patrick.net

You're wrong. Lol

Seriously, I agree with you. We are all right but also all of us are wrong. That is why the country was set up to elevate the individual not the collective. The more we agree on anything else the more rules we put on ourselves.

Jeremy says

Perhaps it's just human psychology that people refuse to admit they are wrong, or had bad info, or were ignorant.

I think it's become American culture to see admitting a mistake or changing one's opinion to be a weakness. Personally, I see it as a strength. If I'm wrong on something, and someone proves it, then I correct my worldview and now I'm better than I was five minutes ago. That's a victory.

However, I put a hell of a lot of effort into attacking my ideas before I accept them myself, so its rare that an opponent is industrious enough to put a similar level of effort into finding a flaw that I overlooked. Most of my opponents have been lazy and therefore not of use to me.

Jeremy says

That doesn't make me a flip-flopper. I embrace the opportunity to gain more information.

The difference between flip-flopping like Romney and changing one's opinion or position based on new information is that the Romneys of the world don't care about the position, just getting elected. Whereas, the sincere position holder will gladly change his position if and only if new or better information is presented to him that shows a different position is better or closer to the truth.

Changing positions because you learned something is entirely different than changing positions to garner votes or broker a business deal.

Jeremy says

ESPECIALLY if it's involving Christianity, Islam, or Atheism.

As an atheist, I would have absolutely no problem with someone proving the existence of a god if it were a real, legitimate proof. However, I would be shocked if anyone proved the square root of two was a rational number as I've seen multiple proofs that it is not. Similarly, I've seen multiple proofs that god cannot exist. I don't expect something disproved with a priori logic to be later proven.

Atheists don't have anything to gain by there not being a god. The religious do have something to gain by convincing people that there is one, namely power over those people. My motives as an atheist are pure. I don't want the person with the nuclear codes to think that now's a good time for a rapture.

Jeremy says

Republicans as a whole are extremist, unsympathetic, selfish greedy pricks. And they don't understand economics.

Democrats as a whole are extremist, pompous, elitist greedy pricks. And they don't understand economics.

It used to be that neither party was "extremist". However, the Republicans have purge their ranks of all moderates, who have fled to the Democratic Party or third parties or become independents.

The Democratic Party contains a few extremists, but is not extremist itself because the Democratic Party contains almost everybody who wasn't a Republican extremists. As such, the problem with the Democratic Party isn't that it's an extremist party, but rather the exact opposite: it's a party composed of too many groups with too many different and conflicting opinions that they can't agree on anything or get anything done.

An extremist party has a single, narrow set of opinions that all adhere to. The Democratic Party can't even agree on what to have for lunch. And that's why the extremist Republican can usually defeat the Democrats. While the Democrats have the sheer numbers, those numbers pull in all different directions. The Republican minority all pulls the same way and no one questions orders.

Jeremy says

Libertarians and Socialists as a whole are extremists as well. But either party seems to have a better understanding of economics, just differing views.

I don't know much about the Socialist Party, but my take on Libertarians is that there core philosophy is good, however, they suffer from two fundamental flaws. First, they do not acknowledge the legitimacy and importance of public property including the atmosphere, the oceans, and land. Second, they do not consider real world complexities as model by game theory when applying their philosophies. As such, their conclusions are often naively wrong.

@Patrick

Request removal of the 4000 character limit on posts. I'm always hitting that barrier.

OK, it's doubled to 8,000 characters for comments, 12,000 for new threads.

Moderation in all things except moderation.

Jeremy:"disclosure: I was raised ultra right wing conservative legalistic non-denominational white Christian."

Sorry you had such a horrible childhood.

OK, it's doubled to 8,000 characters for comments, 12,000 for new threads.

I'm having trouble with a 26 character alphabet.

You should be grateful you're not Chinese!

HEY YOU says

Jeremy:"disclosure: I was raised ultra right wing conservative legalistic non-denominational white Christian."

why can't more people be like you?.

My thoughts exactly

MAny of us, myself included think we are like you (or like you say you are), but are often more like "the others."

You may have just defined another "us against them," for which I can proudly claim to be one of the good guys. Although at least in this case if I'm honest with my self, I know I am occasionally dogmatic and not quite perfect in this regard.

I guess my point is that in addition to trying to always be able to admit you are wrong (if you are), I would add that a good attribute (certainly for me) is knowing that sometimes I stubbornly fail to give as full consideration to the opposing view as I could.