Is America a nation at risk?

[Alluvial]

I thought that name sounded familiar.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/...d.php?t=440521

http://www.physforum.com/index.php?showtopic=3921

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Coberst has been trying to give the impression that he is an intellectual. He may actually be a sophomore-year psych major. There's something synthetic, artificial, bogus about his postings. I'm seeing textbookish excerpts, but no intellectual engagement on the ideas whatsoever.

Nah, it's too easy.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by richlevy

Nah, it's too easy.

And while we're at it, right back at you. You know damned well you don't have arguments you can put up against mine and expect to prevail.

You wish to convey that you sneer in my direction? Ha ha ha. Took you long enough to carry the point across, but that's not hard to explain: if ever a man had less grounds or qualification to sneer at me than you do... curiously enough, now that I think about it some, that man is tw. He was louder about it, and hence more obvious. What you've got... well, it looks like a great big intellectual nothing from over here. I expect to outsmart and out-wise you regularly.

Did I leave anything out?

[DanaC]

I think we need a new rule; a new law. Like Godwin's law. As Urbane's contribution to a thread increases, the probability that he will bring up tw approaches 1.

[Shawnee123]

Whut aobut how dum we r?

[DanaC]

Nah we is smart. They is dum.

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Did I leave anything out?

Humanity, as usual.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

No.

Now put up proof, Shawnee, or shut the hell up.

[Shawnee123]

[Urbane Guerrilla]

I am prepared to demonstrate that in not being led about by the nose by the Left and its shibboleths that I am more a human in full than you are, wiser and more independent of mind. So far, you have not mustered up a rebuttal -- strictly from childrensville, which is the necessary habitation of the leftists. But teasing simply won't win.

I am persuaded, instead, that you have no idea what humanity is.

[Aliantha]

lol...UG, you really don't expect anyone to take you seriously when you make such bogus claims as being more left wing makes you less human. Having a different view doesn't remove anything from your DNA you know, and in some cases, it doesn't even make you less intelligent or intellectual.

Don't be a big silly billy UG.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Aliantha, that's where the evidence takes you: the history of all the Left is the history of man's inhumanity to man, and of active calls for such inhumanity in the service of this or of that. Check Hitler, check Lenin, check Mao, check Pol Pot, check the hundred million or so slain in internal genocides by the most conservative estimates. This is the kind of thing that happens when sociopaths gain power, and they are invariably about extending government, which is a Left thing. Were government never enlarged or extended, would the world suffer so?

The Left has been exhibiting inhumanity since shortly after it was conceived, circa 1800. Before that time, the inhumanity was more in the realm of kings. The politics of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the early modern era have been aptly compared to a country club -- one run by a brute. Collegial atmosphere and beheadings, courtesy and carnage -- these were the order of the day. Eventually, a new wrinkle came along -- and the remaining royal rulers left the oppression business, and the big-government-to-control-everything set took it over. Political science being the fuzzy art it really is, the sterile perfection of "Everything not forbidden is compulsory" was never realized.

The left wing of politics gathered power for a century, getting tested in 1848 -- Paris Commune -- and turning truly virulent sometime after 1905. A hundred or so million dubious killings later, we arrive in our day. As I'm a decent enough man to be offended by pogroms large or small, I'm here to say this sucks bad enough you'd best reserve for yourself any killing tools you think suitable -- against the day, hopefully distant, the pogrom should come for you. You can bet it would come as a surprise; they always do. Otherwise they can't actually be managed.

That the world suffers is a big reason why I'm a conservative. It's also the reason I think the conservatives are a lot more humane than the radicals.

There's good "different" and there's bad "different." I am firm as a rock against the abuses of too much government -- it is an essential ingredient of the American republic's mindset, not so firmly established in the Australian. That's really the one thing I'm ever always on about.

And Shawnee isn't managing a rebuttal. She's locking horns with a mind here, and I don't think she's used to the idea yet. She's not coping.

[Aliantha]

UG, do you not realize that it was the liberal elements in the minds of the founding fathers that made your constitution what it is? America is meant to be the land of the free, and yet you're trying to condemn those who'd think differently to you. How is that freedom?

You can't have your republic if everyone thinks the same. Then it's just another form of socialism, and not a very attractive one at that.


eta: I know this makes no difference to your way of thinking, but not all people from the left are raving lunatics and nor are all conservatives.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Oh, I've noticed that. But the ones that are stink up the whole operation and bring the very word "liberal" into disrepute -- first by their illiberal thinking, and then by the "you wanna fix what problem by doing what?" phenomenon -- those are the lunatics and the less-lunatic but bereft of wisdom.

Liberal was once an honorable condition. Regrettably, in our Republic it's gotten hijacked by the hard Left, and that's doing real damage. Nothing that can't be repaired, but we do need to discourage the Left from interfering.

There are some ideas that are so bad they can only be held by left-wing intellectuals.

Rightwingers manage to steer clear of such things. That's why I think the weight of the brainpower is over on the right, nearish to the center. The too-far-Right is both off the deep end and colliding with the Left coming around the other way.

[Shawnee123]

And Shawnee isn't managing a rebuttal. She's locking horns with a mind here, and I don't think she's used to the idea yet. She's not coping.

I'll rebut your face.

Seriously, what in the hell am I supposed to be rebutting?

Keep calling me stupid, UG. It makes no difference to me. That is the difference between you and me: I may not agree with your beliefs but I believe in your right to have them. I don't think you a lesser person because somewhere along the line someone filled your head with mush.

Now get off my ass, and respond to the people who are better equipped to play your little tit for tat game. I honestly don't have the time nor the energy, nor even the gumption, to bring myself to care that much.

Ho hum.