and yet you don't know WHY. You can search for my posts, where I felt I was wrong on some of my reasoning back then, and why I wasn't in toto.
Feel better knocking someone out of your gang? Or is this just an attempt to say that if one doesn't agree wholly with your positions, they are *gasp* a liberal?
Perhaps because when she spoke, she addressed many of the assumed 'truths' of socialism, breaking many of the confines of what had been assumed 'facts' of the European movement towards socialism since Bismarck? Many of her speeches sounded much more 'American' in their thinking than European. As you've repeated emphasized though, she was confined to dealing with the system that laid before, she still had to address the problem through the BIG government solution, at that point in time, she couldn't do what Reagan did with PATCO. She was as 'Conservative' as the system would allow in her actions.
Feel better for chiming in?
I've spent more time on this than I really meant to for two reasons:
1. I think that the US central government has become too big, too involved in our everyday lives, too expensive and inefficient. With the 'right leader' this country could fall into dictatorship. In many ways it has. If the executive powers in DC keep expanding, Congress will continue to diminish which was intended to be the voice of the People.
While the GOP tends more towards my priorities of the federal government, those in the positions of power are still much like the European right's version of socialism. I'm more in favor of our founders' vision for our country. I don't want 'a better' national health care or national education system. I want the individuals, the small shop owners, the corporations, the city halls, the state governments, the federal government all doing what they are supposed to do. For those individuals, the most vulnerable that are unable to care for themselves, whose families cannot or will not care for them, society must care for. The question remaining is from which level is the best care to be found? I don't think DC is the answer.
2. Speaking as a member, not staff, I've found the level of discussion on most issues over the past months or even years to have deteriorated to the point that there is really little to see here. It seems to me that most interactions between those that have ideas actually worth addressing have fallen to the level of name calling and other forms of derision. There's little or no depth to those that start off alright, someone will derail by jumping in to bring the tone back to divisiveness rather than discussion. Is there some hidden forum where tallies are being kept for derailed threads?
IMO much of the pitting of a group of posters against an individual has created what we now have. In the most recent case what's disturbing to me is that the 'group' and the 'individual' actually are not philosophically opposed on the big issues, but rather for the details and the presumed and projected differences of the individual by the group.
I've 'known' all the posters for a long time, most since they joined. All are good people from what I 'know' of them. All are capable of discussion, so why not try it?
I tried to keep my interactions in this thread respectful, wasn't hard for me to do, I like Drummond. I don't have to agree with all of his premises however. I don't have to agree or accept what I consider to be projections or 'all knowing statements,' indeed that is the point of discussions/debates, to defend one's own ideas. Sometimes both of us got snarky, but not to the point that the discussion was lost. As I think was demonstrated, he didn't agree with all of what I wrote either.
Jim tried to address this problem not so long ago, several times. He'd like a more interesting board with more posters. This cannot happen when visitors look upon thread after thread of name calling, 5 posts of smilies and claps for a post that says, "XXX, liberal or fascist" and that is all. Take the time please, to address a point, not the poster.
He has always tried to provide what members want, i.e. Tyr basically has his own forum for his poetry; Tailfins has the technology section that he is the most prolific; dmp and NT have the photography section that I for one wish they'd use even more often, (others too). Those that wish to mud wrestle should take it to the cage, leaving those that want to discuss/debate political or societal or world events the top of the board.
To say the board leans 'conservative' is hyperbole with the word 'leans,' even Gabby has a gun! She's our token liberal.
It's become a sad state when someone is called a 'liberal' or 'traitor' for questioning due process or any of a number of constitutional rights. I think what was once 'knee jerk' responses to the likes of a Maineman have become part of what is expected responses. I do wish/hope that some reasonable discussions will follow.
Response Thread From Libertarian Post
Originally Posted by Kathianne
2. Speaking as a member, not staff, I've found the level of discussion on most issues over the past months or even years to have deteriorated to the point that there is really little to see here. It seems to me that most interactions between those that have ideas actually worth addressing have fallen to the level of name calling and other forms of derision. There's little or no depth to those that start off alright, someone will derail by jumping in to bring the tone back to divisiveness rather than discussion. Is there some hidden forum where tallies are being kept for derailed threads?
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