forward than backward. Some antagonism is a byproduct of this strategy, and one of the ways in which I try to minimize it elsewhere is to be experimental in places like this where the consequences are minimal. So far, so good. I have influenced at least a half-dozen people here at the Compendium in a positive way, and have not yet been run off the boards by a torch-and-pitchfork mob. Never mind other venues; here on the merits of my history at the Compendium alone I would disagree with you that my party needs less Josh. Your point is appreciated and agreed--"don't be a dick"--but I don't think you have read me correctly, because I don't think it applies to me. I'm not a troll who happens to be smart; I am...for lack of a better term...an "activist." I'm getting in people's faces. Sometimes, that's the way it has to be. Perhaps this ad hoc primer will be of some help to you in understanding my point of view.

On a certain level, what I am doing is hardly unique. We all manipulate one another. Most of us do it with praise, support, affirmation, and flattery. I myself am no exception. We usually carry out this manipulation in order to enrich our lives direclty, by building stronger person relationships. And when we fall short emotionally, we usually do so by reversing these same behaviors: We condemn, undermine, spurn, and insult. It's human nature to reason that, if the things that build relationships strengthen us, then those same things in reverse will wound our enemies. (We conveniently forget that they wound us too.) For most people, the social experiment ends there. Not for me. I want to change people's minds for the better, and that means putting everything on the table. It is an intuitive conclusion that my flamboyance detracts from my ideas, but that conclusion has turned out to be wrong. The whole Light Side and Dark Side dichotomy is a fake. Good and evil do not exist like that. What I am doing is tactical. It works. To my genuine surprise, I actually can stab people and make them think I am doing them a favor...because I am doing them a favor, and the holy grail is not to trick people but to teach them. To mix up my metaphors, this is just like hitting someone who is being crazy, and having them reply "Thanks, I needed that." If the highest price I have to pay for my progress is that good folks like Radical_Dreamer who are put off by my style won't play ball with me anymore, I consider that a no-brainer tradeoff. So, as soon as my little stabby-stabby machine is perfected, I'll plug it into my undersea power source, and will shortly thereafter achieve paradise and live forever. =)

Quote from: BROJ
Now rather than continuing to beat a dead horse, may we cease with the idle banter and bitching and get to the real matter at hand? My question is for you, directly; if I wanted to disrespect you or another, I would do just as you said. Now I ask, why do you vainly flame the conservatives if your intent is to remediate the state of affairs benevolently and productively?
I know you are not a vengeful person, so I am confused as to why this would be the action you would find aesthetically appealing.

My comments to Thought should provide the answer you seek. I will add that there is nothing vain about what I am doing. Like all of us, I do have a sense of vanity. Like so few of us, however, I let it run wherever it likes except where my feet are about to go. Ahem, BROJ.

Quote from: BROJ
For the entire thread, when you didn't understand my words, questions and/or opinions, you didn't ask what I meant. You made assumptions on what I meant. And when you failed at guessing the correct meaning, you gave up.

In fairness to myself, I do think I have understood you at some level. By saying otherwise I was giving myself an out from our exchange, which I found pointless. However, you do make at least one point, now. I should have asked what you meant. Let that serve as a complement to my above remarks. I'm not perfect.

For what it's worth, I would suggest you tone down your diction and your figures of speech in the future. I appreciate your eagerness to show off, because language is a beautiful power-up, but yours needs work and I'm afraid I don't have much patience for this sort of thing. It takes time out of my already full schedule to come to the Compendium at all, and I don't like being cornered in mindless conversations--which is exactly what happens when one party abuses language to the point that communication breaks down.