Sen. Jerry Springer (D-OH)

I have truly never understood closed minded thinking like this. If you know a little about psychology you know that once the human mind believes something it will tend to see only the information that supports those beliefs. If you looked at the way bigots support their choices it would look just like this.

Neither the right nor the left have a franchise on honesty or truth. Both are composed of people searching for a way to make things work better and more fairly. Each side sees some things more correctly while missing others. It seems to me only dialog gets us closer to where we really want to be.

"We have met the enemy and they is us."
Pogo

P.S. I am currently applying to a B.A. program at Marylhurst University (a small Catholic liberal arts college in Portland OR). I looked seriously at the the Big Three and even racked up a fair amount of CLEP credit. Something was missing for me and I really found myself pulled to both the Marylhurst program and Eastern Oregon University's Business Economics program. I still may end up in EOU's program.

 

That makes your argument stick alot better. I really think you are convincing us...

Should we assume from your misspelled words that you, too, are ignorant? Would that make you a republican supporter? It would by your definition.

Thank you for showing us a good example of what a bigot is.

So should we learn from your posts that you are a bigoted, ignorant person who has no interest in supporting your statements with any type of argument? By your own definition, that would make you a republican. HHHMMMM, go figure.

clint

 

Very well said Dave.

Also, we can't give Roy too hard of a time, he is trying to make an opinion from the media's interpretation of the US. Maybe only reading one side of the story. Outsiders with an opinion on one extreme side tend to do that.

If you find me a racist that is a republican, I can find you one who is a democrat, if you find me a bigot who is a democrat, I can find you one who is a republican. That can be said for all groups of people: women, gays, religous, race, creed, color, etc.

I like how Dave put it. Though there are evil people, most in either party think they are finding a better way to make things work.

 

My misspelling is due by and laege to dyslexia.My position is;

So should we learn from your posts that you are a bigoted, ignorant person who has no interest in supporting your statements with any type of argument? By your own definition, that would make you a republican. HHHMMMM, go figure.

clint



The Klan are Bigots.
Republicans are likely to be Bigots.
Not all bigots have joined the Klan and /or the Republicans
Poodles are dogs.
Spaniels are dogs.
Not all dogs are either poodles or spaniels

No I am afriad you are wrong on both counts. The above shows that not all bigots are Republicans and that I have posited an argument.

Actually I am willing to alter my position if I saw any varifiable evidence to show me that laissez-faire was founded on anything but self interest - that is what capitalism is all about.

Of course there is the other face of right wing thinking characterized by intolerance of blacks, Jews, natives etc, accompanied by hostility toward any policy to advance their cause by such things as positive discrimination.

Roy Maybery

 

Springer

However, back to the subject of Jerry Springer; has anyone seen the following site

http://www.uq.edu.au/philosophy/pd/springer.html

Roy Maybery

 

Let me give you the definition of discrimination: Treatment or consideration based on class or category rather than individual merit; partiality or prejudice: racial discrimination; discrimination against foreigners.

Can you give me an example of "positive discrimination"?

P.S. - Dyslexia does not cause misspelling (though I think you meant that as a joke).

 

- Really
Dyslexia- abnormal difficulty in reading or spelling (Oxford Large Print Dictionary) 1995
It would be characteristic of a right wing bigot to make a joke about dyslexia


Why do I have to give an example when you only have to give a definition?

Roy Maybery

 

Given a choice between Jerry Springer and a Canadian socialist, I would go with Jerry. Kind of like choosing between arsenic and cyanide.

The average Canadian conservative, like me, is a little to the left of the US Democrats. The socialists are truly scary.

 

I think I am probably worse than the average Canadian socialist I caught my dose of socialism from the UK.

Roy Maybery

 

Becuase I can't think of one - you said above "... cause by such things as positive discrimination." I don't think there is such a thing as positive discriminition, so I am asking for an example.

Secondly, dyslexia is a medical condition in which word, letters, and symbols are reverted. There are several kinds, and it has root causes in sight or the communication between sight and the mind. When someone misspells a word and blames it on dyslexia, it is more of an issue of laziness (which eveyone is guilty of).

 

Maybe we want to switch topics.

 

Looks like I might be too lazy to reply.

Perhaps I could give an example of positive discrimination if the right wing refrained from sabotaging every effort to ameliorate the distress of the disadvantaged.

However, a definition might be where the treatment or consideration based on class or category rather than individual merit; partiality or prejudice: racial discrimination; discrimination against foreigners was directed at ameliorating any disadvantage that accrues due to right wing bigotry.

Roy Maybery

 

Kristie, I'm in sympathy with your overall point and don't think what you're saying is in any way bigoted, but Roy is right about the dyslexia--while it can cause reversion of letters and such, it can also cause any number of other spelling-related difficulties, handicap language memory, and even interfere with things like sentence construction.

What it can't explain is flawed logic, and that's where I take issue with Roy. Roy, I say this in all charity as someone who is usually classified as a social liberal in online political questionairres, but you are not making a viable case for socialism or against conservatism, nor are you treating conservatives with the love and dignity that they deserve as autonomous human beings. I am confident that nearly all conservatives on this board (and there are many of them) are as free from conscious racism as the rest of us (I can't speak to subconscious racism, because that's arguably present in everybody--sort of the liberal equivalent to Original Sin).

There is no way to argue with your assertion that capitalism is founded on self-interest, because that's the Ayn Rand Argument at work: "Regardless of whether you say you're altruistic, I can find selfish motives for your behavior." Proving that you're altruistic out of human concern, or capitalistic because you honestly believe that the system works better than others, is very much like proving that you're self-aware. It can't really be done, and has to be assumed based on other behavior (or to put it another way: by their fruits shall ye know them). In this case, you need only look at the fact that some of the most prominent conservatives in the U.S. are also some of America's most charitable people, and work most strenuously on behalf of the homeless and disenfranchised, to know that there are at least exceptions to the rule (if there is even a rule) that capitalists are obsessed with their own self-interest.

I have called Orson down for lumping together "the Left," and attempt to lump together "the right wing" is no better. People are people are people, and every individual is unique.


Cheers,

 

I must make this quick as I have to take my wife (who is a conservative) out to the post office shortly.


I say this in all charity as someone who is usually classified as a social liberal in online political questionairres, but you are not making a viable case for socialism or against conservatism,

I am not attacking conservatives at all. I am attacking classical liberals

There is no way to argue with your assertion that capitalism is founded on self-interest, because that's the Ayn Rand Argument at work: "Regardless of whether you say you're altruistic, I can find selfish motives for your behavior.

Actually it is Kant at work (Principals of Morals) "nothing can be concieved to be good except a good will"

Those capitalists who do charitable work for the poor might get tax breaks or a warm fuzzy feeling out of it. Therefore they are acting in self interest. However, any capitalist who acts with true altruism is betraying the principles of capitalism by acting like a socialist. He is undermining the principles of social Darwinianism. (Damn pinko commie) and allowing the weak to survive and infect the general poulation to its detriment.
Which as a socialist I say more power to him.

My other attack was on the bigots like the Klan etc.

The problem as I see it is that my definition of a right winger is quite tight.

My bigotry is currently manifest in the fact that I regard Ayn Rand as the Lafayeete Ron Hubbard of philosophy regardless of the fact that I have never got around to reading her.

Roy Maybery

 

Supplementary on Self Interest

"it is not by the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. we address ourselves , not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk of our necessities but of their advantages." (Ch 2 p 27)

Smith. A (1991) An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations Liberty Fund Indianapolis

Roy Maybery

 

I guess I should have said that I am dyslexic and went to a specialist for over 6 years to be able to read and write properly. With that being said, many people will spell something wrong and say "It's my dyslexia". Actually, if you check over your postings (giving that you care about spelling everything in this forum 100%), dyslexia is not the issue, it was that the time wasn't taken to check things over.

I also have a hard time when people say they can't do something becuase of dyslexia (though some cases are severe enough to warrant that argument). Most just need to spend a bit more time doing things. Most standard tests will give more time, most professors will make accomidations.

It is much like a physical disability, and in our country, we try and are mondated to accomidate these disabilities (though we still need to do a better job). Maybe a right wing conspiracy.

 

A good response, Roy. Comments...

Understood, but if I were you I'd find more specific terms (which is also the advice I gave Orson); "wings" are very poor group indicators, because there are really only two of them, and yet they're supposed to reflect the diversity of political belief.

Oh, come on, Roy; L. Ron Hubbard wrote much better sex scenes. (Seriously: In total agreement; I love Rand's natural handle on dialogue, but her philosophy, other than the fact that it did a good job of provoking me out of complacency during my teen years, is not one that I would be very likely to assert or defend. In her terms, I would be an extremely nasty bugger: a pragmatic, altruistic feminist semi-socialist who believes in God, which runs opposite to just about every part of her philosophy.)


Cheers,

 

Maybe we want to change topics.

 

As I stated in my posting: (giving that you care about spelling everything in this forum 100%).

I don't see this forum as anything but informal communication, not academia or job related, so I take the 95% rule, not spell checking everything, but I would never blame it on my dyslexia.

 

Calling people who you don't even know bigots/racists is a certain sign of intellectual bankruptcy. It's usually a last-ditch tactic to save a failed argument, so I'm surprised you jumped on it right away.

Q: How do you know when you've won a debate with a liberal?

A: They call you a racist.




Bruce