the only straw men i see around here are your usual straw men. "centralized authorities having powers over anyone's lives". no one has mentioned anything about that in this thread except you. you pull out that little rhubarb whenever you can't think of anything else to say, which is frequently, because you can't think of anything else to say. by the way, while we're playing that game, when did you stop beating your wife? what this thread has been about is self-righteous rightwing hypocrisy and and your execrable habit of insulting everyone who dares challenge you.

you'll have to forgive me if i can't accept your protestations of selfless altruism and civic devotion at face value. like everyone else, consciously or unconsciously, you have an agenda; whether it be based on personal benefit or ideological preference, private prosperity or class affiliation. so do i, but i know where my agenda lies, and i have no reservations, either moral or intellectual why i feel the way i do. and i recognize it as an agenda, not a law of physics that should be self-evident. i am not going to discard it simply because you believe it is mistaken. if anything, that only reinforces my conviction that i am on the right track.

listen carefully, tb: i am convinced YOU are mistaken. i certainly don't expect you to agree with me on that, but i can demand that you respect my position as one based on thought and conscience, not an arbitrary party line i adhere to simply because i'm a liberal and don't know any better.

i simply can't see how you can expect everyone to automatically see the inherent moral superiority of your position, or to accept your arguments for it. for starters, i'm not even sure there is such a thing as "moral superiority". rightly or wrongly, it simply is not obvious to everyone else that your proposals are better than theirs, on an ethical or intellectual level.

your opinion, tb, and that is all it is, an opinion, simply doesn't cut it. don't adopt a position of moral superiority with me, because i don't trust you. and don't you dare throw words around like "Decentralization, liberty, free competition, open societies, and strong limits on authority and government" as if you were the first to hear them and the only one to reflect on them; or that the rest of us are too dense or too corrupt to appreciate them. it is precisely this intellectual arrogance that convinces me that you are just selling another shabby product and that you can't be trusted.

so spare me the admonishments about what sort of moral equivalences i can or can't draw. you choose to post here, i'm not forcing you to do so, if you don't like my responses, that's just too bad.