"Why do you insist on responding to a factual report with making stuff up about me? That is very odd."
"Because I think you are a winger."
I can't fix that for you. You have a polarized view of reality, which is probably unchangeable. The fact is, reality is complex and I consider addressing it with an unencumbered, unrestricted (by partisan dictates) perspective to be the only healthy way to go. So sometimes it may appear that my view is coming from the right wing, or at least that I am criticisign a left winger agenda. Right wingers have had the same complaint about me when my view seems to support some left wing agenda, or be critical of a right winger agenda. My position on guns/teachers is neither. I don't want the government setting up training programs to arm teachers. I just think it is a good idea to go ahead and authorize school personnel, who are qualified and willing, to carry. No costly government program is necessary at all. And I'm strongly against the armed guard idea except where a local community sees that as necessary. Then let it be on them to set it up. Many already have.
In any event, making stuff up based on that prerequisite notion is never going to move any of us forward, and it frequently backfires. An SI friend (dead now) offered me some advise years ago which I still find useful. "Just ignore the bull, correct the inaccuracies, and forward rational arguments" (Michael Blume). We have always focused on emotional issues on these threads (gay rights, abortions, racism, and now gun ownership) but I rarely see solid discourse taking place that addresses the facts which consider the rational elements of our state of affairs. When I do, I find it rewarding. |
