Just wanted to Thank EVERYONE

[Kiouni]

on DU. I'm a senior at a small University in Nebraska, where I am taking several ethics and philosophy courses and my fellow "peers" are driving me crazy. I hear at least once a day in these classes that the founding fathers wanted this, or that and I have to hold back my lunch. I got tired of yelling at everyone and I am now just sitting silently through the discussions waiting for graduation. Thats the problem with rethugs they are just too stupid to have a debate with, or even an discussion with! I'll concede points and compromise on ideas, but I won't shrink into a corner and plead the fifth or say WWJD. I like discussing religion, politics and everything else but I simply don't have time to crush their firmly held erroneous beliefs. Any advice on this?

Back to my original point, I thank all of you here. Your the only thing that keeps me sane in a red state.

[mmonk]

1. Nice post. This place keeps me sane too though

it might not seem so. Best of luck and stand your ground.

[calimary]

2. Aw, that's sweet! I salute you!

I've found, over the course of my being here, that I have earned the equivalent of several political science degrees by reading the posts, considering the arguments and debates put forward here, following the links, and expanding my mind. Your doing so will arm you significantly to go into debate with any of these dittoheads - and leave them in pathetic, crumpled piles on the ground. This place has kept me sane through many miserable days in the last six-or-so years.

[Jack Sprat]

3. It's good to know that you have come

through it all none the worse for wear. You're a nice person.

[PhilipShore]

4. Republicans want the liberals to just compromise on a few points...

-- then when one compromises on those few points -- they are still not happy, then they say just compromise on few more points, and it never ends -- because most people that have a liberal or progressive philosophical point of view, are conned into it.

As a ultra liberal; I have experience in dealing with Repukes. They are filled with raw hate, some of it is masked and some of it is unmasked, and the correct way to deal with them is to be uncooperative, uncompromising, and always be disagreeable, it always works.

Why? Most repukes have a dominating personalty, and they surround themselves with people that will always agree with them.

[TwilightGardener]

5. It's all uphill for us Dems here in NE, but we've managed to

get two sane Senators, somehow, so there's hope. I actually don't find too many Bush fans in my dealings with the natives here, so it may not be as purely red of a state as we think--there's a "common-sense" streak that counters the die-hard kool-aid drinkers, to some extent.

[crim son]

6. I can't help but think that the effort to crush their erroneous beliefs

would be wasted. Instead, if you hope to make a difference, speak the truth. Speak it gently, firmly and with statistics to back you up! This is the only way to convince thinking people that you are right. Convincing those who do not think is impossible.

I agree with you. DU has been my sanity, both politically and personally.

[Lint Head]

7. I appears...

that you have gained more from your education than any of your peers. (Hmmm rhymes.) You are probably the type of individual that is smart enough to use your gained knowledge for happiness and success as opposed to using it for greed and power. Congrats on making it to your senior year! Hang in there. :dem:

[DeSwiss]

8. Nice post...

...and good luck with your graduation.

You know I live in a red state too. Long time. And I was insane until I came to DU. I'm doing much better now....

;)

[CrazyOrangeCat]

9. Congrats on upcoming graduation!

Just look at the bastards and grin. You've learned how to think for yourself.

They're a buncha pathetic parrots . . . who are going to learn the hard way that the lyin' Repukes don't give a damn about them, or anybody else.

:toast:

[EST]

10. Congratulations on the home stretch!

If you have delved deeply into the writings of and written records about the real "founding fathers," you are, no doubt, well armed with what they really said and believed.

In a time, such as ours, wherein proving just who diddled the next door neighbor, twenty years ago, is nearly impossible, allowing anyone to bray of authority over who did what, two and a quarter centuries ago, is not on the required activity list.

Stand your ground, if you think the practice worth it, otherwise tell 'em to go to hell and mean it.

When I showed up at DU, several years ago, I felt I had come home. Although I am less emotional about it now than then, it still rings true.
After graduation, go conquer the world and please check in from time to time and tell us about it.

[Kiouni]

15. I usually just yell that,

if we haven't advanced in thought in over two hundred years, then we are truly as sad lot! when they pull out the founding fathers mantra and just bypass educating them on what the founding fathers actually thought.

[wiley]

11. Ask what causes heterosexuality.

That usually stops fools in their tracks. Try agreeing with them and force them to further refine their logic. Make up specific cases and ask them to apply their reasoning. What do the professors do or say?

[byronius]

12. Always a tough situation, when they outnumber you.

One thing you have going for you -- Reality. Rightwingy-ness requires an enormous series of false conclusions and erroneous beliefs. Always behind the smugness and certainty lurks the ever-present Doubt. It is a believe inuspportable by logic, or history, or art, or fact of any kind. It must be woven carefully, and patched constantly. Tough, tough work. Never-ending, and it always, always ends badly. They're frightened, and tired, and they all have a sneaking suspicion that the Fabric is Unravelling. Conservatism is based in the pre-hominid limbic system, ammoral, grasping, greedy, fearful and cruel at its core. Perfectly nice people, but don't turn your back on them. Observe. Learn. Careful.

It's good training for you though, as a young person, to see what you'll be up against along the road -- I did my time in the trenches, down in Phoenix. So many ludicrous lives. So many poor minds, dangerous visions, and tortured spirits. But the Blue Ones shine brightly down there, just like they do in Alabama and Georgia. They make the best art and have the most fun, and living on the Red Edge for awhile can make a little Blue Party rock like no other, because when you find each other, you have found compatriots in Cultural Combat, sharing some scarce Truth in the wilderness of the Planet Of The Apes. It is the most powerful release. It can bring Enlightenment not so easily experienced in safer country.

You found your way here. Automatically you are given clear sight, like in the movie 'They Live'. Amongst these profound, banal, and snippy-snappy threads you will find the greatest single factory of human decency I have ever seen in my life. The Magnificent Democratic Underground changes everyone who stays for any period of time. You will never be the same. Lucky, lucky, lucky. Spread the word. Kpete and babylonsister and H20Man and so many others have got your back, with pure and honest information and analysis. Good People. Honor their service by helping if you can.

Consider yourself So Damned Lucky to be Awake. Consider the fate of millions of tortured souls, twisting in their dark coffins, semi-alive, seemingly strong but so weak, defiant and pathetic and doomed. You are Free. Stay Free.

God I love this place. Right/Wrong/Good/Bad/Kind/Mean, I don't care, I've learned SO MUCH. THIS IS IT. THIS IS THE PLACE.

YOU MADE IT! And that makes you so incredibly special. Revel!


PS: They hate little Stickers Of Truth. Just so you know. Say No More.

PPS: Get tired of the conflict -- head fer any little liberal enclave and take a deep breath. Me -- Northern California. Tiny little university town with lesbian mayors and a lot of scientists and writers. Ahhh. Still -- I hang out in this lovely place a lot. I like the Fact Stream, and the History Trees, and the Soul Flowers. Addictive, isn't it?

[eridani]

13. Try guerilla ontology

Look for the assumptions behind what they say, and attack the assumptions. One of the most stubborn is that the ruling reactionary thugs represent the interests of real Americans (and are in a sense really "America"), which is why they say we want "America" to lose, and we think "America" is the source of everything bad in the world. I can usually get a chink of their bubble cut away by saying "When did you start thinking that Bush and Cheney are "America"? Don't the rest of us poor saps who just live here have a better claim to the title?

The canonical example of guerilla ontology is that if two mental patients both think they are the Virgin Mary and you introduce them to each other, one of them will get well.

[melody]

14. You've already won the race by thinking

Those people have consigned themselves to always being behind someone else, since they can't think for themselves.
You are your own north star. That's my advice -- cling to your own vision and endure theirs as best you can.

[Lochloosa]

16. A suggestion.....

In my youth I also "yelled" during debates with the other side. Learn to calm yourself and debate with reasoned well thought out rebuttals. It has turned a few of my friends. Of course, the shurb has helped.