(07-06-2018, 10:30 AM)pirkster Wrote:

(07-05-2018, 05:33 PM)mikesez Wrote: I'm always seeking help and growth and I hope you are too.
In that spirit, if you're genuinely concerned that too many people approach politics and something that is like fashion and about feelings, and you genuinely wish to help such people, challenge them with questions. Ask, "did your own experience teach you that this was true? Did you deduce that this was true from facts that you observed? Or do you just want to appear in fashion? or did somebody who may not be trustworthy and may not have your best interest at heart manipulate your emotions until you believe this?"

if those are your concerns those are the questions you should be asking first of yourself and then of others.

It's quite common for those who have experienced being duped and have survived it, to try to help others they find to be in the same peril.

I've been there and back again.  If you're satisfied in your cocoon, then it's natural for you to have settled where you find comfort and seek to preserve it by shutting out the outside.

One of the things asked of jurors and debaters is to adopt the opposite side.  Argue for them.  I've lived that inside and outside the courtroom.  If you're brave enough, you might try it yourself.  I think you'd find it very insightful and life changing.

I've been duped too.
Here's the problem: defining a broad category of political thought in entirely negative terms, as you did, is the kind of thing that dupers do.
Those who seek to save people from being duped ask people to examine their own experiences rather than bully them with a "trust me, I've been there." Those who dupe always ask for our trust.  That you think your experience means you deserve my trust doesn't change the essential nature of your appeal from my perspective - it can not be distinguished from the many dupers out there.

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(07-05-2018, 11:34 PM)MalabarJag Wrote:

(07-05-2018, 01:57 PM)mikesez Wrote: Nah, the swines ate my pearls.  It'll be a little while before more are revealed.

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Right, if you define liberalism that way, as a unified thing with those qualities, everything else you say logically follows.
Problem: people who actually identify as liberal wouldn't define liberalism that way. In fact, they would offer many very different definitions, including some that conflict with each other, if you asked.

But that was not a definition, but an observation. Can you name a Progressive politician who does not base a significant part of his/her rhetoric on victimization?

What does "take our country back" or "make america great again" mean?  Does it not mean that the "good" or "great" people and ideals of America have been victimized?

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(07-05-2018, 10:59 PM)flsprtsgod Wrote:

(07-05-2018, 01:57 PM)mikesez Wrote: Nah, the swines ate my pearls.  It'll be a little while before more are revealed.

What you thought were pearls were actually just toadstools growing in the fertilizer.

I hear an oink.

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