Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rambi who wrote (23618)	7/14/1998 3:34:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

I heard a real "thinker" on an NPR Perspective the other morning while driving to work. The speaker was an Episcopal minister (do I have the right descriptor?) and a self-proclaimed liberal. He went on to say how the vocal agenda of the Christian far right would prove to be a boon to liberal causes in the long run. He spoke of this country's "sane liberal center". (Don't even get me started on the oxymoronic qualities in there...) To describe how the Christian far right was opposed to this "sane liberal center", he brought forth issues like: -racism, as capsularized in the Affirmative Action crisis. -disregard for civil rights, as in the abortion issue. There were others which i can't recall. Bottom line - when he listed these right-wing aberrations, I found myself disliking each one. Does that make me a liberal? No. It places me near the sane center perhaps. I despise racism. I think Affirmative Action is racist however. I think fighting a histiry of racism with a policy of reversed but still discriminatory policy is a Bad Idea. I'm a choicer, and as such a minority in these parts. While the idea of abortion is unpleasant to me, the idea of being told it's not an option is bad in a different way. I am no homophobe. "Some of my best friends are queers." I think the current Republican push to ostracize folks of unauthorized sexual orientation is bigotry in action. Doesn't mean I want to rush out and share the gay experience myself. I'm all for the "sane liberal center" when it comes to issues of personal dignity and freedom; civil rights in the most inclusive sense. Where I part company with the liberal idea is in matters of "selective" support of civil rights. For me, that's symbolized by the gun ownership issue. I have extensively treated of that earlier, so I won't belabor the point. My biggest fear of liberalism has to do with two core assumptions that have come in from the left-wing stalwarts. Great Society type ideas. The first is the ancient Communist non sequitur that if you give folks what they need, they'll limit their take to their own fair share. Once you install an entitlement program, the fix is in. Look at our prisons. On the one hand, rehabilitation of convicts is an expressed goal. On the other hand, what really happens in prisons is more likely to dehumanize and harden a convict than to instill a sense of personal and social worth. (I don't know how to fix this.) The second is the idea that we can buy our way out of poverty. Robin Hood writ large. The simplest way to do this is with a comprehensive dole. I contend that 1) such a dole is a self-perpetuating hydra and 2) it would bankrupt the richest nation in history, leaving us in a losing position. This is my opinion, of course. So I'll assemble my political affiliations a la carte. I'm as liberal as they come re issues of tolerance and individual rights. On social spending, though, the liberals have lost me - at least until they can turn a net profit. Dollars spent on social programs are ffset by value built into our GDP. That's a tough sell. I see a cruel but basic symmetry in the idea of allowing the unfit and the undermotivated to experience hardship. That way there's an incentive toward self-improvement which is washed away if there's a dole. So somebody tell me - am I liberal or conservative?

To: Rambi who wrote (23618)	7/14/1998 6:57:00 PM
From: Ish	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

<<Slick Danny he'll never be.>> Maybe this is what we need to lead the country. Too bumbling to be a sociopath and not slick but real honest and tries hard. God forbid, a real and honest man in the Whitehouse.

To: Rambi who wrote (23618)	7/16/1998 2:11:00 AM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Penni, I think most politicians are really pretty unethical, probably because by definition they need to get votes to get elected and stay in office. I must have written a thousand posts already about my negative opinions of Bill and Hillary Clinton, and only one or two about Dan Quayle, so I certainly don't think I am very one sided. I agree with you completely about his wife, Marilyn, and always wondered why she was not as subject to abuse as Hillary is for wearing the pants in the family, though. I do think you might have missed what I was saying, however. I was specifically saying that while the religious right may believe that forcing Republican politicians to advocate their platform is positive, they are only words. The actions of those politicians will not change simply because they are spouting conservative Christian phrases during the campaign. On the other hand, the liberal Democrats advocate social tolerance publicly. So it would be more difficult for them to be as hyprocritical--they seem to be living less rigidly moral lives already. It is hard to imagine Bill Clinton or Al Gore advocating abortion rights publicly and then locking their daughters up, for example. But I am not saying they are not hypocritical in other ways. As far as parental rights go, I think parents have plenty of rights already. I think abusive and neglectful parents should have fewer, not more. I think you and I are both caring about children in the views we take, but look at it in different ways. While I would hope and expect to be consulted if my daughter got pregnant, I have spent fourteen years now building trust with her, loving her, and not punishing her capriciously. So she knows that I am someone she can come to if she is in trouble. Parents who do not accept responsibility for the kinds of relationships they create with their children are a group whose interests I have no interest in protecting. A teenaged girl who is pregnant is already in the middle of a trauma, and to subject her to further hurt from a dysfunctional family is not something I would want to legislate. The fact that she would not instinctively go to her parents is significant, and in my opinion needs to be respected. What special interest groups do you think I support, that are way out of line, incidentally? How do they infringe on your rights?