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Politics : Polite Political Discussion- is it Possible? An Experiment. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bread Upon The Water who wrote (1636)	11/12/2007 12:49:41 AM
From: koan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1695

Bill, I grew up in a tough town Richmond California. Didn't really start my education until I enterd college at age 20. But I was always driven to learn? I have read and studied non stop since then. Sort of like Max Weber and Bertrand Russel without their brains-lol. I recognized early on two things about our species: 1) our species seems to have two different ways of thinking i.e. liberal and conservative. 2) people will believe anything and few are disposed to logic. Additionally we all are sort of crazy and posess huge blind spots, which change with age and circumstances. Hitler was nuts for example. Stalin a sociopath. Neo cons and most of the right wing do not udnerstand things in a very sophisticated manner e.g. 3 of the republican candidates do not believe in evolution. One is not qualified to be president if they cannot understand evolution! It is not a theory it is a fact. But even on the left the majority of people I know easily suspend logic and reality e.g. religion, naturopathic adherents, astrology, ghosts, demons, angels, devil, and a zillion other beiefs that science says are not real or have no statistical validity. These subjects cannot even be discussed in polite conversation. My point, the last 30 years of our government has been a mess because the majority of the people voted in the right wing in our country to run things and they do not know how. They live in a fantasy world. Pat Robertson, jerry Falwell, Hannity, Oreilly, Limbaugh, cheney, and the entre republican congress are in this camp-lol. If the Kennedy's had lived ours would have been a different country today. It is impossible to have a resonable discussion with anyone who lives according to a dogma e.g Carl Sagan was capable of changing his mind as the facts changed. pat robertson, bush and cheney are not. The human species is not adequatley curious to learn, nor insightful enough, for us to survive. Seeing bush and cheney for who they are was a 10 cent concept which the majority of the people in this county were baffled by. There are far more complicated and serious concepts we need to understand. Like pornographic patriotism (Norman Mailer), global warming, carrying capacity of the earth and nuclear proliferation. I can only post my true feelings here as there is just the two of us-lol. A couple of old guys-lol. But most of the great thinkers like Einstein, Thomas Mann, et al were depressed in old age by what they came to understand about our species as they grew old. When they finally learned, that only a very few of our species is really wont to learn and face reality. Not enough to rule in a democracy. And so future anthropologists from other worlds will see why we became extinct. It was our inability to learn enough, quick enough. There is not a single thread on SI I could post the above even for discussion!

To: Bread Upon The Water who wrote (1636)	11/12/2007 8:27:20 PM
From: koan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1695

One other thing Bill, think about how much better our political nominees were when they came out of smoke filled rooms: FDR, Adlai stevenson John Kennedy. Now we get Nixon, reagan and two bushes. Democracy is the only sensible form of government, so we better damn well educate our children better so they know how to vote for qualified peopel. I did my job-lol. Two very liberal Noam Chomsky like daughters and two Noam chomsky like son in alaws (one almost SIL)-lol.