The problem is that there's a shred of decency in all of them, except maybe ebnelson. Haven't seen anything come out of him but ad hominem nonsense.

FrankC does seem to posture himself, but I don't think he is too far off. He's fundamentally a pretty solid guy, with lapses. He did say that about the Afghans, and it sounded a lot like talking about a pack of dogs, not humans. And basically, he's OK. Has more insight than the rest of 'em put together, when he wants to pull it out.

Tom is also fundamentally decent, but with a powerful victim streak - the world is out to take everything he has away, at the point of a gun, and to force him to do things he doesn't want top do, again, presumably, at the point of a gun. Absolutely terrified that he is going to have everything he values confiscated and given to the undeserving. Or anything he has. Pretty material, us v. them, winner and loser, black and white guy in a rainbow world.

Frankly, I enjoy Tom. He is decent, and I truly believe, at the bottom, if we could clear away all the crap, we'd agree on basics. The very basics. However, we diverge not far from the very basic, at least on how to have the basics expressed in actions.

Tom can be completely reasonable, will listen and respond originally, but only if his "hot buttons" aren't hit. Probably like me. His philosophical construct, which he fosters, breaks down into pure dogma from time to time. He refuses to learn some things, just won't look them up, such as the difference between a religion and a political state, or economic system and a political system. Or even what ethnic cleansing is going on in the Middle East - he's stuck on a country with nukes being "driven into the sea" by the Palestinians, who can't stop the Israelis even from robbing their banks. My more orthodox Jewish acquaintances acknowledge the ethnic cleansing, excuse it as being permitted by the Old Testament.

At this point some folks usually say that I'm anti-Semitic. I'm certainly anti-Israeli foreign policy and anti-their-policy-toward-the-Palestinians. I wasn't, until I researched the matter after a few arguments with Tom Brosz. Wow, what they do to the Palestinians, even the ones who were living there before Israel and are citizens of longer standing than most Jews.

In my defense I think that would surprise the Cohens, who are directing a play at the local Jewish Community Center for the benefit of a Jewish charity, that I'm in, to hear that I'm anti-Semitic. The rest of the cast are also Jewish and I suspect they'd be surprised. Heck, at one point I wear a 6-pointed star. We're rehearsing a couple of times a week now. I'm the only Gentile in it. They were so cute - one of them came up to me privately and mentioned a rehearsal on Good Friday, and asked if that would be a problem for me.

I volunteered just for the hell of it, always wanted to be in a play, was too shy when younger.

My "hottest button" is war. People who haven't seen it have absolutely no idea what it's like, the damage and suffering it causes both the damagee and damagor. They think it's all smart bombs, good v. evil, heroes v. cowards, and no one really gets hurt. Hell, on these boards one of the conservatives lost his job, not his house, his kid wasn't killed, nothing serious, he lost a job and even while people were advocating war they were commiserating with his terrible plight. One can't love another human being, any human being, and know what war is like and still advocate it except as a very last resort, after every other means have been exhausted. Two or three times. It's just not possible. Christ said to turn the other cheek, and they have no idea what that means. Reminds me of a lynch mob sometimes, all the jingoistic nonsense.

In my humble opinion SDAI was completely useless. For a long time I didn't read either him or ed, decided when I came back that I would try to be a bit more open-minded. I thank God he was/is a conservative. Had he been liberal I'm not sure what I would have done. Probably the same thing. ed surprised me, he halfway civilly pointed out my links didn't work, and then promptly degenerated again when I managed to get them to come up. I don't think either one of them has a clue that ad hominem attacks aren't part of normal dialogue.

I'm a bit surprised by the prevalance of the conservative ad hominem attacks. Liberals get into that, too, but not as a matter of course. Now, I'm talking about ad hominem as a tactic used on each other, not on GWB. It's hard to discuss any issue without it reflecting on his character.

Everybody else is a mix. gbaikie seems to get so excited he stops making sense, but so have I from time to time. I won't go into the liberals, because this is, after all, the Flame Board.

Well, I've gotta stop. I've gotta go give a talk tonight, am a last minute fill-in, thought it was tomorrow night. About an hour about me. Thank God no one pays or is paid. Wouldn't be worth it, and at free is over-priced.

Being retired I sometime feel a bit worthless, even though I spend about 10 hours a week on free advice to folks in a certain area, and the talk is a way to show folks that they don't have to be bright, articulate or charming to carry a message. That's the best example I can set, I think. If he can do it, anyone can. Actually, that's not all bad.

Man, what a ramble. I started out by trying to explain my attitude toward FrankC, and really went. I think I'm a bit nervous about tonight, though I've done that sort thing hundreds of times. That's apart from lectures and leading seminars on more factual stuff, which is easy after you've had to bare a bit of your soul a few times.

And the major folks are pretty good. If one types on little tippy-fingers they can talk with LarryJ, I've got to quit.

Thanks for your interesting post. I suspect we all have our niches, mine is curmudgeon. One man's realism is another man's cynicism, I suppose, as one man's terrorist is the next guy's freedom fighter. There are some real advantages to being older. After you seen "it" a few times, you can see "it" coming again. For instance, demonizing countries. Watch out when that happens, we're getting set up for something. And the US is a lot like one big Jerry Springer show - is at it's most energetic when screaming "shame on them" rather than looking at oneself and the problems we may have. "Shame on them" seems to be the great conservative call, that and "mine is bigger than yours and if you take away my SUV I won't be able to say that." Shame on teenagers who get pregnant, shame on drug users except Rush, shame on anyone poor without health insurance, shame on any other country which won't approve of an illegal, unnecessary war, shame on this leader or that leader because they want to protect their country from the predations of a subsidized American farmer, etc. Shame on 'em all, and my skirts are white. White, true, white as the driven slush.

And none of us are as good as we'd like to think, and none of them are as bad as we'd like to think.

You're going to have to share your experience with Linux. Would love to have it working on my computer, but I don't want to have to learn another DOS language, as Justin pointed out would have to be done to make it function.

Arf