We're all the same....or are we?

[salinen]

Would a liberal go to church and come away knowing that god is asking man to destroy homosexuals?

Would a freep give a donation to the ACLU?

Would a liberal advance the cause of protection to include rounding up Arab-types and detaining them?

Would a freep desire to save ANWAR for it's pristine beauty and animal habitat?

Would a liberal citizen patrol the border?

Would a freep admit that the universe is billions of years old?

Would a freep acknowledge that the media is mostly conservative?

So I say, freeps and liberals are as distantly related as Aardvaarks and bacteria.

[skids]

1. I'd patrol the border.

For sure.

[stray cat]

2. We bleed, grieve and die the same.

There are days I think we blindly hate people who disagree with us the same. However, leaders like Coulter with their slanders and lies drive me nuts.

[undergroundpanther]

4. I think there are some who are different

And others that appear different.

Some people are sociopaths and cannot feel empathy or shame,and will do anything to be on top 'win' and everything to them is a zero sum game..They feel no guilt or remorse for the evil they do,and they will do even worse if they could get away with it..

These people are dangers and they make democracy,equality peace and a sane culture impossible because of their personality they are INCOMPATIBLE with civil society democracy and freedom and cannot be trusted and cannot tolerate living under these higher concepts.

Why it happens I dunno.All I know is they are born that way and psychopathy runs in families ..there is no cure,there is no therapy for it,and psychopaths,abusers,con men,pedophiles and bullies to exist put an enormous cost onto entire societies and degrade our quality of life, .Psychopaths and bullies wound or destroy all the lives around themselves as well as self destruct.

I don't know what to do with these people.Killing them off is offensive to alot of people and I fear the bullies would try to get in on it and twist the criteria to save their own skins like they have infiltrated and corrupted law enforcement and every other social institution we got....,but still regardless these creeps are ruining the world as we know it while we wring our hands playing make believe it isn't so with each other, while no one dares say what is obviously the problem ,the same damn problem it has always been,some people are incapable of living without abusing others,incapable of handing freedom and responsibility living among others requires of all of us and are driven to hurt others and feel no shame about it and cannot be reformed to make them stop and they cannot be trusted and should not be pitied because they use our goodhearted and humane traits against us to hurt us every time. .

[salinen]

5. Horrible, inhuman qualities of man

are being promoted as good in this sick society.

[rasputin1952]

14. I find it difficult to believe that some people are "born' ...

socio/psychopaths. There has to be more to it. Like you stated, it appears that psychopathy runs in some families...but there has to be a societal impetus as well.

There are some born with physiological situations that affect them, but are there so many that we are seemingly overwhelmed with them, or do they get the lions share of media attention...:shrug: Few things horrify a parent more than hearing about a child that has been abducted...:scared:

Killing them is reprehensible, but locking up socio/psychopaths is defiantly a viable option, even if it is for life w/o parole. Some people just should not be in a society where they can prey on the innocent.

[rasputin1952]

3. I think we parallel in some cases, and are as distant as can be on

others.

The devil is in the details, but both Liberals and freeps, generally have a love/respect for the nation.

Many Libs are in favor of firearm ownership, and I know of several freeps that are calling for some restrictions on sales.

My RW yahoo neighbor is adamantly against drilling in ANWAR and proposed changes in SS, as am I; but he thinks I am some kind of demon because I am a progressive.

Many a freep does understand that the universe is immensely old and still expanding. It is only the incredibly ignorant that think that the Bible should be taken in it's entirety in a literal sense; as if it was presented by God, in English, to the masses. Many people, incredibly, have little notion that Hebrew, Greek and Latin play a prominent role in how the Bible was written in English, or any other language for that matter.

I have spent many an hour in one-on one and public discussions about how absurd the rabid right thought process is, and have had at least 15 converts to reason; and many people (22) change their voting preference from R to Independent, (I have only 1 that changed to D...:( ).

Many people would understand that the rabid right is absurd and actually a threat to the country, if they spent just a tad more time reading instead of listening to Limbaugh, Savage/Weiner, O'Reilly, etc.

I have found that the vast majority of people would rather have someone tell them what they should believe, than take the effort to look for answers. This is the greatest difference between those that see the world as a place where we actually can all get together, and those that find evil in every shallow thought they have. Makes no difference what religious/political/social background one comes from, if ignorance is accepted, there is little hope for the future.

Just my 2 cents...:)

:hi:

[salinen]

6. that's worth much more

than 2 cents.

[hfojvt]

8. I do not buy the "ignorance" model

nor that people need to just spend more time reading. Limbaugh has written two or three books, and so has Hannity and so has Coulter and so has Robert Bork, etc. My RW co-worker is reading "Dereliction of Duty" right now for some reason.

People do look for answers, but they also look for the answers that they like. If they stumble into something that shakes their faith, they look for something to re-affirm it. And, of course, they believe that "we" or "others" are the ignorant ones who are unaware that Clinton cheated at his golf game or that the army has found four Russian MIGs buried in the Iraqi desert.

The "other" side would say something like this: "Many people would understand that the rabid left is absurd and actually a threat to the country, if they spent just a tad more time reading instead of listening to Rather, Franken, Moore, etc."

I have to plead guilty too, since I have not read "Dereliction of Duty" nor any of Ann Coulter's meticulously researched and end-noted books. Neither have I read "The Closing of the American Mind" or "The Bell Curve", etc., etc., etc.

[rasputin1952]

10. I accept that I am ignorant on many subjects, one cannot have all

of the answers; but thank God I am not stupid either...:)

I look into and research areas that are of interest to me, as do all people. I know of very few that research areas they find dull and redundant...but they are out there.

The thing about many from both sides of the aisle, is that there seems to be a 'self imposed' ignorance. The fear that they just might be wrong terrifies them. I have read where the answer to, "Where did all of the water go after Noah's Flood?", stated as, "it is now the oceans and seas." :wtf: Seems as though there are people that honestly believe that there was a 'hydrosphere' in the atmosphere, and that 'hydrosphere' descended as rain and flooded the earth...:eyes: I am amazed at the lengths people will go to in an attempt to understand/'prove' something that they desperately want to believe...no matter how much common sense says the notion is absurd. I avoid people like this like the plague, they are never going to understand that they can actually think for themselves.

The same holds true for those that think that Hussein was a threat to us, they will believe anything, just to ensure they are not seen as being "wrong". No matter how many truths are shown to them, they brush it all off as something that was 'made up' by the other side; never understanding that their side is just as up' things just as easily.

Stupidity is acceptable...if one can't learn, that is a shame, but a reality. "Self imposed ignorance" is denying oneself the truth, no matter how much they bellyache about finding said truth.

[hfojvt]

11. so now you deny the existence of the oceans?

If there never was a flood, then why can you find shark's teeth in South Dakota. Duh, the water soaked into the groud. Where else did the Ogallalla acquifer come from?

How did we start talking about the flood anyway?

Anyway, I am not sure that "believing anything to ensure they are not wrong" is limited to only a few people. I like this quote "Given a choice between changing their minds and proving that there is no need to do so, most people will get busy on the proof."

Of course, I could be wrong.

[rasputin1952]

15. Good quote...that's a keeper. As for the Flood, I use that as an obvious

thing to parlay with the fundies. I wonder what happened to the incredible amount of water it would have taken to cover the Himilayas...:)

We're talking some 5 miles + of water inundating the entire earth, and that is from sealevel today...:)

Just for fun...did all of the sea life perish as well? Seems to me, that many forms of sealife would flourish...:)

[manic expression]

12. What about the "delusion" model?

Reading itself does not contribute to clear perception, since one could read all the Aristotle there is and be quite misled.

People find things that they think are answers, but these are only confusions (actually, instead of finding solutions, they create problems).

Some people will say we are "ignorant" because we do not believe Saddam smuggled his WMD's out of Iraq onto a ship, which is presently being tracked to see which terrorists will take it in (someone actually told me this). However, they would be ignorant, for they believe pure fallacy.

You need not plead guilty to anything, since "Dereliction of Duty" is wrong. The number of hours spent researching and footnotes means NOTHING, what really matters is that there is no truth (people who believe the world is flat have no doubt "researched" their opinions, but it doesn't make them any less wrong).

[rasputin1952]

17. Self delusion is indeed a problem, and I thank you for that insight...

it reminds me of the notion that was prevalent during the Dark Ages...the earth is the center of the universe. None are so blind, as those who refuse to see.

Some of todays 'facts' will be tomorrows cruel jokes, and we will be ashamed that we believed in these 'facts'...:(

[kliljedahl]

13. "would rather have someone tell them what they should believe"

Explains religion too, not just politics.


Keith’s Barbeque Central

[rasputin1952]

16. Religion is a very powerful tool, any religion. Always has been...

too bad that many of those who seem to be 'uber-relgious' haven't got a clue as to how much damage they are doing.

[Stirk]

7. We're fundamentally different in one, age-old way:

One group believes humanity is basically good, while the other believes it's bad.

Conservatives want a strong authority figure to keep "order". Liberals do not. Liberals believe that an informed person is more likely to make the right decisions. Conservatives do not.

Whenever you hear someone say something like, "police are the only thing keeping us from living in anarchy", you can be pretty sure that person is a conservative.

[Cleita]

9. I put a lot of man's inhumanity to others to bigotry, prejudices

racism and sexism. The only reason people listen to Limbaugh, Savage and Hannity is that they want another voice reaffirming what they already believe in. Why do they believe that one race, one religion and one sex is better and more entitled to the best in life that others? Because, they have received the blatant messages along the way through childhood, in the home, in church and in school.

Let's start with the idea of the European white person being smarter, better looking and more civilized that any other human. (Even though my mother was Chilean making me Hispanic, I got this message over and over again from my Germanic descended American relatives, even my father.) Remember that blonds have more fun? Short, fat people aren't good athletes. Blue eyes are desirable over any other color. Blond, blue-eyed Jesus is in all the children's bible books. Most movies, TV commercials and TV shows are about white, Christian people. It's only in the last half of this century that blacks and other races were portrayed in any venue except as stereotypes.

They are told in church and other social settings that children who are raised in single parent homes or homes where both parents work will take up drugs, run in gangs and beat up your perfect little honor student. I could go on and on. You get the idea. From the very beginning children are programmed to fear anyone who is different from them and to scapegoat those same people when things go wrong and they need someone to blame.

Unscrupulous people tap into these fears to gain support for their self-serving agendas. Agents like Coulter, Hannity, Savage and Limbaugh et. al. give them credibility. If those propaganda purveyors can't be exposed for what they are, they will continue to do damage to our world for their unscrupulous masters.

[rasputin1952]

18. Fear is born of ignorance...it knows no boundaries as long as there

is a desire to remain ignorant.

Ideally, people would understand that we are all just people...with hopes and aspirations to become better humans as we walk or run through this life.

Fear breeds hatred...some believe that thee si a 'hardwired' essence that makes people shun those different from themselves. I'm not so sure about that, everyone is different to some extent, so there must be common bonds that draw some together, while there is almost a common repellent that keeps others apart.

Sociologists have tried to deal with this for a long time; but as you pointed out above, unscrupulous people tap into these fears. Even if they can't explain the fear, they sure know how to use it...:(