Bruce Perens was addressing a bunch of geeks once and somebody asked him to use the word cracker instead of hacker when referring to computer criminals. Bruce replied "I refuse to use the word cracker because it's insulting to georgian-americans, and will continue to use the phrase computer criminals". I laughed my ass off, but he was right.
While I admit I'm stuck with interpretation of statistics since the exact question under consideration wasn't asked, I think it provides more evidence than you have regarding how pro-choice people feel about the fetus.
Very good point. Neither of us can say for sure, but there's no reason to prefer my interpretation over yours. You've supported yours pretty strongly.
Your Obama quote brings me back to my original thesis - what politicians say is nearly meaningless, since they'll say anything to get elected and then once elected will do anything to retain power. Obama opposed the PATRIOT act to get elected, and supports it now since it helps him monitor and control his opposition. "Cap and Trade" was enacted by George Bush Sr. as a right wing conservative method of controlling emissions through the marketplace, but now less than one generation later this incredibly successful policy is considered left wing socialism - staunchly opposed by the party that originally pushed it through.
The major parties are as just as soulless and amoral as the corporations that fight each other for control of them.
A full 25% say it is not a moral issue, which to me indicates an "insensate lump of flesh" attitude.
An equally valid (and equally suspect) interpretation of that statistic would be to say that 25% of the people polled have no moral objection to killing another human under some circumstances, and voluntary termination of a pregnancy is one of those circumstances.
Your interpretation, as you've noted, is based on your own moral code. You've got an explicit belief that human life is sacred and that preserving human life takes precedence over all other goals. You may also have a strong fear of death although that's only implied.
But the rest of the world doesn't necessarily think that way, even if they claim they do. In real life most people are more than willing to vote for war - starting a war is a well proven way for a leader to stay in office - and American's roadways and small towns are carpeted with "Support The Troops" ribbons. Respect for soldiers and the lasting popularity of war are the most obvious empirical proof that people value lots of things more than human life.
I honestly believe that my view - that abortion should be safe, legal, available, and unnecessary - is the mainstream view held by the majority of citizens of the USA. Look at this recent poll data:
Unfortunately, though, you're dead right about the parties. No party really supports the mainstream view. The Democrats cater to extremists who believe that a fetus is just an insensate lump of flesh, not a human being, and that disposing of an unwanted fetus has nothing to do with killing a child. The Republicans cater to extremists who believe that any amount of harm to society, to children, and to pregnant women is acceptable as long as some kind of Judeo-Christian dogma is permanently enshrined in law.
If I've unfairly characterized your motivations, I apologize. It seemed like you were calling me a willing participant in murder, just because I refuse to forcibly interfere with a woman's decision to do something I don't want her to do.
My immediate family includes black, white, puerto rican, and asian children. I'm white. My spouse is white. Neither of us has ever been divorced. We're both fertile but only one of our children is biologically ours. We have not participated in any international adoptions. My wife and I both work so we can afford to send all our children to whatever college they want, but my wife stayed at home until they were all old enough for school, so that they wouldn't be raised in day care centers.
Any questions? I think you can connect the dots.
Yes, I sure did set you up for that. Completely. But only because you keep trying to demonize me. Guess what - I'm not actually a demon, or a saint either.
You want me to fit your cookie-cutter idea of your evil opposition, and you keep distorting my views so you can feel righteous about hounding me. I don't advocate the killing of unborn children and I'm sure you know that. But I also don't advocate using force to restrict the choices of women who are so desperate they are willing to kill their own unborn children, and that doesn't fit your narrative. So you keep pushing and poking at me, hoping I'll say something that will make you feel righteous. And that's why I set you up, so you can know what it feels like to be manipulated that way.
Meister Eckhart said "You may call God love, you may call God goodness. But the best name for God is compassion". You seem to believe that compassion for an unborn child means you don't need to have any compassion for that child's mother, and you have no compassion to spare for those children whose mothers followed your precepts and gave birth to children they could not raise. I am advocating compassion for all these - not just for the unborn - but that does not fit the catholic world view of sinful fallen woman.vs. innocent child. I'm sorry if it irks you, but I won't limit my compassion to suit other people's need for a fight.
If you haven't given up on me in disgust by now, if you have the ability to accept some criticism and seriously ponder what I've said, please take this advice: try not to be a person who tears down, be a person who builds up. Instead of looking for people to fight, look for people to help. It's the same amount of work either way. But building a better world is a greater accomplishment than tearing down what you don't like. The anti-choice movement is a group solely dedicated to tearing down.
Leave the abortionists alone and help the people trying to find parents for parentless children, and you can do more to drop the abortion rate than you can accomplish any other way. Be a positive force instead of trying to interfere with women seeking abortions.
In the time you'll save, why don't you visit an adoption center? You really can make a difference in the world - by doing something affirmative instead of just looking for victims you can rhetorically beat up.
I see the need for this all the time. It's a commonplace in large enterprises like hospitals, factories, and financial services corporations.
Example: I'm working on my hospital laptop. I get called urgently to do something elsewhere in the hospital so somebody won't die right now. I grab the lappie and run, then when I get to the theatre I plug into the malfing imager and fix it. Meanwhile all my SSH connections died because I crossed three wireless boundaries at high speed.
Example 2: I'm on the line debugging the tension loader robot while a human continuously manually corrects the tension downthread. I find the upstream data to the robot is bad and I have to backtrack all the way across the building to find the malfunctioning sensor, then come back and double-check the robot again. All my SSH connections into the DCS keep failing because the factory floor's high RFI means we have to have lots of small loud wireless zones, and I have to keep moving among them.
Example 3: I'm in a conference room lecturing junior banksters on how to fleece grandmothers and the CEO throws us out so his pet congressman can use the room to tongue-polish his shoes for him. The next conference room is two wireless zones away, so my secure SSH tunnel into Dr. Evil's antarctic lair fails and I have to sacrifice another day trader to get the blood I need for our in-house key transfer protocol.
OK, that last example was a bit contrived but I was starting to get bored.
Green Party: 63% Liberal Democrats: 61% Labour Party: 52% British National Party: 34% Conservative Party: 32% UK Independence Party: 31%
Here's the problem with that kind of software: in the USA, all the politicians say whatever they feel they need to say in order to get elected. This is called their "platform" and if has anything to do with their beliefs or intentions that's purely coincidence. Once they are elected, they do whatever they feel they need to do in order to stay rich, famous and powerful. Generally that means catering to large corporate power blocs whose interests are diametrically opposed to those of the voting public.
So when you build such a software quiz, how can you possibly make any meaningful matchups? Do you match the views of the voter with the pandering lies a politician mouths? Obama hasn't closed gitmo, stopped extraordinary rendition, repealed the PATRIOT act, or held the telcos responsible for warrantless wiretapping, but he repeatedly promised to do all those things. George Bush Sr. said "read my lips - no new taxes!" and then went on to enact much-needed and meaningful tax reforms that included new taxes. Do you match the views of the voter with the political record of a candidate or party, despite these records being diametrically opposite the platforms? That won't work either, because not every candidate has a record, and anyway nearly all US politicians flip-flop and reverse themselves at the slightest hint that their wealthy donors want them too. There's a reason Ron Paul and Denis Kucinich get no traction, and it's not because they are nutty - we've got plenty of successful nuts in office - it's because they aren't corrupt enough to draw major corporate dollars.
So while I don't know enough about British politics to speak to the accuracy of that quiz, I know you can't make a meaningful one for the USA.
Well, I was speaking of the USA. Our liberal/conservative praxis is probably not representative of the world at large.
In the USA conservatives are usually fanatically opposed to conservation, and liberals are often strongly in favor of increasing state limitations on liberty. The names have little or nothing to do with the beliefs or methods of either group, and the major political parties function for no purpose other than to perpetuate their hold on power. They use labels like "liberal" and "conservative" solely for their propaganda value.
I think you should stick to putting words in your own mouth, instead of trying to ram them into mine. I'm not required to use your emotionally loaded mimetic trigger phrases.
I believe that forcing a woman to bear unwanted children is evil. If a woman decides to kill her unborn child that is a terrible thing - but it is not your place to stop her. There are many terrible things in this world that you and I have no right to interfere with, as much as we might want to.
I find that many so-called "pro-lifers" aren't actually interested in helping other people or doing anything kind or generous. Let's face it; if they were, they would be too busy caring for unwanted children to have time to picket abortion clinics or spout hateful rhetoric. The truth is that most pro-lifers are angry, contentious people who are looking for a crusade, a holy war, a way to strike a blow for righteousness. They aren't about helping children, born or unborn, they are all about fighting - which means hurting, not helping. They've chosen abortionists and desperate women as their victims and they want to visit harm on these people.
In contrast, people who are truly "pro-life" (and not just using that as a code phrase for "anti-abortion") have adopted children into their families. Some of them are waiting patiently in lines at adoption centers right now. Because there are tens of thousands of children who need our help, who will suffer if we ignore them. People who bend their wills towards conflict instead of helping those who need our help are prioritizing their need to hurt others well above the needs of children. There's only so much time in the day, and you can spend it ranting about abortion or you can spend it helping a child. Your choices demonstrate your priorities for the world to see.
The principle is "pay it forward". If you have enriched the lives of those around you, the young will treat you as a respected elder, and care for you in your dotage.
My Dad can hardly walk at this point, so I've occasionally had to carry him, and changing the sheets for a beloved uncle was only slightly harder than changing diapers on my own children. It's OK. I share the burden with others who have benefited from these men's presence in their lives, but I would do it even if it was just me. Or I'd pay someone else to help.
And if the young lose their way, there's always sky diving and other high risk activities. Why would you want to live in a society where the young prey on the old? Hoarding knowledge will not protect you in such a system.
Well, do you think we could raise money by confiscating the property of people who don't have any, and punishing people for not being successful?
That makes no sense to me. I was talking about the Real World, remember? Not some theoretical wonderland where the rich are incorruptible heroes. That world only exists in Ayn Rand's crank dreams.
The truth is we won't be doing a lot of "protecting liberty" if you're going to insist that we finance it by oppressing the poor. Enforcing the laws that are necessary for the operation of a free market requires taxation of those who have benefited from the existence of the market. The rich have to pay for the costs of controlling corruption among the rich, because nobody but the rich can afford to do so. This is not really complicated. You can't get blood from a stone, and the poor don't have the money to oppose destruction of the market by the rich. It doesn't matter if you think it's moral or not.
Friend, I said "kill" not "murder". If you don't distinguish between murder and killing, you also don't have a party. And your choice of religions is severely limited as well.
The Zen master Ryokan lived a simple life in a little hut high on a mountain. One evening while Ryokan was out walking, a thief made the arduous climb up the mountain, only to find there was nothing in the hut worth stealing.
Ryokan returned and found the thief. "You have taken great pains to come a long way to visit me," he said, "and you should not return empty-handed. Please let me give you my clothes as a gift."
The thief was confused and bewildered, but he took Ryokan's clothes and climbed back down the mountain.
Ryokan left the hut and sat naked, watching the moon. "That poor fellow," he mused, "I wish I could have given him this beautiful moon."
People are welcome to share all my knowledge. I don't care if they are brown, yellow, or pink with polka dots. Hoarding knowledge is a practice of the weak and foolish, it's how you can easily identify them. Smart, strong minds have new thoughts every day.
A perfectly good netflix client for linux definitely does exist, because netflix comes standard on android-based googleTV devices. However, netflix is not willing to let the world have the sources, or even unrestricted access to the executables.
The only reason I can think of for this is that the netflix service must have some titanic security flaw that is so deeply embedded in their architecture that it would take absurd amounts of money to fix. You don't give up an income stream for no reason - maybe they're hiding something? I'd love to hear other explanations.
You've been listening to too much propaganda. Here in reality, elected conservatives have never held back from expanding the role of government when given the chance to do so. It's what politicians do. They see it as their job.
In the USA left and right both have zero tolerance for the practices of those they perceive as their cultural enemies. Conservatives lead the charge to persecute artists, flag burners and gays, liberals lead the charge to persecute gun owners and racial separatists. Both sides are willing to trample individuals at the drop of a hat - remember, we're talking about reality here, not rhetoric. Conservatives and liberals all voted for the orwellian Patriot Act.
If you believe in the right to own military-grade weapons, but you aren't a racist; and you think abortion kills an unborn child, yet still should be safe and legal, and you think the tax code should be progressive and tax-free institutions should not be allowed to sponsor foreign nations; and you think the government should return to strictly limiting the terms of existence for corporations and intellectual property, there is no party for you.
Slashdot Mirror
Bruce Perens was addressing a bunch of geeks once and somebody asked him to use the word cracker instead of hacker when referring to computer criminals. Bruce replied "I refuse to use the word cracker because it's insulting to georgian-americans, and will continue to use the phrase computer criminals". I laughed my ass off, but he was right.
Good god, man, that's barbaric! Wouldn't the stocks be more appropriate?
Well, we landed men on the moon with it, and safely returned them to earth.
Some of the FORTRAN code I wrote back then is still being used today.
Seems pretty productive to me.
You didn't switch it on. It was never off.
Modern appliances can only be turned off if you attach them to a power strip.
Drill, baby, drill!
Modded troll? That was hilarious!
Neo-con mod squad again, I guess.
I don't think Owen is going to be pleased to learn how far down the list you've put him.
Very good point. Neither of us can say for sure, but there's no reason to prefer my interpretation over yours. You've supported yours pretty strongly.
Your Obama quote brings me back to my original thesis - what politicians say is nearly meaningless, since they'll say anything to get elected and then once elected will do anything to retain power. Obama opposed the PATRIOT act to get elected, and supports it now since it helps him monitor and control his opposition. "Cap and Trade" was enacted by George Bush Sr. as a right wing conservative method of controlling emissions through the marketplace, but now less than one generation later this incredibly successful policy is considered left wing socialism - staunchly opposed by the party that originally pushed it through.
The major parties are as just as soulless and amoral as the corporations that fight each other for control of them.
An equally valid (and equally suspect) interpretation of that statistic would be to say that 25% of the people polled have no moral objection to killing another human under some circumstances, and voluntary termination of a pregnancy is one of those circumstances.
Your interpretation, as you've noted, is based on your own moral code. You've got an explicit belief that human life is sacred and that preserving human life takes precedence over all other goals. You may also have a strong fear of death although that's only implied.
But the rest of the world doesn't necessarily think that way, even if they claim they do. In real life most people are more than willing to vote for war - starting a war is a well proven way for a leader to stay in office - and American's roadways and small towns are carpeted with "Support The Troops" ribbons. Respect for soldiers and the lasting popularity of war are the most obvious empirical proof that people value lots of things more than human life.
Yeah, George Jetson's car would be the best, but second best would be the buzz-saw noise that the old Flash Gordon spaceships made.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUbGkSfaKrs
Hardly anyone would recognize it, but it that might make it even better!
You haven't got a single political or economic idea in your head which hasn't been more clearly and cleverly articulated by Ron Paul or Steve Forbes.
I honestly believe that my view - that abortion should be safe, legal, available, and unnecessary - is the mainstream view held by the majority of citizens of the USA. Look at this recent poll data:
http://www.pollingreport.com/abortion.htm
Unfortunately, though, you're dead right about the parties. No party really supports the mainstream view. The Democrats cater to extremists who believe that a fetus is just an insensate lump of flesh, not a human being, and that disposing of an unwanted fetus has nothing to do with killing a child. The Republicans cater to extremists who believe that any amount of harm to society, to children, and to pregnant women is acceptable as long as some kind of Judeo-Christian dogma is permanently enshrined in law.
If I've unfairly characterized your motivations, I apologize. It seemed like you were calling me a willing participant in murder, just because I refuse to forcibly interfere with a woman's decision to do something I don't want her to do.
I don't just talk the talk, as it so happens.
My immediate family includes black, white, puerto rican, and asian children. I'm white. My spouse is white. Neither of us has ever been divorced. We're both fertile but only one of our children is biologically ours. We have not participated in any international adoptions. My wife and I both work so we can afford to send all our children to whatever college they want, but my wife stayed at home until they were all old enough for school, so that they wouldn't be raised in day care centers.
Any questions? I think you can connect the dots.
Yes, I sure did set you up for that. Completely. But only because you keep trying to demonize me. Guess what - I'm not actually a demon, or a saint either.
You want me to fit your cookie-cutter idea of your evil opposition, and you keep distorting my views so you can feel righteous about hounding me. I don't advocate the killing of unborn children and I'm sure you know that. But I also don't advocate using force to restrict the choices of women who are so desperate they are willing to kill their own unborn children, and that doesn't fit your narrative. So you keep pushing and poking at me, hoping I'll say something that will make you feel righteous. And that's why I set you up, so you can know what it feels like to be manipulated that way.
Meister Eckhart said "You may call God love, you may call God goodness. But the best name for God is compassion". You seem to believe that compassion for an unborn child means you don't need to have any compassion for that child's mother, and you have no compassion to spare for those children whose mothers followed your precepts and gave birth to children they could not raise. I am advocating compassion for all these - not just for the unborn - but that does not fit the catholic world view of sinful fallen woman .vs. innocent child. I'm sorry if it irks you, but I won't limit my compassion to suit other people's need for a fight.
If you haven't given up on me in disgust by now, if you have the ability to accept some criticism and seriously ponder what I've said, please take this advice: try not to be a person who tears down, be a person who builds up. Instead of looking for people to fight, look for people to help. It's the same amount of work either way. But building a better world is a greater accomplishment than tearing down what you don't like. The anti-choice movement is a group solely dedicated to tearing down.
Leave the abortionists alone and help the people trying to find parents for parentless children, and you can do more to drop the abortion rate than you can accomplish any other way. Be a positive force instead of trying to interfere with women seeking abortions.
You want to fight; I don't. Sorry.
In the time you'll save, why don't you visit an adoption center? You really can make a difference in the world - by doing something affirmative instead of just looking for victims you can rhetorically beat up.
I see the need for this all the time. It's a commonplace in large enterprises like hospitals, factories, and financial services corporations.
Example: I'm working on my hospital laptop. I get called urgently to do something elsewhere in the hospital so somebody won't die right now. I grab the lappie and run, then when I get to the theatre I plug into the malfing imager and fix it. Meanwhile all my SSH connections died because I crossed three wireless boundaries at high speed.
Example 2: I'm on the line debugging the tension loader robot while a human continuously manually corrects the tension downthread. I find the upstream data to the robot is bad and I have to backtrack all the way across the building to find the malfunctioning sensor, then come back and double-check the robot again. All my SSH connections into the DCS keep failing because the factory floor's high RFI means we have to have lots of small loud wireless zones, and I have to keep moving among them.
Example 3: I'm in a conference room lecturing junior banksters on how to fleece grandmothers and the CEO throws us out so his pet congressman can use the room to tongue-polish his shoes for him. The next conference room is two wireless zones away, so my secure SSH tunnel into Dr. Evil's antarctic lair fails and I have to sacrifice another day trader to get the blood I need for our in-house key transfer protocol.
OK, that last example was a bit contrived but I was starting to get bored.
Very interesting site. Here's what I got:
Green Party: 63%
Liberal Democrats: 61%
Labour Party: 52%
British National Party: 34%
Conservative Party: 32%
UK Independence Party: 31%
Here's the problem with that kind of software: in the USA, all the politicians say whatever they feel they need to say in order to get elected. This is called their "platform" and if has anything to do with their beliefs or intentions that's purely coincidence. Once they are elected, they do whatever they feel they need to do in order to stay rich, famous and powerful. Generally that means catering to large corporate power blocs whose interests are diametrically opposed to those of the voting public.
So when you build such a software quiz, how can you possibly make any meaningful matchups? Do you match the views of the voter with the pandering lies a politician mouths? Obama hasn't closed gitmo, stopped extraordinary rendition, repealed the PATRIOT act, or held the telcos responsible for warrantless wiretapping, but he repeatedly promised to do all those things. George Bush Sr. said "read my lips - no new taxes!" and then went on to enact much-needed and meaningful tax reforms that included new taxes. Do you match the views of the voter with the political record of a candidate or party, despite these records being diametrically opposite the platforms? That won't work either, because not every candidate has a record, and anyway nearly all US politicians flip-flop and reverse themselves at the slightest hint that their wealthy donors want them too. There's a reason Ron Paul and Denis Kucinich get no traction, and it's not because they are nutty - we've got plenty of successful nuts in office - it's because they aren't corrupt enough to draw major corporate dollars.
So while I don't know enough about British politics to speak to the accuracy of that quiz, I know you can't make a meaningful one for the USA.
Well, I was speaking of the USA. Our liberal/conservative praxis is probably not representative of the world at large.
In the USA conservatives are usually fanatically opposed to conservation, and liberals are often strongly in favor of increasing state limitations on liberty. The names have little or nothing to do with the beliefs or methods of either group, and the major political parties function for no purpose other than to perpetuate their hold on power. They use labels like "liberal" and "conservative" solely for their propaganda value.
I think you should stick to putting words in your own mouth, instead of trying to ram them into mine. I'm not required to use your emotionally loaded mimetic trigger phrases.
I believe that forcing a woman to bear unwanted children is evil. If a woman decides to kill her unborn child that is a terrible thing - but it is not your place to stop her. There are many terrible things in this world that you and I have no right to interfere with, as much as we might want to.
I find that many so-called "pro-lifers" aren't actually interested in helping other people or doing anything kind or generous. Let's face it; if they were, they would be too busy caring for unwanted children to have time to picket abortion clinics or spout hateful rhetoric. The truth is that most pro-lifers are angry, contentious people who are looking for a crusade, a holy war, a way to strike a blow for righteousness. They aren't about helping children, born or unborn, they are all about fighting - which means hurting, not helping. They've chosen abortionists and desperate women as their victims and they want to visit harm on these people.
In contrast, people who are truly "pro-life" (and not just using that as a code phrase for "anti-abortion") have adopted children into their families. Some of them are waiting patiently in lines at adoption centers right now. Because there are tens of thousands of children who need our help, who will suffer if we ignore them. People who bend their wills towards conflict instead of helping those who need our help are prioritizing their need to hurt others well above the needs of children. There's only so much time in the day, and you can spend it ranting about abortion or you can spend it helping a child. Your choices demonstrate your priorities for the world to see.
The principle is "pay it forward". If you have enriched the lives of those around you, the young will treat you as a respected elder, and care for you in your dotage.
My Dad can hardly walk at this point, so I've occasionally had to carry him, and changing the sheets for a beloved uncle was only slightly harder than changing diapers on my own children. It's OK. I share the burden with others who have benefited from these men's presence in their lives, but I would do it even if it was just me. Or I'd pay someone else to help.
And if the young lose their way, there's always sky diving and other high risk activities. Why would you want to live in a society where the young prey on the old? Hoarding knowledge will not protect you in such a system.
Well, do you think we could raise money by confiscating the property of people who don't have any, and punishing people for not being successful?
That makes no sense to me. I was talking about the Real World, remember? Not some theoretical wonderland where the rich are incorruptible heroes. That world only exists in Ayn Rand's crank dreams.
The truth is we won't be doing a lot of "protecting liberty" if you're going to insist that we finance it by oppressing the poor. Enforcing the laws that are necessary for the operation of a free market requires taxation of those who have benefited from the existence of the market. The rich have to pay for the costs of controlling corruption among the rich, because nobody but the rich can afford to do so. This is not really complicated. You can't get blood from a stone, and the poor don't have the money to oppose destruction of the market by the rich. It doesn't matter if you think it's moral or not.
Friend, I said "kill" not "murder". If you don't distinguish between murder and killing, you also don't have a party. And your choice of religions is severely limited as well.
Well, OK, I have to agree with you, although it's not really the point I was addressing.
The Zen master Ryokan lived a simple life in a little hut high on a mountain. One evening while Ryokan was out walking, a thief made the arduous climb up the mountain, only to find there was nothing in the hut worth stealing.
Ryokan returned and found the thief. "You have taken great pains to come a long way to visit me," he said, "and you should not return empty-handed. Please let me give you my clothes as a gift."
The thief was confused and bewildered, but he took Ryokan's clothes and climbed back down the mountain.
Ryokan left the hut and sat naked, watching the moon. "That poor fellow," he mused, "I wish I could have given him this beautiful moon."
People are welcome to share all my knowledge. I don't care if they are brown, yellow, or pink with polka dots. Hoarding knowledge is a practice of the weak and foolish, it's how you can easily identify them. Smart, strong minds have new thoughts every day.
A perfectly good netflix client for linux definitely does exist, because netflix comes standard on android-based googleTV devices. However, netflix is not willing to let the world have the sources, or even unrestricted access to the executables.
The only reason I can think of for this is that the netflix service must have some titanic security flaw that is so deeply embedded in their architecture that it would take absurd amounts of money to fix. You don't give up an income stream for no reason - maybe they're hiding something? I'd love to hear other explanations.
You've been listening to too much propaganda. Here in reality, elected conservatives have never held back from expanding the role of government when given the chance to do so. It's what politicians do. They see it as their job.
In the USA left and right both have zero tolerance for the practices of those they perceive as their cultural enemies. Conservatives lead the charge to persecute artists, flag burners and gays, liberals lead the charge to persecute gun owners and racial separatists. Both sides are willing to trample individuals at the drop of a hat - remember, we're talking about reality here, not rhetoric. Conservatives and liberals all voted for the orwellian Patriot Act.
If you believe in the right to own military-grade weapons, but you aren't a racist; and you think abortion kills an unborn child, yet still should be safe and legal, and you think the tax code should be progressive and tax-free institutions should not be allowed to sponsor foreign nations; and you think the government should return to strictly limiting the terms of existence for corporations and intellectual property, there is no party for you.
Hmmm... yes you are.