I’m witnessing a disturbing trend on this board.
It is impossible to take a stand on an issue outside of the politics of the incumbent bullies that dominate this forum. I guess it’s not surprising being it the same inflexible partisanship so onerously demonstrated by national politic’s myopic two party insensibilities.

 If a poster quotes or references NBC news he/she is immediately labeled a liberal lunatic. If Fox news is mentioned they are minion of the fascist automaton.

  Boys & girls I’m a Libertarian. I have a staunch parochial dedication to the ideals and consequent words put to paper in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. By both ruling factions of our current two party system that would label me as an iconoclast, a trouble maker and possibly to some; an anarchist.

 By my way of thinking both ruling political factions have been chipping away at the very precepts and ideals of the Constitution / Bill of Rights from opposing sides for a very long time. Witnessing some of the partisan/intolerant vitriol spewed here by what should be more libertine thinkers gives me reason to believe that whoever would benefit from the demise of a 230 year old contract with the citizens certainly has the “fix” in place.  

from the nature of politics, either.

Disagreement, including strong and graphic disagreement, is part of the drill.  Some people are very sensitive, and others are not; and some people use either stance as a weapon, and I don't see the harm.   We talk so we can avoid shooting, and those of us whose feelings are readily hurt should think instead of the cost of shooting.


One point that you mention, the idea of a 230 year old contract, is interesting.  I would point ouot (a) no contract stands separate from its context, which is something you know quite well if you work, eg in contruction; and (b) the Supremes have never decided, and probably never will, whether the consitution is a contract, or a charter; and there are major differences in the way either would be handled...so I guess we will just have to make do as we go along, and that is fine with me...

You're thinking of it as a pure political ploy misses the point.

I have never called anyone here a fascist; not even funlove, or whatever his name was, who definitely believed we had to protect the master race.  

I have called Fox channel the Weasel Channel.  

If it seems bad, remember that the partisanship that took place in the first decade after the consitution was so bad that the founders thought they had failed.  

It isn't from partisanship that the constitution might reach its demise, though it might be related.  It would finally be the failure of citizens to hold the government to its contract, perhaps because they are distracted by partisanship.

Distraction is one of the most pervasive of my fears.

It is the basis for the 3 shell Monty con found on so many street corners in so many cities, as well as “outsourcing” US jobs while we fight over flag burning. While we’re watching Tom Cruise jump on Oprah’s couch Congress quietly legislates our freedoms away and then votes themselves a pay raise for doing so..

  Spirited, passionate debate is what a forum like this should reflect. It proves to edify and give catharsis. Such debate often calls for thick skin, but no matter how impassioned the debate; it shouldn’t require Kevlar.  

most forums will track national patterns of discourse.  We note the wide popularity and imitation of Rush Limbaugh, who tends to specialize in political heat more than light; and can't be surprised that people see the need to respond in kind.

I don't think Limbaugh or his like can or should  be forced to tone it down, because of the 1st amendment.   I'd hope that voters would turn away from him because of his tactics, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

These public icons make millions for incurring the wrath as well as support from the populace.

 My focus in starting this thread was us lowly unpaid amateurs at debate or political discourse. We can only profit by gaining understanding of each others challenges and experiences that form our individual politics. Intolerance and debasement serve only to isolate and weaken the whole.

Some posters on this Board Do Seem very sure of their opinions, and some DO SEEM overbearing and quick to give personal insult when someone disagrees.  

But don't forget -- it's mostly an open forum.  Sometimes it's not pretty, but some isues engage some posters very deeply [fer example, illegal immigration in the last few weeks] so you can't always expect he most gentell mannerisms to predominate.

First, they may be paid controversialist, but it doesn't mean that didn't cut their teeth in the amateur leagues.  For somebody like Rush, he was hired from obscurity because his opinions were outrageous, but the "eib" network wasn't putting on a freak show with him.  They were meaning to rally opinion around him.  When it moved that far right with Rush's "infotainment" then conservatives put O'Reilly out there to move it further right.  By then, Rush had become a centrist.  

Look at Rush Limbaugh's resume before he became national.  WTF did he do before that?  His only qualification was that he was conservative and a school-yard heckler.

Howard Stern is something else entirely.  He wasn't hired because of the way he scowled and scoffed at the left.  He wasn't political to begin with.  

The reason why we politics is so we don't have war instead.  Call me cynical.  Before the advent of nuclear weapons, it was impossible for any one side to unilaterally declare peace-- it would have been suicidal.  So humankind evolved for warfare.

That is why political discussion can get verbally scrappy.  That is why you shouldn't say you're above it all if the other side gets scrappy.  The liberals gave the entire political field to the Republicans, who have taken it all and are taking our liberties in the process.

So, I'll go to win the argument lowdown, and I'll strive to win the argument high as well.  I realize that you could win high, but no one will even consider it unless you win lowdown, too.    

We'll see how you feel NOSCSTADAMEUS about unfettered candor should my keyboard ever turn pugilistic, and NO that is not a threat but merely fair, sportsmanlike warning.

IMHO, the limitations of discussion should be accuracy.  

The actual limitations tend to be credibility - and the difference is that most people are more comfortable with what they THINK they know, and are not so concerned about being SURE of what they know.  And many people are not so clear about the distinction between their observations, and their opinions.

solutions are fairly simple - instead of insisting on conclusions, examine the contents and origin of a thesis.

People DON'T do that for many reasons - ignorance is only 1, or the fact that in some cases, conflict is simply more desirable.

Example, a hypothetical:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Now, that is a huge hypothetical.  Think of areas of doubt that people could have with that statement.  Is it self-evident that all men are created equal?  Is a creator even self-evident?  

The only sense in which it might be factual is if Jefferson believed it was self-evident.  He held slaves.  

However, let's look at the ideology against which he was arguing: that kings ruled according to the will of God; that God has awarded a King command status over people.  That was another huge hypothetical.  In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson had to argue as to why a war against the king was not also a war against God, or a war against morality.  For that purpose, he succeeded.    

Now, people lost lives over these hypotheticals.  One of them winning out had consequences that could not be foreseen at the time: the end of slavery, for one thing.  

Jefferson couldn't know then that other people would read "all men are created equal" and would begin to apply it to political arguments of their own, including things like workers' rights, civil rights, suffrage for women, etc.    

-- Modified on 5/2/2006 12:19:50 PM

economic interests and emotional comittments, perhaps?

Another way to explain your hypothetical is to point out that "equality" in a political context has never meant what it does in the mathematical context, ie, an identity.  

In the political context, it always means, "we want more of your perogatives and other stuff..." and of course the merits of that argument depend on the POV...

Or actually verbal belligerence to prove a point?  Why is it necessary for people to feel good about it?  You don't do your argument an service here.  Whether it was a threat or not, it doesn't support you.  If you are trying to prove your point by showing the other side some emotional pain, well, you've betrayed yourself if that's your strategy for winning your argument.    

Besides, a boxing match inherently doesn't feel good.  It doesn't mean that the better boxer doesn't feel pain.  

I believe in hard counter-punching when things turn belligerent.  She has taken my side here.  That's a sportsmanlike warning, too.  Or a threat if you want to think of it like that.  

However, for the subject at hand, we look back at the good old days when political discussion was so civilized.  Then we had an outside threat of the Soviet Union-- which had such a reputation for cruelty that by the 1960s, you had to be mentally ill or sociopathic to support communism.  Besides that, if anyone actually made a strong argument for an alternative to accepted mores, they were not treated in a civil manner.  Look up the life of Madalyn Murray-O'Hare if you have doubts about that.  

I will say, it is not the liberals who declared that there was a culture war.  It's not the liberals who have declared the conservatives treasonous.  It is not the liberals who ever tried to make "conservative" into a bad word as conservatives have, and made wiping liberalism out an extension of the Cold War. Tell me how liberals counterattacked as this was happening.

If you're a libertarian, and no one has been belligerent to your political views, it's only because they aren't taking you seriously.  I'll confess to you: I know I can't.

we agree, ideological libertarians are comical.  

However, anybody that is more than 2% interesting has some half-assed libertarian if not anarchist streak in them somewhere...in fact, a true libertarian probably wouldn't be a member of any party, anyway...

I apologies if I came off sounding belligerent. I was not meaning too. NOSCTRADAMUS merely had made mention of heated, passionate and sometimes scathing debate, and just as I have and always will strive for civility; so too can my gloves be left ring side.

For the record: At what point may Mothers and/or Ancestry be introduced into the verbal battle? (A favorite tool of Mr Spock I’ve noted)

Besides; I thought it was issues to grapple with. Not personalities.

I would concede however that "Gang warfare" is well represented by the "Left" in this forum.

He needs to see more ladies.  I haven't had occassion to cross words with him myself.  

The conservatives were very well represented and had some of their own verbal gang tactics.   Many of them have become inactive.  So, the liberals are staying in the field now.

I will agree that it's discouraging.  However, I'll give you an example.  When one side says there's global warming, and the other side refuses the perponderance of evidence supporting it-- with the hidden reason behind it being a Christian agenda that says that only God has the power to affect the earth in a major way (Rush Limbaugh has said that)  Where can the discussion go from there?  Especially when the problem looks urgent.

You could attack their confidence in their particular creed of Christianity.  That might eventually sew underconfidence in some of the believers, hence detract from the number of supporters.  Any victories made with this will be hidden from the immediate arguers.    

So, it's a psychological weapon.  

Conservatives are quite right about one thing: there is a cultural battle in this country.  As inconvenient as it is for more topical discussion, it has to be fought out.  Just as the Revolutionary War needed to be fought out.  I hope with a battle of rhetoric over the internet rather than something with guns, bullets and worse weapons.

"At what point may Mothers and/or Ancestry be introduced into the verbal battle?"

We don't think there are recipes.  We think it's always a matter of judgment, depending on what you think of the other parties' intent, which of course has to be judged solely from their posts.

Eg., for me, when a person refers to other humans as cockroaches who rob (take by threat of violence) him of his "birthright" to not hear people speaking another language, well, that's really unreasonably hostile, and obviously malicious and not justified by anything but the 1st amendment.  

In fact, if you're conscious of history, that's really very much like the sort of stuff Joe Goebbels peddled, and of course Americans (and rightly IMHO) spend a lot of time, money and blood to kick the collective ass of that particular crew; and when a person talks like that, they should expect the same stuff back.  Don't you think?

Now that is an extreme and obvious case.  Others are harder to call, and you just gotta make a call and remember that a person can always (a) try to explain themselves (b) take nothing personally (although any aspiring Nazi probably should take stuff personally), and (c) always say, jeez, I made a mistake, or you misunderstood, or whatever.

But, that's just MHO.   And actually, we can't recall referring to anybody's mother or ancestry.

historical constant.   But, there are times it's more obvious than others.

Of course the problems in our lap are always most pressing; and yes, the USA has significant problems.

But nobody remembers the 60s, with civil rights, Vietnam, hippies, etc?  When John Lennon was busted by the FBI on an old English possession charge because a lot of Americans regarded him (and many other different people) as subversive?

Jeez, what do you think the Depression must have been like?  And the labor troubles before WW1?   Jeez, what about the Black Sox?  There was a human crisis.

Conflict has to be controlled, whether it's nuclear war or dodging the wife's rolling pin.  Conservatives are rarely good at this - they pick fights because they think they can win them (or have poor social skills) they cry like babies if it looks like they might lose, because they truly believe that the end justifies the means.   A person who believes in fundamental fairness, or that things might go both ways, is not (by conservative definition) a moderate; they are a liberal.   So they get hoist by their own petard, I suppose.   And that would be tough shit, karma, whatever.

NORMAL.

And there are people out there who forget that labels are only accurate from a distance.   Usually a long distance.

(1) given that the hobby has existed steadily throughout history with no clear harm (apart from issues of competition); and (2) normality probably includes a percentage of deviance anyway, we doubt that it could be called "abnormal".

The weakness of ideological Libertarians is in failing to recognize the cost of maintaining infrastructure.  They assume that a system created by humans is going to maintain itself.   Apart from that, most denizens of this board probably have strong desires to be left alone by their neighbors.

because it's simple.   I'm not even sure it's good marketing or politics, despite the attention that glib formulas get.

1st, description of real world economies have to be glib labels - and some people get agitated about it.   Right now, the economies I would consider most promising - the USA & PRC - are pretty much mixed, ad hoc combinations of what people think will work.   The more rigid an economic formula is, the more likely it seems to petrify, be unable to adapt.

Americans tend to think in terms of being nice to victims, and it may be reasonable to spend wealth that way, without expecting a return.

We suspect that is not so survivable in the long term; that insurance or safety nets will have to focus more closely on protecting what we regard as valuable - eg, there is obvious benefit in paying for Stephen Hawking's wheelchair; but not so much for a junkie convict.   While we recoil from the idea of making these judgments, we need to recognize that the market and society does in fact make them, and for very good reasons.

Ie., why might a given person be incompetent?  Let's take the example of Charlie Manson's social incompetence.  There's a fellow who was saved from the hangman only by a legal freak.   Assuming that we have the economic ability to do a fixed number of heart transplants a year, should Charlie Manson get one 1st because he was first in line ahead of say, Jimmy Carter?  Sophia Loren?  We'd like to think we would avoid that judgment by say, drawing straws or something, but a default is in fact a choice.

Now those are clear cases.   Most are nowhere near so clear, and a free market allows individuals to have more of a say in their own fate than one that is more structured.   And that's probably the most humane thing.