Letters to the Editor
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@Anonymous
In my 70th decade
Please share your diet and other longevity secrets with the rest of us. You are almost as old as Methuselah!
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@Valentinian
The Nolan test is a crock of shit. It's a marketing tool. Everyone is a libertarian. It's so "weighted" you could use it as an anchor. Some wonderful facts, snark and even a parody of those "tests"
http://world.std.com/~mhuben/wspq.html
If you want to see something a little different, try this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_politics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQRUu_4W2j8
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Simple, neat, and wrong
Christopher Michael Neill:
Okay.. fair enough. Let me propose this, then; authoritarianism provides easy answers to complex problems. Easy answers work, for a while. Then, after time passes, those easy answers start to fall apart.
Well, if you an authoritarian, I can see the viewpoint that criticizing authoritarian views can seem negative. I see it differently. I see accepting those views as counter-productive when those views fail to pan out in the real world. I see criticizing those views as the first step in creating a realistic critical dialog which may bear the fruit of realistic solutions.
To put it in terms you might grasp: authoritarian = concise, clear, brief and direct solutions to problems; liberal = measured, weighed, diplomatic and academic solutions to problems.For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
— H. L. Mencken (attributed)and similarly,
For every problem there is a solution which is simple, obvious, and wrong.
— Albert Einstein (attributed)As for bashing conservatives -- please, are you kidding me? The current administration bears little or no resemblance to anything traditionally "conservative."
I fear that you are wasting your time trying to educate shooter. I used to believe that there were basically two types of people: Those who had to be told everything and those who could figure it out for themselves. Having been exposed to shooter (and his henchman daleyrocks) for a sufficient period of time, I am now convinced that there is at least one more type: There are also those who still can't figure it out even after they've been told.
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Political science and economics
Sonofabastard: I'm not sure I would have the two lines perpendicular to each other. I think communism and authortarianism are closer than 90% apart.
You're conflating economic systems and political systems. Marxist communism is not authoritarian — it is anti-authoritarian (withering away of the state and all that). The only kind of communism that you are familiar with is authoritarian communism (Stalinist USSR, Democratic People's Republic of Korea). Marxist communism, like Christianity, has not so much failed as it has never been seriously tried. It is simply not feasible for a large, manufacturing-based nation-state; at best it can only be sustained in a small agrarian commune or kibbutz. The People's Republic of China was able to keep (economic) communism alive as long as the economy was primarily agrarian. With the rapid expansion of the manufacturing sector of the economy, the PRC has had to move toward market capitalism as an economic system (at least in the manufacturing sector; they also had to move from a dictatorial political system to a merely authoritarian one).
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Shooter takes the test....
Economic Left/Right: 2.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 0.82
From what I've seen so far, that makes me the most centrist of the lot.
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Sysprog. thanks. I've read some of the peoples and thought you expressed.
I always like to give credit for a borrowed inspiration. A name may evoke a bunch of crazy raw emotions. It's an overlap. A naive frankness and quote a reference for every dang single thought can get us it trouble too. Don't quote a person we just glossed via a glossy government pamphlet full of pro-war propaganda too? We may discover too late he masturbates in the Halls of Congress?
We best think critically and give credit when it's do. It's nice to know it's 'not important to have testes to testify.'--Martial, Epigrams.
The straightford whores in our government offend me much--bebop-o?
I deny I said it. Thanks Sysprog. You remind me of a stone mason who kept his skills all a good secret..."How you mix mud?" He'd pleasantly trick you. He'd have you make slurpee mud soup that spill down the blocks or mountain rocks.
He'd be a load of daily fun, and have a servant sent to 'tend,' parge, and try to fix The White House ..."huff, puff, blow the wacky residents out of town?"
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Re: Update III
Juan Cole has a new piece out in which he offers a schematic for peace in Iraq. I think Cole's article (in The Nation--linked at Cole's site "Informed Comment") provides a more accurate and informative sketch regarding how 'liberals' might be viewing the current situation in Iraq, and how they view the people of the middle east.
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Perversity 101
The tactic of using our (the left's) weapons against us—identifying racism, etc.—on the part of the right is cute, if not exactly clever. Greenwald's blog alleging that liberal racism is at the root of desire to end the war reminds me of another recent table-turning maneuver: that of branding liberal women anti-feminist for refusing to castigate Bill Clinton for "raping" Juanita Broaddrick.
Take a close look at the language, see where it comes from. The pop-psych maxim of "You spot it, you got it" could apply here.
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Shooter
Shooter takes the test....
Economic Left/Right: 2.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 0.82
From what I've seen so far, that makes me the most centrist of the lot.
Thanks for taking the test and sharing your scores.
If you are only slightly authoritarian as your score would indicate, then why do you advocate so strongly for authoritarian policies?
I'm not trying to play gotcha, I genuinely would like to know.
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At 2:10, L.W.M. was an incarnation of old Horace?
'ridentem dicere Quid vetat?'
[what can stop us telling the truth with a laugh?] higgledy-piggledy award goes to you. We embarrass oneself with out any effort. We are embarrassed by our very selves, is true. Thanks.
I do thank those who have an unwritten credo that we aren't to bro/sis be treated with mean mockery or be managed by thumps from Antonie's fist. We should be glad our limbs begin to fail us. We can still have vigour, but what a misery it would be to be as old as the nice gentleman boast. I am sure he smiles at your pleasant jest.
Mother earth will some day embrace us all....Then what? I hate to guess. One day at a time. One step, and one breath. Don't gasp and forget to inhale. That's dangerous.
Hale Horace L.W.M. "Have a good day." I remember a K-mart clerk say...Have a nice life! a good day too....