So just who are you people and why do you think the way you do?

[rick_day]

Whew! This is my first winter with you guys and the heat from Global Animosity is keeping the US snow free far too long!

So lets see if we can find some Common Ground and discuss our most basic common denominator (besides sexuality). The pursuit of money and wealth. Politics to me is about survival in modern civilization. None of us wants to pursue

Comments

[pastorlenny]

Remarkably, some of us are able to think about politics in terms of something other than pecuniary self-interest.

[johnny9fingers]

Surely not!

[pastorlenny]

It continues to fascinate me that the lolbertarians and the pseudo-liberals alike both routinely deny the summum bonum. What is Latin for "my present welfare?"

[telemann]

Wait, are there any pseudo-lol-liberals?

I mean I heard Ron Paul use the phrase bleeding-heart [liberals] during his speech Tuesday night. The last time I heard that used was by Archie Bunker on a All in the Family rerun. It amazes me so many young college age people are mesmerized by essentially a very cranky old man who the longer he talks, really starts sounding like a mean-uncle at Thanksgiving dinners.

[pastorlenny]

Pseuds are lols by definition. I mean, it takes a little more than resenting rich people and wanting Mommy Government to take care of you to be a liberal in the tradition of, say, a Jack Kennedy or Gene McCarthy.

[telemann]

George McGovern too.

[geezer_also]

Wait a minute, I'm still trying to get my head around McCarthy and Kennedy in the same sentence, and you want to add McGovern?

[telemann]

Sure would! As a young boy he took private flying lessons to see if he had the bravery to be a pilot what he knew was the upcoming war. He enlisted into the Army as soon as he heard of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor Naval Station. His subsequent bravery during WW2 more than proved he was one of The Greatest Generation. But most of all, he was the first and solitary person that had the balls to stand up on the Senate floor and question our growing involvement in Vietnam. Someone that had served in war who had served his country in the best possible manner, questioning sending American boys to a senseless war. Yeah, he's up in the pantheon as far as I'm concerned ;)

[pastorlenny]

Why wouldn't McCarthy and Kennedy belong in the same sentence?

[geezer_also]

Don't you have a book to write?? ;)

I'm not sure they wouldn't, didn't say they wouldn't, it's just that I had never heard them mentioned together before.
I admit I inferred you were comparing them as similar ideologically, (which as I reread your statement it was not implied) and how I remember both it didn't click with me.

TMI When JFK was running for President, I passed out flyers, buttons and bumper stickers. I even got to shake his hand. In '68 I was a fairly recent returnee (Sept '67) who was more pro than anti war, and voted for RFK in the California primary.

[sandwichwarrior]

"The greatest good" for whom?

[pastorlenny]

LOL. Thank you for proving my point.

[sandwichwarrior]

Your statement assumes that 1 there is such a thing as a "greatest good" and 2 that it is universal.

What baffles me people who will invoke "summon bonum" as basis for policy despite the very clear fact that different people have different ideas of what constitutes "good".

[pastorlenny]

I guess when people disagree about something, we can only conclude that there is no truth.

[sandwichwarrior]

For something so subjective, there isn't.

[sandwichwarrior]

To clarify, say you have a vegetarian and a barbeque chef.

To the vegetarian "greater good" means a world where people don't eat meat.

The barbeque chef is inclined to disagree.

They can't both get their way, hense the question; "The greatest good" for whom?