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I suspect he does view it fairly regularly, most liberals of course do not, any more than most conservatives read Drudge... I of course visit both, news and politics junkie. (shrug)



Well, I find that getting a just the facts view along with the bias versions alerts me to 'what's really going on' much better. Of course, you can only gain from that sort of approach if you begin with the assumption that 'both sides' are primarily composed of sane and rational people who are not stupid... the comments section of most articles tends to raise a false flag in that regard.



I find on potentially controversial subjects the 'discussions' section of a given wiki entry is very enlightening. I don't really expect people to needlessly cite things, it's sort of a personal quirk, but you usually reference something enough that I can easily google it and in a fashion that clearly indicates you are referencing something real, my major complaint is those who seem to only reference something in the worst hearsay fashion that if I can even dig it up is a massively misinterpreted version of the original document that itself is suspect. I like to include references because they drive home my points and counter the usual right=retard mentality lots of the younger libs tend to assume.



Politics tend to be divisive, especially when people get insulting and confrontational. It's a major reason I rein myself in when getting ready to rip strips into some of our more 'everyone is stupid who disagrees with me and I'll tell them so rather than making rational arguments' sorts. The Mafia game we play revolves around convincing others of your point so it's basically one prolonged debate of the classic courteous political variety, with the add on that your enemy this time might be your ally next game. Since a lot of the players post to the CMB in-between game posts, I think the style tends to reflect their game attitude. Lot of the ruder people here, where it isn't just there personal quirk, I think genuinely don't realize how many people nominally on their side actually have a fair amount of distaste for them, and I think it reflects that 'the opposition is stupid' mentality, they assume everyone who agrees with them is smarter so much that they begin getting the 'and everything I say is smart, so of course I'm right and those who matter will notice that' attitude. That's tricky to avoid, and lots of decent people develop it to one degree or another, that's why I *try* to keep polite and factual without coming off condescending at the same time, the latter is fairly difficult.



Hypothetical example, there are routes to discourage things without banning them, where discouragement is desired but a ban is expected to increase the action, other routes are preferable. That's a random example of a potential method, not a suggested action



Yep, lots of knife rules. Not really covered in the constitution. As for silencers being legal and not subject to regulation, I would say there is no legal or moral entitlement to secrecy in weapon usage. Owner a silencer and carrying one around concealed really are two different things, and I'm aware of the parallel to handguns but a silencer doesn't realistically alter your chance of survival in a self-defense situation. I've no real dog in that fight though, I couldn't really care if they were banned or not, for concealed use that is, a ban wouldn't seem like a major oppressive action.



Well, not really letting them play big brother, by and large if a drug is detectable in your system it is still affecting you. The ones that don't but are usually have effects longer than 24 hours. Pot is sort of a weird example but it's a weird case all the way around, I nominally favor legalizing it but the stuff makes me sick just being near it's users, weird since I'm a smoker though part of the reason I'm more sympathetic towards non-smokers who complain about the smell. 'Just so long as I come in on time and sober' is how things should be, but that's sort of the point. Drug-testing isn't the cheapest thing in the world, and the cost is proportional to the number of things you're testing for, so most will want to limit it to things that would represent genuine workplace dangers, and then you can also expect a fair amount of free-market common sense, where the price of labor is cheaper for places that don't screen. So you get a sorta of secret punitive tax on drug usage that way. One has to keep in mind general pragmatism, odds are you'd rapidly have a council formed that set a reasonably cheap and effective standard and issued a 'stamp' manufacturers could put on their product if they kept to that standard. That stamp would have an effective calculable value on price, and economists would rapidly calculate for a company whether or not their wage savings for their particular product merited passing on the stamp. Free-market controls aren't perfect but they do tend to work fairly well in a lot of cases, I'd think this one would work with minimal infringement on personal privilege... this all assumes we consider drug usage bad but allowable, if someone thinks cocaine use is just fine and not to be discouraged we're in a different ballpark.






We don't run anyone county or municipal in my area by party - they usually have one who often gives them a hand of course, but not name don the ballot. But I don't need to tell you Texas has a, er, unique approach to many things. There's nothing exactly fundamentally wrong about declaring a party, except it strikes me that in places where most are one thing you're losing good candidates for the essentially non-partisan job through primary attrition and lock-step voting, major reason few places do that.



Sorry, that was just an offhand reference to how all three of them were able to gain broad support for a lot of things from across the aisle.



I tend to think we wouldn't need many regs to keep schools in line if we did open it up to total voucher, religious and all.



Always handy for debate purposes though Especially with people who tend to view their next door neighbor's situation as a good benchmark in the first place.