jj@rabbit.UUCP (11/05/84)
Well. I really haven't said much about this race, mostly because I haven't had anything much constructive to say. <I dislike both of the candidates.> None the less, I seem to have attracted the ire of both the left wing people (who regularly use me as an example of a neo-fascist) and of the right wing people (who seem to think I'm a communist pinko fag). I guess that means that I'm doing pretty well, because I can't stand either of the party candiates this year, and I think that the supporters of both on USENET are even worse than the candidiates. <Oh, yeah, there are a FEW exceptions, here and there. Most of them are on the side I'm usually arguing against, which also pisses me off, but...> I don't want to see either 40% inflation and mass starvation or 5 ministers on the supreme court and mass unrest. (I'm not sure why, but the first comment (about inflation, etc) means I'm a fascist illegitmate son of an Akita, and the last comment (about the supreme court) means I'm an athiest running dog pinko).) I have a theory though: <He can't just be writing this for the heck of it, can he?> The Presumptions of Political Debate, USENET Style 1). If you so much as venture an academic disagreement with any individual, you are clearly a danger to society, a member of the most undesirable element in society, and a source of rhetoric that must be eliminated. 2). If you have FACTS to back up your feelings about any subject, then you are even worse, you are a person who DARES to QUESTION the status quo <Funny how both sides think they're the status quo, isn't it? I'm not ****** laughing!> who should be clearly shot on sight, ignored (after all, facts can be convincing, and they might lessen the hold of your religious beliefs, might they not? (yeah, liberalism is just another religion, just like Christianity, etc. Anything that consistes solely of destruction and denial, without providing any benefits, moral, legal, physical, emotional, or otherwise MUST be a superstition, eh?)), and generally castigated as the worst of all possible people, i.e. 3). A. CENTRIST individual, who believes both in individual freedoms and the need for order, and who will accept neither if they impinge unnecessarily on the other. Yes, these folks must indeed be those mythical, reasonable, and thinking individuals who clearly understand that what is correct, perhaps even required, in one case, is stupid, ill-concieved, and counter-productive in another case, and who proposes that the individual (be she, he or it rightist, leftist, liberatarian, "conservative <oh, that mistreated word>", "moral<ditto>", president, voter, senator, liar, lawyer, or whatever) be REQUIRED to THINK and UNDERSTAND before applying dogma randomly and without investigation, be the dogma religious political, or psychological. These CENTRIST types must be (since this IS a democracy, and the mob rules) the least desirable of all the parties that participate in USENET. From what I've seen on the net lately, nobody is thinking. Many are reacting with what they think is sufficient rhetoric, but few individuals are paying attention to facts, figures, and realities. Frankly, if this election wasn't going to drag me down with the rest of you, I'd say you deserve either candidate. My own position? See Dylan's views on Ecclasties. What time is it now? -- BE KIND TO SOFT FURRY CREATURES, THEY OFTEN HAVE LARGE, WHITE, TEETH. "And it's 1, 2, 3, ..." (allegra,ihnp4,ulysses)!rabbit!jj