How can someone with Aspergers be left-wing?

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You aren't seriously going to defend Dubya's 3.5 trillion dollar Iraq war?

It's simple. Spending to kill people = good. Spending to help people = baaahd. War mongering = good. Trying to improve healthcare coverage = baaahd.

Or from a liberal point of view: letting tyrants live and continue to torture and commit ethnic cleansing = good. Abortion = good. Capital punishment = bad. Euthanasia = good. Military = bad. Firearms = evil. Swords = evil. Pointy sticks = evil. Table-knives = evil. Homosexuality = good. Freedom of speech = bad. Christianity = evil. Any other religion = acceptable. Spending other people's money = good. Working = bad. Managers = infallible. Corporations = evil.

A few of my selected positions, in rebuttal to 'Keet:

Reagan and Bush Sr. didn't seem to have a problem with Saddam when he was gassing Iranians and Kurds in the 80s. The U.S. only became concerned when he threatened our oil supply in Kuwait.



Oversimplification. Being pro-choice is not the same as promoting abortion. It just means that women should be allowed to make the choice in the first place. It's perfectly legal under Roe v. Wade, after all.

I noticed a lot of the Tea Party-endorsed candidates in the midterm elections held extreme pro-life views on abortion, including the belief that abortion should be outlawed, even in cases of rape, incest, or a threat to the mother's health. It's been pointed out by pro-choicers for a while, that there's a real irony in pro-lifers murdering abortion doctors. What seems to be ignored is, what about the mother? Is her life not just as valid, or perhaps even more so, as the child's inside her? Should her health be completely ignored, and should she be forced to have the child, even if it kills her? Exactly how "pro-life" is that?



In a medical situation... well, yeah. If a person is going to die anyway, and in so much pain that continuing to live becomes torturous, why should that person not have the choice to die and save himself or herself a whole lot of suffering?

Oh, sorry, I forgot. God's plan is that the person should suffer a few extra days or weeks, right up to the end. Because He loves His children.



The politicians who tell the military what to do-- yes, when they waste our resources (like money, time, and soldiers' lives) needlessly, based on a lie.

The military itself, and the men and women who serve and protect the country-- I've got nothing but respect for them. My father was in the Air Force himself. That these people would willingly lay down their lives for us is truly humbling and honorable. And I can't speak for other "lihbruls", but I'm pretty sure I'm not the only leftie who feels that way.



I've got friends who are gay and bi. My niece is gay. All they want is to be given the right to exist without being persecuted for who they are. If you're going to literally interpret Leviticus and claim that that is the moral foundation upon which our modern society should be built, you're going to drag us back into the days of stoning adulterers (Lev 20:10) and blasphemers (Lev 24:10-16).



If you're talking about political correctness, I agree with you. Overt PC-ness is just as annoying as a complete lack of tact. But I suppose this gets to the root of my philosophy. With each right we've been given in the Constitution (or by God, if you believe that), there is an inherent responsibility to not abuse or misuse it. I truly believe in freedom of speech-- but there is a line that you cross, when you abuse that right for the sake of impeding others' rights.



Once again, this is a gross generalization. What I've got a problem with isn't so much any specific religion-- it is when religion is manipulated by fundamentalists, to stoke xenophobia and hatred. There are moderate and liberal Christians who follow after the pacifistic, compassionate example of Christ, and with whom I believe I can find a lot of common ground. By the same token, I understand that there are violent and irrational fundamentalist elements of Islam with whom reasoning does not seem to work. It may seem like the left hates all Christianity, but I think that's actually due to Christianity being such a large majority in the U.S., and the volume of American Christian groups who do preach hypocritically judging others' ways of life. Conservatives are always saying they don't like the government telling them how to live their lives-- well, some of us on the other side don't like organized religion telling us how to live.



Look, I'm going to say something here which you'd probably never expect to hear from me. That is, I believe corporations have the right to exist. However, if they're going to exist, there need to be some ground rules and a level playing field. I don't mean that individuals and corporations should be treated as equal entities, with equal rights, because that's what we have now after the Citizens United case, and the corporations are totally abusing it. Holding individual people and corporations as equal is flawed because it totally ignores how much larger, how much richer, and how much more powerful corporations inherently are. When the corporation is given the same rights as individuals, of course they're going to crush the individuals-- it's like putting a python and a mouse in the same tank, and expecting them to coexist. The individual hasn't got the means to protect himself or his rights. The conservatives still seem to believe trickle-down Reaganomics actually works-- give all the rich people all the money, and it will trickle down to the middle class and the poor. But Reaganomics failed in the 80s, and it's failing us now. The rich do not trickle down their wealth, they hoard it. The middle class is disappearing. This system is dangerously unstable, and now that the rich have had a taste of unrestrained power under the Republicans for 8 years, they're unwilling to go back to even a Clinton-era distribution of wealth (which, really, was not unkind to them).

The Iraq war hasn't cost the US 3.5 trillion dollars.

In fact Obama has spent more than both the Afghanistan War and Iraq War COMBINED in less than 2 years.

@ Chevand

Iran had a leader in place that made Saddam look like Mother Teressa. It was a lesser of two evils situation.

Concerning Abortion, the problem with Abortion is it is usually used because people don't want the responsibility of a child, not due to rape or incest.

Chevand, I will point out that you may be a 'liberal', however you aren't out there like the liberals in congress. You are what conservatives would probably call an old school Democrat or a Rational Liberal. You aren't one of the variety like Nancy Pelosi.

Straw men.

It is no more of a straw man argument than what has been made by you.

I don't know of the other posts made by LKL recently, but the strawman that my set is equivalent to would be marshall's. As chevand showed though, it's more a matter of oversimplification to a ridiculous degree than actual strawmen.

Not directly, no, but if you look at all of the costs caused by the war (such as increases in the price of oil), it hits the mark easily.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 02200.html


Oh? Iran is at least somewhat democratic, and hasn't gassed any of its own citizens en mass for quite a while. North Korea is the really scary regime - but they really do have WMDs, so even Bush wouldn't invade them.


So? What business is it of yours?

Hey, I just thought of something for which I could blame Clinton.

Note the plural, please.

My "strawman" was a sarcastic jab at the backwards fiscal priorities of conservatives/republicans.

Even without indirect costs, the direct budget expendature for Iraq is about 750 billion (so far) and if you add healthcare costs for injured veterans, the direct cost to the federal government is still easily over one trillion dollars. So overall the Iraq war has still cost the government more than the Obama administration stimulus spending.

I'm pretty sure Obama's stimulus package didn't cost us thousands of American lives either, not to mention injuries or Iraqi casualty figures.

That load of laundry you've been putting off? Your water bill? The weather?

I could care less about the "supposed" indirect costs of the Iraq war. Really those indirect costs are calculated primarily through supposition and 'what if' scenarios. It is about as credible as Obama's number of saved jobs statistic, i.e. not credible at all.

Furthermore I wasn't just talking about Obama's spendulus package alone, though if you want to really get technical, Obama has spent more than Bush did in the entire 8 years Bush was in office, and he managed to do that in less than 2.