[crandc]

Originally Posted by e_blazer1

Torture? There's certainly a need for clarification of the limits of interrogation techniques, but I think, and McCain agrees, that waterboarding is not something that the US should be involved with.

Isn't it about time that we start talking and, more importantly, listening to each other?

1. I am glad you think waterboarding is something "we" should not be involved in (I use the quotation marks as I do not consider myself part of any "we" that tortures. Unfortunately McCain no longer agrees. He supports a veto of a bill to ban waterboarding, recognized as torture since the Spanish Inquisition, an act for which the US prosecuted others at Nuremberg.

2. Agree

Oh yes, when the Knicks and Isiah Thomas were hit by a sexual harassment suit, a well known self described conservative on this board said he doubted the woman was harassed because she was not "hot". You wonder why I wonder?

[maxiep]

Originally Posted by crandc

Oh yes, when the Knicks and Isiah Thomas were hit by a sexual harassment suit, a well known self described conservative on this board said he doubted the woman was harassed because she was not "hot". You wonder why I wonder?

By that train of thought, then you clearly believe that Reverend Wright represents what Barack Obama really thinks about America and the status of black people in society.

[e_blazer1]

Originally Posted by crandc

1. I am glad you think waterboarding is something "we" should not be involved in (I use the quotation marks as I do not consider myself part of any "we" that tortures. Unfortunately McCain no longer agrees. He supports a veto of a bill to ban waterboarding, recognized as torture since the Spanish Inquisition, an act for which the US prosecuted others at Nuremberg.

McCain has consistently opposed waterboarding. He voted against the bill in question, not because it banned waterboarding, but because it restricted the CIA to using only those interrogation measures that are listed in the Army Field Manual. Apparently, he believes that there are noncoercive interrogation techniques not used by the Army that could be useful to the CIA.

[maxiep]

Originally Posted by STOMP

On a related & contrary note, apparently Denmark is the happiest country in the world.

STOMP

As a former resident of Denmark and Sweden (3rd on the list), allow me to add a bit of an explanation to that statistic. Firstly, it's dead on; the Scans are generally a happy people (except for those who are prone to seasonal affective disorder and alcoholism, which is where the really high rates of suicide come from).

First, is the philosophy of "lagom". It's a Swedish word that roughly translates to "just enough", but it is throughout Scan society. There is a discomfort with standing out.

To illustrate that point, I remember soon after I moved to Sweden meeting a very nice man at a party in Sandhamn and having a pleasant discusssion with him while waiting at the bar for a drink. When I got back to my table, my Swedish friend asked me what I thought about the King. I gave him a confused look until he pulled out a coin with his likeness--it was King Carl Gustav, the man to whom I had been speaking.

The Scandinavian countries are homogenous with a high degree of conformity. I can remember the week long expose in "Svenska Dagbladet" (the daily Stockholm newspaper) about the "Death of the Swede". Why? Because for the first time, an appalling 10% of people living in Stockholm weren't Swedish. Mind you, of that 10%, over 70% were from Denmark, Norway, Iceland or Finland. And they weren't talking about Sweden, just Stockholm.

They don't celebrate the individual the way we do. The group is more important. They look the same, they act the same and they have a high degree of crossover in their belief system. It means there is little conflict in society. Only when they're drunk do they begin to act differently; it's when society's shackles come off for them.

Scandinavia is also quite beautiful and relatively unpopulated compared to the rest of Europe. It really does feel like the Pacific Northwest. Even places like Copenhagen, Stockholm and Oslo feel at worst like Portland. It's a very calming place.

The Scandinavian countries are also focused inward, rather than outward. They take care of their own problems first (it's a family-focused place) and try to stay out of the fray. When they do dip their toes into international issues, they generally provide humanitarian relief instead of taking a strong position on one side or another.

My overall point is that their society lends itself to accepting the kind of society they've created: the Scandinavian "third way". They don't aspire the way we do, so they're more than happy to remove the tails of the economic distribution and focus it toward the middle. Even the most socialistic parts of this country would be amazed at the level of control those societies have over the every day life of their citizens. I could never see that kind of society working here; we have too much diversity and celebrate the rights of the individual too much.

It's like Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, where Soma makes everything better.

[Balian]

Happiness is the ability to control your life. Happiness is a realization that there are certain things you can't control and there is no point in worrying about it. I feel sorry for the people we fret over all the angsts and destructions around the world. Here is a big revelation: these things have been going on for eons and it will continue long after we we are gone. Of course, as humans, we should strive to make the world a better place. It goes without saying. If you chose to fret, then there is a Ghandi quote for you: be the change you wish to see in the world. There is not much more we could do.

[Hector]

Originally Posted by Talkhard

I would suggest the possibility that liberals have a pressing need to "right the wrongs" of the world and refuse to be content until all the problems are solved, whereas conservatives realize that the world is an imperfect place and that inequality is a part of it, but also realize that each individual is ultimately in charge of his own happiness and success.

Originally Posted by maxiep

What if the truth is that we're all responsible for our own happiness?

Originally Posted by Balian

Happiness is the ability to control your life. Happiness is a realization that there are certain things you can't control and there is no point in worrying about it. I feel sorry for the people we fret over all the angsts and destructions around the world. Here is a big revelation: these things have been going on for eons and it will continue long after we we are gone.

All 3 of those quotes depend upon the definition of "self." The liberal "self" is a large self encompassing more than one person, often all of humanity. The conservative "self" is a small self including usually one person but maybe up to a family, or even a whole sovereign patriotic nation. Liberals right the wrongs of the world, or feel responsible for the happiness of the world, because the world is their self. Conservatives do the same for their smaller selves. But sometimes conservatives inflate their selves to include a fighting nation, symbolized by a flag. Then in war matters, it is conservatives who "have a pressing need to 'right the wrongs' of the world and refuse to be content until all the problems are solved, whereas [liberals] realize that the world is an imperfect place." Talkhard's quote pertains only to liberal programs, and is reversed in conservative programs like war, police, spying, torture, etc. Maxiep's "own happiness" replaces "own" for "self" but again assumes that our own happiness does not include humanity's happiness or feel its suffering. Balian's quote could be reversed to mean that conservatives worry about conservative things unnecessarily (sex rules, war matters, etc.). Liberals might say about conservative worries that "certain things you can't control and there is no point in worrying about it." Things that bother conservatives "will continue long after we we are gone," so why fret about conservative angsts. If "Happiness is the ability to control your life," which is a power-ego definition, then "your life" might include your interaction with all of humanity, and depend upon the larger "self."

Originally Posted by crandc

I don't think liberals are necessarily smarter than conservatives, Hector. But I do think conservatives tend to be more complacent and as you say have less "angst".

I didn't say they are. I said the average conservative is more dumb (more numb and obtuse, less sensitive) than the average liberal. Average is the opposite concept of most extreme, which is what you include when you use the word "necessarily."

Originally Posted by STOMP

On a related & contrary note, apparently Denmark is the happiest country in the world.

Scandinavia is pretty socialist. Security and its resulting absence of fear and hate is why they are so happy. Denmark has very cheap higher education, health care, and child & elderly care (both parents can work). They lack pay inequality and are a world leader in alternative energy. There is little corruption in business and government and no religious evangelicism. The managed economy yields no inflation, national debt, or trade deficit, so 100% of their income has buying power.

Originally Posted by SodaPopinski

By definition, "liberals" or "progressives" do not necessarily find any inherent value in tradition and see change and constant improvement in social and economic causes as a benefit to humanity, so a level of dissatisfaction with the status quo would follow. Conservatives favor tradition and gradual change, and, as the study suggests, have an easier time explaining away any problems as flaws in the individual and not in the system. I would challenge the study as to whether ideology has any impact on happiness with your own life, though. Their measures of "happiness" seemed to focus much more on satisfaction with the socioeconomic system than with the subjects' own personal situations.

Since only conservatives talk about tradition, we falsely assume that all tradition is conservative. Conservatives like conservative tradition, which goes back about 10-15,000 years to the agricultural revolution causing private property and the class system. Liberals like liberal tradition, which goes back at least a million years to proto-humans taking care of each other. Soda's last 3 sentences are the most interesting in the thread.

[e_blazer1]

Liberals like liberal tradition, which goes back at least a million years to proto-humans taking care of each other.

ROFL! Taking care of each other with knives and clubs? Are you really so delusional as to think that human history has roots in some sort of a kinder and gentler socialist welfare state?

Hector, I know I'm only a dumb conservative, but that's one of the funniest things I've read on this board. Try to get a grip on reality.

[maxiep]

Originally Posted by Hector

Maxiep's "own happiness" replaces "own" for "self" but again assumes that our own happiness does not include humanity's happiness or feel its suffering.

That is a patently false allegation. For example, one of the things that makes me happy is my involvement with Habitat for Humanity, Teach for America and the Community Development Institute. See, I would prefer not to pay others to do my charity for me, like those who wish the government would take care of our needs.

To put it bluntly, one's own happiness can be in helping others. I believe Mother Teresa was happy.

Originally Posted by Hector

Scandinavia is pretty socialist. Security and its resulting absence of fear and hate is why they are so happy. Denmark has very cheap higher education, health care, and child & elderly care (both parents can work). They lack pay inequality and are a world leader in alternative energy. There is little corruption in business and government and no religious evangelicism. The managed economy yields no inflation, national debt, or trade deficit, so 100% of their income has buying power.

There's so much wrong with this paragraph I don't even know where to begin. Tell me again how much time you've spent in Scandinavia since you seem to know so much about life in that little corner of the world?

[Xericx]

Not surprising, they don't call them whining liberals for nothing.

[Xericx]

or was that screeching liberals?

[2k]

What do you expect?

I read in two places that with the money we spent on the Iraq war we could have given every Iraqi 20 grand. I think about that every day and it bothers me. That is about as bad an example of war profiteering, and incompetent government as I have ever bared witness to or read about.



Another thing I realized a long time ago is that most people that endure pain, suffering, poverty, rape, mutilation, malnutrition, unspeakable horrors,etc etc experience this for little or no fault of their own. Unlike Paul Wolfowitz I learned this a long time ago. I don't have a romantic view of horrors nor a any aversions for the value of a good work ethic. I can bare to watch gory movies or play goreish video games but I could never understand how someone could get off watching Faces of Death. When I see some child born with Thyroid cancer because those idiots in Chernobyl couldn't build a safe Power Plant or I see some poor girl mutilated by some slave driving diamond merchant...



or some kid with his genitalia blown off from a bomb in Iraq I think that, that could be me. I dont get off on War.

Then I see the UAE spending 300 million dollars to build a self sustaining ski slope in 120 degree weather.



That is where I am eye to eye with Hector. I realise that it is only by the luck of birth that I am living in a country where I have a chance. Each year I try to buy a goat for some poor family somewhere, or I make sure I only buy diamonds that aren't mined by warlords, or try to avoid too much from China just to not feel so powerless and lucky. I'm agnostic so I cant say I'm blessed and I cant allow myself to envision an after life where that poor girl has wings and new hands. You know but what can you do when we are led by a monkey that would borrow 3 trillion dollars for a bloody money laundering scheme in the middleeast that at best will create another Iranian style government. Excuse me for being bothered by this. I have a bleeding heart.

[2k]

Originally Posted by e_blazer1

ROFL! Taking care of each other with knives and clubs? Are you really so delusional as to think that human history has roots in some sort of a kinder and gentler socialist welfare state?

Hector, I know I'm only a dumb conservative, but that's one of the funniest things I've read on this board. Try to get a grip on reality.

His point went so far over your head that I might be laughing just as hard as you are.

Follow the color progression.

would turn that into