<Lesten, tech1-

If you wan't to throw around that term, then support yourself. The more you say it, the more you sound like someone who can only defend yourself in an argument by impeaching the character of your adversary...



Adversary? See that's the whole problem. Everyone is friends here on this BBS. Lindy loves Ed, Phil Loves Lindy, Everyone loves Mary Anne, Bowser is like everyone's favorite pet, Splinx is on a sabbatical only because he felt he couldn't control his emotions and let the sarcastic snipes get to him. We all hope he comes back soon. I know we also wish Fox would find more library time to post a little more as well. Tony, although all-too-English and a royal pain at times, certainly spices up the lefts viewpoints. Raoul gives us the Belgian EU politics viewpoints diluted only minimally by his American blood. Alcaray never lets anyone off the hook easy and will force one to reinforce viewpoints which are almost automatically assumed accurate by conservatives.

;-)

I'm serious about this. This is a grouping of bickering friends - who underneath it all will not hate eachother simply over differing political views.

Yet no one here should be taking these posts that seriously. It is friendly debate and naturally when discussing religion, politics or ex-wives, the talk can get pretty nasty.

I want to believe better, and it is becoming very hard to maintain that.



Have I called you a name yet, or inferred anything about the qualities of your character Tech1? That is why I want you to post in response to the points I raised, instead of lobbing little one-liners and personal attacks. I am hoping that there is more content to your politics than this name-calling. Or maybe I am wrong....

If you wanna get nasty, lets just go over to Flame.....

Davin



I'm sorry Davin, I didn't mean to flame you. However, when you implied that the nature of all the debaters here that side with Bush on this war simply construct strawmen to burn or make one-line rebuttals was ridiculous and already a flame in my eyes. Goodness knows you have already found out that Larry, Tom and many others here do their homework and research and that their views are not strawmen but valid answers to direct questions posed by those who oppose the war.

Heck, I realize that in main-stream America many conservatives are not eloquent, informed or literate and can't express themselves adequately to counter their liberal counterparts. This leads many who oppose war to believe they have the superior argument. Naturally, the media likes to put side-by-side quotes in a clip or article where the conservative sounds like a bloodthirsty redneck and the civilized liberal is the voice of reason.

Here, you will find very well educated conservatives who know their material, history and are easily up to the task of countering the anti-war soundbytes.

So my friendly advice: lighten up. No one here is your adversary. I certainly don't want you as an adversary or anyone else here. HZ is full of friends with disparate views and a general fondness of space and space related fields. The military-aerospace community is diverse and often very strong, educated conservatives can be found among its ranks. Likewise in the pure sciences side you can find a diverse group which hold strong views on many issues, not simply politics.

The HZ brings a very diverse group of people together. Although the boards seem to be weighted with conservatives - a roll call would indicate a much more diverse group. (It is probably Tom's prolific posting which makes it seem otherwise ;-)

My ten cents,

SDAI-Tech1