You wouldn't be doing it for me. I own a copy of the book. Have read it repeatedly. You should try reading more.
Holy shit, are you kidding? By the time I was 5, I had probably read more than you, and I mean at your current age. @Dayton3, it's never a wise idea for you to insult someone's intelligence. You already insult their good humor, and humanity, merely by posting. To add a trifecta of you to any thread is just wrong, and you should feel bad for doing it.
What makes you think that? You people are really something. While you might deny it, deep down you really can't accept the idea that someone who you have great disdain for and whose views you find repulsive could also be highly intelligent and well educated. Don't bother replying. I know exactly what the response will be from you and others here.
Wow, in that case you have learned something over the years you've been here. Good for you. Too bad you'll forget it in six months when you piss and moan about why people don't like you.
It's complicated. Anti-semitism has always been around, of course, but went way underground after WWII. The American right has always supported Israel, in addition many American Jews favored the Republicans because of their economic policies. Many of the so-called neoconservatives were Jewish. It's only with the rise of the alt-right that anti-Semitism has come back to political relevance, and most of them are just dumb teenagers who think internet memes are cool. The leaders are true believers though, and the kids are easily led, so there is still a potential for danger.
Setting aside the question of whether you're intelligent or not (all evidence here points to not), the person pictured below is both highly intelligent and well-educated. Yet I have great disdain and loathing for her.
Speaking of, if you had a chance to sit down and interview her, would you and how would you approach it?
Yep. There are many highly intelligent conservatives. I don't buy into the notion that being conservative automatically means being backward and stupid. I have met some amazingly smart conservatives, and some pants-shittingly stupid liberals. The truth is more about the person than the ideology. If you're an asshole, you're an asshole regardless of political or social ideology. When I was a devout Christian, and staunch conservative, I was highly intelligent. As an atheist super-liberal, I'm still highly intelligent. What changed? My views. What didn't change? My kindness, reason, or compassion for others. There are truly awful people whom I will call out time and time again, but I know they don't represent everyone.
Wait, what? I got myself all liquored up to respond to this? (You folks don't really believe that I read anything Dayton writes while I'm sober, do you? I mean, because all of it is so stupid as to make the right side of the brain look at the left side and say, "It's dark in here, and we may die." By getting shitfaced, I bring myself at least closer to Dayton's level.) First of all, if you thought it was bad, why even mention it? Seriously, it's not like somebody here found that information out and confronted you with it, nor did you make a post like, "Hey, guys, I fucked up, what should I do now?" You fucking bragged about it. You claimed that your mother thought it was "clever" and then, years later, said that when you told police the story, they laughed. This is not indicative of someone who has remorse about what they've done, but is instead proud of their actions. If you thought it was bad, why bring it up? Once you started getting brickbats hurled at you, why didn't you say, "Maybe I was being a dumbshit"? Instead, you doubled down on how nothing that you did was "wrong." Seriously, WTF is to be gained by squabbling against a bunch of faceless assholes on the interwebs that you'll never meet? It is far, far easier to not hand them weapons to use against you, or to simply say, "Yeah, I'm a dumbass" and move on, when you're dealing with something that you don't really believe in. Spending literal years fighting to defend a position you don't really believe in, fits with Einstein's definition of insanity (you know, doing the same thing over and over again, while all the time expecting a different result). WTF did you think that you would gain by holding to a position which you now claim you knew to be untenable all along? Our respect? Given how much we've blasted you for hanging on to a position in opposition to every available fact, that hardly seems rational. If anything, your comments have undermined any goodwill you might have earned from any of us over the years.
Fine. I'm a dumbass. More accurately I've often been an arrogant, sanctimonious jerk. But dumbass for short.
Well, I don't think one can change the past. I suppose about all I could do was try to do better from now on. Though making significant changes when you're 50 years old (next Saturday) is probably not that likely.
You could admit that you were wrong, for starters. So, you're saying that it doesn't matter what the facts are, you'll keep being stupid, if that's what you've always done. What a senseless waste of human life you are. I'd much rather admit that I was wrong about something, than continue to exhibit the same pattern of behavior I always have. Maybe I'll change my opinon about this when I turn 50 next year, but I doubt it.
You won't change. I doubt you even have the capacity for change. Years ago, I was naive enough to believe that every person could better themselves, until I realized that there were people who exalted ignorance and stupidity. They embraced it because it freed them from ever having to care about their fellow man. It lets them slip the chains of emotion, intellect, and empathy. I believe most people can become better people, I believe they can grow emotionally, and intellectually. I'm not sure you can, however, because I think you like being where you are. From your position there is nothing to improve upon. I could be wrong, but in the last decade and a half I've known you across these boards, you've stayed exactly the same, and have learned nothing.
About what? I've probably been wrong about the vast majority of things during my life. I don't have a clue as to where to start.
so have you improved and learned in the last decade and a half? Have you grown emotionally and intellectually?
Seeing as he's no longer a bible boy, I'd say he has in many ways. To paraphrase Muhammad Ali, the man who views the world the same after a decade and a half has wasted fifteen years of his life.
Pick a spot, any spot, and go from there. That's all you have to do. Learning to admit when you've been wrong is very liberating. You don't have to pretend to cling to things that you know are wrong, you spend less of your time in squabbles with other people, and more time learning about the world.
Trump is now trying to stop an ethics probe into the record number of lobbyists he has appointed to run regulators they used to lobby. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/22/u...lobbyists.html The latest conflict came in recent days when the White House, in a highly unusual move, sent a letter to Walter M. Shaub Jr., the head of the Office of Government Ethics, asking him to withdraw a request he had sent to every federal agency for copies of the waivers. In the letter, the administration challenged his legal authority to demand the information. Dozens of former lobbyists and industry lawyers are working in the Trump administration, which has hired them at a much higher rate than the previous administration. Keeping the waivers confidential would make it impossible to know whether any such officials are violating federal ethics rules or have been given a pass to ignore them. Mr. Shaub, who is in the final year of a five-year term after being appointed by President Barack Obama, said he had no intention of backing down. “It is an extraordinary thing,” Mr. Shaub said of the White House request. “I have never seen anything like it.”
The topic probably turned to something other than himself or his money. We already know he's incapable of sustaining interest for more than 30 seconds in any other topic.
