Yibbyl wrote: 

Hear! Hear! Well said sir.

 Beaker wrote: 
I was going to blow this off, but I just can't let it go...  Where the hell did I put that soapbox?

It seems to me that there is no better place to rationally discuss politics than anywhere but a political website.  Therefore, a site that has its main focus on music makes perfect sense!  We have come to RP to hear the music we enjoy or share an interest in, so we already are starting with at least that in common.

Amongst us are small business owners, engineers, teachers, accountants, managers, retired people, students, artists, and too many others to list.  We come from different socioeconomic and educational backgrounds and certainly have different points of view.  We are the ones who should be rationally discussing the problems of today with a goal of coming together to solve problems.  Instead, there is virtually nothing in all of these political forums except finger-pointing, name-calling, and general attempts to get another's knickers in a twist.  There are people here who operate daily off of the exact same playbook of trying to prove that they are right and those other uneducated or foolish or greedy or evil ones are to blame.  They literally are unable to type anything new that surprises anyone anymore and it all leads to the same boring story of bickering over and over again.  Hell, the title of this forum alone virtually guarantees that no civil discussion takes place here and it's not the only one.

We've got this all bassackwards and it is keeping us from coming together and using all this bandwidth for something worthwhile.  Instead we are feeding the beast and doing exactly what the career politicians and media need us to do!  If we could just stop the blame-game BS and continually refocus ourselves toward coming up with solutions to our society's problems we would see an exponentially increasing level of participation from all the others who have been driven away from these sorts of discussions in the past.  The inclusion of these additional points of view would only give us access to even more creative ideas and, frankly, an even more awesome RP experience.

Once we come together and actually work up a real solution, we could offer it up to actual politicians, to the media, to our friends, family and neighbors.  Real change has to come from us, not from those whose only interest is to make a career out of politics.

It's like watching a horse eat taffy...

*Christopher Moore explicative here*

 hippiechick wrote: 
I wish everyone at Fox hated me. Dang. 

 Beaker wrote: 
OMG (oh my google), where did you find that?  Wonder if there is anything else in my past that could be  used against me?

Seriously though, as I have said many times - I think you do bring value regardless of your view, but your weird approach, your semi-veiled quasi-threats, and your ability to overparse to the smallest detail and refusal to let anything pass mires any positives. 

My 2 cents, keep the change.

Everyone At Fox Hates Glenn Beck Too, Advertisers Drop Network Because of Him

 Yibbyl wrote: 
Nah. We're just a bunch of wankers who are trapped at a desk with no one else to talk to.

 Beaker wrote:
What you've said is just silly blather.  What this guy says is worth more than all the insolence your little brain has ever conceived.

 Beaker wrote: 
Several hours later...it still is cracking me up!    One of the funniest entries ever on RP!

Anyway, they don't air Dallas here anymore, so my interest is to enjoy some Hot Tamales (I hate popcorn) and watch the drama of a bunch of true believers, who have convinced themselves that arguments like these will somehow lead to a sufficient level of rational thinking that one day solves all of our problems.  (Technically, I guess that makes this more of a dramedy.)

 islander wrote: 

 Beaker wrote: 
Popcorn.  And the Large Hadron Collider.

 Beaker wrote: 
But you have to admit that the "roll of dimes" imagery was creative, to say the least.

 Beaker wrote: 
You're like a puppy that ate a roll of dimes. Cute and generally entertaining, but frequently really annoying. I'm sure there is some value in following you around, but I doubt it's worth picking through all the shit.

 jadewahoo wrote: 
One can not and shouldn't try. It is only our ego, wanting to be right, the makes us want to be right and make the other person wrong.

One can not have a rational discussion with someone who is insane.

 BasmntMadman wrote: 
Not to mention, it is immoral, and we torture, then we are as immoral as those we torture.

 Beaker wrote: 
How about a justification for the use of torture as a government policy that has any more substance than:
Osama bin Laden taunts
Anti-Clinton propaganda
"9/11 changed things", which is almost exactly the same as "just because"
Insults:  "put down the crack pipe"

You can repeat any insolent questions to your little heart's content.  That way you won't have to provide anything.

Meanwhile, I'll continue with more reasons for not torturing.

Torture as a policy establishes a pernicious precedent that abruptly changes the direction the West has been going for centuries.   It would find its way down the chain to the common citizenry.  That would cause more pain than almost any terrorist attack conceivable.

Torture makes a complete mockery of any representations of the US as the last best hope of mankind.  A last best hope of mankind that tortures suspects until they scream.  Convincing. 

Torture was a dumb and dirty approach to an emergency, representing a panic stricken overreaction that has appeared in history time and again. 

 Beaker wrote: 
Typical abuse, even if the original was in a small font.

The subject was waterboarding as applied to terrorist suspects as prisoners.  I said I was against it, and I'd been biased against use of torture by all the noble pronouncements I'd grown up with, including some from Mr. Ronald Reagan. 

In reply you put up some sort of blather about an Osama bin Laden taunt regarding US military ineffectiveness, a swipe at Bill Clinton's cruise missile strike in 1998, and a largely meaningless advertising slogan about pre 9/11 thinking. 

Actually, I was doing you a great favor by trying to make some sense of it and relating it to the topic of waterboarding.  The only thing I could make of the mess was that you were claiming that we were weak, pathetic and helpless without the use of waterboarding.  

Yes, I must just be a crackhead; I can't see the exquisite logic in a random spewing of propaganda that tries to be rabble-rousing but only rouses annoyance.   

 romeotuma wrote: 
And the Pope. Let's not talk about the Pope.