Heh, fair enough then.

Unfortunately there was only a brief time when I had even the opportunity to be that engaged without having too many things going on to take advantage of it. Ironically, I often think randomthoughts spends more time at Kos than I do (really, he could hardly avoid it if he spends much time at all there. ) Used to be wotmania was my primary source, believe it or not; I watched the News Hour etc. a lot more back then, but by the time they got around to airing I'd usually spent the day reading about and discussing a given issue exhaustively. I miss the days when I'd turn on the TV to hear "breaking news" about something and think Oh, please, that subject was played out days ago....

I tend to be of the "just the facts" school; as soon as you introduce commentary I have to start sorting bias from reality, and can usually draw my own conclusions with little coaching. I guess one of the advantages of a large and well trafficked message board is that sooner or later you'll usually find some well informed people with no dog in the fight to offer an objective assessment.

Well, I'm probably one of the worst offenders when it comes to undocumented "facts" but try to indicate when I'm stating something that's just my opinion, belief, or something I read or heard at a forgotten source twenty years ago. It's just like Wikipedia, really; if someone states something as a fact and documents it with a reliable and objective independent source, well and good, but if it's just stated in a vacuum there's no reason to take it as gospel until it's substantiated. Good rule of thumb with news, too, even if a lot of "journalists" seem to have forgotten that.

But I've seen how the RPG board members speak of and two each other a little, too, and can't help recalling that there's usually a little more restraint when there's some actual respect or even affection for a debate partner, something else that's too often absent from the CMB these days. "Community" Message Board is becoming something of an ironic title in some quarters, I think, a continuing casualty of just how cliquish wotmania could be at the end. It's a problem that feeds itself, because as more and more people with no interest in such things put them behind them the little niche groups come to predominate, steer discussion in a way they can't when only a tiny fraction of the general population.

Ownership society, commie! Ideally though, I don't to restrict people indirectly or otherwise, I want to discourage them from doing objectionable things that harm no one else, and the court of public opinion is a good way to do that so long as you don't overreact to idiotic protests and inadvertently lend them legitimacy.

Aw, shucks.

That's life in the small town.

Now you sound like me; why should I let Big Brother infringe on my Constitutional right to shoot things with no one but the target knowing? And, of course, knives are pretty thoroughly regulated, too, it's just most non-aficionados don't know it.

The problem I have with that sort of thing is it seems to boil down to letting corporations play Big Brother so the government doesn't have to do so. It's really none of my employers or their customers business what I do with my free time as long as I show up on time and sober to do a good job. Saying lawmakers have no authority to intervene but NON-lawmakers do strikes me as odd, and dangerous. "Here at Ford, we have the Dearborn police open fire on labor activists and their families and replace them with non-subversives; that's the Ford guarantee. " And pretty much what they did with striking workers on one occasion; get rid of the anarchists and you're safe from having your car sabotaged and your family endangered by crazy radicals, right? The issue for me isn't WHO tramples on my civil liberties. Why not let derision and ostracism do the job; it's worked so well for the South so far.

Instant runoffs strike me as much better, but then, my best friends a Green who's been preaching them for years. I could vote Green, Dem, Libertarian and Constitutional in every race knowing that, realistically, only the second one will be counted (but it WILL be counted) and that if, by some miracle, a Green actually finishes in the top two my vote will go for him over a Republican (or Dem, or whoever. ) Then we'd see third parties break through on the national level, and suddenly we'd see a lot more coalitions (probably with the Libertarians siding with Dems on social and foreign policy issues and with Republicans on fiscal ones. ) There would also be incentive for the major AND minor parties to campaign together on shared issues, whereas right now it's as much or more in Democrats interests for the Greens to be a non-entity as it is for Republicans (and the same is true for Republicans with Libs. ) Likewise, even when a Green really REALLY wants Obama over McCain, he can't publicly endorse him because it prejudices the cause of getting the Green nominee elected, and it's not much easier to endorse Obama for President and Greens in local races (again, change the names for McCain, Libs and Republicans. )

Well, for my part I'm not a big fan of party affiliation in local races anyway, since local officials are rarely in a position to enact any national party platforms planks. Really, a Republican SHERIFF? His job is to catch murderers and bank robbers, not lower taxes or fight the War of Terror. And as long as he does his job it's his views on national politics are no more my business than my butchers are.

Um. Reagan never had a Republican Congressional majority (only briefly enjoying one in the Senate) and LBJ always had a Democratic majority (even if the Dixiecrats who became Reagans boll weevils made that uncertain support on Civil Rights. ) I don't have a problem with one party rule provided it's accountable; it beats the hell out of gridlock, which is what we've had for most of the last twenty years, and we can't afford much more. We need some pretty substantial changes whether conservatives like it or not, or Americas position and security will continue to erode for socio-economic reasons.

Or something into their coffee. Though in terms of passing legislation Pelosi's a lot more effective than Reid. Or Obama. A single payer PUBLIC education system strikes me as a good idea, far better than the unfunded federal mandate to the states. The only problem I really have with vouchers is the exact opposite of the (unfounded) accusations about single payer health insurance: It seems like a Trojan horse for getting rid of REAL public education, an attempt to make public education more private education with subsidies. I don't really have a problem with taxpayers subsidizing education in religious schools chosen by the kids parents; no one's being forced into any religious observance (except maybe the kids, but it's well established that parents have a great deal of authority over their kids. )

It's data, just not very MUCH data. In fairness, I can't recall the program saying either way, but it doesn't take a lot of snap to figure out that a Southern suburban school with rampant syphilis wasn't spending much time teaching kids how to put on a condom. One anecdotal case, however, does not a BODY of evidence make.

I remember.

Exactly. People, at least in America, have a right to public protest, and if that's getting more media attention than the authorities like, well, maybe there's a reason; there's certainly a way to do something about it without busting heads.

Tends to be.