Yeah, try me

Post #183,759 by ben_tilly 11/9/04 12:01:38 PM Reply	Yeah, try me I'm an outspoken atheist who is definitely on the left wing and is firmly opposed to the religious right. I've never tried to hide either tendancy. What do you find for me? Curiously, Ben I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
Post #183,786 by Arkadiy 11/9/04 2:27:57 PM Reply	Believe it or not but you're hardly a "liberal" in the swearword sense. You're not a typical left-winger, just like BePatient is not a typical right winger. "The Left", justly or not, is associated with people like mmoffitt and ashton. "The Right", correctly or not, is associated with marlowe. You really have no place on either edge. -- This guy's ahead of his time! He's using quantum programming methods: in universes where invalid data is passed to this function, it does not return. Thus you are ensured that you will only have valid data after calling it. Optimally you'd destroy the universe on failure, but computers haven't quite advanced to that level yet. -- [link\|http://thedailywtf.com/archive/2004/10/26/2920.aspx\|The] Daily WTF
Post #183,794 by ben_tilly 11/9/04 3:35:05 PM Reply	I find that hard to believe According to selectsmart I had a 100% agreement with Howard Dean's agenda. And the Deaniacs were the poster children in this election for the liberal agenda. Think about it. Against the Iraq invasion. For civil liberties. For gay civil unions. (He was only against gay marriage because he didn't think it was politically doable.) For expanded medical coverage. (He was only against universal health care because he didn't think it was politically doable.) Pro-choice. For financial discipline...by US standards this is the radical left! (By, say, Canadian standards it is mainstream and the "not politically doable" items there are "done and noncontroversial".) Yet I'm not your stereotype of a left-winger. I guess that Howard Dean wasn't either then... Cheers, Ben I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
Post #183,804 by jake123 11/9/04 4:09:21 PM Reply	Welcome to the distorted view that the US has of itself the reality distortion field that has surrounded the US vis-a-vis people from Other Places has begun to affect themselves too. --\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca \n [link\|http://consultron.ca\|http://consultron.ca] [link\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] \n Kingston Ontario Canada [link\|news://news.consultron.ca\|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
Post #183,814 by Arkadiy 11/9/04 5:56:32 PM Reply	Two of your items pull you to the right: financial discipline and civil liberties. I wonder how you feel about affirmative action and immigration... OK, let's go for your quotes (I exclude teh ones from this thread) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> How well do you know it? When boxley talked about Paul's role, you certainly didn't know what he was talking about well enough to recognize that he was talking about the same thing. That was even obvious to me - and I've never been inclined to Christianity nor have I ever studied the Bible! The Pilgrims came after 1600 years of Christian history. J.O.B. clearly falls in the latter class. Bitter satires tend to be enjoyed most by those who have considerable bitterness themselves. J.O.B. is no exception - I've found that it is appreciated most by people with some serious anger with Christianity. (Note that there is more anger towards Christianity than Christians - the hero of the story has beliefs that are truly a caricature of what Heinlein disliked. There is a passage where the causes that he worked for are enumerated. But he still can be the hero because he is fundamentally just another victim.) But even so it is clearly meant as fiction. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< I interrupt the sequence because the trend is obvious. You and Ashton definitely belong to different classes when it comes to discussing Christianity. I leave it as an exercice to the reader to figure out which one is more associated with the Left Wing. I think that you tend to take yourself as a representative specimen of your group. You are not. Just because you're thoughtful and reasonable, does not mean that the whole group is like that. -- This guy's ahead of his time! He's using quantum programming methods: in universes where invalid data is passed to this function, it does not return. Thus you are ensured that you will only have valid data after calling it. Optimally you'd destroy the universe on failure, but computers haven't quite advanced to that level yet. -- [link\|http://thedailywtf.com/archive/2004/10/26/2920.aspx\|The] Daily WTF
Post #183,836 by Simon_Jester 11/9/04 8:01:56 PM Reply	Curious look why do you claim the right is for financial discipline and civil liberties? Even Reagan fought against financial displine (running the debt up) and civil liberties (hold federal funds hostage to raise the drinking age to 21).
Post #183,840 by Arkadiy 11/10/04 1:33:43 PM Reply	"In this town, people are what they are percieved to be" -- This guy's ahead of his time! He's using quantum programming methods: in universes where invalid data is passed to this function, it does not return. Thus you are ensured that you will only have valid data after calling it. Optimally you'd destroy the universe on failure, but computers haven't quite advanced to that level yet. -- [link\|http://thedailywtf.com/archive/2004/10/26/2920.aspx\|The] Daily WTF
Post #183,849 by ben_tilly 11/10/04 2:53:12 PM Reply	Perceived by whom? I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
Post #183,850 by Arkadiy 11/10/04 2:56:43 PM Reply	Actually, I think I misquoted "In this town, we don't deal with people as they are, but as they are percieved to be" In our particular discussion, it's how "right" percieves "left" and vice versa. -- This guy's ahead of his time! He's using quantum programming methods: in universes where invalid data is passed to this function, it does not return. Thus you are ensured that you will only have valid data after calling it. Optimally you'd destroy the universe on failure, but computers haven't quite advanced to that level yet. -- [link\|http://thedailywtf.com/archive/2004/10/26/2920.aspx\|The] Daily WTF
Post #183,847 by ben_tilly 11/10/04 2:50:28 PM Reply	Civil liberties is a right-wing philosophy? I think that you'll find few people on the Left who are for the Patriot act, the ongoing erosion of the 4'th amendment, and many other key civil liberties positions. Certainly it is my impression that organizations like the ACLU are more often thought of as left-wing than right-wing. As for financial discipline, while the Right gives that lip service, in recent US history actual accomplishments have been delivered more consistently by people on the Left, like Clinton and Dean. At least one the federal level, the biggest fiscal disasters have been delivered by conservatives from Reagan on. Take the last Presidential election, who had the better track record for financial discipline, Bush or Kerry? As for how representative I am or am not, there is certainly a left-wing fringe out there that I'm not representative of. And most don't present their opinions as carefully as I do. But I believe myself to be fairly mainstream on the left. Certainly in discussions with aquaintances who are left-wing, my views tend to match theirs fairly well. And, as I said before, my views are a very close match to Howard Dean's, who represents a fairly large block of people. I certainly have no trouble naming other IWETHEY people whose views I would describe as being close to mine. I won't do so mainly because I don't want to drag them into this discussion. But several of you know who you are... Cheers, Ben I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
Post #183,851 by Arkadiy 11/10/04 3:07:15 PM Reply	Two facts: 1) you and some of the rest of the crowd here have distinctly different tone WRT Christianity 2) you think you're a "mainstream left" That leads me to conclude that, at least in your opinion, the other kind is not "mainstream". Question: what do the other people I quoted think about being "mainstream"? Mmoffitt, is your style representative of most of the "left" crowd? Another question: whom do your opponents consider more representative? We heard from AnotherScott. Beep, care to answer? I personally think that most people in liberal circls are like you, but most noise coming from there is generated by the other kind. I have to constantly remind myself about this, though. Still another question: what is the perception of "right" on the left? We heard from deS with his "old-fashioned Montana(?) honesty". We heard from mmoffitt with "flat earthers". Any more? Person to person, both crowds mostly have decent people. The IQ of a crowd, however, is the lowest IQ in in it divided by the number of participants. Hence the perception problems. -- This guy's ahead of his time! He's using quantum programming methods: in universes where invalid data is passed to this function, it does not return. Thus you are ensured that you will only have valid data after calling it. Optimally you'd destroy the universe on failure, but computers haven't quite advanced to that level yet. -- [link\|http://thedailywtf.com/archive/2004/10/26/2920.aspx\|The] Daily WTF
Post #183,852 by bepatient 11/10/04 4:14:46 PM Reply	I've come to find... that the members of this group are hardly a representative sample of one position or another. The "typical liberal" or "typical conservative" are not here. We are all >extremely< atypical. ;-) If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. _{Fudd's First Law of Opposition} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #183,853 by Silverlock 11/10/04 4:49:28 PM Reply	I think I have to agree The "typical liberal" or "typical conservative" are not here. Or anywhere. From those assigning the label, you will get a different interpretation of "typical" 11 times out of 10 opinions. ----------------------------------------- How do you convince a Washington Journalist that you're not slapping him in the face? Tell him you're not.
Post #183,855 by Arkadiy 11/10/04 5:26:50 PM Reply	"average programmer" :) -- This guy's ahead of his time! He's using quantum programming methods: in universes where invalid data is passed to this function, it does not return. Thus you are ensured that you will only have valid data after calling it. Optimally you'd destroy the universe on failure, but computers haven't quite advanced to that level yet. -- [link\|http://thedailywtf.com/archive/2004/10/26/2920.aspx\|The] Daily WTF
Post #183,881 by ben_tilly 11/11/04 11:56:48 AM Reply	Well there are multiple "right"s The perception of the current administration is as you might expect: they are arrogant, incompetent fascist bastards from the religious right. Feelings vascillate between fear that these yahoos are running the show, to shame that they represent us, to outrage at what they've chosen to do, to astonishment that people like this exist (and fool people)! More broadly I think that there is widespread understanding that there are multiple factions on the right wing. Feelings about people who are right-wing economically (like Milton Friedman) differ from feelings about the religious right (eg Ashcroft) differ from feelings about the neo-conservatives who've hijacked this administration (like Rumsfeld). But none of those feelings are very positive. Cheers, Ben I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)

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