I believe that whenever you look at a large, random sample of people, you have all characteristics, including intelligence, kindness and courage, represented in a well shaped bell curve: half the people have plenty of it and the other half have less of it. I hear you about the spending policies etc that Obama tried. I could say all sorts of things to argue my political point (I'm a conservative leaning Independent) but the bottom line is this: I wouldn't have done it. I teach my children to live within their means and I expect my government to do the same. Balance the budget, period. Tax just enough to provide basic services like defense, security, roads, etc, and let the free market do the rest. Instead of promising people endless welfare and unemployment checks, help them get a job, make sure the conditions are there for private industry to do that for you. In general I stay away from insulting others for their political beliefs, but sometimes the cartoons etc are just too funny to pass up, that's all
Once again, reading through many of these posts drives me to repost. I hope you all understand that I am being facetious. No, you are relying on flawed polls. No, you are. No, You are. No, you are. My poll is better than your poll. Left wing media. Right wing radio talk. My guy is good. Your guy is bad. My idea is good. Your idea is bad. No matter what, I will fight to the death to try to prove this. How nice. That's from another thead. Not to worry. I fully understand that I can have zero impact on how others behave. I just feel compelled to give my view of so much of what I read here. So many smart people acting so foolishly. European soccer matches where each side has to hate the other because of the color of their jersey, red or blue. Too bad. c
I agree with you, more or less. What bothers me is that we sometimes kill (literally) each other because of these perceived differences, be it soccer or politics. That baffles my mind. Yet, it does happen, and has been happening for a long time. Which tells me that there must be something undeneath, something very big that eludes me. Oh well.
I've followed your posts for a time. You seem to be one of the more sane posters. I agree at times, not so much at other times. Sounds funny, but the thing I hate, is the hate itself. When I grew up, my dad would have political discussions, and I would never hear him say derogatory things or use locker room drivel when the other side had their backs turned. To a point, I can understand the media types playing to an audience. We survived grunge rock after all. At extremes, not using as a reference to anyone here, we have the religious leaders who went bad, ala Jim Jones and Koresh. We have had, and I guess still have, hard as it may be to believe, the KKK with followers. Charles Manson of course. I think any hero worship or looking at the media mavens as their Mesiah is just wrong. May not seem wrong to those infatuated with whomever, fill in the blanks, but worshipping idealogues ? Not so sure about that. Ideas are ideas. No one that I know of can say for sure anything about the future. The firm I work for would fire me if I had sure things to hand out. Just research I tell them, no crystal ball. QE good, QE bad, GM good, GM bad. No one knew early on what would happen, but many were sure of failure, while others were touting overwhelming success. Personally I'm glad GM is still making corvettes and Escalades. But those early opinions were just that, biased and partisan opinions. c
Thanks c, I see the same traits in your posts, and I had a similar experience growing up and talking about politics with my dad, who was an Orthodox priest. What he was adamant that I learn was that whether you are pulling something towards you or pushing the same thing away from you, either case, you are attached to that thing and therefore not free... If we "hate" hate, we remain in hate. I learned from him to disregard hate, let it go, and then you are free. Better yet if you can return love for the hate you receive - I'm still working on that one
It is the rare man that can remain polite while enemies destroy his future. Rare indeed. Who would you rather have come to your defense, a warrior or a philosopher?
All jokes aside, let me respond to this, really, because it's something that I have pondered my whole life. Actually, today is the anniversary of my father's passing a few years ago, may he rest in peace. He was from a very religious family in Greece. Because his father was a lawyer, he also went to Law School, but his heart was elsewhere. A champion athlete with many gold/silver medals for running; and a member of the team that won the baskeball championship of Greece in 1936. In 1939 he was conscripted like all young men at the time, tested and sent to Officer School. As soon as he graduated there, late 1940, Greece was pulled into WWII against Mussolini, and my father went straight up to the mountains of Albania as lieutenant of paratroopers, in charge of semi-autonomous search and destroy missions against the invading enemy. The Greeks were victorious and Mussolini's forces were pushed decisively back. That is until next April when Hitler came South and obliterated the remaining Greek defenses from the other (NE) side. Do you undersstand what it takes to survive and win that kind of war, almost totally unsupported, up in the mountains during the winter? Very few came back, but he finally made it, badly wounded, with a few medals to boot. After the war, he turned to his real dream and joined the Church... and a few years later he immigrated to the US and served as a priest at Watertown, NY, the first place I remember. He almost never spoke about the ordeal on the mountains of Albania. But I remember his look sometimes when the topic came up: it was something very strong, like "not on my watch, buster, you will not hurt my family or my country." Yes, he was a religious man (as am I) and a philosopher at heart. But remember this: beware a righteous man when he's defending what he holds dear.
I think I understand. Perhaps you mean that the ideal for men is to be both warrior AND philosopher. I should have expected such a reasoned and considerate answer as I also admire your posts in that they have greater effect than the acrimonious postings of others (myself included). My dad is similar. Never laid a hand on me, a true gentleman in every regard. He had been heavy infantry in Korea and was struck by friendly fire up at the Chosin Reservoir. Only now is he starting to tell me a few things and he is 77.