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Old 12-19-2005, 03:29 PM
Andrew Fletcher Andrew Fletcher is offline
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Default What do we have in common?

In the last few days, I've started a couple of threads designed to show the perceptions that people have about both liberals and conservatives. I believe politics in the United States has become polarized and angry-- and this is destructive for democracy.

So let's try to change the subject. I'm a liberal. I'm also from a big city on the east coast. You might have suspected it, but I'm also Jewish.

However, I went to college in a small town. I love small towns, they're obviously great places to grow up. I love sports, particularly the pathetic Philadelphia Eagles. I play rugby and love to drink cheap beer. Before I found poker, I was almost always broke as [censored] and my family has had a lot of economic hardship reccently.

I've never shot a gun, but I sort of think it would be cool. Any red-staters out there want to take me hunting sometime?
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Old 12-19-2005, 03:35 PM
etgryphon etgryphon is offline
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Default Re: What do we have in common?

[ QUOTE ]
In the last few days, I've started a couple of threads designed to show the perceptions that people have about both liberals and conservatives. I believe politics in the United States has become polarized and angry-- and this is destructive for democracy.

So let's try to change the subject. I'm a liberal. I'm also from a big city on the east coast. You might have suspected it, but I'm also Jewish.

However, I went to college in a small town. I love small towns, they're obviously great places to grow up. I love sports, particularly the pathetic Philadelphia Eagles. I play rugby and love to drink cheap beer. Before I found poker, I was almost always broke as [censored] and my family has had a lot of economic hardship reccently.

I've never shot a gun, but I sort of think it would be cool. Any red-staters out there want to take me hunting sometime?

[/ QUOTE ]

Where do you live. I'll take you hunting or shooting...

As for your common theme...I played rugby in college. Best team game ever. Don't like beer at all. I'm an irish wiskey kind of guy. I grew up on a farm in a small town.

I guess I would count myself as conservative but like to lean in the libertarian direction. I suck at poker, but trying to learn. I just don't have the time I want to dedicate to it.

-Gryph
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  #3  
Old 12-19-2005, 03:41 PM
Andrew Fletcher Andrew Fletcher is offline
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Default Re: What do we have in common?

Rugby is so cool that is out of control. I love everything about it. The guys on the team are a great mix of liberal, conservative, and everything else. What kind of wiskey do you drink? We can never afford to be that high class, so we just drink Natty Ice.

I live in PA. I'm too much of a wimp to actually shoot an animal, so we might have to start with clay things.
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Old 12-19-2005, 04:17 PM
etgryphon etgryphon is offline
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Default So this doesn\'t turn into a Public PM session...

Here is a question...

Why are you a liberal? Family? Defining moment? It was cool in HS\College?

Why is the Jewish community more liberal than conservative? Is this a function of WWII?

-Gryph

BTW: For Irish Whiskey: I'm a Bushmill's 12yr+ kind of guy. Jamesons is good also.
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Old 12-19-2005, 04:23 PM
Andrew Fletcher Andrew Fletcher is offline
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Default Re: So this doesn\'t turn into a Public PM session...

I think it is a function of WWII. We're really suspicious of extremism in any form, right or left. Jews have traditionally been anti-communism, no matter what some people say.

I went to a public high school and currently a small working-class college in Central PA. My education has been itneresting, but I never had a liberal teacher who forced their views on me. In fact, my main memory from high school is a very conservative teacher who did not like me at all. I actually wasn't a liberal until very reccently-- I was a "radical", sometimes even called myself a socialist. It wasn't until I started really reading books about socialism and communism that I realized that I hated everything communism stood for.

But I also knew I wasn't a conservative. I started reading more about the history of liberalism-- not the Fox News or ultra-left paradoy of liberalism, and came to my senses. It's been an interesting journy. What about you?
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  #6  
Old 12-19-2005, 04:44 PM
Kurn, son of Mogh Kurn, son of Mogh is offline
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Default Re: What do we have in common?

I believe politics in the United States has become polarized and angry-- and this is destructive for democracy.

I sort of disagree. The polarized part is OK. I believe what's really damaging for democracy in the US is that the parties are too close together on most issues (the war is a temporary distraction). I personally think both parties stand for Big Government authoritarian rule. They just differ on the details.

I'm a liberal. I'm also from a big city on the east coast. You might have suspected it, but I'm also Jewish.

I grew up in a small town in NJ from a very left-wing, socialist background. I am a libertarian who thinks capitalism is beautiful. While I come from the Roman Catholic tradition, much of my outlook on the world was shaped by my atheist father. I consider myself a Zen Apatheist [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

However, I went to college in a small town.

I went to college in Boston and I prefer big cities.

I love sports, particularly the pathetic Philadelphia Eagles.

Well, there's no accounting for taste.

I play rugby and love to drink cheap beer.

Rugby and beer are both cool. I'm too old for rugby and life's too short to drink bad beer.
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  #7  
Old 12-19-2005, 05:01 PM
tylerdurden tylerdurden is offline
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Default Re: What do we have in common?

[ QUOTE ]
I believe politics in the United States has become polarized and angry-- and this is destructive for democracy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Just curious, when you say "has become" what time frame are you using?
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  #8  
Old 12-19-2005, 05:05 PM
Cyrus Cyrus is offline
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Default Herz leichtes

[ QUOTE ]
Jews have traditionally been anti-communis[t], no matter what some people say.

[/ QUOTE ] Israel itself was founded on socialist ideological premises. (Kibbutz anyone?) Which is why the Soviet Union was among the 33 votes in the 1947 UN decision that went in favor of creating a Jewish state in Palestine.

Jews were heavily represented in the Bolshevik leadership that took ovee Russia in 1917. A fact that has been used by right-wing anti-semites ever since, as proof of "the evil" that the Jews continuously spawn on the world...

And the guy who wrote The Communist Manifesto was a wee bit Jewish, last I heard. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[ QUOTE ]
I actually wasn't a liberal until very reccently-- I was a "radical", sometimes even called myself a socialist.

[/ QUOTE ]Good for you. What other than a radical can a young man be?


[ QUOTE ]
I started reading more about the history of liberalism ... and came to my senses.

[/ QUOTE ] What have you read, if I may ask?

Liberalism, like a lot of political labels, means different things in different places - and times. (Churchill was a Liberal, for instance.)
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  #9  
Old 12-19-2005, 05:07 PM
BCPVP BCPVP is offline
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Default Re: What do we have in common?

I'm a conservative starting to lean libertarian.

I'm from Ashwaubenon, a suburb of Green Bay, WI, but live in a small college town, Whitewater, where I go to school. I liked that the cities I've grown up in were pretty small, but I'd rather my current town was a little larger. Minus the school population, there's only a couple thousand people in Whitewater and almost nothing to do.

I'm Lutheran.

Because I live in GB, I have to be a Packer fan. Even though they're sucking this year, I'm still rooting!

I have been hunting a few years, but haven't recently. School gets in the way. Plus it's dangerous hunting in Wisconsin!
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  #10  
Old 12-19-2005, 06:01 PM
Andrew Fletcher Andrew Fletcher is offline
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Default Re: Herz leichtes

Ok, since I think you might be European...

I am actually reading Schlessenger and Galbraith. In your context, I suspect they would be called Social Democrats.
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