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Hippiekinkster -> RE: Soon, "IT" will be over... (11/4/2008 2:08:07 AM)
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"What a long, strange trip it's been." Truckin' - The Grateful Dead
I am sooo looking forward to intelligence, thoughtfulness, and a willingness to listen to alternative viewpoints at 1600 PA Ave.
Something I have noticed throughout my life, is that those who see the world through technicolor glasses are almost always more intelligent, better educated, and more travelled than those who see things only in black and white. (Abortion is murder, guns good, Arabs enemy, Bible is inerrent, gays sick/sinners/evil, "leebrils" anti-American commies, yada yada). I have very few right-wing acquaintences, and only a couple who are hard-core righties (one is a super-close friend, BTW, whom I've known for 15 years and for whom I would do anything, and she vice-versa (and we have)). There is an arrogance about them, so convinced they are of the righteousness of their Weltanschauung. Trying to discuss anything with them is like trying to discuss Theology with a Jehovah's Witness. They are right, you are wrong, and that is the order of things.
A little tale. Back around 99 or so, I went up to Alaska to help my bro-in-law build a cabin/lodge on the west side of Kodiak Island, on Uyuk Bay (one can see the cabin, IIRC, on MSFT's Virtual World). A friend of his was along, a carpenter and a "militia" member. Now, about 40,000 lbs worth of fresh-cut wood had been dropped off by boat a couple months earlier, and we had to load it onto a small boat/skiff and get it down to the building site, which was about 16 feet above high tide up a small cliff/steep slope. We had to get all that up there (there were a couple 16 foot long 8x8s (real 8x8s, not 7x7 or whatever), which were not dried)(oh, that was fun). I tried to figure out a winch, but we didn't have a pulley. Then I suggested building steps. I don't know why, but that was dismissed out of hand. Could not talk to the guy about it. After we had built most of the cabin, THEN he decides to build steps. I asked him about why he changed his mind, and he comes up with this lame excuse of possibly not having enough wood. Now, he designed the thing (not that there is much design to a 16x24' box with a little porch, on posts (digging out bee's nests in the peat was another adventure), so he should have designed in a 10% waste factor. Instead, there was no allowance made for waste. I asked why he did that. Well, it would have cost more for the wood and shipping. (uh, there would have been another use for it, like an outhouse). I said, yanno, you could have cannibalized the steps if we needed to. I mean, some of the wood in stick construction is redundant (like 16"OC floor joists instead of 24"OC braced same with walls). Dead silence. Just couldn't talk to the guy.
I have found radical right-wingers to be like him. Just totally convinced of their "rightness" (pun intended). And I cannot stand that. Just like nobody who knew anything about military campaigns could talk any sense into Junior. He is incapable of considering other viewpoints, and totally convinced of his own brilliance (much like Adolf). And McCain is the same. Look how often he says, "I know how to do xyz..." whatever it is, even after he admitted he knows zilch about economics. I'm smarter than him, and more educated than him, and I don't know how to do one one-hundredth of what he claims he can do. He would be just like Bush, totaly convinced of his own infallibility and genius. That fucker scares the shit out of me. He's not right in the head. And Palin...? Oh, fuck, she's nuts.
That is why I am glad that there will only be 13 weeks or so until Obama is sworn in.
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