philosophy

[shereads]

No property owner, large or small and surely not the Government at Hanford, or White Sands or Oak Ridge has the right to pollute, contaminate or otherwise lessen the property value of the adjacent or downstream owner.

I agree. There ought to be a law!

I've suspected all along that you were planted here by the Communists as a stealth liberal. Your cunning plan is to weaken America by making the conservative agenda seem ridiculously contradictory. Well done!

Again..thanks for the laugh...I needed that!

(Especially after sitting through 50 minutes of Kerry)

Amicus

I feel your pain. I'm a party loyalist, and even I had to look away a few times. For me it wasn't the content of the speech, but the self-conscious hand-and-arm movements. His speech coach should be jailed, or offered the option of a public apology and a return to his original job, helping used car dealers learn to emote so they can star in their own TV commercials.

 

[cantdog]

amicus

I detested Clinton as much as I do the present gang, almost. He wasn't a fundamentalist, though, so the present gang is more repulsive to that extent.

These people are the two wings of the corporate party. They'll enrich corporations and exempt them from taxes and responsibility, both of them. Kerry as bad as any, and he voted unrepentantly for the PATRIOT act. They're swine.

 

[shereads]

I believe Halliburton should foot the bill for make themselves rich, but there go the taxes anyway.

Do you think it's cheap to buy an election? You can't be serious. Halliburton has invested more than you and I have in its success, and I challenge you to prove otherwise.

This is a philosophy thread, let's get back to watching people I like hack each other up about drugs.

That was an embarrassing little drama, wasn't it? Rggraham should apologize to Gauche.

 

[amicus]

Hmmm...a 'stealth liberal?'

I often take either side of an argument just to incite that warm and fuzzy feeling of a group grope.

Amicus the Unrepentant...

(Someone wanna tell me how to place an avatar over there to the left...damn...I should ask that it be moved to the right.)

That is if I had an avatar...

 

[shereads]

The Avatar thing happened for me less than a year ago but it seems like, oh, 5 or 6 thousand posts ago. Try this primitive procedure until someone more tech-savvy offers you some better advice, Amicus:

If you don't have Photoshop or even one of the more basic graphics programs, go to Google and click on Images, then Advanced Image Search. Type in a keyword description of an image that appeals to you, like Karl Marx or LaToya Jackson. Then select a size (small) and a file type (jpg).

Google will return a bunch of thumbnail-size images. When you find one that interests you, don't use the Google thumbnail - it isn't the right file type. Click on it, and when it takes you to the web page the image is stol (oops!) borrowed from, click at the top where it says, "view image in full size." That's the one you want to copy to your desk top.

I use a Mac, and can't begin to tell you how that's done on a PC. Here, I just drag it off of the page and it's on my desktop.

Once you have several images you like - no matter how puny they look, some of them will be rejected as too large - Go to your Literotica Control Panel and click "Edit Options." Near the bottom of the page, you can enable avatars. First enable, then look for the "browse" button and select an image from your desktop.

By trial and errror, you will eventually find one that's the right size without any modification, and there you will be: William Jefferson Clinton, charismatic oral-sex recipient and best-selling author. Yowsa!

(Is anything sexier in a man than the combination of brilliance, wit, confidence, compassion, power, a distrust of power, and a fatal flaw that's 1 part unresolved childhood issues/2 parts conflicted values/3 parts rampant libido? Not on Planet Shereads, there isn't.)

Alternatively, you could find an image you like and e-mail it to someone who has Photoshop and doesn't mind taking five seconds to convert the image to jpg and resize it to the allowable 150x150.

If you're actually a computer genius and graphic designer, and just wanted to know where to find the Avatar option in the control panel, don't tell me, okay?

 

[shereads]

Amicus:

I can't believe I'm about to ask you to side with me on something, but just for grins...

You and I both like "West Wing," right? Set aside for a moment the fact that only one of us thinks that any one of the main characters - or the actors for that matter, or the props department - would make a more credible president than the real one. The writing is consistently above average for television. Agreed?

But it used to be brilliant. Until this season, the first without creator and head writer, Aaron Sorkin, I used to marvel that a television show could involve my thoughts and my emotions to that extent, and top itself week after week. I was amazed, too, that Sorkin was able to sell a network on the entertainment value of complex, behind-the-scenes political maneuverings and partisan bickering. Typically, the most dramatic crises on West Wing were quiet ones: a crisis of conscience; an unresolvable conflict between valid points of view; the value of personal sacrifice and the tragedy when sacrifice is wasted. With Aaron Sorkin gone, the trend is toward kidnappings and shootings and such, and I'm losing interest fast.

My point, and I do have one, is this: Sorkin was on cocaine during the best years of West Wing. And still did an admirable job. Which may or may not have been done better or worse if he had not used drugs.

Drugs didn't make him incompetent. They made him a law-breaker, and they certainly didn't improve his health, but they didn't stop him from being a brilliant screenwriter.

You agree? Thank you.

That adds to my credibiity here.



FYI, when Sorkin left West Wing, one of the network execs took a stand on behalf of mediocre people in every walk of life when he said, "The writing will be just the same, but without all the banter."

 

[Match Made In Heaven]

I really liked this thread when it started, but I don't think I can follow it any more. It makes my head swim.

 

[shereads]

I really liked this thread when it started, but I don't think I can follow it any more. It makes my head swim.

Swimming is a low-impact aerobic exercise. Plunge in.

 

[Match Made In Heaven]

(Is anything sexier in a man than the combination of brilliance, wit, confidence, compassion, power, a distrust of power, and a fatal flaw that's 1 part unresolved childhood issues/2 parts conflicted values/3 parts rampant libido? Not on Planet Shereads, there isn't.)

You make it sound so appealing.

 

[shereads]

You make it sound so appealing.

It's an acquired taste, like caviar or arsenic.

Sorry for the hijack. It wasn't a terrorist hijacking, and I'm giving the controls back now so don't do anything rash.

 

[Guest]

Sher, you're too much! You put Sorkin up as an example for your point?! The guy is filthy rich, he's not some cokehead without house and nourishment. Godonlyknows how many personal assistants he has, and for what. Saying someone like Sorkin did good work while on cocaine just doesn't rate much for me. He's a tv screenwriter, however fine, forgodssake. P.

 

[gauchecritic]

That was an embarrassing little drama, wasn't it? Rggraham should apologize to Gauche.

I will brook no apologies from anyone, nor will I apologise for anything. You can all go fuck yourselves. Or better yet each other.

In conclusion, Fuck Off.



And will somebody please, please tell Amicus, either that or put matchsticks between his eyelids and make him look at this.

Whishy washy American Politics Liberals are not and never could be Left Wing. They are all Capitalists who think that a little teeny tiny bit of Socialism might be a good idea as long as it doesn't cost too much.

You USAiens can be president, make as much money as you like and are free to pursue life, liberty and happiness (by any means necessary) We Communists don't get anything like that.

Can we get back to philosophy now?

Gauche

 

[amicus]

shereads...

your post, pasted for easy access without clicking back and forth:

Amicus:

I can't believe I'm about to ask you to side with me on something, but just for grins...

You and I both like "West Wing," right? Set aside for a moment the fact that only one of us thinks that any one of the main characters - or the actors for that matter, or the props department - would make a more credible president than the real one. The writing is consistently above average for television. Agreed?

But it used to be brilliant. Until this season, the first without creator and head writer, Aaron Sorkin, I used to marvel that a television show could involve my thoughts and my emotions to that extent, and top itself week after week. I was amazed, too, that Sorkin was able to sell a network on the entertainment value of complex, behind-the-scenes political maneuverings and partisan bickering. Typically, the most dramatic crises on West Wing were quiet ones: a crisis of conscience; an unresolvable conflict between valid points of view; the value of personal sacrifice and the tragedy when sacrifice is wasted. With Aaron Sorkin gone, the trend is toward kidnappings and shootings and such, and I'm losing interest fast.

My point, and I do have one, is this: Sorkin was on cocaine during the best years of West Wing. And still did an admirable job. Which may or may not have been done better or worse if he had not used drugs.

Drugs didn't make him incompetent. They made him a law-breaker, and they certainly didn't improve his health, but they didn't stop him from being a brilliant screenwriter.

You agree? Thank you.

That adds to my credibiity here.



FYI, when Sorkin left West Wing, one of the network execs took a stand on behalf of mediocre people in every walk of life when he said, "The writing will be just the same, but without all the banter."


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

First off, a marvelous synopsis of the core of West Wing, the writing is/was so good as to be startling at times. Excellent!

I noticed the credits role and Sorkins name as 'created by', I think, but I was unaware that he used cocaine during that period of time. I take your word for it.

Many of the conflicts, so well dramatized, as you pointed out, were ad hominen though, set up to appeal to a prejudice or belief that they wished to ridicule. Even so it was a pleasure to watch and know that you had to hear each word and see each expression of each character to get the full meaning of the scene.

Yes, we totally agree on the quality of the show and I have wondered for months, since I mentioned it that no one had brought out the apparent conflict between the content and the political philosophy I keep bringing to the forefront.

On the wider issue you touch upon, I have closely followed the comments on drug use as to whether there is an enhancement or a disintegration of artistic endeavor when one is under the influence.

Beyond the influence of alcohol, which seems to lower my inhibitions and my libido, I have only anecdotal experience with other drugs.

I love cerebral Jazz, was a jazz disk jockey for some years in Honolulu during the 60's. I also got rather close to the behind the scenes world of the musicians both local and from all over the world when they visited Hawaii.

I was disappointed to learn that many were high on a variety of substances during their performances. I did conclude however, without serious research, that most of the musicians felt they reached a higher level of performance under the influence.

Reading the biographies of many well known jazz figures of the 40's 50's and 60's, I find quite the same thing, heavy drug involvement.

I cannot prove but tend to think that some chemicals when ingested in certain amounts do assist the user in rising above himself.

Certainly performance enhancement drugs for athletes is effective
as noted by the banning of such substances in competition and professional sports. Thus one can say with some certainty that drugs do affect performance...why then not artistic performance?

Of course, one can also understand why this 'truth', be it such, is denied and swept away. They say that cocaine rivals male enhancement drugs...I wouldnt know about that either.

Anyway...back to West Wing...I did not watch the program from the beginning on the broadcast network, rather found it in reruns on the cable network..thus I have not seen the latest episodes except occasionally when I think of looking for them. They run twice a day, four days a week on Bravo channel...which is having a 24 hour marathon starting next monday at 7pm eastern.

Pleasant to find we agree on something, isn't it?


If it took cocaine for Sorkin to write as he did, then so be it, it was fine, fine writing.


Amicus

 

[sweetnpetite]

would love to see a thread on Comunism.

back to the regularly scheduled programing...

 

[amicus]

ahhh...the gauche one...

"And will somebody please, please tell Amicus, either that or put matchsticks between his eyelids and make him look at this.

Whishy washy American Politics Liberals are not and never could be Left Wing. They are all Capitalists who think that a little teeny tiny bit of Socialism might be a good idea as long as it doesn't cost too much."


I agree, gauche, but that 'little teeny, tiny bit of Socialism' should be treated like a STD, an infection that must cured before it affects the body whole.

amicus with eyes wide shut...

 

[gauchecritic]

would love to see a thread on Comunism.

Can't do that, it's evil personified. It's a bad thing with a capital BAD. Hence logic and subtle arguement such as:

that 'little teeny, tiny bit of Socialism' should be treated like a STD, an infection that must cured before it affects the body whole.

A perfectly balanced piece of criticism, obviating any need for rational discussion and henceforth being known and bowed down to as The Truth

Gauche

 

[amicus]

"Ain't no sunshine when she's gone...oughta leave the poor girl alone..." are those lines from the same song...?

Any way..they came to mind, gauche....

"A perfectly balanced piece of criticism, obviating any need for rational discussion and henceforth being known and bowed down to as The Truth

Gauche


__________________

"Das Kapital" was an influential book in human history. The 'authors' surely claimed truth, universal, absolute, unending undying truth.

I continue to maintain that knowledge in all areas is gained by the passion of a few (in the beginning) who are so focused on their vision of reality, that some of them eventually expand human knowledge in one or more areas.

Louis Pasteur came to mind as did Socrates, I could think of many more but the point is not that hard to make.

It is passion and focus that brings about new things, be it a piano concerto, a microscope or a telescope or the search for Tungsten as a filament for the electric light bulb.

Men and women who single mindedly focus so intently on a personal, individual vision of a new truth.

The continual criticism of those who focus with such intent, (not just myself but in general) is a detraction from seeing the true nature of genius and perserverance.

I do not harangue those who advocate a particular viewpoint just because they hold it, rather, I push and prod for them to defend it, in rational terms, with logic and with adherence to reality and the nature of life as we know it.

Is that such a bad thing? Truly?

amicus

 

[gauchecritic]

I do not harangue those who advocate a particular viewpoint just because they hold it, rather, I push and prod for them to defend it, in rational terms, with logic and with adherence to reality and the nature of life as we know it.

Is that such a bad thing? Truly?

amicus

If that's what you did I would embrace you as a comrade and kiss you thrice. But you use the word "wrong" far too often. And the phrase "right and true" in far too hostile a manner for it to be construed as pushing or prodding.

You ask for rationality and logic and use emotion and dogma a fine example of which:

"adherence to reality and the nature of life as we know it."

You can't even stand counsel for the devil let alone advocate.

Just leave it until you can carry it through. Or if that's not an option just carry on regardless.

Gauche

 

[shereads]

Sher, you're too much! You put Sorkin up as an example for your point?! The guy is filthy rich, he's not some cokehead without house and nourishment. Godonlyknows how many personal assistants he has, and for what. Saying someone like Sorkin did good work while on cocaine just doesn't rate much for me. He's a tv screenwriter, however fine, forgodssake. P.

Your point being...?

 

[shereads]

I will brook no apologies from anyone, nor will I apologise for anything. You can all go fuck yourselves. Or better yet each other.

In conclusion, Fuck Off.

Jesus. It was a joke. Since RG didn't participate in the drug discussion, I thought that would be obvious. And if it wasn't, I thought you'd be the person least likely to take it personally. Brook this and later I'll decide whether to call it an apology.

I'm humbled by the realization that American Politics Liberals aren't left enough to meet your criteria for whatever it is you think we/they are striving to achieve. If I had known there was a contest, and maybe prizes, I'd have worn my fatiques and called myself Fidel.

Can we get back to philosophy now?

More irony.

Yes, by all means, elevate the thread above the "fuck you" level. I'll be reading the poetry of Chad Everett and watching Dukes of Hazzard reruns. I may check back here someday to study the sophisticated discourse you have planned, if I'm not in a drug-induced stupor, so please keep it simple.

 

[gauchecritic]

ooOOOooh. Get her.

Gauche

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I do not harangue those who advocate a particular viewpoint just because they hold it, rather, I push and prod for them to defend it, in rational terms, with logic and with adherence to reality and the nature of life as we know it.

Is that such a bad thing? Truly?

amicus

I’ve got to respond to this, because I knew that you were one of those people who thinks of themselves as a canny defender of truth and a public gadfly, willing to challenge people’s unthinking assumptions with your own courageous and clear-headed insights: a voice of genius crying in the wilderness.

Well, the truth is that you’re not. You’re a rabid right-wing fanatic using the same old Libertarian arguments that most of us thought about and rejected back with the Reagan Revolution. Of all the people I’ve run into on the board, you are the one with whom discussion or argument is most fruitless, because, despite your contenion of rationality, you are totally irrational. You misunderstand and misrepresent what people say to you with such shockling disregard for their words that I thought you might truly be psychotic, or at least out of touch with the reality of human communication. Your immediately go ad hominem on anyone who disagrees with you; you argue from axiom; you ignore anything that contradicts you; and you preach rather than discuss. When you’re presented with evidence that contradicts what you say, you either ignore it or impugn it and claim that it’s only by ab initio reasoning that you can reach the truth. But you don’t do that either.

You post evidence from discredited sources (your anti-global warming diatribe, which came from a shill-science house run by some MD in Oregon and funded by private industry), you make absurdly false statements (that Amerindians never achieved any level of civilization, that African-Americans have need of a strong “tribal” leader) and when you’re challenged on them you disappear or refuse to respond. You’ve still never addressed Shereads’ quation about what you’d do in your Libertarian paradise if someone started dumping poison into the river upstream of you, and you dismiss the very real Capitalist abuses of the turn of the century as minor aberrations in a system that was otherwise working perfectly. You claim to be for a meritocracy, but you say that all the best university scholars and scientists at the top of their fields are full of shit, and you claim to be for freedom, but only when it’s freedom for capitalist bosses and not for their workers.

You want us to accept your notion that we’d all be better off if we trusted to the Capitalists to decide our fate, but you ignore the fact that all of us here are old enough to have had our own experiences of such a system and find your contentions utterly laughable. In the contest between conjecture and theory and real-life experience, I think all of us will take experience. We know what would happen in such a system and we’re not interested.

You have all the rationality and objectivity of a Taliban leader, and you’re every bit as prejudiced and unreasonable in your positions as the hardest hard-core Trotyskyite. That you take a diametrically opposed economic view doesn’t make you one whit any better than them, or make talking to you any more worthwhile. You share with most extremists that weakness of mind that makes it impossible for you to tolerate any sort of shade of gray in your worldview or to accept any compromise or dynamic tension. That ios the sign of fantacism, and the mindset is always the same, whether it deals with fundamentalism, the left wing, or the right wing. You are, as they say, mindblind.

You’re entitled to your opinions, as are we all. But don’t think that you’re some kind of noble and courageous Diogenes with a lantern prodding us poor blind know-nothings towards the light we refuse to see. We've seen plenty. If you ever develop the capacity to discuss things like an adult, then maybe it would be worth the trouble talking with you, but as things are, you’re simply a rabid fanatic thinking that you’re something better.

---dr.M.

 

[shereads]

That's been waiting to be said for a while, Dr. M.

While you were away from the thread, Amicus turned out not to be unique after all. He just got there ahead of the rest of us.

Meanwhile, the thread answered its own question.

What is the best moral philosophy to live your life by?

The answer is, "Oh YEAH? You and whose army, you drunken elitist low-brow know-nothing tree-hugging, television-watching, communist fascist crack addict. Here's my philosophy. Bite it."

 

[amicus]

You think I might have pissed Mab off a bit?

I suppose Amicus should consider having been taken to the woodshed and taught the facts of his evil ways.

Amicus should no doubt cringe and blush with the intellectual inferiority of which he is accused.

Not.


I offer a few thoughts for your consideration...but before that, Shereads...I had intended to respond to your last before I read this, but perhaps I can combine the two.

I have no personal invectives against any one who posts on this forum. Quite the opposite, I have read the writings of most of the major players. I have also commented several times and left only '5' votes on the exceptional stories. My commentary has been laudatory and supportive in all cases. Even Mab can attest to this if he desires.

Long ago I ceased debating faith based philosophies. I once interviewed the Bishop of Honolulu about the Catholic 'list' of forbidden books. The twit threw a bible at me across the table.

I took a Psychology class, several in fact, at the University of Maryland and carried on a semester long debate with a professor who stated, "On should never love anything to the degree that losing the object of that love, would bring about a traumatic experience..." He also threw a book at me at the end of the Semester and gave me a C- grade for the 400 level course.

I also got a poor grade at the University of Hawaii from a Political Science Professor who called Barry Goldwater an idiot in front of the whole class. His response was similar to those on this post that attack and never defend.

And I got an F in an upper level Philosophy class at Murray State University, when after preparing for the final exam, I discovered the first question was, "Name Plato's mother..." I crumpled up the exam, dropped it in the waste basket and took the F.

"Prictione" as I recall, was the answer.

Most of the regular players on this forum have such a 'faith based' philosophy and political system.

I have done what I learned to do in 15 years of on air experience talking with such people in an open forum talk show.

I exposed the absence of any fundamental base.

I tracked each assertion and rebutted the contention of each post.

At the radio and TV station, they sent me tons of hate male, picketed my sponsors and even marched around protesting at the site of the broadcast.

There was also a bullet hole in the window of my second story studio when I arrived at 5:30 am one morning to do my show.

So the anger and and vicious response to my posts comes as no surprise.

I have called out the Liberal Left as being morally without foundation. I have responded to every attack on the concepts of individual freedom and the free market.

They pull a leftwing historical document out and wave it, I pull one from the right wing.

They assert Global warning, I show it is a farce.

They assert Greenhouse effect, I debunk the theory.

They assert Ozone depletion, I show it as an out and out lie.

I state that 90 percent of educator are but propagandists for the left and they say, 'so what?'

I say that 90 percent of Blacks and Hispanics vote Left and I ask why? They accuse me of Racism and do not answer.

This is an election year, a 'crucial' one, they say...perhaps.

I came to this forum a few months ago looking for diversion in the form of perhaps some author discussions on issues relevant to my area of writing.

I found a forum almost totally devoted to Bush Bashing. The Devil made me do it, I guess, responding has taken more time than I really have to give. But like one drink of good Scotch, I never stop at just one. (West Wing, Leo, I think)

I enjoy the encounters, even though they harken back to the Cafe' Socialists who saw a Marxist Utopia just around the corner for the whole world.

That dream died in the graveyard of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

They are 'mild' socialists, as one European poster declared recently, not worthy of the term 'Left Wing'.

The real issue, here and elsewhere, even before Plato is the base assumption made by those of the left, it is this:

"The masses of humanity are too stupid to care for themselves. We, the 'intellectual elite' are so much better prepared than they to deal with their needs that we should administer and tend them like the flock they are...

We must educate them by force for they are too stupid to do it by themselves.

They are too stupid to plan for their own lives, therefore we must provide for them.

They are too stupid to invest in the future, we must do it for them, with their own funds of course.

...and on and on...

The Ego of those of the Left who think they should rule and manage the lower class never fails to amaze me.

And it is not out of 'altruism' the desire to do good for others, not in any way, it is simply 'power', the power to look down and control those 'lesser' endowed citizens.

That the entire population could actually live in a 'free' society and make their own decisions is an alien thought to them, their, 'belief' in the 'absolute' rightness of their political philosophy would be humorous if they even looked at the 'absolute' nature of it...

Perhaps you can imagine the anger of the Left as I hang them out to dry and understand the malicious attacks on everything I post.

I will deal with Socialized Medicine in a future post, as mentioned by Candidate Kerry, "America, the only western industrial nation without a national health care plan..."

I am sure you will love it as I rip the concept of 'free medicine' to shreds....


Amicus...

 

[shereads]

Amicus, your reply to Dr. M. confirms much of what he said about the way you "debate." You simply pronounce that certain things are so. If a hundred websites pronounce that global warming exists and explain why, you post one that says it doesn't, and believe you've proven your point. I can't imagine that you'd find that behavior credible in anyone else, so why do you think it helps your case?

I'm reminded of a former sister-in-law whose church believed in the Old Testament as a literal historic document. She visited her brother in New York, and after a frustrating debate about the earth having been created in six days, etc, he took her to the Museum of Natural Science and showed her the eohippus fossil exhibit. I don't know whether you've seen that particular one, but the display begins with a tiny, rodent-sized mammal and presents a seamless progression of its progeny, each larger, taller, and more horse-like; the last is the skeleton of a modern horse. No one looking at this display could fail to see that over the eons, the horse evolved from eohippus.

This woman's church teaches that the earth is approximately 10,000 years old. Someone added up all the "begats" and that's the figure they came up with. My ex, her brother, decided not to push her on the issue of evolution, despite the evidence of the eohippus fossils. Instead, he asked her to concede that the earth is millions of years old, and that God did not create all of the earth's creatures - including dinosaurs - at the same time he created mankind.

She gave him this sad, oh-so-patient little smile, as if forgiving his lack of understanding, and said, "God made fossils look like animal skeletons to test our faith."

You seem very much the same when you insist that your own life experience, plus a favorite website, Ayn Rand's writings, and your interpretationn of history, are more valid than any and all evidence contrary to your beliefs. That's faith, Amicus.

And you still haven't answered the questions you've been asked about stream polluters, court systems that work without laws, etc. You're playing a game that goes in circles and comes back to "I am right, my sources are right, everyone else is wrong."

If you did piss off Mab, as you say, I hope you've taken note that he rarely loses his temper here. You have to work at it to get Dr. Mabeuse to vent like that. If people are throwing books at you with some frequency, maybe it's not that you're right and they're wrong.

I wish you would start an entirely noncontroversial thread about entertainment, or your favorite vacations or something. Believe it or not, i hate this kind of tension. That your arrival here coincided with what you call Bush-bashing is unfortunate, but this is a tense and upsetting time in the world and it does nothing to improve anyone's tempers.

Except mine. I'm forever a ray of sunshine.

You think I might have pissed Mab off a bit?

I suppose Amicus should consider having been taken to the woodshed and taught the facts of his evil ways.

Amicus should no doubt cringe and blush with the intellectual inferiority of which he is accused.

Not.


I offer a few thoughts for your consideration...but before that, Shereads...I had intended to respond to your last before I read this, but perhaps I can combine the two.

I have no personal invectives against any one who posts on this forum. Quite the opposite, I have read the writings of most of the major players. I have also commented several times and left only '5' votes on the exceptional stories. My commentary has been laudatory and supportive in all cases. Even Mab can attest to this if he desires.

Long ago I ceased debating faith based philosophies. I once interviewed the Bishop of Honolulu about the Catholic 'list' of forbidden books. The twit threw a bible at me across the table.

I took a Psychology class, several in fact, at the University of Maryland and carried on a semester long debate with a professor who stated, "On should never love anything to the degree that losing the object of that love, would bring about a traumatic experience..." He also threw a book at me at the end of the Semester and gave me a C- grade for the 400 level course.

I also got a poor grade at the University of Hawaii from a Political Science Professor who called Barry Goldwater an idiot in front of the whole class. His response was similar to those on this post that attack and never defend.

And I got an F in an upper level Philosophy class at Murray State University, when after preparing for the final exam, I discovered the first question was, "Name Plato's mother..." I crumpled up the exam, dropped it in the waste basket and took the F.

"Prictione" as I recall, was the answer.

Most of the regular players on this forum have such a 'faith based' philosophy and political system.

I have done what I learned to do in 15 years of on air experience talking with such people in an open forum talk show.

I exposed the absence of any fundamental base.

I tracked each assertion and rebutted the contention of each post.

At the radio and TV station, they sent me tons of hate male, picketed my sponsors and even marched around protesting at the site of the broadcast.

There was also a bullet hole in the window of my second story studio when I arrived at 5:30 am one morning to do my show.

So the anger and and vicious response to my posts comes as no surprise.

I have called out the Liberal Left as being morally without foundation. I have responded to every attack on the concepts of individual freedom and the free market.

They pull a leftwing historical document out and wave it, I pull one from the right wing.

They assert Global warning, I show it is a farce.

They assert Greenhouse effect, I debunk the theory.

They assert Ozone depletion, I show it as an out and out lie.

I state that 90 percent of educator are but propagandists for the left and they say, 'so what?'

I say that 90 percent of Blacks and Hispanics vote Left and I ask why? They accuse me of Racism and do not answer.

This is an election year, a 'crucial' one, they say...perhaps.

I came to this forum a few months ago looking for diversion in the form of perhaps some author discussions on issues relevant to my area of writing.

I found a forum almost totally devoted to Bush Bashing. The Devil made me do it, I guess, responding has taken more time than I really have to give. But like one drink of good Scotch, I never stop at just one. (West Wing, Leo, I think)

I enjoy the encounters, even though they harken back to the Cafe' Socialists who saw a Marxist Utopia just around the corner for the whole world.

That dream died in the graveyard of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

They are 'mild' socialists, as one European poster declared recently, not worthy of the term 'Left Wing'.

The real issue, here and elsewhere, even before Plato is the base assumption made by those of the left, it is this:

"The masses of humanity are too stupid to care for themselves. We, the 'intellectual elite' are so much better prepared than they to deal with their needs that we should administer and tend them like the flock they are...

We must educate them by force for they are too stupid to do it by themselves.

They are too stupid to plan for their own lives, therefore we must provide for them.

They are too stupid to invest in the future, we must do it for them, with their own funds of course.

...and on and on...

The Ego of those of the Left who think they should rule and manage the lower class never fails to amaze me.

And it is not out of 'altruism' the desire to do good for others, not in any way, it is simply 'power', the power to look down and control those 'lesser' endowed citizens.

That the entire population could actually live in a 'free' society and make their own decisions is an alien thought to them, their, 'belief' in the 'absolute' rightness of their political philosophy would be humorous if they even looked at the 'absolute' nature of it...

Perhaps you can imagine the anger of the Left as I hang them out to dry and understand the malicious attacks on everything I post.

I will deal with Socialized Medicine in a future post, as mentioned by Candidate Kerry, "America, the only western industrial nation without a national health care plan..."

I am sure you will love it as I rip the concept of 'free medicine' to shreds....


Amicus...