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Thursday, October 16, 2008
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An ever evolving blog, concerning an evolutionary riddle, wrapped in a conundrum of geological time and hosted by an Eocenic enigma. Reason - Rationality - Skepticism - Logic - Secularism - Humanism - Atheism
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2008
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October
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- Finding out about Hypatia
- Try doing something different this election
- An Obama landslide
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- Science during this momentous election
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- Evo - Voodoo Atheist
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October
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Be A Happy Hominid
- John Evo
- It's another day in paradise. It doesn't get any better or worse than this. This is all there is. We can't effect the past or our inevitable demise. All we can control is how we live right now.
14 comments:
Man, you're really digging if you have to put up a clip from Al Jazeera. The next thing, you'll be asking us to look at something from Fox News.
If that clip had come from Fox News or the National Inquirer, I would have put it up. I don't see your point. News is news. These are real people, saying real things.
Rationality check.
I'm not at all surprised, especially since in recent McCain appearances, you can hear, when he's talking about Obama, people in the background yelling "off with his head" and "nigger".
These are the core McCain supporters, like it or not.
Well, Evo, if you want to hear some real (stupid) people saying real (stupid) things, how about this?
Very stupid.
You aren't trying to pull a false equivalencey here are you? I can fully accept that some will always be more intelligent and well informed than others. What I am (and you should be) much more concerned with is people that are much less ill-informed but of much greater ill-intent.
I don't see any false equivalency. I see morons on both sides who are choosing a president for what you and I consider the wrong reasons. And I see media, be it Al Jezeera or the Howard Stern gang, that are witch-hunting and cherry-picking. But, really: Is there a difference between a white person voting for McCain merely because he's white and a black person voting for Obama merely because he's black? If so, perhaps you could enlighten me.
Uninformed voters are dangerous whether they agree with you or not.
Of course, how could any voter be truly informed when the major candidates, both for the presidency and the vice presidency, lie so glibly. I think that you and I are reduced to voting for the ticket whose bullshit we find more acceptable. Yuck. I don't want to have to accept that as a premise.
Which is why, in most elections, I vote third-party. I feel that those "fringe" candidates are more sincere -- and more specific -- about their political philosophies.
I don't see any false equivalency. I see morons on both sides who are choosing a president for what you and I consider the wrong reasons.
That's where your false equivalency begins. That's not my point here at all. I ACCEPT that in American politics "morons" on both sides will vote for ridiculous reasons.
Secondly, I really don't consider the McCain supporters as being "morons". It would be neat if it were so simple. I see them as acting out on potentially evil impulses. I don't see that when I listen to a bunch of under-educated black voters in Harlem. That's not to say that there couldn't be an element of such there. It's just that it is widespread on the other side and these are people who range in power from fairly low, to fairly high.
There is no equivalency between the two groups. At least not in terms of hatred that could very well lead to violence.
Why do the McCain supporters in the video have "potentially evil impulses," but the Obama supporters on the audio not have those same impulses. Are you claiming that you can identify and separate those impulses that are potentially evil from those that are potentially benevolent or neutral? Personally, I think willful ignorance and lying are always evil, and I see plenty of it on both sides.
And how do you know that the potential evil is "widespread" among McCain supporters but limited among Obama supporters? Did you learn that from the Al Jezeera video? Have you ever considered that Al Jezeera might have more potential for evil than even the McCain supporters?
Also, aside from the specific videos and audios, is there some difference I don't recognize between demonizing liberals (an act which is potentially evil) and demonizing conservatives (an act which is potentially good)?
There is a point of over intellectualizing your life experience, Ex. If you need further evidence, then go forth and look for it. Or not.
If you find it, be sure to share. Certainly you could support the case your making - one presumes? Maybe you could find equally repulsive and hateful videos of the ill-informed liberals who would equally provide a reason to take heed. I don't think Howard Stern has quite "equalized" the situation. But maybe you have more?
I certainly hope so. Despite your profession of belief in the value of voting 3rd party, I have a strong inclination that you will resist such temptation this time. But in the name of what? Is it just a few "policy" disagreements you carry, which incline you towards voting for the Democratic candidate this time? Or is there greater risks with voting 3rd party at this particular juncture of us and history? If so, what are they? Explain exactly how they are different than what I've been going on and on about here at my blog.
I'm intrigued.
Hey I didn't realise that Al Jazeera had reporters in the US.
Sean - it would be an even sadder state of affairs than it is, if we didn't. The New York Times has a bureau in Tehran. Some beacon of freedom we'd be if we didn't allow Al Jezerra.
I am suprised they let the "terrorist enablers" into the country :)
Certainly you could support the case your making - one presumes?
I didn't make any case. I merely asked you some questions -- none of which you answered. But I will say that you don't have to travel into the liberal blogworld too far to find plenty of scurrilous comments, some of them quite nasty and unsupported by facts, about John McCain and Sarah Palin. Shit, I've written some of them myself, and so have you. But just because we may happen to agree with them doesn't make them any less "potentially evil" from the viewpoint of conservatives. I think it's important for all of us on the allegedly left side of the political spectrum to understand what our colleagues say that scares the shit out of those people. Because clearly, underneath their anger, they're petrified. So if they're scared of us and we're scared of them -- where does that leave the country?
As you know, I'll be writing my own post sometime next week, explaining why I've decided to support ... Please don't give away the not-so-secret ending.
One note on the Stern audio, you really have no idea how many dozens or even hundreds of Obama supporters they had to go through to get those few stupid people. I don't think anyone is arguing there aren't plenty of idiots on both sides of the aisle.
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