Ragtime wrote:
sojournertruth wrote:
Ragtime,
I'm a flaming liberal. I'm also a trained biologist from a university that focuses on ecology.
I eat meat. Sometimes, I even kill my own. I wear leather without qualm.
I believe in sustainable forestry.
I believe in sustainable fisheries.
It makes it easier to 'argue' when you set up unrealistic straw men, but eventually you realize that you're only arguing with yourself; when you want to argue with real, complex people, let us know.
You just set up a strawman about yourself: You said you're a flaming liberal, when clearly you are not,
by virtue of the attributes you mention about yourself. (See my definition of a liberal, above.)
My point is that what you define as a 'liberal' does not exist. Your definition does not match the definition of the rest of the world, and certainly not of liberals themselves (including myself).
For example, I can define 'true' conservatives thus:
'Those who blindly ignore evidence that things are changing, even when it hits them in the face; those who blindly hold on to old ways, even when they are clearly poorly functional and/or unfair; those who have had priviledge in the past, through no merit of their own, and yet who think that sharing that priviledge with others traditionally left out of society through no fault of their own is somehow granting 'special rights.' Conservatives make specious definitions of large groups of people based on no evidence other than their own wishful thinking, and then use those definitions to discriminate against people to whom they apply the definitions.
They justify it all by inventing an all-powerful, perfect deity that, conveniently, agrees with them on everything but cannot be contacted to verify it, and threaten anyone who disagrees with them with eternity in some form of hell. Conservatives are, in short, paranoid, xenophobic, self-deluded, and blind; Their ranks are largely composed of white males, usually older ones, and those women and minorities who make up their ranks do so because of self-hatred inoculated to them when they were young by other conservatives.'
See how easy that is? Now I can go around hating all conservatives, thinking that they are all blind, selfish ninnies who need to be wiped out so that the rest of us can get on with the business of improving our own lives. I don't have to actually argue or discuss anything with any actual conservatives - because how could someone like that be worth discussing with?
Last edited by sojournertruth on 07 May 2008, 12:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
07 May 2008, 12:46 pm
