On Wed, 18 May 2005 08:30:19 -0400, Dave Hall
wrote in :

snip
I am hardly a religious zealot. I don't even go to church. I am not
even a practicing Christian. But I do believe in a "God" and I do
believe in intelligent design, and I believe in keeping morality as a
guide to responsible social behavior.


Another excellent book you should read: "The Golden Bough" by James
George Frazer. I think it should be required reading for any sociology
class.


I am for preserving proven
tradition


It's not the responsibility of the government to "preserve tradition"
no matter how much you would like the government to shoulder that
repsponsibility for you.


and do not believe that change is automatically a good
thing.


Neither do I. But change, good or bad, -is- inevitable (or haven't you
looked up the word yet?).


I am also a political conservative (As are you IIRC), and tend
to favor smaller government, personal responsibility and
accountability, a free market


I agree 100%.


and a strong morality based system of
law and order in order to punish those who cannot act properly in a
civilized society.


The only problem I have with that is your source of "morality". The
First Amendment prohibits any law that favors any specific religion,
therefore religion cannot be the source of morality. Thus, society
must define the lines of morality. If the majority of society derive
their moral values from religion that's fine -- but remember that the
framers of this country were mostly Christians, yet felt it was a
moral imperative to protect the freedom of everyone to practice their
own religious faith, -and- to protect the government from imposing
religion by law. Now if you had a sociological foundation for your
argument against gay marriage I might even agree, but you don't. And
since society is constantly changing (as it inevitably does), morality
will change, and so will the laws based on morality.

But what you -still- don't seem to accept is that -you- are not forced
to change your religion based upon changes in society -- that's your
Constitutional right. You may not like those changes, but as you have
stated many times before, the government can't make everyone happy.


The arguments between Frank, Twisty and I are much more complex than a
simple ideological disagreement. Twisty is twisty. His actions need no
further explanation. Frank has been stung ever since I admitted that I
supported Bush. A revelation that seems to have affected him
personally. Frank has since been trying to prove that support of Bush
(and republicans in general) is wrong based solely on his subjective
opinion that only an idiot would support him so, consequently, he has
been since trying to prove that I'm that idiot.


You have that a little mixed up, Dave. You -are- an idiot, but that's
beside the point; I don't care if you support Bush or not -- but your
reasons for supporting him are based on ignorance, propaganda, and
flat-out lies, many of which you perpetrate yourself just because you
don't like being proved wrong. And I don't care if you are Republican
or Democrat since both parties are just about equally corrupt, as I
have stated on more than one occasion (and you evidently -still- can't
(or won't) understand). So if you are going to tell the story then
tell the -correct- story, not just your biased version of it.


But during the course
of the ensuing "debates", Frank has revealed much about his
personality, and has given me an insight into his own inner demons. I
can now see why he and Twisty have found common ground. They both have
a profound distrust of corporations and any form of "the
establishment". And, if their level of knowledge and education is as
they claim, they are both underachievers. Frank, who once claimed to
teach college courses, and claims to hold a BS degree in engineering,
working as a bartender. Twisty, who claims to be well versed in law,
and an "accomplished" writer, takes snowbirds out to fish on a charter
boat, and can't even afford a real computer. No wonder he hides behind
an anonymous pseudonym.


Twisty and I have common ground now only because I was forced to admit
that he was right regarding Bush. Beyond that, we still have strong
ideological differences. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that the
differences between Twisty and myself are greater than the differences
between you and me. If you can just get past your presumptive nature
and think for yourself instead of taking the temporally lazy route by
relying on those that prey on emotional weaknesses then we probably
wouldn't have any arguments at all. One of these days you may realize
that the mental effort you use to defend your ignorance is far greater
than if you spent your time and energy digging for subjective facts
and forming your own -independent- opinions. Or maybe not.


It had been fun from a purely psychological standpoint. But I am
beginning to tire of this almost constant off-topic banter. I am
actually longing for the days when we talked about amplifiers and mods
to radios. I never guessed that a simple ideological disagreement
would turn into several years worth of trash talking.


You can't help yourself. You hate to be proved wrong because it
shatters your self-image as a morally-motivated person (it's that
"perception-window" thing I mentioned earlier -- and the offer for
-that- book still stands, too). When faced with the truth that your
motivations are generally selfish (and frequently prejudicial), it
creates emotional conflict with what you have chosen as your "core
beliefs". Therefore, you seek validation for your lame justifications
on Usenet. You can't give up arguing these issues or your brain would
explode into a mushroom-cloud of hypocrisy. Besides, you have claimed
to be tired of this bickering many, many times. You have also
threatened to give it up many, many times. Each time you come right
back here defending the same bogus arguments because you can't control
yourself. And this time is no different.

But feel free to take a long sabbatical. Then come back and answer
some of the pending questions that you have been avoiding for several
months -- maybe a fresh mind will let you fabricate some new lies and
excuses. I hope so because your constant repitition of the old ones
are getting to be monotonous.





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