Read "Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them" By Al Franken. It's just a good place to start, and written to be funny besides.



Not true. I have challenged you repeatedly on this point in saying, "The general Media does not speak for me." Your repeated assertions of, "They do, too!" prove nothing. You do not get to define me, or my views.



Censorship amuses you?




Depends on how you address it. The right certainly is not in favor of enforcing Politically Correct language (unless they think they can spin something the left said into a slight on one of their candidates) but when it comes to censoring art and literature, you are almost always dealing with a conservative movement. Look at just about any book anyone ever tried to ban from a public school... you'll find conservatives behind it.



I have no problem using the term conservative because it is a term claimed and owned by conservatives. It's used as a selling point in their (your) media and waved like a flag. You clearly have no issues with it. "Liberal" on the other hand is a word that is used in that same media as a foil, almost as a curse word. In our culture, the people who use a word the most define it, to the point where the word simply doesn't exist anymore.

I know that I am not a Liberal because when I talk to people in my neighborhood (eastern Ohio, highly conservative) what a "Liberal" believes, they state a whole laundry list of positions that I do not share. So all that claiming the word could accomplish for me is a whole slew of misunderstanding.



Sorry, I am looking for the part when I said that it would fix the problem. I do hold it up as a place where political rhetoric that is designed to fit into soundbytes has ruined what certain words might have once meant. The word liberal clearly does not mean the same thing to you that it does to me. It is, therefore, no longer useful in political conversation to do anything but continue swapping soundbytes, ad nauseum.




Debate is one thing. Conversation is another. This was a post inviting people to share the words that soundbyte media uses which annoy them and/or misrepresent their views. I have never once said that we should only have liberal views here.

You, however, cannot stop crusading. Just look at that last paragraph! "I am not going to play by your rules!" There you are, the glorious hero, marching forth to do battle against those who would oppress you!

No one is oppressing you. In this thread, the intent was not even to fight with you, but rather to take a break from the debate and appreciate, for a moment, how ridiculous the media's presentation of the debate is. Instead, you reply with a NM comment using one of the terms to do precisely what I said annoyed me about conservatives using the word. In short, you participate in the very thing that was at the moment annoying me (not your ideology, but the way in which the sensationalist media represents it) and in so doing imply that not only am I in favor of censorship (I am not, censorship is abhorrent to me) but also by implying that this is somehow typical.

Friendly game of ball, and you decide to throw a punch, then get all self-righteous and defensive when people say, "What the hell?" You don't like the game? Then don't play. Don't "play by my rules." But kindly leave the game to those who might choose to enjoy it, you know?