listening to the Velvet Underground makes me think about how odd my life has been

[mynameisandey]

I lived on the east coast, in Western American, and Middle America. I've lived in a minivan to protest capitalism and voted Republican. I've spent entire summers watching television, and others catching rattlesnakes and riding a bike hundreds of miles. I've loved women, I've hated women. I've been cold, I've been hot. I've been consistent, I'

Comments

[lager_jager]

Your contact with liberals may just be because your friends are for the most part college age NoMos. Most young liberals, perhaps myself included, will get more conservative with age. Having little to lose or being supported by parents lends one to be willing to complain that the system needs to change. Ineffectual protesting of the status quo seems to be the left's drug of choice, aside from the actual drugs ofcourse. I'd go out and change the world for the better, but I really do have a lot of videogames to play.

I want a brain and a heart.

[msblackandwhite]

On the issue of age and political orientation, I've been told that if you are young and you aren't a liberal, you don't have a heart. Likewise, if you are old and a conservative, you don't have a brain. Does that imply that it's acceptable to have to heart when you are past the age of 30? Or that when you are younger it's unreasonable to expect that you can think critically? Psshaw. Well, I'm conservative and I have a heart and a brain.

Re: I want a brain and a heart.

[lager_jager]

Yeah, thats a quote by Churchill. I don't think that conservative folks are heartless or aged liberals are stupid, I think a lot of these things are issue based. Most conservatives I know want to just remove welfare, and the liberals think this is mostly heartless. I think for the most part that having poor people starve to death is bad, above and beyond the reason that they die. Saying that we don't value the lives of those who in many cases (e.g. the inner city underclass) don't have the ability to protect their own lives is a grave step. I don't see how one can make anti-abortion arguments and still be against welfare. Do they only care about the lives of the unborn? I think both sides are hipocritical about one thing or another. I'm a pro-life democrat, and thats not always a fun place to be. In general I think that those issue based decisions that are harmful are made based on flawed or incomplete information with a dash of self interest (as are virtually all decisions) and not just a bunch of evil men plotting to

Re: I want a brain and a heart.

[mynameisandey]

I'm a pro-life independant. I despise the idea of pro-life being solely pro-life. It's not just about protecting unborn children, which is important, it's about responsibility. Two people old enough to create a human being probably know how babies are made. I'm pro-choice, people should make wise choices, but abortion is ex-post facto if you will. people should be well aware of the risks involved in their activities and rather than shrugging them off and makeing personal or economic excuses. From my religious viewpoint, it would be remiss of me not to say that unborn children are the most important side of the issue, but in the cold political world I cannot see a valid argument for abortion being beneficial to society

Re: I want a brain and a heart.

[lager_jager]

I think the idea of people starving in the U.S. is an extraordinarily foreign concept to my way of thinking. In our capitalistic nation where we've found that agriculture production great exceeds any of our possible needs, I can't imagine how this could happen. I support abolishing the welfare state in theory (it would never actually happen because the government needs the capability of providing assistance in extreme circumstances, and therefore ends up providing assistance in too many circumstance) because I believe that people are good enough that if their money was returned to them, they would spend it on charity. How much charity is already available? The problem is that many people see other people in trouble and assume, "Well, I'm sure the government is doing something." If society knew that the government wasn't doing anything, the movement would be, "Oh, I need to do something." This highly Christianized nation has no problem being independently benevolent. I really believe strongly that it is not the business of the

Re: I want a brain and a heart.

[msblackandwhite]

BTW, that's my thought above. Damn password is too frikin' difficult to remember.

Re: I want a brain and a heart.

[mynameisandey]

I'm sorry dear but children starve in small appalachian communities (albeit much less than other nations). I always enjoy a good libertarian argument like that, though. As a liberal, I don't have any problem with the concept of taxes, in fact they're quite necissary. As an independant, I'm not sure if churches or government can do a better job of welfare. You can't legislate churches, and it's pretty liberal of you to think that people are good enough at heart to do this on their own

andey's comments on andey

[lager_jager]

I just realized this line doesn't make any sense: "the spirit and guidence of God is the greatest help, but the idea supports my basic philosophy that it's not always where it comes from, but how it's done that makes government good." what I meant to say is that even though the spirit and guidence of God are the greatest help, we should learn from him and what is to be learned (in this case) is that tax monies can, and always should be used efficiantly and benevolently.