That's not fair, kholt! Left or Right, pick your side! :-)
(Don't miss the :-) on the above line.)
The truth seems to be that if you post on the political threads, you're going to be labelled one or the other. I'd agree with Bill: you're just about center, although I'd put you a bit to right of center.
"lefty" is most often used as an epithet. in the SI environment it has a negative connotation.
So is "right winger". "Right wing extremist", another common epithet, certainly is. In this regard, I don't think either side is labelled more than the other. And they certainly have negative connotations.
I'm a very straight forward and candid person both here and in 3D.
I'd say that's true of all of us. I've exchanged PMs with many LWPers. Sometimes long series of them, and some seemingly will continue indefinitely. Guess what? Behind all that rhetoric and those labels are PEOPLE. With hopes and fears and joys and problems. Coping as best they can. Just like me. Nobody gets the whole planet dumped on them and nobody gets out of life for free.
<i.Are we saying that anyone who is not small minded is a lefty?
HEY! Are you implying right wingers are small minded? :-)
Because I'm not religious?
I'm not either.
I'm a strong advocate of religious liberty and all our individual liberties. I expect the state to not abridge my religious and other liberties. That's hardly a leftie position.
Absolutely. That's what this country is about. There long has been and still is a brand or conservative that is highly concerned with protection of constitutionally guaranteed liberties. I like to include myself among them.
Just because fundamentalist Christians have congregated in the Republican party doesn't make religion or the lack of it a left-right matter. It's a question of government intrusion.
I wish they'd crawl back under their rock and leave my party alone. Up until Roe v. Wade, it was widely accepted that politics and religion should not be mixed. As a result of that decision, the Christian Right was born with the intention of somehow overturning that decision.
As a result of their presence in the GOP I find myself commonly holding my nose when I pull the voting lever, or voting for Democrats or Libertarians. I almost voted for Gore last time. That was my intention up until about three weeks before the election. I finally decided that if I had to vote for a retarded idiot, it might as well be a Republican.
5) Because I think for myself and see shades of difference? Some people think, if I can use that word, in terms of black and white. You're either fer them or agin them. So anyone who takes exception to any element of any pronouncement from the right must be a lefty? Pointing out a flaw in an argument doesn't make one the enemy. There's such a thing as constructive criticism. And truth seeking. And critical thinking. And learning.
Amen.
6) Because I'm pro-choice? Since when is choice and freedom from government intrusion into intensely personal matters a lefty position? Only since the Christian fundamentalists co-opted the GOP
Amen. You got that right. (Uh, bad choice of word?) I'm also pro-choice. Which means these days not uncommonly I find myself voting for liberals that I otherwise abhor.
7) Because I'm cosmopolitan? Yes, I eat Afghan and Ethiopian and Korean food rather than meat and potatoes. No, I don't like country music. No, I wouldn't consider living too far from either coast--in the red zones, so to speak. And, no, I don't own a gun. Being cosmopolitan does, IMO, tend to make one more comfortable with the non-traditional, but it hardly makes one a leftie.
I live in Silicon Valley. Somewhere fairly close to where I am is every breed of man, every religion, and every form of food on the panet. Some degree of tolerance is necessary to survival here. These people aren't just your neighbors, you work with them. Employers are highly non-discriminatory here. In the building I'm in within a hundred feet of me are blacks, Hispanics, Chinese, Vietnamese, Burmese, and Cambodians. Oh, and AMerican Caucasions.
And the tolerance more the better because then you can enjoy the products and customs of all these other cultures without even leaving home. |
